Lifeboat Foundation

Interacting with people through brainwaves either via technology or a telepathic six sense has been long explored in the genre of science-fiction: in Hollywood blockbuster X-Men the character Professor X is telepathic and has the ability to tap into and read other people’s minds.

While the concept of telepathy or thought-controlled communication was once thought to be a futuristic concept or a concept reserved only for the realm of science-fiction, technology today is advancing fast, with the world soon to expect the commercialisation of holograms as explored in The Time Machine, autonomous cars as seen in iRobot and now brainwave communication like in X-Men.

While science-fiction explores the dark side of these technologies, the real world is exploring a multitude of applications to enhance and improve people’s everyday lives.

Continue reading “New Zealand startup Thought-Wired allows people with severe disabilities to communicate using their brain waves” »

My new story for VentureBeat on the coming of robot bodyguards. I’ll be speaking about this next week at RoboBusiness 2016, a major robotics conference in San Jose:

I recently consulted with the US Navy on all things “transhuman.” In those conversations about how science and technology can help the human race evolve beyond its natural limits, it was clear that military is keen on replacing human soldiers with both fighting and peacekeeping machines so American military lives never have to come under fire or be in harm’s way.

However, it’s the peacekeeping technology that is particularly interesting for many civilians. While you wouldn’t want an armed Terminator in your home, you might like a robot that travels with you and offers personal protection, like a bodyguard. In a survey by Travelzoo of 6,000 participants, nearly 80 percent of people said they expect robots to be a significant part of their lives by 2020 — and that those robots might even join them on holidays.

Continue reading “The robot bodyguard is coming — and you’ll want one” »

TAIPEI — Leading graphics chip designer Nvidia said on Wednesday that it had formed a partnership with Foxconn Technology Group and Quanta Computer to develop servers that offer artificial intelligence capabilities.

“In the long term, artificial intelligence computing has the largest market potential, as every data center in the future will have artificial intelligence,” Chief Executive Jen-Hsun Huang told an audience at a tech forum in Taipei on Wednesday.

The development of next-generation technologies including connected devices, driverless cars and smart cities require servers that can handle massive amounts of data, images and videos.

Continue reading “Nvidia links up with Foxconn, Quanta on AI servers” »

Google DeepMind is working on progressive neural networks to bring us closer to a multi-functional ‘general’ artificial intelligence (AI), but we are still some distance away.

One of the world’s largest package delivery companies is stepping up efforts to integrate drones into its system.

UPS has partnered with robot-maker CyPhy Works to test the use of drones to make commercial deliveries to remote or difficult-to-access locations.

The companies began testing the drones on Thursday, when they launched one from the seaside town of Marblehead. The drone flew on a programmed route for 3 miles over the Atlantic Ocean to deliver an inhaler at Children’s Island.

Continue reading “UPS testing drones for use in its package delivery system” »

Do you still think that the father of Artificial Intelligence was Alan Turing? You definitelly need to know this name: John McCarthy.

A self-driving car may someday have to decide between your life and the lives of others. But how should the car choose? If you don’t know how to make that decision, that’s okay — Washington doesn’t either.

That’s one big takeaway in a new, lengthy document from the Department of Transportation that lays out options to make autonomous vehicles safer–and represents the most public sign of the attention self-driving cars are getting from politicians despite their inability to vote.

Quantum computing pioneers want to patent AI telerobotics controlled by humans, and monkeys.

New rules of the road for robot cars coming out of Washington this week could lead to the eventual extinction of one of the defining archetypes of the past century: the human driver.

While banning people from driving may seem like something from a Kurt Vonnegut short story, it’s the logical endgame of a technology that could dramatically reduce — or even eliminate — the 1.25 million road deaths a year globally. Human error is the cause of 94 percent of roadway fatalities, U.S. safety regulators say, and robot drivers never get drunk, sleepy or distracted.

Autonomous cars already have “superhuman intelligence” that allows them to see around corners and avoid crashes, said Danny Shapiro, senior director of automotive at Nvidia Corp., a maker of high-speed processors for self-driving cars.

Continue reading “Get Ready For Freeways That Ban Human Drivers” »