Lifeboat Foundation

Microsoft founder Bill Gates has broken with other Silicon Valley giants by backing the FBI in its battle with Apple over hacking into a locked iPhone as part of the investigation into last December’s San Bernardino terror attack.

In an interview with the Financial Times published Tuesday, Gates said a court order requiring Apple to help the FBI access a work phone belonging to gunman Syed Farook was” a specific case where the government is asking for access to information. They are not asking for some general thing, they are asking for a particular case.”

Gates went on to compare the FBI’s request to accessing bank and telephone records. However, he added that the government must be subject to rules about when it can access such information.

Continue reading “Microsoft founder Gates backs FBI in encryption fight with Apple” »

Scientists were studying the properties of the light coming from a quasar — some of the brightest objects in the universe — when the light just seemed to wink out. Now they think they know why.

The biometric security methods for online transactions have been in trials by MasterCard since last July and are being expanded around the world.

MasterCard is planning to launch fingerprint and selfie biometric identification options for customers in the United States and in other parts of the world this summer as it finds that users are comfortable and confident with the technology.

The expansion of the program, which began last July as a trial project to see how consumers would respond to the use of selfies and fingerprints to replace passwords for their online purchases, was announced by the company on Feb. 22 in Amsterdam, where a larger testing project involving some 750 users over six months was also conducted.

Continue reading “MasterCard to Launch Selfie, Fingerprint ID in U.S. This Summer” »

I still see AI as a supportive solution to handle more standardized operations still requiring oversight by people. As long as hacking exist the level of allowing systems to own and manage processes without people oversight is not going to happen until hacking is resolved.

It is predicted that the use of AI in health care will grow tenfold in the next five years, and not all of the medical applications will be for doctors. The technology is accelerating drug discovery, increasing compliance and even tracking changes in markers of ‘youthfulness,’ empowering people to better manage their own health.

Agree with Zuckerberg it’s a bad move on all tech fronts to ignore the developing countries and other less connected areas of 1st & 2nd world countries which is usually lower income areas. Also, VR & AR are going to be the experience that is going to be the platform where applications (including enterprise apps & platform services such as BI, etc.) are going to be and want to be in order to make the user experience and productivity more effective.

Facebook chief Mark Zuckerberg has warned the mobile industry not to ignore the unconnected, as he laid out plans use artificial intelligence to help bring remote parts of the world online.

The enigmatic CEO used a keynote speech at Mobile World Congress in Barcelona to express “disappointment” that the mobile industry was focused on areas like 5G rather than connecting those lacking in connectivity.

Continue reading “Zuckerberg warns on mobile future” »

Like where VR is heading in the near future.

Unexpected convergent consequences…this is what happens when eight different exponential technologies all explode onto the scene at once.

This post (the third of seven) is a look at virtual and augmented reality. Future posts will look at other tech areas. And be sure to read the first two posts if you haven’t already:

Continue reading “The Near Future of VR and AR: What You Need to Know” »

Still not sold on the whole robotics at this point; still not at the level where it needs from a multi-functional capability state plus still too jerky and most are more like a CPU on wheels.

TORONTO, ON –(Marketwired — February 23, 2016) — ­­ Astro Boy may be a fictional character, but Pepper the Robot is its real-­world incarnation. Pepper –­­ the world’s first humanoid robot –­­ will join exhibitors like MasterCard, Fluid, Vizera and Eyris, as they interact with industry experts as part of The Retail Collective Lab, sponsored by MasterCard, at this year’s Dx3 Trade Show and Conference.

Satellites and spacecraft are generally complex to build on the ground, expensive to launch and obsolete in a decade or less.

These objects end up floating in orbit around the planet contributing to the pollution surrounding the Earth. But what if there was an alternative?

That’s the question David Barnhart, director of USC’s Space Engineering Research Center and lead for the Space Systems and Technology group for the USC Information Sciences Institute, is contemplating. What if we could just “grow” spacecraft, repurpose a hybrid of inorganic and organic materials and even allow food to grow in space?

In celebration of the detection of gravitational waves, Stephen Wolfram looks forward and discusses what technology black holes could make possible.