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(Source: Jimmy Pike & Christopher Wilder ©Moor Insights & Strategy)

Microsoft and Facebook recently announced how they plan to drive leadership in the digital transformation and cloud market: bots. As more companies—especially application vendors—begin to drive solutions that incorporate machine learning, natural language, artificial intelligence, and structured and unstructured data, bots will increase in relevance and value. Google’s Cloud Platform (GCP) and Microsoft see considerable opportunities to enable vendors and developers to build solutions that can see, hear and learn as well as applications that can recognize and learn from a user’s intent, emotions, face, language and voice.

Bots are not new, but they have evolved over time through the evolution of artificial intelligence (AI), machine learning, ubiquitous connectivity and increases in data processing speeds. In the mid-1990s, the first commercial bots were developed. For example, I was on the ground floor for the first commercial chat providers called ichat. As with many disruptive media-based technologies, as was the case with ichat, early adopters tend to be the darker side of the entertainment industry. These companies saw a way to get website visitors to stay online longer by having someone to interact with their guests at 3AM. Out of this necessity, chatbots were developed. Thankfully, the technology has evolved and now bots are mainstream and are being used to helping people perform simple tasks and interact with service providers.

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I find this amusing because much of the top US AI talent has worked for many decades in the National Labs and not always in academia. National labs often is a mix of top scientists, engineers as well as academia; not academia only. Granted universities do incubations such a GA Tech, VA Tech, Rensselaer Polytechnic Institute, etc.; however, the bulk of AI and other patented innovations truly have come out of the national labs such as X10, Los Alamos, Argonne, over the years.

The high demand for AI talents at giant corporations This means the academe is directly affected because their smartest AI experts are rapidly transferring to the corporate world and leaving the academe.

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Researchers from Argonne National Laboratory developed a first-principles-based, variable-charge force field that has shown to accurately predict bulk and nanoscale structural and thermodynamic properties of IrO2. Catalytic properties pertaining to the oxygen reduction reaction, which drives water-splitting for the production of hydrogen fuel, were found to depend on the coordination and charge transfer at the IrO2 nanocluster surface. Image: Courtesy of Maria Chan, Argonne National Laboratory

Iridium oxide (IrO2) nanoparticles are useful electrocatalysts for splitting water into oxygen and hydrogen — a clean source of hydrogen for fuel and power. However, its high cost demands that researchers find the most efficient structure for IrO2 nanoparticles for hydrogen production.

A study conducted by a team of researchers at the U.S. Department of Energy’s (DOE’s) Argonne National Laboratory, published in Journal of Materials Chemistry A, describes a new empirical interatomic potential that models the IrO2 properties important to catalytic activity at scales relevant to technology development. Also known as a force field, the interatomic potential is a set of values describing the relationship between structure and energy in a system based on its configuration in space. The team developed their new force field based on the MS-Q force field.

“Before, it was not possible to optimize the shape and size of a particle, but this tool enables us to do this,” says Maria Chan, assistant scientist at Argonne’s Center for Nanoscale Materials (CNM), a DOE Office of Science User Facility.

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Deep Space Industries and the Luxembourg Government announce partnership to commercialize space resources.

Asteroid mining company Deep Space Industries, together with the Luxembourg Government and the Société Nationale de Crédit et d’Investissement (SNCI), the national banking institution in Luxembourg, have signed an agreement formalizing their partnership to explore, use, and commercialize space resources as part of Luxembourg’s spaceresources.lu initiative.

The Luxembourg Government will work with Deep Space Industries to co-fund relevant R&D projects that help further develop the technology needed to mine asteroids and build a supply chain of valuable resources in space.

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How could global economic inequality survive the onslaught of synthetic organisms, micromanufacturing devices, additive manufacturing machines, nano-factories?
(http://www.beliefnet.com/columnists/lordre/2016/04/obsessed-…L36KMDo.99)

Narrated by Harry J. Bentham, author of Catalyst: A Techno-Liberation Thesis (2013), using the introduction from that book as a taster of the audio version of the book in production. (http://www.clubof.info/2016/04/liberation-technologies-to-come.html)

Paperback: http://www.amazon.com/Catalyst-Techno-Liberation-Harry-J-Ben…atfound-20

Kindle: http://www.amazon.com/Catalyst-Techno-Liberation-Harry-J-Ben…atfound-20

Audio: coming soon!

With long-term plans for in-space resource extraction in the form of asteroid mining, Deep Space Industries (DSI) is offering an exciting business opportunity. It is aiming to change the economics of space by providing the technical resources, capabilities and systems required to harvest, process, manufacture and market in-space resources. DSI is already generating revenue from commercial contracts, as well as government and university research projects.

The Disrupt Space summit brought together a large number of entrepreneurs from around Europe and the world who are intent on reinventing the space industry. A panel of judges chose Deep Space Industries as the winner among five finalists in a start-up pitch.

Spaceoneers caught up with Daniel Faber, Deep Space Industries’ CEO at the summit to hear about the company’s long-term plans and the exciting business opportunity in asteroid mining.

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Here is the impact of today’s IBM QC announcement & if proven real then the following will certainly be fasttracked:

1. IBM is now ahead of everyone in QC

2. China & Russia are now going to heat up their own QC efforts.

3. Google and Microsoft will accelerate their efforts to showcase QC in many areas of IoT including AI.

4. Apple will now need to join the QC revolution or face a future of non-existence in the long run because devices, networks & platforms, communications, etc. will now be quick to make the transition.

Continue reading “What IBM’s new quantum processor means for the future of computing” | >

We saw earlier this week that the International Board for setting standards for wireless were meeting; so this is their first outcome.

MVNOs will not have to provide roaming info until 2019, while other telcos must allow customers to opt out of receiving such information under the ACMA’s changes.

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I like it!

Inspiring the next generation of space explorers and scientists at Kennedy Space Center Visitor Complex, one of America’s most-loved visitor attractions, thousands of visitors were taken on a first of its kind, high-tech journey into space for Spirit of Exploration held during the Holidays in Space festive season from December 2015 through January 2016.

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