Lifeboat Foundation

Google Fiber is heading close to home for its next location: San Francisco. Google announced this morning that it intends to bring its fast gigabit internet to “a portion of San Francisco,” specifically to apartments, condos, and affordable housing units. Details on exactly where and when are nonexistent for now, and Google suggests that we may be waiting a while to hear more.

What Google Fiber does say is that it won’t be building out its own network in San Francisco, as it’s done in many other cities. Instead, it’ll rely on existing fiber networks to provide its service. That may limit what Google can do and where it can go, but it also means a much faster path to launch. “To date, we’ve focused mostly on building fiber-optic networks from scratch,” Michael Slinger, Google Fiber’s business operations director, writes in a blog post. “Now, as Google Fiber grows, we’re looking for more ways to serve cities of different shapes and sizes.” Google Fiber is already taking this approach in a couple other markets, including Huntsville, Alabama, where earlier this week it announced plans to launch using the city’s municipal network.

As it’s done elsewhere, Google Fiber plans to provide free gigabit internet service to “some public and affordable housing properties” in San Francisco. It’s also working with a nonprofit to teach people basic internet skills, like setting up an email account and applying for jobs.

Continue reading “Google Fiber is coming to San Francisco” »

“No offense; but your robots are ugly”

Robots today (especially for home and care giver usage) will need to improve drastically. We’re still designing robots like the are a CPU for homes which frankly freaks some kids out, scares some of the elderly population that it’s too fragile to operate, and my own cat will not come near one. If robotics for home use is ever going to be adopted by the large mass of the population they will need to look less like they are a robot part of a manufacturers’s assembly line, will need a softer/ low noise sound with volume controls for those with hard of hearing, will need modifications for the deaf and blind, will all need to be a multi purpose robot that can do 2 or more types of work inside the home vacumn/ dust/ cook/ wash dishes/ wash clothes, etc., not complicated to set up and operate, reliable (not needing repairs all the time & not over heat), less bulky, better sensors to determine stairs and can climb stairs, etc.

From mowing the lawn to cooking dinner, experts say automatons are set to take over some of our most tedious tasks.

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Personally, I am not a Breitbart fan; however, I am publishing this article to highlight something that I noticed. In this article it highlighted the 3 Rules of Robotics which are old and need to be updated. One of the rules is “A robot may not injure a human being or, through inaction, allow a human being to come to harm.” is not true. Why? Because as long as criminals who have enough money and can pay others well to re-engineer/ re-program robotics; robotics can become dangerous to humans. The drones today are good examples of how stalkers are using them, drug cartels, etc.

Robotics, once the almost exclusive purview of science fiction, is now approaching a point at which it will be capable of dramatic influence over humanity. These advancements are as much a lesson in caution as in the wonder of the human imagination.

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I do believe that there will be some level of expansion of social services to help employees to be retrained for the new positions that are coming as well as assist lower skill workers to be retrained. However, the larger question is who should pay. Some people are saying tech should assist governments in retooling since the AI technology created the situation; others say it’s a governments issue only, etc. It will be interesting to say the least how the retraining program and other services are covered.

A leading artificial intelligence (AI) expert believes that societies may have to consider issuing a basic income to all citizens, in order to combat the threat to jobs posed by increased automation in the workplace.

Dr Moshe Vardi, a computer science professor at Rice University in Texas, believes that a basic income may be needed in the future as advances in automation and AI put human workers out of jobs.

Continue reading “Basic income may be needed to combat robot-induced unemployment, leading AI expert says” »

One thing that will remain with tech for many years is jobs in cyber security — even with the layer of security that Quantum technology brings in the next 10 years; there is always a migration and retirement state that can (depending on the business and systems involved) could go on for years after Quantum platforms and networks are installed.

Then in December, aided and abetted by a Republican-controlled Congress, he eradicated those minor restrictions and replaced mindless austerity with clueless profligacy.

It proposes lifting the limits entirely from 2018. “It adheres to last year’s bipartisan budget agreement, it drives down the deficit, and includes smart savigs on health care, immigration and tax reform”.

Continue reading “Obama wants to spend $19 billion on cyber security” »

https://youtube.com/watch?v=KE8yq51GVxw

Whenever, Mr Musk is ready to colonize space; Russia is ready to assist.

‘AI in perspective is not a fairytale,’ says deputy PM adding prototype astronauts will perform dangerous tasks.

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Machines could take 50% of our jobs in the next 30 years, according to scientists. While we can’t predict the future, we can imagine a world without work – one where those who own the tech get rich from it and everyone else ekes out a living, propped up by an increasingly fragile state. Meet Alice, holder of the last recognisable job on Earth, trying to make sense of her role in an automated world.

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https://youtube.com/watch?v=KE8yq51GVxw

A remotely-operated robot reproducing the minutest particulars of a human doing complicated work will be taken into space to do dangerous jobs in orbit. An operational prototype has been demonstrated to the Russian government’s military sci-tech curator.

Military robots under development in Russia won’t be limited to the battlefield only: space applications will have priority, Deputy Prime Minister Dmitry Rogozin told reporters last weekend.

Continue reading “Astro droid? Russians build human-like super-robot for remote-controlled spacewalks” »

Interesting read mostly about the SV income divide. Bottom line, is that we need technology in many ways to save humanity. I know many are questioning that remark. However, since technology has been existence, many have gained through medical treatments, research, and accessibilities to connect with people like we never did in the past. The future of tech holds great promise as a tool to help researchers and medical teams to eliminate cancer, neurological diseases and disorders, enabling the blind to see and the paralyzed to walk. The good does outweigh the bad.

Editor’s note: Income equality — a hot-button political issue — is not going to improve; technology is about to make things much worse. It will, over the next decade, begin to disrupt almost every industry, wipe out millions of jobs, and make the rich even richer. Even though everyone will be able to live better and healthier lives and benefit from the technology advances, the widening gap will cause greater resentment and create a larger cauldron of dissent. This is something we need to be prepared for, writes former Triangle tech entrepreneur-turned-academic Vivek Wadhwa.

SAN FRANCISCO - There are very few issues that Donald Trump, Bernie Sanders, Ted Cruz, and Hillary Clinton all agree on. One of them is the growing problem of inequality in income and wealth. From the extreme left to the extreme right, everyone is angry about the one percent who have the majority of the wealth. There has always been an income and wealth gap, but the divide between average worker and the very wealthy has not been so great since the Roaring Twenties. This is fueling the rise of both the Tea Party and the socialists.

Continue reading “Vivek Wadhwa: Tech industry must lead smart, civil conversation on inequality” »