Lifeboat Foundation

Huge queues formed at airports around the world today after an IT system vital to scores of airlines crashed due to one faulty switch.

A program run by a huge tech firm called Amadeus is behind computers for British Airways, Air France, Lufthansa and other carriers, who use it every day to check passengers onto flights.

Continue reading “Worldwide airport check-in systems crash was caused by single switch” »

The human brain is used as a comparison for how computer’s function. But, honestly, computers are nothing like human brains. Not yet, at least.

That could change as researchers have developed computing technology that uses light to mimic the functionality of a nerve’s synapse, opening the way for hardware that combines the speed of modern processors with the efficiency of brainpower.

Brains and computers are both systems that can model, manipulate, and store information. From there, they don’t tend to have all that much in common.

Continue reading “Researchers Have Developed Microchips That Behave Like Brain Cells” »

Will any of the jobs that exist today still be around in 20 years? Fast Future’s Steve Wells, Alexandra Whittington and Rohit Talwar explore whether automation is destined to rewrite all our futures.

Continue reading “Will artificial intelligence mean the end of jobs?” »

A pair of Japanese researchers believe their quantum computing method will increase the number of qubits processed from the dozens to the millions.

I did a new interview on #transhumanism for some journalism students at Germany’s Technical University of Dortmund. It’s in English:

Mechanical bodyparts are very common nowadays – a lot of humans have a hip replacement or a pacemaker. Technology helps saving our lives rather often. Some people want to take this a lot further – a philosophical and scientific movement called Transhumanism. Zoltan Istvan Gyurko is one of the most famous Transhumanists, he even ran for president in 2016. In this interview, he talks about his first experiences with Transhumanism, immortality and the future of humanity.

By Marie-Louise Timcke und Paul Klur

Continue reading “Humanity will be lost” »

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In a mind-boggling world first, a team of biologists and security researchers have successfully infected a computer with a malicious program coded into a strand of DNA.

It sounds like science fiction, but I assure you it’s quite real — although you probably don’t have to worry about this particular threat vector any time soon. That said, the possibilities suggested by this project are equally fascinating and terrifying to contemplate.

The multidisciplinary team at the University of Washington isn’t out to make outlandish headlines, although it’s certainly done that. They were concerned that the security infrastructure around DNA transcription and analysis was inadequate, having found elementary vulnerabilities in open-source software used in labs around the world. Given the nature of the data usually being handled, this could be a serious problem going forward.

Continue reading “Malicious code written into DNA infects the computer that reads it” »

Transhumanism discussion of using implants in children is in The Sun today, one of UK’s largest sites/papers.

A DOCTOR known as a “human cyborg” has revealed parents are bombarding him with requests to implant chips into their children.

Dr Patrick Kramer, who work under the job title of “chief cyborg officer”, receives harrowing messages from parents desperate for him to implant tracking chips under their children’s skin.

Continue reading “Mum begged doc to ‘chip’ daughter in case ‘radical’ dad takes her to Syria” »

Now, some of the world’s largest tech companies are taking a cue from biology as they respond to these growing demands. They are rethinking the very nature of computers and are building machines that look more like the human brain, where a central brain stem oversees the nervous system and offloads particular tasks — like hearing and seeing — to the surrounding cortex.

New technologies are testing the limits of computer semiconductors. To deal with that, researchers have gone looking for ideas from nature.