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Nov 9, 2015

Hexagonal vertical village in Singapore crowned World Building of the Year

Posted by in category: futurism

A a vertical village in Singapore has been name the World Building of the Year 2015 at the World Architecture Festival. The Interlace is a residential development designed by OMA / Buro Ole Scheeren. It comprises 31 six-story apartment blocks stacked in hexagonal shapes.

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Nov 9, 2015

Inside Apple’s perfectionism machine — By Lance Ulanoff | Mashable

Posted by in categories: business, computing

inside-macbook

“For those struggling to understand what Apple is up to, it might be best to imagine the Apple logo as a giant, rose gold-colored apple sculpture that’s being polished beyond perfection, to some sort of ideal, a level of quality that is so undeniable that no competitor dares forget it.”

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Nov 9, 2015

Meet The ‘Trans-Humanist’ Presidential Candidate

Posted by in categories: geopolitics, robotics/AI, transhumanism

A new story out in Breitbart that’s about AI, transhumanism, and politics: http://www.breitbart.com/tech/2015/11/08/trans-humanist-pres…overlords/


Zoltan Istvan is running for President in 2016, and hoping he might be one of the last humans to hold the job.

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Nov 9, 2015

‘Electric Sails’ Could Propel Superfast Spacecraft

Posted by in categories: particle physics, robotics/AI, space travel

SANTA CLARA, California — Robotic spacecraft may ride the solar wind toward interstellar space at unprecedented speeds a decade or so from now.

Researchers are developing an “electric sail” (e-sail) propulsion system that would harness the solar wind, the stream of protons, electrons and other charged particles that flows outward from the sun at more than 1 million mph (1.6 million kilometers per hour).

“It looks really, really promising for ultra-deep-space exploration,” Les Johnson, of NASA’s Marshall Space Flight Center in Huntsville, Alabama, said of the e-sail concept here at the 100-Year Starship Symposium on Oct. 30. [Superfast Spacecraft Propulsion Concepts (Images)].

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Nov 9, 2015

TensorFlow — Google’s latest machine learning system, open sourced for everyone

Posted by in categories: computing, robotics/AI

Posted by Jeff Dean, Senior Google Fellow, and Rajat Monga, Technical Lead.

Deep Learning has had a huge impact on computer science, making it possible to explore new frontiers of research and to develop amazingly useful products that millions of people use every day. Our internal deep learning infrastructure DistBelief, developed in 2011, has allowed Googlers to build ever larger neural networks and scale training to thousands of cores in our datacenters. We’ve used it to demonstrate that concepts like “cat” can be learned from unlabeled YouTube images, to improve speech recognition in the Google app by 25%, and to build image search in Google Photos. DistBelief also trained the Inception model that won Imagenet’s Large Scale Visual Recognition Challenge in 2014, and drove our experiments in automated image captioning as well as DeepDream.

Continue reading “TensorFlow — Google’s latest machine learning system, open sourced for everyone” »

Nov 9, 2015

Scientists have found a way to 3D-print embryonic stem cell ‘building blocks’

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

Pluripotent cells are great, but they can be difficult to steer into growing the way you want. Now scientists have found a new way to create 3D-printed ‘building blocks’ of embryonic stem cells (ESCs), which could be used for growing micro-organs, performing tissue regeneration experiments, testing medication and other biology research purposes.

While bioprinting with ESCs is not entirely new, until recently researchers have only managed to produce two-dimensional sheets of cells. Now a team of scientists from Tsingua University in China and Drexel University in Philadelphia have published a study in Biofabrication, introducing a novel technique for printing a grid-like 3D structure laden with stem cells.

In normal biological conditions ESCs naturally tend to cluster together into spherical ‘embryoid bodies’ – clumps of pluripotent cells which can go on to develop into any type of cell or tissue in the human body.

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Nov 9, 2015

Tech. Company Humai Wants to Resurrect the Dead Using Artificial Intelligence (interview)

Posted by in category: robotics/AI

Serious Wonder speaks with Humai CEO Josh Bocanegra about his company’s desire to resurrect the dead using A.I. — B.J. Murphy for Serious Wonder.

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Nov 9, 2015

More Artificial Intelligence

Posted by in category: robotics/AI

In a dramatic departure, Google is open sourcing software that sits at the heart of its online empire.

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Nov 9, 2015

A Bright Future: Breakthrough Gene Editing Trial Reverses Leukaemia

Posted by in categories: biotech/medical, innovation

A pioneering gene editing therapy has shown remarkable success in a unique trial at Great Ormond Street, paving the way for a wave of gene editing trials.

A world first

Not long ago, 1 year old Layla Richards had an incurable form of leukaemia and the prognosis wasn’t looking good. After a determined search for a cure, Layla underwent an experimental therapy in which ‘designer’ immune cells were implanted that would destroy and replace her own ailing immune system.

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Nov 9, 2015

The Imminent, the Possible, and the Irreversible: The Disruptive Potential of Artificial Intelligence

Posted by in categories: computing, military, robotics/AI

Major technological changes have a transformative effect on every aspect of human life. Increasingly intelligent programs are responsible to paradigm shifts at a steadily accelerating rate, a trend which acceleration theories suggest is all but guaranteed to continue.

We explore some of the most disruptive applications of artificial intelligence, examining in particular the impact of computer trading programs (algotraders) on stock markets. We explore some such imminent technologies (such as autonomous military robots) and their consequences (eg on job markets). We conclude with a discussion in the potentially irreversible consequences of this trend, including that of superintelligence.

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