Lifeboat Foundation

NASA’s Parker Solar Probe marks five successful years in space, achieving milestones like touching the Sun and collecting more than double the expected data. The mission’s continuing journey promises to deepen our understanding of space weather and the Sun’s effects on Earth. Credit: NASA GSFC/CIL/Brian Monroe.

NASA

Established in 1958, the National Aeronautics and Space Administration (NASA) is an independent agency of the United States Federal Government that succeeded the National Advisory Committee for Aeronautics (NACA). It is responsible for the civilian space program, as well as aeronautics and aerospace research. Its vision is “To discover and expand knowledge for the benefit of humanity.” Its core values are “safety, integrity, teamwork, excellence, and inclusion.” NASA conducts research, develops technology and launches missions to explore and study Earth, the solar system, and the universe beyond. It also works to advance the state of knowledge in a wide range of scientific fields, including Earth and space science, planetary science, astrophysics, and heliophysics, and it collaborates with private companies and international partners to achieve its goals.

Among NASA’s 11 winners is one long-shot prospect that could benefit greatly from some government cash.

After the U.S. government imposed crippling sanctions against select Chinese high-tech and supercomputer companies through 2019 and 2020, firms like Huawei had to halt chip development; it is impossible to build competitive processors without access to leading-edge nodes. But Jiangnan Computing Lab, which develops Sunway processors, and National Supercomputing Center in Wuxi kept building new supercomputers and recently even submitted results of their latest machine for the Association for Computing Machinery’s Gordon Bell prize.

The new Sunway supercomputer built by the National Supercomputing Center in Wuxi (an entity blacklisted in the U.S.) employs around feature approximately 19.2 million cores across 49,230 nodes, reports Supercomputing.org. To put the number into context, Frontier, the world’s highest-performing supercomputer, uses 9,472 nodes and consumes 21 MW of power. Meanwhile, the National Supercomputing Center in Wuxi does not disclose power consumption of its latest system.

The need for transparency around AI-generated content is clear, but the value of measures like watermarks is not.

A few miles away, White House aides and reporters scrambled to figure out whether a viral online image of the exploding building was in fact real.

It wasn’t. It was AI-generated. Yet government officials, journalists, and tech companies were unable to take action before the image had real impact. It not only caused confusion but led to a dip in financial markets.

Continue reading “Why watermarking AI-generated content won’t guarantee trust online” »

BERLIN, Aug 7 (Reuters) — Taiwanese semiconductor manufacturer TSMC’s (2330.TW) board of directors on Tuesday will decide in favour of building a factory in the German city of Dresden, the Handelsblatt daily reported, citing government sources in Germany.

The German government will provide 5 billion euros ($5.49 billion) to support the construction of the factory, Handelsblatt’s report said on Monday.

The German economy ministry declined to comment on the report, as did the government of the eastern state of Saxony, where Dresden is located.

NASA is cautiously testing OpenAI software with a range of applications in mind, including code-writing assistance and research summarization. Dozens of employees are participating in the effort, which also involves using Microsoft’s Azure cloud system to study the technology in a secure environment, FedScoop has learned.

The space agency says it’s taking precautions as it looks to examine possible uses for generative artificial intelligence. Employees looking to evaluate the technology are only invited to join NASA’s generative AI trial if their tests involve “public, non-sensitive data,” Edward McLarney, digital transformation lead for Artificial Intelligence and Machine Learning at the agency, told FedScoop.

In June, Microsoft announced a new Azure OpenAI tool designed for the government, which according to the company is more secure than the commercial version of the software. Last week, FedScoop reported that the Microsoft Azure OpenAI was approved for use on sensitive government systems. A representative for Microsoft Azure referred to NASA in response to a request for comment. OpenAI did not respond to a request for comment by the time of publication.

UK scientists have begun developing vaccines as an insurance against a new pandemic caused by an unknown “Disease X”.

The work is being carried out at the government’s high-security Porton Down laboratory complex in Wiltshire by a team of more than 200 scientists.

A makeshift lab in Fresno, California was illegally storing over 1,000 bioengineered mice and disease samples. Ana Kasparian and Wosney Lambre discuss on The Young Turks. https://shoptyt.com/collections/justice-is-coming.

Watch TYT LIVE on weekdays 6–8 pm ET. http://youtube.com/theyoungturks/live.

Continue reading “There Was A NASTY Illegal Lab Situation In California” »

Kenya has ordered Worldcoin to stop collecting data in the country due to privacy and security concerns.

Kenya is pumping the brakes on Worldcoin — the eyeball-scanning crypto project launched by OpenAI founder Sam Altman. The Kenyan government has ordered Worldcoin to stop collecting data in the country while it reviews the project for potential privacy and security risks, as reported earlier by Reuters.

Worldcoin is a project that uses your iris to create a unique digital identity, which you can then link to digital currencies managed through the company’s World App. The project launched last week and has had people lining up to get their eyeballs scanned by the shiny, silver orbs Worldcoin… More.

Continue reading “Kenya suspends Sam Altman’s eyeball-scanning crypto project” »