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Jul 1, 2015

Pax Google — By Paul Ford | The New Republic

Posted by in category: mapping

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Google, as a search engine, had built a fine business by “indexing” all of these documents and making them searchable. The company was built on a principle of centralization: If you take the chaotic Web and bestow order upon it, merge it into a single consolidated index, make it make sense, you can make users very, very happy. And upon that index, and that shared happiness, and the willingness of some users to click on targeted advertising, Google could construct a tremendous enterprise. An empire, if you will. Except empires are not traditionally constructed from indexing documents. But maps are.

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Jul 1, 2015

Why Send Humans to Space When We Can Send Robots? — Daniel Oberhaus | Motherboard

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

“The first marketable, personal computers in the late 70s came about after almost 40 years of research and development, which created the technology at public expense. One of the peculiarities, if you’d like, of our system of innovation and development is that it’s radically anti-capitalist in many ways…People who paid taxes in the 50s and 60s may not have known it, but they were creating what was ultimately marketed by Apple. But they don’t get any of the profit. I think that’s a social pathology and the same carries over into space.” Read more

Jul 1, 2015

Two chatbots talk to each other: “I love crayons. But you are not dressed.”

Posted by in category: robotics/AI

Of course I’m cute, HAL.

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Jun 30, 2015

‘Microswimmer’ robots to drill through blocked arteries within four years

Posted by in categories: biotech/medical, futurism, robotics/AI

Drexel’s microswimmer robots (bottom) are modeled, in form and motion, after spiral-shaped Borrelia burgdorferi bacteria (top), which cause Lyme Disease (credit: Drexel University)

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Jun 30, 2015

Google’s artificial-intelligence bot says the purpose of living is ‘to live forever’

Posted by in categories: neuroscience, robotics/AI

Human: What is morality?

Machine: What is altruism?

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Jun 30, 2015

A nearby black hole just erupted for the first time in 26 years and scientists are ecstatic

Posted by in category: cosmology

Lurking 8,000 light years from Earth is a black hole 12 times more massive than our sun. It’s…

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Jun 30, 2015

Kurzweil Responds to ‘When Robots Are Everywhere, What Will Humans Be Good For?’ — By David J. Hill

Posted by in categories: employment, futurism, human trajectories, posthumanism, robotics/AI

Lately, media around the web has been bracing for robots — not time-traveling robots per se, but robot workers. Specifically, the increased sophistication of artificial intelligence and improved engineering of robotics has spurred a growing concern about what people are going to do when all the regular jobs are done by robots.

A variety of solutions have been proposed to this potential technological unemployment (we even had an entire Future of Work series dealing with this topic in March), many of which suggest that there will still be things that humans can do that robots can’t, but what are they? Read more

Jun 30, 2015

World’s first underground urban farm opens for business in London

Posted by in categories: food, sustainability

When the surface becomes too toxic, there’s always the tunnels.

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Jun 30, 2015

The Millennium Project’s “2015−16 State of the Future” report on the Prospects of the Global Outlook to be released July 31st

Posted by in categories: futurism, governance, policy

Washington, DC (PRWEB) June 30, 2015

Another 2.3 billion people are expected to be added to the planet in just 35 years. “By 2050, new systems for food, water, energy, education, health, economics, and global governance will be needed to prevent massive and complex human and environmental disasters,” explains Jerome Glenn, CEO of The Millennium Project. As Pope Francis said in His Encyclical Letter, “Halfway measures simply delay the inevitable disaster.”

The “2015−16 State of the Future” reviews the global situation and future prospects in a broad range of areas from environment to business and technology, and global ethics. Its executive summary states that:

Continue reading “The Millennium Project’s "2015-16 State of the Future" report on the Prospects of the Global Outlook to be released July 31st” »

Jun 30, 2015

Holographic Heads-Up Display Is Coming To Your Windshield — Ana Alves WTVox

Posted by in categories: electronics, holograms

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There are plenty of ways to get directions in the car, but most have one big shortcoming. Whether you’re using a standalone GPS, in-car navi system, smartphone, the Apple Watch, or even a paper map, you have to look away from the road (you know, that thing you’re supposed to be paying attention to when driving) in order to see where you’re supposed to be going.

So how to keep your eyes on the road and not get lost? One option is the heads-up display. Increasingly common on high-end cars, these devices project things like navigation directions and current speed onto the windshield, so the driver has important information right in their field of vision. Read more