Originally shared by Neuroscience News
Melding Mind and Machine: How Close Are We?
Just as ancient Greeks fantasized about soaring flight, today’s imaginations dream of melding minds and machines as a remedy to the pesky problem of human mortality. Can the mind connect directly with artificial intelligence, robots and other minds through brain-computer interface (BCI) technologies to transcend our human limitations?
Originally shared by Eldon Edwards
Cool
http://gearsofbiz.com/worlds-first-solar-powered-indoor-vertical-farm-sprouts-in-philadelphia/107166
Originally shared by David Brin
Urban quadcopter taxis will arrive soon. The software for quadcopters is very well-developed and AirBus is betting that the battery energy density is improving fast enough. Expect to see more flying taxis and services within the next few years as the technology is further developed and tested. Especially in LA, where, until last year, all high rises had to have flat-tops and heliports. That rule ironically ended just before this new era!
https://futurism.com/airbus-electric-flying-taxis-are-set-to-take-to-the-skies-next-year/
https://futurism.com/airbus-electric-flying-taxis-are-set-to-take-to-the-skies-next-year/
“Speech favorable to those in power may be close to First Amendment protection, but speech viewed as subversive to the social order is subject to significant costs.”
This is a perspective I hadn’t considered before, but it makes a lot of sense.
Originally shared by Yonatan Zunger
There’s been a widespread argument recently that the Left is calling for restrictions on the freedom of speech, and that this is either simply an attempt to restrict opposition (if argued by the Right) or that this is foolish because such restrictions will invariably be used against the Left (if argued by the Center).
But these arguments miss an important intermediate fact, which I want to call out: speech is already not free, and this lack of freedom happens in a very non-content-neutral way. Our existing speech laws and policies amount to great freedom for the expression of ideas which support existing power, but substantially less for ideas which oppose it. In that context, these calls take on a clearer meaning: they are demands to widen the marketplace of ideas by having speech policy (generally not law, but official and unofficial private and public policies) recognize the ways in which it currently fails to be content-neutral.
You’ve heard of Alan Turing. But what about Elizabeth Friedman?
Like me, she ended up in a technical profession from an arts background – but her job was breaking codes.
Originally shared by Jennifer Ouellette
This Woman Saved the Americas From the Nazis. Pioneering codebreaker Elizebeth Friedman, a poet and mother of two, smashed spy rings by solving secret messages. http://news.nationalgeographic.com/2017/10/elizebeth-friedman-codebreaker-nazi-spy-fagone/
Note his date of death.
Originally shared by The Public Domain Review
It’s #blackhistorymonth here in the UK. To celebrate we feature the letters of the writer and musician Ignatius Sancho (c.1729–1780), the first known Black Briton to vote in a British election, and the first person of African descent known to be given an obituary in the British press: https://buff.ly/2y3mUz1
Now we can all hear voices in our heads!
Originally shared by David Brin
Rent the movie The President’s Analyst. And see how it is coming true.
The trend of “dematerialization” – where goods, like CDs, first become digital, like MP3s, and then become services, like a Spotify subscription – is strong. But there are still physical things we need to move around, and increasingly it’s looking like they’ll be moved by an automated logistics chain.
It won’t be very long at all until you can order an item online, an automated factory will make it in another country, and automated trucks, ships, and drones will bring it to you – all without a human touching it, or really being aware that your order exists other than as part of a consolidated report.
Originally shared by Singularity Hub
These Autonomous Delivery Drones Will Soon Dot the Swiss Skies http://suhub.co/2y2EtPz
For positronic brain, substitute photonic brain?
Originally shared by Singularity Hub
New Photonic Synapses Mimic the Brain and Compute With Light http://suhub.co/2xRl3h5
Very relevant to my recent books, in which I depict a group of people starting a transition away from work being strongly segregated by gender.
Originally shared by Dave Higgins
Two perspectives on not conforming to gender roles:
“What I find most challenging — and something I often address in the female carpentry classes I teach — is that you feel a lot of pressure not to screw up, especially in a job that requires a lot of physicality. It’s as though your entire gender’s reputation rests on your shoulders every time you try something new.”