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Feb 16, 2016

How blockchain will save us from the perils of central bank price fixing

Posted by in categories: bitcoin, economics, finance, food

What will be interesting most about block chaining is when more countries drop their own traditional currency models & move to block chaining like one of the countries in Africa announced 2 weeks ago. I do know that many 2nd & 3rd world countries are finding electronic currency more appealing due to the Central Bank’s policies; however, what will be the impacts at the end of the day felt across the world as more and more 2nd & 3rd world markets switch their models. Immediately, we see risks with central banks; the question is where else (WBO, WTO, US, etc)


Many countries have experimented with price fixing and central planning over the last century. Right now, Venezuela’s government is fixing the prices of many products. This has resulted in widespread shortages of goods which we, as the lucky inhabitants of semi-free economies, take for granted.

Price fixing has failed in every area of the economy in which it has been tried. But while few serious economists would suggest that we have a team of bureaucrats set the price of rubber, wheat or coffee, we do have one sphere of the economy which is still centrally planned – our monetary system. This will fail just like all central planning fails. We are now moving into a dangerous new phase of price fixing by central banks. Having failed to stimulate economies with years of zero per cent interest rates, they are now discussing the prospect of negative interest rates (and some have even introduced them), the reductio ad absurdum of modern monetary economics.

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Feb 16, 2016

Online security? Just let me Google that, say puzzled bosses

Posted by in categories: business, cybercrime/malcode, economics, robotics/AI, security

Although this article highlights the lack of awareness by some CEOs and board members on all things around Cyber Security; I do see a larger gap and risk. I do believe if a fully funded and dedicated joint task force effort among Silicon Valley, US Government, and Wall Street are not in place tackling this jointly to help the country and economy to diffuse this situation within the next 14 to 18 months that AI could fail in its delivery due to public’s concerns around trust and security.

Therefore, tech spent millions if not billions on new AI technology that businesses and consumers see no value in due to risks.


Some board executives still need help from a search engine to explain cyber security issues, warns report.

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Feb 16, 2016

Bedtime stories for robots could teach them to be human

Posted by in categories: information science, robotics/AI

I must admit that this will be hard to do. Sure; I can code anything to come across as responding & interacting to questions, topics, etc. Granted logical/ pragmatic decision making is based on facts/ information that people have at a given point of time; being human isn’t only based on algorithms and prescript data it includes being spontaneous, and sometimes emotional thinking. Robots without the ability to be spontaneous, and have emotional thinking capabilities; will not be human and will lack the connection that humans need.


Some people worry that someday a robot – or a collective of robots – will turn on humans and physically hurt or plot against us.

The question, they say, is how can robots be taught morality?

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Feb 16, 2016

Car cyber hijacking on the rise

Posted by in categories: cybercrime/malcode, security, sustainability, transportation

Cyber Carjacking the new way to steal someone’s auto.


Cyber security was one of the topics on the agenda at the recent CyberTech conference held in Tel Aviv.

Last year, hackers in the US managed to remotely access a Jeep Cherokee SUV through its on-board computer, taking control of its steering, transmission and brakes.

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Feb 16, 2016

Why the Most Famous CEOs Are Often Wrong About the Future

Posted by in categories: futurism, mobile phones

Interesting read — I must admit that today’s CEOs of large companies are not like the CEOs of my grandfather’s generation who were more like the mold of Sam Walton.


This habit for grandiose predictions seems to be contagious. Last fall, Miguel McKelvey, founder of shared office space giant We Work Cos. promised his company would be in a thousand locations “in the near future.” Given that the company at the time was present in just 52 places, this promised a growth rate north of 1500 percent—but probably had some intended influence on the company’s $10 billion valuation.

In 2013, before he left Blackberry under pressure, the company’s CEO Thorsten Heins declared that “in 5 years, I don’t think there’ll be a reason to have a tablet anymore.”

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Feb 16, 2016

Doctors 3D-print ‘living’ body parts

Posted by in categories: 3D printing, biotech/medical, life extension

Custom-made, living body parts have been 3D-printed in a significant advance for regenerative medicine, say scientists.

The sections of bone, muscle and cartilage all functioned normally when implanted into animals.

The breakthrough, published in Nature Biotechnology, raises the hope of using living tissues to repair the body.

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Feb 16, 2016

Scientists Discover a Boiling River of Amazonian Legend

Posted by in category: futurism

The universe never ceases to amaze, does it?


Deep in the heart of the Amazon, legends tell of a river so hot that it boils from below. As a geoscientist, Andrés Ruzo’s training told him the stories couldn’t be true. But that was before he saw the river with his own eyes.

It’s incredible to think there are natural wonders on this planet not yet known to science, but such was the case for the river at Mayantuyacu, publicized for the first time in The Boiling River: Adventure and Discovery in the Amazon. The book is an engrossing, true story of discovery, adventure, science, and mysticism, told by a man who was driven to explain something impossible, and is now on a quest to preserve it.

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Feb 16, 2016

Brain Implant Will Let Amputees Move Individual Fingers on Prosthetics With Thoughts Alone

Posted by in categories: biotech/medical, cyborgs, engineering, neuroscience, singularity

Amazing.

The Singularity isn’t NEAR…

It’s in progress.

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Feb 16, 2016

The Magic of Microbes: ONR Engineers Innovative Research in Synthetic Biology

Posted by in categories: bioengineering, biological

By Warren Duffie, Office of Naval Research

An exciting new scientific frontier-synthetic biology-took center stage as a celebrated scientist from the Massachusetts Institute of Technology (MIT) recently spoke at the headquarters of the Office of Naval Research (ONR).

As part of a Distinguished Lecture Series celebrating ONR’s 70th anniversary, world-class scientists, researchers and experts from diverse fields will be speaking at ONR in 2016. Dr. Christopher Voigt, an MIT professor of biological engineering, inaugurated the lecture series with a look at the revolutionary potential of synthetic biology.

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Feb 16, 2016

A black hole on a chip made of a metal that behaves like water

Posted by in categories: computing, cosmology, materials

In a new paper published in Science, researchers at the Harvard and Raytheon BBN Technology have observed, for the first time, electrons in a metal behaving like a fluid (credit: Peter Allen/Harvard SEAS)

A radical discovery by researchers at Harvard and Raytheon BBN Technology about graphene’s hidden properties could lead to a model system to explore exotic phenomena like black holes and high-energy plasmas, as well as novel thermoelectric devices.

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