Lifeboat Foundation

Featured image: TransAlta / Twitter One of Tesla’s main goals is the deployment of energy generation and storage systems. These microgrids can provide electricity to homes, relieving our dependence on a mine-and-burn hydrocarbon economy. Tesla currently has over 120 operational microgrids around the world, which is an excellent confirmation of the company’s success in achieving its goals.

Security on the internet is a never-ending cat-and-mouse game. Security specialists constantly come up with new ways of protecting our treasured data, only for cyber criminals to devise new and crafty ways of undermining these defenses. Researchers at TU/e have now found evidence of a highly sophisticated Russian-based online marketplace that trades hundreds of thousands of very detailed user profiles. These personal ‘fingerprints’ allow criminals to circumvent state-of-the-art authentication systems, giving them access to valuable user information, such as credit card details.

Our online economy depends on usernames and passwords to make sure that the person buying stuff or transferring money on the internet, is really the person they are saying. However, this limited way of authentication has proven to be far from secure, as people tend to reuse their passwords across several services and websites. This has led to a massive and highly profitable illegal trade in user credentials: According to a recent estimate (from 2017) some 1.9 billion stolen identities were sold through underground markets in a year’s time.

It will come as no surprise that banks and other digital services have come up with more complex authentication systems, which rely not only on something the users know (their password), but also something they have (e.g. a token). This process, known as multi-factor authentication (MFA), severely limits the potential for cybercrime, but has drawbacks. Because it adds an extra step, many users don’t bother to register for it, which means that only a minority of people use it.

Despite COVID’s impact on the economy, many companies in the data ecosystem have not just survived but thrived. Here are some key areas to watch.

When the New Leaf Project in Vancouver gave homeless people $7,500, it helped participants turn their lives around and secure housing.

State Broadband Office Director Russ Elliott introduced the Hoh Tribe’s Economic Development Director to SpaceX Starlink. Almost overnight, the Tribe went from almost no connectivity to high-speed internet. Creative partnerships like this can help the state reach its goal to bring connectivity to every home by 2024.

Hugely informative and surprisingly candid new Cosmic Controversy episode on why the Moon is so crucial to our collective space future with Notre Dame Planetary Geologist Clive Neal. Well worth a listen.

Notre Dame Planetary Geologist Clive Neal stops by the podcast for a terrifically candid discussion of why the Moon has to be the first stop en route to Mars. We talk about why the Moon holds the key to the new Space Economy; the prospects for NASA making its 2024 Artemis mission deadline; and, why lunar samples are still being analyzed 50 years hence. Why more lunar samples and lunar seismometers are keys to understanding our inner solar system. And why it’s imperative that we revisit the Moon in a permanent way if we are ever to make Mars our own. We also mull over the politics of all of this three weeks away from a pivotal presidential election.

Today, the Department of Defense announced $600 million in awards for 5G experimentation and testing at five U.S. military test sites, representing the largest full-scale 5G tests for dual-use applications in the world. Each installation will partner military Services, industry leaders, and academic experts to advance the Department’s 5G capabilities. Projects will include piloting 5G-enabled augmented/virtual reality for mission planning and training, testing 5G-enabled Smart Warehouses, and evaluating 5G technologies to enhance distributed command and control.

“The Department of Defense is at the forefront of cutting edge 5G testing and experimentation, which will strengthen our Nation’s warfighting capabilities as well as U.S. economic competitiveness in this critical field. Through these test sites, the Department is leveraging its unique authorities to pursue bold innovation at a scale and scope unmatched anywhere else in the world. Importantly, today’s announcement demonstrates the Department’s commitment to exploring the vast potential applications and dual-use opportunities that can be built upon next-generation networks,” said Michael Kratsios, Acting Under Secretary of Defense for Research and Engineering.

The test sites include: Hill Air Force Base, Utah; Joint Base Lewis-McChord, Washington; Marine Corps Logistics Base Albany, Georgia; Naval Base San Diego, California; and Nellis Air Force Base, Las Vegas, Nevada.

“Basic income is not a favor, but a right.”

Watch Rutger Bregman’s full TED Talk to learn the case for basic universal income: http://t.ted.com/xex6cs4.

The adoption of Artificial Intelligence (AI) shouldn’t be restricted to companies, however, economies have additionally turned they give attention to build up their AI capabilities as a way to enhance growth. Developed economies just like the US, China, and EU nations are already within the race.