Lifeboat Foundation

Chinese technology giant Huawei is preparing for a world where people live forever, dead relatives linger on in computers and robots try to kill humans.

Huawei is best known as one of the world’s largest producers of broadband network equipment and smartphones. But Kevin Ho, president of its handset product line, told the CES Asia conference in Shanghai on Wednesday the company used science fiction movies like “The Matrix” to envision future trends and new business ideas.

“Hunger, poverty, disease or even death may not be a problem by 2035, or 25 years from now,” he said. “In the future you may be able to purchase computing capacity to serve as a surrogate, to pass the baton from the physical world to the digital world.”

Continue reading “Huawei Prepares for Robot Overlords and Communication with the Dead” »

Google and Amazon were quick to put drones to use delivering orders.

But new research suggests delivery is just one small way drones are going to replace humans. The tiny airborne vessels will soon clean windows on skyscrapers, verify insurance claims and spray pesticide on crops.

The global market for drones, valued at around $2 billion today, will replace up to $127 billion worth of business services and human labour over the next four years, according to a new research by consulting firm PwC.

Continue reading “Drones will take $127bn worth of human work by 2020, PwC says” »

A bipartisan group of senators has asked the USDA to update the broadband speed definitions of its Community Connect grant program, which, like the FCC’s Universal Service Program, provides subsidies to build out broadband in areas where there isn’t a business case, in this case focused on rural areas.

They want the definition for high speed to be upped to 10 Mbps.

The USDA this month upped the speeds for the Broadband Access Loan Program to 10 mbps, but Community Connect was only increased to 4 Mbps. The senators signaled that did not cut it.

Continue reading “Sens. Ask USDA to Boost Broadband Speed Benchmark” »

Glad to see more folks understanding what I had shared 6 months ago about AI and having entire teams of comprised of the standard SV male. It doesn’t work for AI and will be a barrier in it’s adoption. AI (more than any technology to date) requires a multi-cultural diverse team that reflects the consumers that they are trying to cater to.

Until this one dimensional male dominated engeering teams become more diverse to align with the buying public along with improving the weak under lying connected infrastructure including the net are corrected; AI will not see it’s full potential in the market.

I will ask again, how does a 28 or 33 year male understand how a 48 or 51 year old woman who has been a famers wife feels and her needs; or how does a 28 year old male understands what a 38 or 40 year old female living in the Hamptons needs are for her home, or boutique spa shop geared to other women?.

Continue reading “Pre-programming Artificial Intelligence is a Risky Business” »

The question breaks down into two parts:

1. For what public benefit? —and—
2. No, it cannot be achieved in this way

Governments are in the business of regulating certain activities—hopefully in an effort to serve the public good. In the case of business methods and activities, their goal is to maintain an orderly marketplace; one that is fair, safe and conducive to economic growth.

But regulation that lacks a clear purpose or a reasonable detection and enforcement mechanism is folly. Such regulation risks making government seem arbitrary, punitive or ineffective.

«— This is money. It is not a promissory note, a metaphor, an analogy or an abstract representation of money in some account. It is the money itself. Unlike your national currency, it does not require an underlying asset or redemption guarantee.

Continue reading “Can Bitcoin be defeated by legislation?” »

“Facebook Inc. will soon lose a high-profile player in its virtual-reality push.”

Read more

With long-term plans for in-space resource extraction in the form of asteroid mining, Deep Space Industries (DSI) is offering an exciting business opportunity. It is aiming to change the economics of space by providing the technical resources, capabilities and systems required to harvest, process, manufacture and market in-space resources. DSI is already generating revenue from commercial contracts, as well as government and university research projects.

The Disrupt Space summit brought together a large number of entrepreneurs from around Europe and the world who are intent on reinventing the space industry. A panel of judges chose Deep Space Industries as the winner among five finalists in a start-up pitch.

Spaceoneers caught up with Daniel Faber, Deep Space Industries’ CEO at the summit to hear about the company’s long-term plans and the exciting business opportunity in asteroid mining.

Continue reading “Interview: CEO of Deep Space Industries, Daniel Faber” »

The new entity will focus on a haemophilia pipeline utilising the XTEN half-life extension technology, bispecific antibodies and gene therapies.

Biogen announced yesterday it is planning to spin-out its haemophilia business into an independent, public firm based in Boston, Massachusetts by early next year.

Management said during a conference call this was the right time for a spin-out as Biogen’s haemophilia business has matured.

Continue reading “Biogen haemophilia spin-out to develop gene therapies and long-acting factors” »

According to Astro Teller, the Google self-driving car is “close to graduating from X.” Parsing out the meaning of that string of words is a little complicated, but basically it means that Alphabet isn’t thinking of self-driving cars so much as a crazy “moonshot,” but as a thing that’s just about ready to be a standalone business that could actually generate revenue.

If you’re not a close follower of Google, though, more explanation might still be in order. It’s coming, in the form of a segment on tonight’s NBC Nightly News with Lester Holt. They’ll be airing an inside look at X division inside Alphabet. That’s the group you know as Google X, but after last year’s corporate reorg, we’re all still getting used to the new naming conventions.

Holt interviewed Astro Teller and Obi Felten, who have the cheeky titles “Chief of Moonshots” and “Director of X Foundry,” respectively. It’ll likely be an overview of the projects that X is currently running — including self-driving cars, Project Loon, Project Wing, and Makani. Teller will also be candid about X’s failures. Failure being a favorite topic of his, actually — Holt tells us that inside X, “if you have an idea that crashes and burns, they give you a sticker.”

Continue reading “Google’s self-driving car is ‘close to graduating from X’” »