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Category: business – Page 210

Google and Amazon are now in the oil business

Google, Microsoft, and Amazon are teaming up with Big Oil to squeeze more oil and gas out of the ground using machine learning technology.

Sources:
Brian Merchant (Gizmodo) https://gizmodo.com/how-google-microsoft-and-big-tech-are-au…1832790799
Christopher M. Matthews (Wall Street Journal) https://www.wsj.com/articles/silicon-valley-courts-a-wary-oil-patch-1532424600
Matt Novak (Gizmodo) https://paleofuture.gizmodo.com/article-from-1975-the-world-…1732903871
Kasia Tokarska
Daniel Civitarese
Ghassan AlRegib — https://ghassanalregib.info/

Google, Microsoft, and Amazon have been very vocal about their efforts to reduce the world’s dependence on fossil fuels. But as The Wall Street Journal and Gizmodo have reported, these same companies are currently teaming up with fossil fuel industry to help them squeeze as much oil and gas out of the ground as possible.

Oil has always been hard to find and hard to extract, and so the industry has teetered precariously on the edge of profitability several times over the course of its history. Over and over again, experts have predicted that we’ll soon run out of accessible, affordable oil — but so far, they’ve been wrong. Just when things look bleakest for black gold, new technology swoops in to keep the industry afloat.

Vox.com is a news website that helps you cut through the noise and understand what’s really driving the events in the headlines. Check out http://www.vox.com.

The Other MEDUSA: A Microwave Sound Weapon

MEDUSA appears to be a popular name for directed energy weapons. There’s the MEDUSA I wrote about yesterday, a high-energy beam weapon one company hopes could destroy tanks and planes. And then there’s another MEDUSA, a nonlethal microwave weapon that was briefly funded by the Navy that uses “silent audio” (the auditory effect from microwaves). In other words, it makes you hear things in your head:

Hyper_microwave_22_gr
The main goal of the Phase I project wad to design and build a breadboard prototype of a temporary personnel incapacitation system called MEDUSA (Mob Excess Deterrent Using Silent Audio). This non-lethal weapon is based on the well established microwave auditory effect (MAE). MAE results in a strong sound sensation in the human head when it is irradiated with specifically selected microwave pulses of low energy. Through the combination of pulse parameters and pulse power, it is possible to raise the auditory sensation to the “discomfort” level, deterring personnel from entering a protected perimeter or, if necessary, temporarily incapacitating particular individuals. *

The idea of the “Voice of God” weapon (a weapon that makes you hear voices in your head) has been around for a while, and this small business contract was but one one modest, and likely unrelated, offshoot of other microwave-auditory effect research. The company stated at the end of “phase one” of this research: “An operating frequency was chosen — Hardware requirements were established (commercial magnetron, high-voltage pulse former) — Hardware was designed and built — Power measurements were taken and the required pulse parameters confirmed — Experimental evidence of MAE was observed.”

50 Year Lie: Sugar industry blames fats

Whenever someone refers me to a story with alarming facts that should surprise or outrage any thinking human, my spider-sense is activated. Does the story make sense? Is it plausible? If the message contains evidence of being repeated (or forwarded to more than two friends), then whatever is claimed is almost certain to be false.

If the subject is important to me—or if there is any chance that it might influence my view of the world, I check it at Snopes. The reputable web site confirms or debunks many urban legends and all sorts of viral web hype.

You never know what you might learn at Snopes. You can easily be lured into a rabbit hole, digging into the site beyond whatever prompted your visit in the first place.

Fact-checking can be fun! For example:

Continue reading “50 Year Lie: Sugar industry blames fats” | >

Strategies for the Digital Age, Part 1

https://pixabay.com/images/id-2133976/ by Javier-Rodriguez

Life in the digital age is raising fundamental questions about the future of business and employment and hence the strategies, skills, and abilities we need to develop to survive in the next economy. This article explores two key changes that we need to start developing a core of capabilities for – namely the quest for exponential growth and the growing use of corporate venturing.

Why are these becoming important? Well, technology and the thinking it enables are driving new ideas and experiments on commercial strategies, the shape and structure of organisations, business models, and the relationship with extended ecosystems of partners. Both strategies are seen as options to drive growth and accelerate the realisation of market opportunities.

Exponential thinking is seen as a fast track approach to driving business innovation and growth. We are used to the idea of exponential growth in many fields of science and technology. For example, Moore’s Law in information technology tells us that the amount of computer power we can buy for £1,000 doubles every 18–24 months. This has inspired digital innovators to try and grow their business at the same pace or faster than the underlying technologies. The broader business world is taking notice. The stellar rates of development and growth we are witnessing for some exponential businesses in the digital domain are encouraging many organisations across literally every sector from banking to aviation to try and apply similar thinking to some or all of their activities.

Hence, it is now common to see businesses pursue a vision of doubling of revenues within three to four years and a achieving a 2-20X

Continue reading “Strategies for the Digital Age, Part 1” | >

Inside The Cryptocurrency Revolution | VICE on HBO

Bitcoin’s emergence as a global digital currency has been as revolutionary as it has been erratic. But while fledgling investors obsess over every fluctuation in the cryptocurrency market, nation-states are more interested in the underlying blockchain technology and its ability to revolutionize how business is done on the internet and beyond. VICE’s Michael Moynihan travels to Russia with Vitalik Buterin, inventor of the ethereum blockchain, to get a front-row seat to the geopolitical tug of war over Internet 3.0.

Check out VICE News for more: http://vicenews.com

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How To Build A Tougher Mind: Dr Jon Finn

Dr Shima Beigi BSc, MSc, MSc, Ph.D. founder of Mindfulness Engineering™️ and ideaXme Rich Connectedness™️ ambassador interviews Dr Jon Finn founder Tougher Minds.

Dr Jon Finn:

Jon began his career in elite sport — mainly professional football, rugby, cricket and golf. His work focused on helping people to perform to their potential. He realised that the same approach could be adapted to help a broader range of people, of all ages and in all walks of life.

So he founded Tougher Minds and began developing and delivering training in education and business to groups of varying sizes. The programmes has reached over 10,000 people during the last decade. The consultancy is now well established in the corporate sector and works with companies in the City of London, the US and Europe.

Tougher Minds’ programmes have been recognised for their effectiveness. This includes the Independent School Association’s Education Initiative of the Year award. We have also advised the Department of Education, and think-tank DEMOS on developing resilience in young people.

“In order to ensure our training is rooted in the most up to date understanding of neuroscience” Dr Finn completed a PhD at Leeds Beckett University in 2015.

Continue reading “How To Build A Tougher Mind: Dr Jon Finn” | >

7 Classic Books To Deepen Your Understanding of Artificial Intelligence

The field of artificial intelligence has never been the subject of more attention and analysis than it is today. Almost every week, it seems, a new bestselling book comes out examining the technology, business or ethics of AI.

Yet few of the topics and debates at the center of today’s AI discourse are new. While not always recognized by commentators, artificial intelligence as a serious academic discipline dates back to the 1950s. For well over half a century, many of the world’s leading minds have devoted themselves to the pursuit of machine intelligence and have grappled with what it would mean to succeed in that pursuit.

Much of the public discourse around AI in 2019 has been anticipated—and influenced—by AI thought leaders going back decades.

Randpay: a technology for blockchain micropayments that requires a recipient’s consent

Two researchers at Emercoin, a decentralized peer-to-peer (p2p) network providing secure blockchain business services, have recently developed a new technology called Randpay that only allows users to complete payments and transactions with a recipient’s consent. Using this new technology, presented in a paper pre-published on arXiv, users can also safely and easily micropay specific data values derived from sensors, individual stock quotes, downloaded pictures, search engine results, road tolls and other sources.

“Randpay opens a new niche in the ,” Oleg Khovayko, one of the researchers who developed the technology, told TechXplore. “All other micropayment technologies have minimal sum limitations because of the low bound limit of fees. With Randpay, transaction fees are reduced along with amounts. As a result, there is no payment minimum and payments can be as small as 1/100000 part of cent, if needed.”

The protocol developed by the researchers draws inspiration from a system of electronic lottery tickets based on micropayments invented by Ronald Rivest in 1997. In his work, Rivest introduced the concept of electronic lottery tickets, where there is a centralized system and payments can only go through in the presence of a trusted third party and, where possible, a ‘lottery facilitator’.