Lifeboat Foundation

Imagine the possibility of integrating mixed reality (XR) tech with that of this AImagine having a long, open conversation about philosophy with either Immanuel Kant or David Hume. Imagine being given a private lesson in economics by either Adam Smith, John Maynard Keynes, or Karl Marx. The possibilities are seemingly abundant. But then so are the risks.

A lot of coverage has been done on the emergence of what are known as “deepfakes” here on Serious Wonder the last few years. They’ve captivated us at times and then frightened us. The implications of this growing technology are practically limitless, especially as our ability to tell the difference between what is real and what is fake diminishes even further.

Continue reading “Still Images Come to Life Thanks to Samsung’s Deepfake AI” »

What was this scientist thinking when he injected himself with a 3.5 million years old bacteria from Siberian mountains? What happened to him afterwards? Is he doing ok now, or was this science experiment gone wrong? Let’s find out in today’s episode:

BEIJING (Reuters) — It’s the most sensitive day of the year for China’s internet, the anniversary of the bloody June 4 crackdown on pro-democracy protests at Tiananmen Square, and with under two weeks to go, China’s robot censors are working overtime.

“Time is a moving image of eternity.” –Plato.

TIME, the reef upon which all our frail mystic ships are wrecked, has remained an elusive notion over the ages. Sages, philosophers and scientists have ventured a countless number of times into the dark arena of the hourglass in an attempt to tame the indomitable vortex of this indefinite stream.

‘It’s not always convenient for people to leave their homes to retrieve deliveries or for businesses to run their own delivery services,’ Ken Washington, chief technology officer at Ford, wrote in a blog post.

‘If we can free people up to focus less on the logistics of making deliveries, they can turn their time and effort to things that really need their attention.

Continue reading “Ford unveils two-legged robot that can walk packages to your door” »

A nimble robot inspired by bush babies can now bounce three times its own height in a single leap.

SALTO (saltatorial locomotion terrain obstacles) was fist designed to jump at 4mph (1.75 m/s) but a host of new features have now been added to the nifty machine.

Continue reading “Robot inspired by a bush baby can bounce THREE times its own height” »

What if the wood your house was made of could save your electricity bill? In the race to save energy, using a passive cooling method that requires no electricity and is built right into your house could save even chilly areas of the US some cash. Now, researchers at the University of Maryland and the University of Colorado have harnessed nature’s nanotechnology to help solve the problem of finding a passive way for buildings to dump heat that is sustainable and strong.

Control engineers and AI experts team up to make drones that fly more smoothly close to the ground.

Two programmers played a key role in developing chaos theory and the famous butterfly effect, but they’ve been left out of virtually all accounts of the work.