Lifeboat Foundation

Sarah Buhr — Tech Crunch

Edward Snowden says in a new interview with NOVA Next that the U.S. government wrongly promotes cyber offense strategies at the expense of weakening the system and leaving it open to cyber attacks from the black market.

“We’re creating a class of Internet security researchers who research vulnerabilities, but then instead of disclosing them to the device manufacturers to get them fixed and to make us more secure, they sell them to secret agencies,” Snowden says. “They sell them on the black market to criminal groups to be able to exploit these to attack targets. And that leaves us much less secure, not just on an individual level, but on a broad social level; on a broad economic level. And beyond that, it creates a new black market for computer weapons, basically digital weapons.”

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Citing catastrophic climate change, proliferation of nuclear weapons, and the energence of cybercrime, the Bulletin of the Atomic Scientists moved the hands of the Doomsday Clock closer to midnight.

http://thebulletin.org/three-minutes-and-counting7938

Among the proposed actions that should immediately be taken is the creation of “institutions specifically assigned to explore and address potentially catastrophic misuses of new technologies.”

By Davide Sher - 3D Printing Industry

Today, Microsoft held a conference to announce a number releases related to the new Windows 10 operating system, but all eyes were on the HoloLens, which, in a way, is the company’s answer to the now defunct Google Glass and Facebook’s Oculus Rift. Looking at it from another standpoint, however, HoloLens is much more, and not just because of its envisioned 3D printing applications.

Continue reading “Cutting Edge Microsoft HoloLens is an Augmented Virtual Reality Computer for Your Face” »

By Antonio Regalado — MIT Technology Review

A few paralyzed patients could soon be using a wireless brain-computer interface able to stream their thought commands as quickly as a home Internet connection.

After more than a decade of engineering work, researchers at Brown University and a Utah company, Blackrock Microsystems, have commercialized a wireless device that can be attached to a person’s skull and transmit via radio thought commands collected from a brain implant. Blackrock says it will seek clearance for the system from the U.S. Food and Drug Administration, so that the mental remote control can be tested in volunteers, possibly as soon as this year.

The device was developed by a consortium, called BrainGate, which is based at Brown and was among the first to place implants in the brains of paralyzed people and show that electrical signals emitted by neurons inside the cortex could be recorded, then used to steer a wheelchair or direct a robotic arm (see “Implanting Hope”).

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Armstrong and the Winklevoss twins have promising visions in securing Bitcoin exchange.

Bitcoin exchange Coinbase has brought innovation to the next level by opening the first ever licensed US Bitcoin exchange. Backed by $106 million from the New York Stock Exchange, banks, and venture-capital firms, Coinbase’s newly launched US exchange, said to be named Lunar, will provide greater security features; so as not to repeat the mistakes of Mt. Gox and Bitstamp, the former of which declared bankruptcy last year while the latter has sustained hacking attacks and is now back in the game.

Coinbase has already acquired licenses from 50% of the states in the country, which includes New York. The remaining 50% is still in the works and is necessary to complete to be able to provide full nationwide services. Also, Coinbase does not only look at expanding nationwide, it also looks at expanding worldwide in offering their Bitcoin-related services.

Of this plan, Coinbase CEO Brian Armstrong said: “Our goal is to become the world’s largest exchange”.

Continue reading “Coinbase releases first licensed US Bitcoin exchange; Winklevoss twins gear up to do the same” »

By Glenn Fleishman — MIT Technology Review

A zombie network of home routers highlights the importance of prioritizing smart appliance security.

Plenty of science-fiction stories feature ordinary household appliances staging a revolt. In an episode of Futurama, toasters and home robots rise up against their human oppressors. Two trends are now starting to make such scenarios seem less far-fetched.

Continue reading “An Internet of Treacherous Things” »

By Jason Dorrier — Singulariy Hub

Television, cellphones, radio, WiFi—modern civilization converses in radio waves.

Most of us need some kind of device to translate the signals into something we can consume on a screen or through a speaker. But in the television show, Alphas, one of the characters, Gary Bell, can literally see and read electromagnetic waves.

Continue reading “Cyborg Superpower: Man Can Hear the Internet” »

Quoted: “Looking at the misinformation, speculation, and confusion about bitcoin and blockchain technology: it’s the same conversation we had 20 years ago with the Internet. In the early 90s, the only way you could check your email was through a command line prompt. Then, web browsers were developed, small websites were created, and…well, as you can see, a lot has changed since. It’s looking as though bitcoin is just the first app to use blockchain technology, just like email was the first app to use the Internet.”

Read the article, and learn about the January 27, 2015, conference, here > http://radar.oreilly.com/2015/01/bitcoin-is-just-the-first-a…ology.html

By Jason Dunn — Singularity Hub

One day everything in space will be made in space, and this will radically increase the potential for human space exploration.

I recently read a novella that explores this very idea (see below for an excerpt). Cory Doctorow’s “The Man Who Sold The Moon” appears in Hieroglyph: Stories and Visions for a Better Future, an anthology of hopeful, ambitious, technically-grounded science fiction stories set in the near future. In the story, a small team takes on the daunting mission of launching a machine to the Moon that collects lunar regolith (moon dirt) and 3D prints structural housing panels for a future settlement.

Continue reading “A 3D Printed Moon Base: Science Fiction or Science Fact?” »