Lifeboat Foundation: Safeguarding Humanity
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The Seoul Metropolitan Government (SMG) is the first local government in Korea to establish a metaverse platform, which has emerged as a contactless communication channel in the post-pandemic era, to start providing a new-concept public service by using the platform in its administration.

The SMG plans to establish “Metaverse Seoul” (tentatively named), a high-performance platform, by the end of next year, and create a metaverse ecosystem for all areas of its municipal administration, such as economic, cultural, tourism, educational and civic service, in three stages from next year.

Starting with the pilot program of a Bosingak Belfry virtual bell ringing event at the end of this year, the SMG will consecutively provide various business support facilities and services, including the Virtual Mayor’s Office, Seoul FinTech Lab, Invest Seoul and Seoul Campus Town, on its metaverse platform.

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Blazing along at space-record speeds that would get it from Earth to the Moon in under an hour, NASA

Established in 1958, the National Aeronautics and Space Administration (NASA) is an independent agency of the United States Federal Government that succeeded the National Advisory Committee for Aeronautics (NACA). It is responsible for the civilian space program, as well as aeronautics and aerospace research. It’s vision is “To discover and expand knowledge for the benefit of humanity.”

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Bringing global giants into the economic fight.

The world’s biggest chip-making nation is getting serious.

Japan has committed $5.2 billion (roughly 600 billion yen) toward providing support for semiconductor manufacturers in a bid to help solve the world’s ongoing chip shortage.

While the funds will go to several chipmakers, the most notable among them is the largest one in the world, Taiwan Semiconductor Manufacturing Co (TSMC), according to an initial Tuesday report from Nikkei.

Japan invests $5.2 billion in Taiwan’s giant chip-making firm TSMC also said that it would construct a new chip plant in Japan for $7 billion in a joint effort with Sony Group Corp. Understandably, the government of Japan was pleased. The remaining 200 billion yen of Japan’s new investment will be directed toward preparing other factories for multiple new projects, including one under development by the U.S. memory chipmaker Micron Technology Inc, and Japan’s Kioxia Holdings, according to the report. Japan has remained the largest chip-making industry in the world since the 1980s. But since then the nation has fought an uphill battle to maintain its competitive edge in an increasingly crowded industry, falling into a steady decline in the last three decades as economic rivals like manufacturers based in Taiwan continued to close the gap.

Full Story:

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Sooo… the inimitable Russell Brand posted a video a few weeks ago saying some amusing but largeuly inaccurate and misleading things about the Grace humanoid eldercare robot we’re making in our Awakening Health project (http://awakening.health).

Russell’s video is here: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=SDD7M1OWBDg.

I recorded this video as a sort of response, to set the record straight a bit and explain why Russell is wrong about Grace and what is the actual nature of the Awakening Health project and what are the motivations behind it!

The three main points I make in the video (but with more color and detail, so do watch the video if you’re interested!!) are:

1) Grace is there to help nurses and nursing assistants not replace or obsolete them. When she becomes an AGI she still won’t obsolete the need for human connection and human care. Elderly folks need extra help and attention right now and Grace can help. My grandfather spent the last 5 years or so of his life in an eldercare facility; it was a pretty good one, but he was still lonely and confused a lot of the time and certainly could have benefited greatly from a robot like Grace.

2) Awakening Health is a JV of Hanson Robotics and: SingularityNET (http://singularitynet.io), whose purpose is to democratize & decentralize AI. It’s all about data sovereignty and putting the control over the AI in the hands of the humans who are training and using the AI. Not about centralized tech oppression of the elderly or anyone else as Russell alludes. Actually I think I see very closely eye to eye w/ Russell Brand on the dangers of Big Tech and Big Government, though I probably more clearly see the path to a solution than he does (hint: it has to do with blockchain-meets-beneficial-AGI).

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TSMC getting half their factory paid for by the Japan government shows how concerned governments are getting about the fact that we are down to 3 companies in the world that can make high-end chips. Sony is also contributing $500 million to this factory in addition to the Japan government money.

Japan will provide 600 billion yen ($5.2 billion) as part of its fiscal 2021 supplementary budget to support advanced semiconductor manufacturers.

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After raising $1.4 billion.

Long ago, the writer Edward Albee wrote: “Good, better, best, bested.”

On a long enough timeline, this might reflect the experience of every major space firm.

Since the federal government ruled in favor of NASA’s decision to opt for SpaceX’s bid to design and deploy a Human Landing System (HLS) to the moon, it’s seemed like Elon Musk and his firm will have the lion’s share of public-private collaborations for lunar missions, and beyond. But in the coming decade, contestants for this role are lining up.

Beyond Jeff Bezos’ Blue Origin, which lost a lawsuit against NASA regarding Musk’s contract with the agency, there are other aerospace firms with their eyes on the prize. And one of them, called Sierra Space, just took a major leap toward a rivaling position in Space Race 2.0, raising $1.4 billion to, among other things, modify its Dream Catcher space vehicle for human crews, with aims to land on Mars, and “enable humanity to build and sustain thriving civilizations beyond Earth,” said Sierra Space CEO Tom Vice, in a press release from his company.

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In a recent news release 0, the company, not to be mistaken for the car company owned by BMW, claimed that the Spirit of Innovation set three new world records earlier this week. On flight tests carried out on Nov. 16, Rolls-Royce said its aircraft reached a top speed of 345.4 mph (555.9 km/h) over 1.8 miles (3 kilometers), exceeding the current record by 132 mph (213 k/h). It broke another record in a subsequent 9.3-mile (15 kilometer) flight, during which it reached 330 mph (532.1 km/h), surpassing the current record by 182 mph (292.8 km/h).

The Spirit of Innovation didn’t stop there, though. Rolls-Royce affirms that it smashed another record when it reached 9,842.5 feet (3,000 meters) in 202 seconds, beating the current record by 60 seconds. In the company’s view, it also took the title of the world’s fastest all-electric vehicle when it reached a maximum speed of 387.4 mph (623 km/h) during its flight tests.

The company’s aircraft is powered by a 400kW electric powertrain and “the most power-dense propulsion battery pack ever assembled in aerospace.” It’s part of the Accelerating the Electrification of Flight project 0, which receives half of its funding from the UK government and the Aerospace Technology Institute.

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Octopuses, crabs and lobsters will receive greater welfare protection in UK law following an LSE report which demonstrates that there is strong scientific evidence that these animals have the capacity to experience pain, distress or harm.

The UK government has today confirmed that that the scope of the Animal Welfare (Sentience) Bill will be extended to all decapod crustaceans and cephalopod molluscs.

This move follows the findings of a government-commissioned independent review led by Dr Jonathan Birch. The review drew on over 300 existing scientific studies to evaluate evidence of sentience in cephalopods (including octopuses, squid and cuttlefish) and decapods (including crabs, lobsters and crayfish).

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Experts are sounding the alarm about the threat of asteroids to life on Earth — and warning that the United States does not have a clear plan to prevent catastrophe.

Though NASA says the odds are literally one in a millennium, no US agency is explicitly responsible if space rocks are headed our way.

“No one is tasked with mitigation,” former Air Force space strategist Peter Garretson, an expert in planetary defense told Politico. “Congress did put in law that the White House identify who should be responsible, but fully four subsequent administrations so far have blown off their request.”

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RIO DE JANEIRO, Nov 16 (Reuters) — Elon Musk and Brazilian Communications Minister Fabio Faria met in Austin on Tuesday to discuss a potential partnership that would leverage SpaceX technology to bring Internet to rural schools and cut back on illegal deforestation.

In a statement, the Brazilian government said the two talked about how SpaceX and Starlink, a satellite broadband service offered by the firm, could help monitor the Amazon rainforest for illegal cutting, while also providing Internet connections to remote schools and health centers.

“We’re working to seal this important partnership between the Brazilian government and SpaceX,” Faria said, according to the statement. “Our objective is to bring Internet to rural areas and remote places, in addition to helping control fires and illegal deforestation in the Amazon rainforest.”

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