Lifeboat Foundation

Scientists have managed to send a record-breaking amount of data in quantum form, using a strange unit of quantum information called a qutrit.

The news: Quantum tech promises to allow data to be sent securely over long distances. Scientists have already shown it’s possible to transmit information both on land and via satellites using quantum bits, or qubits. Now physicists at the University of Science and Technology of China and the University of Vienna in Austria have found a way to ship even more data using something called quantum trits, or qutrits.

Qutrits? Oh, come on, you’ve just made that up: Nope, they’re real. Conventional bits used to encode everything from financial records to YouTube videos are streams of electrical or photonic pulses than can represent either a 1 or a 0. Qubits, which are typically electrons or photons, can carry more information because they can be polarized in two directions at once, so they can represent both a 1 and a 0 at the same time. Qutrits, which can be polarized in three different dimensions simultaneously, can carry even more information. In theory, this can then be transmitted using quantum teleportation.

Hackers equipped with black market software are targeting cash machines with dated software and substandard security and walking away with millions over the course of a series of attacks, according to a collaborative investigation by Motherboard and German newsroom Bayerischer Rundfunk. Though law enforcement agencies are tightlipped about the trend, it’s a sign that banks may be surprisingly vulnerable to cybercrime.

Other sources, granted anonymity by Motherboard, described the same trend: “There are attacks happening, but a lot of the time it’s not publicized,” said one.

Plug-And-Play

Continue reading “This Malware Makes ATMs Spit Out All Their Money” »

With the move, France will join states around the world rushing to create “digital identities” to give citizens secure access to everything from their taxes and banks to social security and utility bills. Singapore uses facial recognition and has signed an accord to help the U.K. prepare its own ID system. India uses iris scans.

France is poised to become the first European country to use facial recognition technology to give citizens a secure digital identity — whether they want it or not.

Saying it wants to make the state more efficient, President Emmanuel Macron’s government is pushing through plans to roll out an ID program, dubbed Alicem, in November, earlier than an initial Christmas target. The country’s data regulator says the program breaches the European rule of consent and a privacy group is challenging it in France’s highest administrative court. It took a hacker just over an hour to break into a “secure” government messaging app this year, raising concerns about the state’s security standards.

Continue reading “France Set to Roll Out Nationwide Facial Recognition ID Program” »

Digital assets will only continue to grow. With clearer regulation coming in the near future, large financial institutions such as banks and asset managers will have the official ‘stamp of approval’ needed to participate in the market, driving tokenisation of existing asset classes and substantial capital inflows to the sector.

How investment in safekeeping technology will help determine the winners in Asia’s new token economy.

Ira Pastor, ideaXme longevity and aging ambassador and founder of Bioquark, interviews Ambassador Juan José Gómez Camacho, Mexico’s current Ambassador to Canada, and for the last 3 years, Mexico’s Permanent Representative of the United Nations in New York City.

Ira Pastor Comments:

Continue reading “International Co-operation to Ensure the Health of all the World’s Citizens” »

Bank employs AI-powered “digital DNA human”

Arab Banking Corporation (Bank ABC), in collaboration with New Zealand tech company, Soul Machines, has announced the launch of “Fatema” – a fully autonomous AI personality that will assist customers online.

Continue reading “Bank employs AI-powered ‘digital DNA human’” »

Over the next decade, U.S. banks, which are investing $150 billion in technology annually, will use automation to eliminate 200,000 jobs, thus facilitating “the greatest transfer from labor to capital” in the industry’s history. The call is coming from inside the house this time, too—both the projection and the quote come from a recent Wells Fargo report, whose lead author, Mike Mayo, told the Financial Times that he expects the industry to shed 10 percent of all of its jobs.

Lunar lander developer Intuitive Machines has signed a contract with SpaceX for its first mission to the moon. The company announced this week that a Falcon 9 will launch its Nova-C lander in 2021 as part of a rideshare mission, but terms of the deal were not disclosed. The company won a contract from NASA in May to carry five payloads to the moon on that mission as part of the agency’s Commercial Lunar Payload Services program. Separately, a federal appeals court this week upheld a verdict in favor of the company in a suit against Moon Express, another commercial lunar lander company. That suit, involving work disputes between the companies, led to Intuitive Machines receiving $4.1 million in cash and stock. [SpaceNews]

Maxar Technologies awarded a contract to Deployable Space Systems to manufacture flexible solar arrays for the first element of NASA’s lunar Gateway. The contract this week is for a pair of Roll Out Solar Array solar panels, each capable of producing 32.5 kilowatts of power. The arrays will be used on the Power and Propulsion Element that Maxar is building for NASA that will serve as the foundation for the Gateway in orbit around the moon. [SpaceNews]

A startup planning propellant depots in orbit for refueling satellites has raised $3 million. OrbitFab announced Thursday it raised the seed round of funding from venture capital fund Type 1 Ventures, Techstars and others. The company is working on technology to allow for refueling of satellites using small depots in orbit, and recently tested that technology on the International Space Station. At a conference in Washington earlier in the week, the company said it was still working on raising a funding round but hopes to have its first tanker in orbit by the end of next year. [TechCrunch].

This thorough review focuses on the impact of AI, 5G, and edge computing on the healthcare sector in the 2020s as well as a look at quantum computing’s potential impact on AI, healthcare, and financial services.