Lifeboat Foundation

What is the ultimate goal of Artificial General Intelligence?

In this video series, the Galactic Public Archives takes bite-sized looks at a variety of terms, technologies, and ideas that are likely to be prominent in the future. Terms are regularly changing and being redefined with the passing of time. With constant breakthroughs and the development of new technology and other resources, we seek to define what these things are and how they will impact our future.

Follow us on social media:
Twitter / Facebook / Instagram

Could AI soon diagnose cancer? New system that ‘doctors can rely on’ is 93% accurate in identifying tumours.

• US firm IBM says its Watson system is capable of accurately identify tumours
• The computer crunches through medical images and patient records quickly
• It compares them to past cases and medical journals to come to a conclusion
• Doctors at 55 hospitals around the world have been using the AI to help them

By Richard Gray for MailOnline

Sophia smiles mischievously, bats her eyelids and tells a joke.

Without the mess of cables that make up the back of her head, you could almost mistake her for a human.

Continue reading “‘AI is good for the world’ insists Sophia the humanoid robot” »

‘If Apple or Google want to come calling, my phone number is out there,’ said the Amazon exec in charge of Alexa.

DARPA has unveiled a system that transforms its unmanned aerial systems (UAS) into warfare machines capable of conducting different missions without human intervention.

Prior to the announcement, the compact drones were only able to carry a single-function payload, which limited their abilities to one specific task in the field.

Continue reading “DARPA ‘transformer’ drones change their mission hardware mid-flight” »

WASHINGTON — Approximately a dozen police, fire and emergency agencies surrounding Washington, D.C. are using drones to capture criminal suspects and fight fires, but the unmanned aircraft systems also are sparking privacy concerns and legislation.

At least 347 state and local police, sheriff, fire and emergency units in the United States have acquired drones, according to an April report by Center for the Study of the Drone at Bard College.

“More and more departments in the public safety space, particularly in law enforcement, are acquiring drones for a range of operations,” says Dan Gettinger, co-director of the research group.

Continue reading “Drone usage by local police, fire departments quickly increasing” »

The Poás Volcano in Costa Rica is home to two crater lakes, and they could not be more different. The first fills an inactive crater, its water is clear blue and its rim lush with vegetation. The other could be accurately described as a hell hole.

Laguna Caliente—literally hot lagoon in Spanish—derives its hellish qualities from the churning of magma underneath the active crater. Sulfur-rich vapor rises out of the lake, gagging anyone unlucky enough to get a whiff and poisoning anyone unlucky enough to get too many whiffs. The water itself is three times as acidic as battery acid. And every once in awhile, a rumbling below shoots a jet of hot, acidic water into the sky. It’s not the kind of place where you want to paddle a boat.

So Guy van Rentergem decided to build a drone boat. Van Rentergem visited Laguna Caliente in 2015 with friends and volcanologists, but he is not a volcanologist himself. However he is a chemist, a constant tinkerer, and a long-time caver who’s worked with geologists in the past. Next year, he told his colleagues, he’s coming back with an autonomous boat so they can map the bottom of the lake.

Continue reading “The Tough Little Drone Ship That Explores Acid Lakes” »

You can control this swarm of tiny robots with your gestures.

• Feature
• Computing
• Hardware

We Could Build an Artificial Brain Right Now.

Large-scale brainlike systems are possible with existing technology—if we’re willing to spend the money.