Lifeboat Foundation

(credit: OpenAI)

Elon Musk and associates announced OpenAI, a non-profit AI research company, on Friday (Dec. 11), committing $1 billion toward their goal to “advance digital intelligence in the way that is most likely to benefit humanity as a whole, unconstrained by a need to generate financial return.”

The funding comes from a group of tech leaders including Musk, Reid Hoffman, Peter Thiel, and Amazon Web Services, but the venture expects to only spend “a tiny fraction of this in the next few years.”

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Coal miners mine coal; diamond miners mine diamonds; gold miners mine gold; space miners (will) mine space—and anything in it that has precious metals or compounds that can be whisked into rocket fuel. But, just like the first three kinds of “resource extraction,” the celestial kind will face more than a few philosophical, financial, and regulatory complications.

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Google says it wants to power 100% of its operations from renewable energy.

Google has announced a slew of renewable energy projects, as it moves to meet its commitment to power 100 percent of its business from green energy sources.

In what it calls the “largest, and most diverse, purchase of renewable energy ever made by a non-utility company,” Google said it has added 842 megawatts (MW) of renewable energy to its data centers, which nearly doubles the amount of clean energy it has already bought. Most of the renewable energy has been purchased for locations in the U.S., but Google said it has added more than 150 megawatts from a solar plant in Chile and a wind farm in Sweden.

Continue reading “Google makes ‘largest purchase’ of renewable energy to power data centers: 842 MW across 3 countries” »

Derek Muller of ‘Veritasium’ explores the impact of the Northeast blackout of 2003 and the innovations in energy that are essential to keeping the lights on. For more on the future of energy, check out Breakthrough’s ‘Energy on the Edge’ episode on the National Geographic Channel airing Sunday 11/29 at 9/8c.

Check Out Veritasium’s ‘How Long Will You Live’: http://bit.ly/21fLyDN

Continue reading “Veritasium Explores The Future of Energy — GE” »

It almost sounds like a dream: a new kind of hypersonic space-kissing jet that can take you anywhere in the world in just four hours. But the Skylon super plane being developed by UK aerospace firm Reaction Engines is very real.

The project took a big step forward this week with Reaction Engines announcing a new partnership with defence and aerospace giant BAE Systems, whose financial backing, along with a considerable investment from the UK government, will help Reaction develop its new class of aerospace engine dubbed SABRE (Synergetic Air-Breathing Rocket Engine) by as early as 2020, with test flights possible just five years later.

It’s thanks to the SABRE engine that the Skylon could theoretically take you to the other side of the planet for lunch, before dropping you safely back home in time for dinner.

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Think of all the possibilities!

Mind control has been a topic of many great suspense and science fiction movies until recent. Now, an emotion altering device that will work in conjunction with a smart phone app is now being developed by Thync, and is slated for release to the public in 2015.

Thync announced on Oct. 8 that it’s raised $13 million from financial contributors to develop technology combining neuroscience and consumer electronics.

Continue reading “Mind Control Device Alters Emotions on Demand” »

Quoted: “Masters went on to say that, because financial services involve Americans’ livelihoods (and not just, say, their taxi ride to Brooklyn), regulations ruling the space are many multitudes more complex than they are in other industries — and the 100-plus year-old banks have a leg up in dealing with these rules.

“Anyone who imagines that as a result of the advent of new technology we will see a world where incumbent financial institutions who provide vital, heavily-regulated intermediated services, custodial services, safe-keeping services will be decimated and completely removed from the picture overnight is just naive and wrong,” she said, pointing out that customers of legacy banks can pay bills and deposit checks through their iPhones — so it’s not as if there’s been no innovation in traditional financial services.”

Read the article here > http://www.forbes.com/sites/maggiemcgrath/2015/10/20/will-fi…ately-win/

At the end of 2015, the US national debt will be 18.6 trillion dollars. With such a big number, it’s tempting to put it in perspective by comparing it with things more easily envisioned. Alas, I can not think of anything that puts such an oppressive and unfair burden into perspective, except to this:

US debt represents a personal obligation of $60,000 for each American citizen. And it is rising quickly. Most of our GDP is used simply to pay down interest on that debt. Few pundits see a way out of this hole.

In my opinion, that hole was facilitated in August 1971, when the US modified the Bretton Woods Agreement and unilaterally terminated convertibility of the US dollar to gold. By forcibly swapping every dollar in every pocket and bank account with the promise of transient legislators, individual wealth was suddenly based on fiat instead of something tangible or intrinsic.

Continue reading “What if U.S. had raised interest rates?” »