“The dinosaurs became extinct because they didn’t have a space program. And if we become extinct because we don’t have a space program, it’ll serve us right!”
Larry Niven, quoted by Arthur Clarke in interview at space.com, 2001.
Quotations collected by Sylvia Engdahl about why expansion into space is vital to the future survival of humankind, many of them from well-known people.
The game of Go has long been viewed as the most challenging of classic games for artificial intelligence due to its enormous search space and the difficulty of evaluating board positions and moves.
Google DeepMind introduced a new approach to computer Go with their program, AlphaGo, that uses value networks to evaluate board positions and policy networks to select moves. These deep neural networks are trained by a novel combination of supervised learning from human expert games, and reinforcement learning from games of self-play. Without any lookahead search, the neural networks play Go at the level of state-of-the-art Monte-Carlo tree search programs that simulate thousands of random games of self-play. DeepMind also introduce a new search algorithm that combines Monte-Carlo simulation with value and policy networks. Using this search algorithm, our program AlphaGo achieved a 99.8% winning rate against other Go programs, and defeated the European Go champion by 5 games to 0. This is the first time that a computer program has defeated a human professional player in the full-sized game of Go, a feat previously thought to be at least a decade away.
Lonestar developed by Texas A&M is a possible tool that prospectors can utilize to locate mining opportunities on asteroids.
Astronauts fired this small, rectangular hunk from the International Space Station today. The payload will separate into two autonomous satellites as part of a research program to take us one tiny step closer towards making asteroid mining a reality.
If we ever want to mine asteroids, we’re going to need to step up our game for multiple satellites sharing data and working together. A pair of Texan universities are working together on a four-mission sequence to create a pair of robots that can autonomously rendezvous and dock in space. The project is called Low Earth Orbiting Navigation Experiment for Spacecraft Testing Autonomous Rendezvous and Docking — or Lonestar if you ignore the D.
Fractured space is the title of this article which highlights the drastic changes occurring in space. However, it does raise a question around “what could be the broader impacts resulting from future space colonization and mining operations on asteroids and planets/ moons?”
Pretty much the only time I compete online is in the world of MOBAs. Fractured Space has been going through a huge amount of changes, tweaks and updates but is heading firmly towards the ultimate goal of a final build. It’s a good start setting off in a sci-fi universe as pretty much every single MOBA worth playing is set in a fantasy world. There’s nothing wrong with orks and elves gameplay but giant capital ships blasting away at each other in deep space holds a greater appeal to me. First though, Fractured Space has a lovely new video to take a look at so sit back enjoy.
A few alterations to the core MOBA gameplay set Fractured Space apart from the rest. Team wide resources are a consideration with the team holding the most outposts generating the most resources. The key to winning the battle of resources is undoubtedly to maintain control of the gas mining station that resides in the centre of the map. There are only short windows of opportunity to take control of the station however and you can be sure that a battle will take place whenever the timer allows it. It’s such a valuable resource that you just can’t ignore it.
Turns out water ice is quite abundant on the Plutonian surface:
New data from NASA’s New Horizons spacecraft point to more prevalent water ice on Pluto’s surface than previously thought.
This false-color image, derived from observations in infrared light by the Ralph/Linear Etalon Imaging Spectral Array (LEISA) instrument, shows where the spectral features of water ice are abundant on Pluto’s surface. It is based on two LEISA scans of Pluto obtained on July 14, 2015, from a range of about 67,000 miles (108,000 kilometers).
The scans, taken about 15 minutes apart, were stitched into a combined multispectral Pluto “data cube” covering the full hemisphere visible to New Horizons as it flew past Pluto. A data cube like this is a three-dimensional array in which an image of Pluto is formed at each LEISA-sensitive wavelength.
Google is working in secret at a spaceport in New Mexico to build and test solar-powered internet drones in a new initiative codenamed Project SkyBender, according to a report from The Guardian today. The company is reportedly renting 15,000 square feet of hangar space from Virgin Galactic — the commercial spaceflight outfit of business mogul Richard Branson — at the privately owned Spaceport America located near a town called Truth or Consequences. The lynchpin of Project SkyBender appears to be cutting-edge millimeter wave technology, which can transmit gigabits of data every second at speeds up to 40 times faster than modern 4G LTE.
Millimeter waves are thought to be the future of high-speed data transmission technology, and may form the backbone of 5G mobile networks. Aereo founder Chet Kanojia’s new startup Starry announced earlier this week it would use millimeter wave tech to bring gigabit internet speeds to people’s homes via Wi-Fi. Millimeter waves have much shorter range than current smartphone signals and are easily disrupted by weather conditions like rain, fog, and snow. Using what’s called a phased array, however, Google and others could potentially focus the transmissions over greater distances.
Google is currently testing the technique with a new solar-powered drone called Centaur and other units made by a division known as Google Titan, which the company formed after it acquired drone maker Titan Aerospace in 2014. The company has a deal with the FCC to continue testing until July, according to The Guardian. It’s also paying Virgin Galactic about $1,000 a day to use its hanger, as well as an additional $300,000 to Spaceport America to construct installations with servers, millimeter wave transceivers, and other tech onsite.
Overall, this is a good article. However, for AI to truly take off across industry; you must understand the industries that you’re trying to enable. I keep finding this gap in all of the AI discussions.
Yes, we have opportunities in the consumer space; however, if you truly want to be embraced by industry to enable it’s front and back office operations you must ensure that the AI that you’re developing can easily support and enable businesses. Granted not all AI belongs in business and are sometimes better suit for the consumer space or government and vice versa. However, when designing and developing AI; you truly have to know up front who is your primary targeted audience and remain focused towards that audience.
Dr. Kailash Nadh, who holds a PhD in artificial intelligence from London’s Middlesex University and is the CTO of financial technology firm Zerodha, talks about why AI hasn’t picked up yet and what lies in the future.
Posted in 3D printing, business, computing, economics, employment, engineering, habitats, quantum physics, robotics/AI, space | Leave a Comment on World Economic Forum Report: Existing Workforce Must Prepare, Re-Skill & Up-Skill for Impending Fourth Industrial Revolution
Finally, folks are getting the real picture around re-tooling and retraining folks for new jobs in an oncoming AI future. In my posts; I have highlighted the need for governments and businesses to retrain people as well as ensure that their is some level of funding established to assist displaced workers, and especially as we see the maturity of Quantum in the AI space this will definitely be a must.
“If every tool, when ordered, or even of its own accord, could do the work that befits it… then there would be no need either of apprentices for the master workers or of slaves for the lords.” – Aristotle.
Humans have such a love/hate relationship with technology that it’s almost comical. All of our own creation, once we’ve perfected amazing innovations, we often turn on them–when convenient. As the PC became common and marketed toward the masses in the 80s, a new world of automation, both good and bad, was predicted. As mad scientists tucked away in secret, underground labs began creating evil robots in a slew of sci-fi movies that we consumed greedily, along with becoming affectionate toward machines like C-3P0 and R2-D2 just birthed in what would be a continuing pop subculture with a momentum of its own, our imaginations ran wild. Fearmongers cited that automation would make many jobs obsolete; robots would begin doing what was left as an economic apocalypse ensued for the human race.
In truth, the birth of the computer created a huge industry of jobs, from manufacturing and maintenance to advanced software engineering and entire IT departments. And although it’s been predicted through the ages that robots would begin doing all of our tasks, how many of us are actually employing robots in the home or office–and how many people do you know who lost their jobs because it was given to a humanoid instead? Probably none. But still, yes, there are whispers saying that may change one day soon. And while we’ve all heard that talk for decades past, it is undeniable that innovation on nearly every level has been accelerated recently, and is predicted to continue as 3D printing, artificial intelligence, and robotics evolve–just as a few examples.
Interesting
(JNS.org) Shefa Yamim, an Israeli exploration and mining company, announced that it has discovered rare minerals near Israel’s port city of Haifa.
A report prepared by geologist William Griffin of Australia’s Macquarie University examined the mineral samples of corundum stones sent to him by Shefa Yamim, which found the stones in several sites in the Kishon River. The corundum stones contain a variety of rare minerals, including Moissanite and tistarite.
“Until now, [tistarite] has been found on a single meteorite that came from outer space; this has been the first find in nature in nature of this mineral, whose source is deep inside the Earth,” Shefa Yamim said, Haaretz reported.
Mining in space — could there be gold on those planets and stars? Some investors believe there are or at least something as good as gold.
Investment firms, which typically have viewed space as far too risky, are suddenly courting the industry.
