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lifeboat-minFrom Innovation to Oblivion…

The ups and downs of Bitcoin as an internet currency may be compared to the eventual demise of Google Glass due to its lack of purpose among consumers. While it does not significantly hold true for bitcoins, which apparently have a more supportive and enthusiastic followers, the path that these two have taken and will take may be substantially similar than we like to admit.

For one, Bitcoin’s staggering price decline in the recent days left some people wondering what road it will eventually take in the near future. Is it only taking a detour or is it bound for a dead end?

In the case of Google Glass, it received much attention during its inception a few years ago. It was even named by Time magazine one of the best innovations of 2012. However, despite the ingenuity behind a supposed-to-be groundbreaking invention, Google Glass lacked a tangible sense, its purpose incoherent.

Thus, after much speculation, Google recently announced that it would stop selling Glass and that the product would no longer be developed in their research division.

Will Bitcoin End Up Like Google Glass?

Google Glass and Bitcoin are connected by the revolutionary technology that made them a star in the first place. There was some genius work in each of the piece, there’s no doubt about that, but without a clear purpose of how to integrate each product into the mainstream society, it becomes pointless.

Fortunately, bitcoins may stand a chance. Though there’s a portion of the populace that thinks of bitcoins as the internet currency that’s only best suited for illegal activities, its original function, which is for faster and cheaper way of transacting online, still proves to be prevalent.

It’s true that bitcoins were way more fun before that they are now, but it cannot be denied that this cryptocurrency has opened doors for a myriad of possibilities and eliminated security vulnerabilities, in which financial institutions such as banks and credit card companies are relatively known for.

Unlike Google Glass, Bitcoin has a tangible sense, a coherent purpose, and a crystal-clear vision. That is to move around the internet with your money free from the control of the government or any institution. Since there’s nothing that precedes this work of art and technology, it has a chance of staying. Thus, Bitcoin’s game is far from over.

By — Singularity Hub

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It’s officially 2015, the year Marty McFly and Doc Brown visited in their souped up DeLorean time machine in Back to the Future Part II. There’s been a flurry of press comparing the iconic flick’s predictions to reality—and it got me thinking.

Let’s say Robert Zemeckis is making the movie today. He and cowriter Bob Gale are researching current trends in technology and projecting thirty years into the future. What vision do you think would emerge?

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by — c/net

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Elon Musk, the man who’s determined to move our civilization to Mars, will also tackle creating an Internet in space.

The CEO of Tesla Motors and SpaceX said Friday night that he will use a fleet of satellites to make the Internet speedier and to bring it to those without access, according to media reports of a private event in Seattle. Details of the plan were shared before the event with Bloomberg.

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By Erico Guizzo — IEEE Spectrum

The robot seems determined to put a bigger smile on the man’s face. “Are you smiling from the bottom of your heart?” it asks. The man chuckles. “That’s what I’m talking about,” the robot quips in a high-pitched voice. Then, just for good measure, it bows its plastic head and apologizes for being “too bossy to our CEO.”

The CEO is Masayoshi Son, founder and chairman of telecom giant SoftBank and Japan’s richest person. As such, he has overseen the development of hundreds of new products as part of a vast conglomerate of mobile-phone carriers, Internet ventures, and media companies. But last June, at a press conference outside Tokyo, Son climbed onstage to unveil a pet project: a humanoid robot named Pepper. Designed to be a companion in the home, it is the world’s first full-scale humanoid to be offered to consumers. In February, SoftBank plans to start selling it in Japan for 198,000 yen (less than US $2,000), plus a monthly subscription fee. Taiwanese electronics manufacturer Foxconn, known for building iPhones and iPads for Apple, will produce the robots.

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Quoted: “IBM has unveiled its proof of concept for ADEPT, a system developed in partnership with Samsung that uses elements of bitcoin’s underlying design to build a distributed network of devices – a decentralized Internet of Things. The ADEPT concept, or Autonomous Decentralized Peer-to-Peer Telemetry, taps blockchains to provide the backbone of the system, utilizing a mix of proof-of-work and proof-of-stake to secure transactions.”

Read the article here > http://www.coindesk.com/ibm-reveals-proof-concept-blockchain-powered-internet-things/

By –SingularityHUB

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“No, no it’s not science fiction; it’s already happening,” said Ido Bachelet to a somewhat incredulous audience member at a London event late last year. Bachelet, previously of Harvard’s Wyss Institute and faculty member at Israel’s Bar-Ilan University, is a leading figure in the field of DNA nanotechnology.

In a brief talk, Bachelet said DNA nanobots will soon be tried in a critically ill leukemia patient. The patient, who has been given roughly six months to live, will receive an injection of DNA nanobots designed to interact with and destroy leukemia cells—while causing virtually zero collateral damage in healthy tissue.

According to Bachelet, his team have successfully tested their method in cell cultures and animals and written two papers on the subject, one in Science and one in Nature.

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Voxel8

Voxel8 has created the world’s first 3D electronics printer from the ground-up. Novel conductive materials and 3D printing technology from the Lewis Research Group at Harvard University. New software crafted for the Voxel8 printer called Project Wire by Autodesk.

The Voxel8 printer truly allows you to combine electronics with novel mechanical forms. Visit voxel8.co for more information. What would you print?

http://www.voxel8.co/

By –SingularityHUB

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In 2012, University of Pittsburgh researchers released a video of Jan Scheuermann feeding herself a bite of chocolate. This, of course, wouldn’t be noteworthy but for one thing: Scheuermann is paralyzed from the neck down. She fed herself that chocolate using a brain implant and thought-controlled robotic arm—and got a taste of freedom once unthinkable.

Scheuermann’s spinocerebellar degeneration left her unable to move her limbs over a decade ago. She leapt at the chance to take part in the University of Pittsburgh study investigating brain-computer interfaces. The study’s researchers are developing a system that reads and decodes brain activity, translating it into physical action in a robotic arm and hand.

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By Jacob Kastrenakes — The Verge

Elon Musk is worried that AI will destroy humanity, and so he’s decided to donate $10 million toward research into how we can keep artificial intelligence safe. Musk, the CEO of Tesla and SpaceX, has previously expressed concern that something like what happens in The Terminator could happen in real life. He’s also said that AI is “potentially more dangerous than nukes.” The purpose of this donation is to both prevent that from happening and to ensure that AI is used for good and to benefit humanity.

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FM 2030 was at various points in his life, an Iranian Olympic basketball player, a diplomat, a university teacher, and a corporate consultant. He developed his views on transhumanism in the 1960s and evolved them over the next thirty-something years. He was placed in cryonic suspension July 8th, 2000.