Lifeboat Foundation: Safeguarding Humanity
Toggle light / dark theme

Blog

Category: entertainment

Is this another strategy to fight terrorism by seeing from techies and others the various ways terrorists can take every day items to create weapons?

Do you want to be a MacGyver and turn everyday household items into Decepticons? Then DARPA’s new Improv program wants you.

This sounds like a Transformers movie. Or a MacGyver episode. Heck, this could even be a precursor to Skynet and future Terminators. OK, that last one may not apply, but a new DARPA program wants people who can weaponize a toaster.

The U.S. Defense Advanced Research Projects Agency (DARPA) has launched a program called Improv and is soliciting creative minds to submit proposals on how common off-the-shelf, internet-connected items can be used as weapons.

Read more

A master player of the game Go has won his first match against a Google computer program, after losing three in a row in a best-of-five competition.

Lee Se-dol, one of the world’s top players, said his win against AlphaGo was “invaluable”.

The Chinese board game is considered to be a much more complex challenge for a computer than chess, and AlphaGo’s wins were seen as a landmark moment for artificial intelligence.

Read more

This is all the best games from every year 1952–2015.
Here is the list:

1952: Nimrod Computer Game
1958: Tennis For Two
1971: Computer Space
1972: Pong
1973: Space Race
1974: Clean Sweep
1975: Anti-Ai
1976: Blockade
1977: Indy 500
1978: Sea Wolf 2
1979: Crash
1980: Pac-Man
1981: Ms. Pacman
1982: Paratrooper
1983: Super Gridder
1983: Hunchback
1984: Sokoban
1985: Super Mario Bros
1986: Outrun
1987: Leisure Suit Larry in the Land of the Lounge Lizards.
1988: Super Mario Bros 3
1989: Xenon 2
1990: Prince Of Persia
1991: Prehistorik
1992: Wolfenstein 3D
1993: Day of the Tentacle
1994: The Lion King
1995: Command & Conquer
1996: Tomb Raider
1997: Gta
1998: Half Life
1999: Quake 3
2000: Max Payne
2001: Gta 3
2002: Serious Sam: The First Encounter
2003: Medal Of Honor Allied Assault
2004: Half Life 2
2005: World Of Warcraft
2006: Need For Speed Most Wanted
2007: Crysis
2008: Assassin’s Creed
2009: Call Of Duty Modern Warfare 2
2010: Red Dead Redemption
2011: World Of Tanks
2012: Battlefield 3
2013: Gta 5
2014: Wolfenstein The New Order
2015: Tom Clancy’s The Division

Read more

A huge milestone has just been reached in the field of artificial intelligence: AlphaGo, a program developed by Google’s DeepMind unit, has defeated legendary Go player Lee Se-dol in the first of five historic matches being held in Seoul, South Korea. Lee resigned after about three and a half hours, with 28 minutes and 28 seconds remaining on his clock. The series is the first time a professional 9-dan Go player has taken on a computer, and Lee is competing for a $1 million prize.

“I was very surprised,” said Lee after the match. “I didn’t expect to lose. [But] I didn’t think AlphaGo would play the game in such a perfect manner.” DeepMind founder Demis Hassabis expressed “huge respect for Lee Se-dol and his amazing skills,” calling the game “hugely exciting” and “very tense.” Team lead David Silver said it was an “amazing game of Go that really pushed AlphaGo to its limits.”

Read more

If and when self-driving cars become a practical reality, you’ll probably want something to do during your journeys besides chatting with passengers or checking your phone. Thankfully, Ford might have an answer. It recently obtained a patent for an “autonomous vehicle entertainment system” that would let you watch videos when you’re hands-free. Kick your vehicle into self-driving mode and a projector system could swing into action, complete with its own screen — yes, you could watch a movie while you’re on the way to visit family. Think of it as in-flight entertainment, just grounded.

As with most patents, there’s no certainty that Ford will ever use this. While the car maker is serious about autonomous vehicles, it could just as easily resort to flat-panel displays and other less dramatic hardware. There are some safety concerns, too. Do you really want the driver to be completely oblivious to road hazards? For this to work, driverless car tech will have to advance to the point where it’s truly reliable — where you can watch a 2-hour flick without worrying that your car might plow into a bus.

Read more

Personally, I cannot wait to visit historical sites where they are leveraging AR to bring history to life. Visiting Versailles or the Winter Palace in Russia and seeing historical figures acting out as they did then would be pretty amazing.

DALLAS, TX — (Marketwired) — 03/07/16 — Parks Associates today announced Glenn Hower, Research Analyst, will address the evolving virtual reality market at the Cablefax Multiscreen Summit this week in New York City.

“Virtual reality is still in its earliest days, though there are clear signs that VR is about to move from concept to market reality,” Hower said. “The big change for 2016 is the emergence of multiple players making VR headsets. The Oculus Rift is currently the most recognized brand, but HTC, Samsung, and Sony have all expanded the market with their own models, which could help move this market beyond gaming and into new use cases such as virtual field trips, training, and recreation of historical events.”

Hower will participate in the session “Virtual Reality Show: How VR-Enabled Content Will Change the Content Game” on Tuesday, March 8, at 1:25 p.m. at the Yale Club in New York City. The session examines how VR content and technology could disrupt the video content and distribution industry. Other panelists include Craig Barry, EVP, Production & Chief Content Officer, Turner Sports; Debra Sharon Davis, President & CEO, Davis Communications Group, Inc.; and Dekker Dreyer, CCO, Clever Fox.

Read more