Reality is a mathematical structure, says MIT physicist Max Tegmark — his “mathematical universe hypothesis,” reports Science Now.
“If the mathematical universe hypothesis is false, that means that the future of physics is ultimately doomed,” says Tegmark. However, “if the mathematical universe hypothesis is true, we can actually learn things about the parts of our universe we can’t see or visit. … The road ahead… read more
Is the Singularity near?
“Well, some amazing changes that are fantastically big and fantastically fast are coming our way,” says noted futurist Alvin Toffler in the much-anticipated movie, The Singularity Is Near, A True Story About the Future, available today.
The Singularity is Near stars Ramona, played by NCIS star Pauley Perrette, a superintelligent avatar (artificial-intelligence- based, human-like virtual person) created by AI wizard Ray Kurzweil (played… read more
With his 2045 Initiative, Russian Internet mogul Dmitry Itskov is looking for backers for the world’s first immortality research center.
The new venture sells itself: invest in his new research and development interest and the payoff could be immortality, reports Fortune.
A new corporate entity that the Russian multi-millionaire will formally announce at an event in June will allow investors to bankroll research into neuroscience… read more
“Google Glass might change your life, but not in the way you think. There’s something else Google Glass makes possible that no one — no one — has talked about yet, and so today I’m writing this blog post to describe it,” says Mark Hurst on Creative Good.
“It’s lifebits, the ability to record video of the people, places, and events around you, at all times. with a… read more
The global economy is on the brink of collapse. Unemployment has risen to 24%. Gas is now $42 per gallon. Brilliant creators, from artists to industrialists, continue to mysteriously disappear at the hands of the unknown.
Dagny Taggart, Vice President in Charge of Operations for Taggart Transcontinental, has discovered what may very well be the answer to a mounting energy crisis — found abandoned among the ruins… read more
The cryonics movement in Brevard lost one of its guiding lights earlier this year — at least temporarily, Florida Today reports..
Fred Chamberlain III was declared legally dead at about 12:50 a.m. on March 22 at a Scottsdale, Ariz., hospice.
Moments later, a specially trained team from Alcor began preparing Chamberlain — who founded Alcor with his wife, Linda, in 1972 in Southern California — for his… read more
At a panel discussion at SXSW Monday, Defense Distributed (DEFCAD) founder Cody Wilson unveiled that DEFCAD is working on plans to expand its efforts beyond just firearms to any controversial object users feel like uploading, including grenades and patented ones, VentureBeat reports.
Cody:
Can 3D printing be subversive? If it can, it will be because it allows us to make the important things — not trinkets, not lawn gnomes,… read more
Here is the plan. Customize several Gulfstream business jets with military engines and with equipment to produce and disperse fine droplets of sulfuric acid. Fly the jets up around 20 kilometers-significantly higher than the cruising altitude for a commercial jetliner but still well within their range. At that altitude in the tropics, the aircraft are in the lower stratosphere, reports MIT Technology Review.
The planes spray the… read more
Using scientific theories, toy ecosystem modeling and paleontological evidence as a crystal ball, 21 scientists predict we’re on a much worse collision course with Mother Nature than currently thought.
In Approaching a state-shift in Earth’s biosphere, a paper just published in Nature, the authors, whose expertise spans a multitude of disciplines, suggest our planet’s ecosystems are careenng towards an imminent, irreversible collapse.
Earth’s accelerating loss of biodiversity,… read more
The field of “artificial general intelligence” or AGI has made no progress whatever during the entire six decades of its existence, says Oxford University physicist David Deutsch in this abridged version of an essay in aeon magazine. — Ed.
It is uncontroversial that the human brain has capabilities that are, in some respects, far superior to those of all other known objects in the cosmos. It is the… read more
Baxter, is six feet tall, 300 pounds, and a robot. It could bring automation to new areas of manual work and help many U.S. manufacturers regain a competitive edge, Technology Review reports.
Almost anyone, literally, can in very short order be shown how to program it,” says Chris Budnick, president of Vanguard Plastics. “It’s a matter of a couple of minutes.”
Baxter is the first of a new… read more
Machines are becoming so intelligent that they could pose an existential threat, argues Skype founder Jaan Tallinn, Sydney Morning Herald reports.
Tallinn says human-driven technological progress has largely replaced evolution as the dominant force shaping our future as machines are becoming smarter than we are, so if we are not careful this could lead to a “sudden global ecological catastrophe”.
Computers to be better than us… read more
Dale J. Stephens‘ Hacking Your Education: Ditch the Lectures, Save Tens of Thousands, and Learn More Than Your Peers Ever Will is now available for pre-order on Amazon.com.
In Hacking Your Education, Stephens speaks to a new culture of “hackademics” who think college diplomas are antiquated.
Hackademics abandon society’s linear path to success and bend institutions to fit their own reality.… read more
TED has removed the license of TEDxWestHollywood for their planned “Brother, Can You Spare a Paradigm?” event, says the TEDxWestHollywood blog.
The takedown was only a couple of weeks before the April 14 event (and after they had spent more than a year preparing), the blog says.
In an email to Suzanne Taylor, the organizer of TEDxWestHollywood, a representative of TED outlined the objections: “And when… read more
Friday, @DARPA asked the twitterverse, “What technology from science fiction would you most like to see as science fact?”
Amusing answers, ranging from Stargate to “very tiny Rick Moranis” and Andy Levy’s “Black goo that tears apart your DNA.”
Your ideas?