Lifeboat Foundation

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” »

Porsche is about to turn its 718 lineup fully electric, diverging from the 911 which won’t go EV in this decade or maybe ever.

A few months ago, we speculated on Porsche’s plans to turn the 718 into a fully electric car. Now we have gathered additional material from different sources within and outside the company. Not only did we get confirmation that it will be a full battery-electric vehicle, we also gathered that it will be fundamentally detached from the 911—which, we learned, will retain its combustion engine beyond 2030 and may not even become hybridized.

The hefty rocket will launch the Artemis 1 moon mission, but first NASA has to put all the parts together and run a lot of tests.

Circa 2014

LEDs have come a long ways. From the early 70s when a bulky LED watch cost thousands of dollars to LG’s announcement last month that it had created an OLED TV as thin as a magazine, these glowing little bits of magic have become wonderfully cheap and impossibly small. But guess what: they’re about to get much smaller.

Deep brain implants are paving the way for solutions to neurologic conditions and potentially, toward “superhuman cognition.” However, there are serious ethical implications associated with this emerging innovation.

He is geeky, he is smart, he is talented and what not! Talking about one of the leading tech agencies of the world would surely give you a clear picture of whom we are pointing to. It’s the none other than the great Elon Musk who has taken the world of science and technological advancements by storm. And now, we are just a step behind to get startled by his latest innovations of tech startup Neuralink that builds implants to connect human brains with computer interfaces via artificial intelligence.

I believe if superintelligence can be digitized into computer code then essentially a microchip could send electrical impulses to one’s brain noninvasive like the microchip that heals from Ohio state and then superintelligence could be attained and the biological wetware could be easily acquire the biological singularity. Much like the moto that Apple has all things digital a new superintelligence attribute could uploaded and the human could evolve or gene edit from a smartphone also the impulse could be non invasive like low level electrical impulse sending data to the brain using existing hardware. We could be as advanced as any exterrestial civilization in a couple keystrokes using existing hardware.

Popular expectations for the future are helplessly colored by present trends. The assumption is always that whatever’s going on now can be safely extrapolated into the future along a linear (or, per Kurzweil, logarithmic) curve. So it was that during the space race, baby boomers took for granted that we’d have fully colonized the solar system by the year 2000.

DNA has the capacity to store large amounts of information for very long durations. This protocol describes encoding of digital files as DNA and the error-free retrieval of the stored data from the sequenced data.

Working with electric utilities is one of the more time consuming parts of building new charging stations, as quite a lot of infrastructure work and planning goes into building an EV station, as the local grid has to be taken into account in such projects.

But what if electric utilities weren’t involved at all, and a station could just be delivered on a flatbed truck with a forklift?

That’s the promise of a fast-charging station dubbed Drive Booster, developed by E.ON and Volkswagen that was just opened for use in Essen, Germany. The concept behind it is quite simple: Instead of drawing power directly from the grid, the charger has its own integrated battery, and draws power from a normal power connection found in any supermarket, like a soda machine or other large appliance. The charger can juice up two EVs at once at speeds of up to 150 kW, giving them enough range in 15 minutes to travel 124 miles.