Lifeboat Foundation

Researchers make an ‘unprecedented’ discovery of a sphere-shaped void in space that stretches 500 light-years in diameter.

The logo of Samsung Electronics is seen at its office building in Seoul, South Korea, August 25 2017. REUTERS/Kim Hong-Ji/File Photo.

SEOUL, Sept 23 (Reuters) — Samsung Electronics (005930.KS) is in talks with Tesla (TSLA.O) to make Tesla’s next-generation self-driving chips based on Samsung’s 7-nanometre chip production process, a South Korean newspaper reported on Thursday.

Since the beginning of this year, Tesla and Samsung have discussed chip design multiple times and exchanged chip prototypes for Tesla’s upcoming Hardware 4 self-driving computer, the Korea Economic Daily reported, citing sources with direct knowledge of the matter.

Seriously, skid marks in a space suit isn’t a good look.

Circa 2019

Livescience.com | By LIVESCIENCE

Is our universe sitting on the edge of an expanding bubble?

CRISPR is the genius behind innovations that seemed impossible a decade ago. Could you grow tomatoes with the kick of hot sauce or ferment wine that doesn’t cause a hangover? That’s just two of the things scientists are looking into.

The launch date of NASA’s Webb Space Telescope is December 18. It will study exoplanets, the Big Bang, and more.

A more comprehensible concept could be “multi-skilled AI.”

Multi-skilled AI is an approach to improving technologies by expanding their senses. In a similar way to how kids learn through perception and talking, multi-skilled AI systems combine senses and language to broaden their understanding of the world.

“It goes beyond image or language recognition and allows multiple tasks to be done,” Elizabeth Bramson-Boudreau, the CEO and publisher of MIT Technology Review, tells TNW.

2030’ish: on demand books, movies, TV shows, video games, etc…

In the ever-increasing list of things that machine learning AI can do in our modern world, there’s now a program that will code (or at least, try to code) whatever you tell it to in plain English. Want some flashy banner text that changes color every few seconds? Tell that to OpenAI Codex and it will code it for you in seconds. The OpenAI Codex beta, currently only available through an online waiting list, is a simple web tool with three windows: one to type in commands, one that shows the code generated by those commands, and one that shows what the code does. You could theoretically use Codex for all sorts of tasks in over a dozen coding languages, but the coolest use I’ve seen is coding simple Javascript videogames with just a handful of natural language instructions. Check out the video below from YouTuber Joy of Curiosity to see it in action.

Continue reading “This AI tries to code whatever you tell it to, even videogames” »

Circa 2018

Researchers at the University of Michigan just created the world’s smallest computer (again). Their previous micro-computer, the Michigan Micro Mote, measured 2x2x4mm. It was a complete, functioning system powered by solar cell batteries. But in March this year, IBM announced a new, smaller computer, which measured 1×1 mm, and was smaller than a grain of salt. It “raised a few eyebrows at the University of Michigan.”

After all, it’s unclear if the IBM computer even count as an actual microcomputer. The IBM device lost all its programming and data as soon as it turns off, unlike the Michigan Micro Mote, which retained its programming even when it wasn’t externally powered. “It’s more of a matter of opinion whether they have the minimum functionality required,” said David Blaauw, a professor of electrical and computer engineering at University of Michigan who helped develop the University of Michigan’s newest tiny device. If the IBM machine constituted a computer, then University of Michigan would work to gain back their title: their latest microdevice measures 0.3mm per side (1/10th the size of IBM’s computer), and is smaller than a grain of rice.

Continue reading “The Smallest Computer in the World Fits On a Grain of Rice” »