Lifeboat Foundation

Scientists said on Thursday they recorded particles travelling faster than light – a finding that could overturn one of Einstein’s fundamental laws of the universe. Antonio Ereditato, spokesman for the international group of researchers, saidthat measurements taken over three years showed neutrinos pumped from CERN near Geneva to Gran Sasso in Italy had arrived 60 nanoseconds quicker than light would have done.

“We have high confidence in our results. We have checked and rechecked for anything that could have distorted our measurements but we found nothing,” he said. “We now want colleagues to check them independently.”

If confirmed, the discovery would undermine Albert Einstein’s 1905 theory of special relativity, which says that the speed of light is a “cosmic constant” and that nothing in the universe can travel faster. That assertion, which has withstood over a century of testing, is one of the key elements of the so-called Standard Model of physics, which attempts to describe the way the universe and everything in it works. The totally unexpected finding emerged from research by a physicists working on an experiment dubbed OPERA run jointly by the CERN particle research center near Geneva and the Gran Sasso Laboratory in central Italy.

“This is just the first step on the AI front…as [the] AI arms race takes place among Big Tech.”

Right on the heels of Google announcing Artificial Intelligence chatbot Bard, Microsoft has beefed up its search engine Bing with the latest AI sensation, OpenAI’s ChatGPT.

For almost two decades, Google’s search engine market has had a highly successful run, facing almost zero competition from rivals.

Continue reading “Microsoft unveils AI-powered Bing model ‘more powerful’ than ChatGPT” »

Pilonnel noticed that millions watch his videos, but very few actually attempt them. He wants to help people by making replacement parts available.

Users of Apple’s AirPods are well aware that the product they purchased is pretty much disposable. Once the rechargeable battery on the device gives way, there is no way to replace them; you need to buy new AirPods, unless you are ready to do the hard work yourself, with a little help, of course.

Continue reading “Engineer who made USB-C iPhone now makes AirPods Pro repair possible” »

The discovery is putting into question everything astronomers believed about ring systems.

Astronomers from the University of Sheffield discovered a new ring system around a dwarf planet on the edge of the Solar System, according to a press release. The discovery calls into question current theories about how ring systems are formed since the ring system orbits much further out than is typical for other ring systems.

Around a dwarf planet.

Continue reading “Astronomers discovered breakthrough ring system in our Solar System” »

Getty Images, a global stock photo giant, has filed a lawsuit against Stability AI, the business that created the well-known AI image generator Stable Diffusion.

The stock agency claims that over 12 million of its copyrighted images—along with their descriptions and metadata were used to train Stable Diffusion, seeking $1.8 trillion in compensation, according to the lawsuit made public on Monday.

In my chat with Serene, an internet freedom activist and former Google Ideas engineer, I ask: “Am I allowed to speak with you right now? Legally?”“We’re both in the U.S., so yes, I think we’re good,” she answers.

As one of the few tools for accessing blocked and censored information on the web, Serene’s Snowflake is widely used by citizens of oppressive regimes. It is primarily done using Tor, an open-source browser that enables secure, private, and anonymous internet browsing.

She is now unveiling Snowstorm, an upgraded version of Snowflake, which Serene claims will be faster, more generalized, and have more features. Snowstorm is fast enough to stream YouTube videos, something previous versions could not do.

Continue reading “As The Internet Freedom Project Expands, Snowflake Becomes Snowstorm” »

Buckle up folks, the AI wars have arrived.

Hot on the heels of Microsoft announcing its $10bn investment into ChatGPT’s parent company OpenAI, Google has entered the fray with news of its own experimental AI. Bard, powered by the search engine stalwart’s LaMDA technology, has now launched to ‘trusted external testers’ and is expected to go live within weeks.

The move comes as the war to dominate the new technological frontier intensifies. The two Tig Tech giants are already rushing to beat one another to the top of the AI mountain, with no signs of slowing. Here’s what’s gone down this week.

With Bard, its newly launched “experimental conversational AI service,” Google is scrambling to ship AI products. But past scandals, botched launches and a talent drain have put it in a surprise position: playing catch-up in a field it helped create.

In 2016, a few months after becoming CEO of Google, Sundar Pichai made a sweeping proclamation: Google, whose name had become synonymous with search, would now be an “AI-first” company. Announced at Google’s massive I/O developer conference, it was his first major order of business after taking the company reins.

What AI-first meant, exactly, was murky, but the stakes were not.

Just when we are getting accustomed to artificial intelligence in our daily lives, get ready for a new disruptor: synthetic biology, or syn-bio, the design and engineering of biological systems to create and improve processes and products. It promises to become a manufacturing paradigm of the future.

Recent advances in molecular, cell, and systems biology have enabled scientists to shift their focus from research of syn-bio to design and engineering, creating some truly mind blowing applications. By using microorganisms, for example, companies can now manufacture an infinite number of things, cell by cell, from scratch. This offers new ways of producing almost everything that humans consume, from flavors and fabrics to foods and fuels.

By the end of the decade, syn-bio may be used extensively in manufacturing industries that account for more than a third of global output, according to BCG Henderson Institute, Boston Consulting Group’s strategy think tank. Various sources estimate that the syn-bio market today is about $10 billion and is expected to reach $30 billion in the next five years.