Lifeboat Foundation: Safeguarding Humanity
Toggle light / dark theme

Blog – Page 10836

“Our brains produce enough data to stream 4 HD movies every second. The problem is that the best way we have to get information out into the world — speech — can only transmit about the same amount of data as a 1980s modem,” CEO Mark Zuckerberg said in a Facebook post.

At Facebook’s annual developer conference, F8, on Wednesday, the group unveiled what may be Facebook’s most ambitious—and creepiest—proposal yet. Facebook wants to build its own “brain-to-computer interface” that would allow us to send thoughts straight to a computer.

Read more

In the far future, tricorders are invented and humanity spends many centuries prospering due in part to their widespread adoption. It’s too early to tell whether we’re on that timeline or a different one, but rest assured that one part of Gene Roddenberry’s quixotic vision for the future has indeed come to pass. Tricorders are coming to the mass market, courtesy of the just-awarded Tricorder XPrize.

The $2.5 million first prize went to Final Frontier Medical Devices, a team of seven including four Trekkie siblings, for their DxtER diagnostic device (below).

Read more

(credit: Facebook)

Regina Dugan, PhD, Facebook VP of Engineering, Building8, revealed today (April 19, 2017) at Facebook F8 conference 2017 a plan to develop a non-invasive brain-computer interface that will let you type at 100 wpm — by decoding neural activity devoted to speech.

Dugan previously headed Google’s Advanced Technology and Projects Group, and before that, was Director of the Defense Advanced Research Projects Agency (DARPA).

Read more

Ridley Scott Associates (RSA), the film production company of famed director Ridley Scott, is launching RSA VR, a new division dedicated to the production of high-end immersive films using VR, AR, and mixed reality. Scott and co. is known for work on acclaimed films such as Alien (1979), Blade Runner (1982), Gladiator (2000), Black Hawk Down (2001), and more throughout his career as a director now going on 40 years.

RSA today announced the launch of RSA VR, a formalization and expansion of RSA’s recent work in VR space which has included the production of The Martian VR Experience (2016) and a forthcoming Alien: Covenant experience.

In a prepared release, the studio calls RSA VR, “a new division dedicated exclusively to the creative development and production of VR, AR and mixed media.”

Read more

Like islands jutting out of a smooth ocean surface, dreams puncture our sleep with disjointed episodes of consciousness. How states of awareness emerge from a sleeping brain has long baffled scientists and philosophers alike.

For decades, scientists have associated dreaming with rapid eye movement (REM) sleep, a sleep stage in which the resting brain paradoxically generates high-frequency brain waves that closely resemble those of when we’re awake.

Yet dreaming isn’t exclusive to REM sleep. A series of oddball reports also found signs of dreaming during non-REM deep sleep, when the brain is dominated by slow-wave activity—the opposite of an alert, active, conscious brain.

Read more