Lifeboat Foundation

The race is on to develop the first senescent cell clearance therapies (a.k.a., “senolytics”) to reverse the aging process and treat age-related diseases.

Anyone who has heard of Bitcoin knows that it is built on a mechanism called The Blockchain. Most of us who follow the topic are also aware that Bitcoin and the blockchain were unveiled—together—in a whitepaper by a mysterious developer, under the pseudonym Satoshi Nakamoto.

That was eight years ago. Bitcoin is still the granddaddy of all blockchain-based networks, and most of the others deal with alternate payment coins of one type or another. Since Bitcoin is king, the others are collectively referred to as ‘Altcoins’.

But the blockchain can power so much more than coins and payments. And so—as you might expect—investors are paying lots of attention to blockchain startups or blockchain integration into existing services. Not just for payments, but for everything under the sun.

Think of Bitcoin as a product and the blockchain as a clever network architecture that enables Bitcoin and a great many future products and institutions to do more things—or to do these things better, cheaper, more robust and more secure than products and institutions built upon legacy architectures.

Continue reading “Is a Blockchain a Blockchain if it Isn’t?” »

Editor’s note: This is a guest post by Matt O’Brien.

As the hype and pessimism around blockchain technology converge toward reality over the next several years, one certainty emerging among Wall Street and Main Street traders is that advancements in platform technology will profoundly change how commonly used securities known as derivative contracts will be traded. The distributed ledgers inconceivable just a couple of years ago are on the precipice of ushering in a new era of innovative financial engineering and precision in risk management.

Wall Street firms are beginning to tinker with blockchain and smart contract technology that will allow buyers, sellers and central clearing houses of derivative trades to share information, such as KYC (Know Your Customer), in real time across various distributed ledger platforms unleashing incredible efficiencies.

Continue reading “Blockchain Technology Will Profoundly Change the Derivatives Industry” »

Virtual Reality is finally happening after years of existing only in science fiction or as underwhelming prototypes. While Oculus Rift is certainly a big deal due to the financial support from Facebook, there are other compelling options on the market. One particularly impressive bit of hardware is the HTC Vive, which features a variety of great games and immersive motion controls.

The below video showcases several of the most exciting games on the HTC Vive, which headset purchasers will be ready to play as long as they have a gaming PC that meets the minimum requirements to be VR ready.

Great move to my friends at D-Wave! Nice.

BUDAPEST, HUNGARY—(Marketwired — May 10, 2016) — D-Wave Systems Inc., the world’s first quantum computing company, 1QB Information Technologies Inc. (1QBit), a quantum software firm, and financial industry experts today announced the launch of Quantum for Quants (quantumforquants.org), an online community designed specifically for quantitative analysts and other experts focused on complex problems in finance. Launched at the Global Derivatives Trading & Risk Management conference in Budapest, the online community will allow quantitative finance and quantum computing professionals to share ideas and insights regarding quantum technology and to explore its application to the finance industry. Through this community, finance industry experts will also be granted access to quantum computing software tools, simulators, and other resources and expertise to explore the best ways to tackle the most difficult computational problems in finance using entirely new techniques.

“Quantum computers enable us to use the laws of physics to solve intractable mathematical problems,” said Marcos de López de Prado, Senior Managing Director at Guggenheim Partners and a Research Fellow at Lawrence Berkeley National Laboratory’s Computational Research Division. “This is the beginning of a new era, and it will change the job of the mathematician and computer scientist in the years to come.”

Experts in finance, mathematics, computer science and physics have agreed to participate as editors and content contributors of the community, including:

Continue reading “D-Wave Systems and 1QBit Partner With Financial Industry Experts to Launch Quantum for Quants Online Community” »

Hydro powered spacecraft to be the first to mine an astroid.

A few months back, Luxembourg—a tiny country better known for world-class pastries— announced its intention to become a leader in asteroid mining. Now, Luxembourg has revealed the first step in its plan to fill the banking vaults with space-grade platinum: a small, water-powered spacecraft.

http://gizmodo.com/luxembourg-wants-to-be-a-world-leader-in-…1756860361

Continue reading “A Tiny, Water-Powered Spacecraft Could Be the First to Mine Asteroids” »

Deep Space Industries and the Luxembourg Government announce partnership to commercialize space resources.

Asteroid mining company Deep Space Industries, together with the Luxembourg Government and the Société Nationale de Crédit et d’Investissement (SNCI), the national banking institution in Luxembourg, have signed an agreement formalizing their partnership to explore, use, and commercialize space resources as part of Luxembourg’s spaceresources.lu initiative.

The Luxembourg Government will work with Deep Space Industries to co-fund relevant R&D projects that help further develop the technology needed to mine asteroids and build a supply chain of valuable resources in space.

Continue reading “Prospector-X™: An International Mission to Test Technologies for Asteroid Mining” »

Barclays bots.

As part its efforts to become the most intelligent bank Barclays Africa, a subsidiary Absa, announced on Tuesday that it would pilot a chatbot that relies on artificial intelligence to simulate intelligent conversation through written or spoken text with customers online.

The pilot will be implemented within the coming few weeks, making it the first bank to do so in Africa.

Continue reading “Barclays will be the first bank to employ chatbot in Africa to handle online banking queries” »

I am not surprised by this; I do expect this given the existing cyber threat risks around AI especially around the existing under pinning technology/ platforms and net infrastructures.

The finance world is cautiously optimistic about the future of artificial intelligence and how it can be used, but, there is more work needed on regulating the technology when it comes to world markets.

“Financial institutions have been fined billions of dollars because of illegality and compliance breaches by traders. A logical response by banks is to automate as much decision-making as possible, hence the number of banks enthusiastically embracing AI and automation,” said Baker and McKenzie head of financial services regulation Arun Srivastava.

Continue reading “Finance actually wants more regulation because of the rise of artificial intelligence fintech in the world’s markets” »