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Archive for the ‘cyborgs’ category: Page 128

Jan 26, 2015

A Brain-Computer Interface That Works Wirelessly

Posted by in categories: biotech/medical, cyborgs, neuroscience

By Antonio Regalado — MIT Technology Review

http://www.singularityworld.com/wp-content/uploads/2010/08/emotiv.jpgA few paralyzed patients could soon be using a wireless brain-computer interface able to stream their thought commands as quickly as a home Internet connection.

After more than a decade of engineering work, researchers at Brown University and a Utah company, Blackrock Microsystems, have commercialized a wireless device that can be attached to a person’s skull and transmit via radio thought commands collected from a brain implant. Blackrock says it will seek clearance for the system from the U.S. Food and Drug Administration, so that the mental remote control can be tested in volunteers, possibly as soon as this year.

The device was developed by a consortium, called BrainGate, which is based at Brown and was among the first to place implants in the brains of paralyzed people and show that electrical signals emitted by neurons inside the cortex could be recorded, then used to steer a wheelchair or direct a robotic arm (see “Implanting Hope”).

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Jan 24, 2015

Cyborg Superpower: Man Can Hear the Internet

Posted by in categories: augmented reality, cyborgs

By — Singulariy Hub

http://cdn.singularityhub.com/wp-content/uploads/2014/12/hacked-hearing-aids-13-1000x400.jpg

Television, cellphones, radio, WiFi—modern civilization converses in radio waves.

Most of us need some kind of device to translate the signals into something we can consume on a screen or through a speaker. But in the television show, Alphas, one of the characters, Gary Bell, can literally see and read electromagnetic waves.

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Jan 4, 2015

New Book: An Irreverent Singularity Funcyclopedia, by Mondo 2000’s R.U. Sirius.

Posted by in categories: 3D printing, alien life, automation, big data, bionic, bioprinting, biotech/medical, complex systems, computing, cosmology, cryptocurrencies, cybercrime/malcode, cyborgs, defense, disruptive technology, DNA, driverless cars, drones, economics, electronics, encryption, energy, engineering, entertainment, environmental, ethics, existential risks, exoskeleton, finance, first contact, food, fun, futurism, general relativity, genetics, hacking, hardware, human trajectories, information science, innovation, internet, life extension, media & arts, military, mobile phones, nanotechnology, neuroscience, nuclear weapons, posthumanism, privacy, quantum physics, robotics/AI, science, security, singularity, software, solar power, space, space travel, supercomputing, time travel, transhumanism

Quoted: “Legendary cyberculture icon (and iconoclast) R.U. Sirius and Jay Cornell have written a delicious funcyclopedia of the Singularity, transhumanism, and radical futurism, just published on January 1.” And: “The book, “Transcendence – The Disinformation Encyclopedia of Transhumanism and the Singularity,” is a collection of alphabetically-ordered short chapters about artificial intelligence, cognitive science, genomics, information technology, nanotechnology, neuroscience, space exploration, synthetic biology, robotics, and virtual worlds. Entries range from Cloning and Cyborg Feminism to Designer Babies and Memory-Editing Drugs.” And: “If you are young and don’t remember the 1980s you should know that, before Wired magazine, the cyberculture magazine Mondo 2000 edited by R.U. Sirius covered dangerous hacking, new media and cyberpunk topics such as virtual reality and smart drugs, with an anarchic and subversive slant. As it often happens the more sedate Wired, a watered-down later version of Mondo 2000, was much more successful and went mainstream.”


Read the article here >https://hacked.com/irreverent-singularity-funcyclopedia-mondo-2000s-r-u-sirius/

Dec 30, 2014

The Blockchain is the New Database, Get Ready to Rewrite Everything

Posted by in categories: architecture, automation, big data, bitcoin, business, complex systems, computing, cryptocurrencies, cyborgs, defense, disruptive technology, economics, education, encryption, engineering, finance, futurism, genetics, geopolitics, governance, government, hacking, hardware, human trajectories, information science, internet, law, military, mobile phones, nanotechnology, neuroscience, open access, open source, philosophy, physics, privacy, robotics/AI, science, scientific freedom, security, singularity, software, strategy, supercomputing, transhumanism, transparency

Quoted: “If you understand the core innovations around the blockchain idea, you’ll realize that the technology concept behind it is similar to that of a database, except that the way you interact with that database is very different.

The blockchain concept represents a paradigm shift in how software engineers will write software applications in the future, and it is one of the key concepts behind the Bitcoin revolution that need to be well understood. In this post, I’d like to explain 5 of these concepts, and how they interrelate to one another in the context of this new computing paradigm that is unravelling in front of us. They are: the blockchain, decentralized consensus, trusted computing, smart contracts and proof of work / stake. This computing paradigm is important, because it is a catalyst for the creation of decentralized applications, a next-step evolution from distributed computing architectural constructs.

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Read the article here > http://startupmanagement.org/2014/12/27/the-blockchain-is-th…verything/

Dec 29, 2014

Corporate Reconnoitering?

Posted by in categories: cybercrime/malcode, cyborgs, defense, economics, electronics, encryption, engineering, ethics, existential risks, finance, futurism, information science, innovation, life extension, physics, science, security, sustainability

Corporate Reconnoitering?

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ABSOLUTE END.

Authored By Copyright Mr. Andres Agostini

White Swan Book Author (Source of this Article)

http://www.LINKEDIN.com/in/andresagostini

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Dec 28, 2014

Kaizen and Six Sigma Vs. White Swan “…Transformative and Integrative Risk Management …” [Pictorial] — Andres Agostini

Posted by in categories: big data, business, complex systems, cyborgs, defense, economics, education, engineering, ethics, existential risks, futurism, geopolitics, information science, innovation, lifeboat, physics, science, security, transparency

Kaizen and Six Sigma Vs. White Swan “…Transformative and Integrative Risk Management …”

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ABSOLUTE END.

Continue reading “Kaizen and Six Sigma Vs. White Swan ‘…Transformative and Integrative Risk Management …’ [Pictorial] — Andres Agostini” »

Oct 3, 2014

What if your memories could live past your mortal shelf life?

Posted by in categories: cyborgs, futurism, innovation, life extension, posthumanism, singularity, transhumanism

Would you have your brain preserved? Do you believe your brain is the essence of you?

To noted American PhD Neuroscientist and Futurist, Ken Hayworth, the answer is an emphatic, “Yes.” He is currently developing machines and techniques to map brain tissue at the nanometer scale — the key to encoding our individual identities.

A self-described transhumanist and President of the Brain Preservation Foundation, Hayworth’s goal is to perfect existing preservation techniques, like cryonics, as well as explore and push evolving opportunities to effect a change on the status quo. Currently there is no brain preservation option that offers systematic, scientific evidence as to how much human brain tissue is actually preserved when undergoing today’s experimental preservation methods. Such methods include vitrification, the procedure used in cryonics to try and prevent human organs from freezing and being destroyed when tissue is cooled for cryopreservation.

Hayworth believes we can achieve his vision of preserving an entire human brain at an accepted and proven standard within the next decade. If Hayworth is right, is there a countdown to immortality?

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Sep 18, 2014

Why Superintelligence May Not Help Us Think about Existential Risks — or Transhumanism

Posted by in categories: alien life, biological, cyborgs, defense, disruptive technology, ethics, existential risks, futurism, homo sapiens, human trajectories, internet, military, philosophy, policy, posthumanism, science, singularity, transhumanism

Among transhumanists, Nick Bostrom is well-known for promoting the idea of ‘existential risks’, potential harms which, were they come to pass, would annihilate the human condition altogether. Their probability may be relatively small, but the expected magnitude of their effects are so great, so Bostrom claims, that it is rational to devote some significant resources to safeguarding against them. (Indeed, there are now institutes for the study of existential risks on both sides of the Atlantic.) Moreover, because existential risks are intimately tied to the advancement of science and technology, their probability is likely to grow in the coming years.

Contrary to expectations, Bostrom is much less concerned with ecological suicide from humanity’s excessive carbon emissions than with the emergence of a superior brand of artificial intelligence – a ‘superintelligence’. This creature would be a human artefact, or at least descended from one. However, its self-programming capacity would have run amok in positive feedback, resulting in a maniacal, even self-destructive mission to rearrange the world in the image of its objectives. Such a superintelligence may appear to be quite ruthless in its dealings with humans, but that would only reflect the obstacles that we place, perhaps unwittingly, in the way of the realization of its objectives. Thus, this being would not conform to the science fiction stereotype of robots deliberately revolting against creators who are now seen as their inferiors.

I must confess that I find this conceptualisation of ‘existential risk’ rather un-transhumanist in spirit. Bostrom treats risk as a threat rather than as an opportunity. His risk horizon is precautionary rather than proactionary: He focuses on preventing the worst consequences rather than considering the prospects that are opened up by whatever radical changes might be inflicted by the superintelligence. This may be because in Bostrom’s key thought experiment, the superintelligence turns out to be the ultimate paper-clip collecting machine that ends up subsuming the entire planet to its task, destroying humanity along the way, almost as an afterthought.

But is this really a good starting point for thinking about existential risk? Much more likely than total human annihilation is that a substantial portion of humanity – but not everyone – is eliminated. (Certainly this captures the worst case scenarios surrounding climate change.) The Cold War remains the gold standard for this line of thought. In the US, the RAND Corporation’s chief analyst, Herman Kahn — the model for Stanley Kubrick’s Dr Strangelove – routinely, if not casually, tossed off scenarios of how, say, a US-USSR nuclear confrontation would serve to increase the tolerance for human biological diversity, due to the resulting proliferation of genetic mutations. Put in more general terms, a severe social disruption provides a unique opportunity for pursuing ideals that might otherwise be thwarted by a ‘business as usual’ policy orientation.

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Aug 2, 2014

What Else Could Smart Contact Lenses Do?

Posted by in categories: augmented reality, bionic, biotech/medical, cyborgs

By Suzanne Jacobs — MIT Technology Review

Last week Google and Novartis announced that they’re teaming up to develop contact lenses that monitor glucose levels and automatically adjust their focus. But these could be just the start of a clever new product category. From cancer detection and drug delivery to reality augmentation and night vision, our eyes offer unique opportunities for both health monitoring and enhancement.

“Now is the time to put a little computer and a lot of miniaturized technologies in the contact lens,” says Franck Leveiller, head of research and development in the Novartis eye care division.

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Jun 12, 2014

Could a machine or an AI ever feel human-like emotions ?

Posted by in categories: bionic, cyborgs, ethics, existential risks, futurism, neuroscience, philosophy, posthumanism, robotics/AI, singularity, transhumanism

Computers will soon be able to simulate the functioning of a human brain. In a near future, artificial superintelligence could become vastly more intellectually capable and versatile than humans. But could machines ever truly experience the whole range of human feelings and emotions, or are there technical limitations ?

In a few decades, intelligent and sentient humanoid robots will wander the streets alongside humans, work with humans, socialize with humans, and perhaps one day will be considered individuals in their own right. Research in artificial intelligence (AI) suggests that intelligent machines will eventually be able to see, hear, smell, sense, move, think, create and speak at least as well as humans. They will feel emotions of their own and probably one day also become self-aware.

There may not be any reason per se to want sentient robots to experience exactly all the emotions and feelings of a human being, but it may be interesting to explore the fundamental differences in the way humans and robots can sense, perceive and behave. Tiny genetic variations between people can result in major discrepancies in the way each of us thinks, feels and experience the world. If we appear so diverse despite the fact that all humans are in average 99.5% identical genetically, even across racial groups, how could we possibly expect sentient robots to feel the exact same way as biological humans ? There could be striking similarities between us and robots, but also drastic divergences on some levels. This is what we will investigate below.

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