Lifeboat Foundation

5G is almost here — and it’s going to be incredible.

In the course of the last century, science fiction has been a harbinger of things to come. From the automatic sliding doors of Star Trek to visual communication, cyberspace, and even the moon landing, many of our present technological achievements were dreamed up in the futuristic visions of science fiction authors of the 1960s and 70s. Indeed, the fantastical world of science fiction, while not intended to be prophetic, has ended up acting as a blueprint for our modern world.

We have learned from science fiction not only the possibilities of technology, however, but also its irreconcilable dangers. Readers of the genre will recognize the many stories warning us of the hazards of space travel, mind enhancement, and artificial intelligence. These fictional accounts cautioned that if we were not careful, our freedom to transform the world around us would transmogrify into a self-enforced slavery.

Nonetheless, while many of us remembered that these were just stories, intended as speculations about a possible future—in other words, they were fiction before science—through them, we became used to the idea that any advanced technology was inherently dangerous and its use always suspect. Moreover, it became a commonplace idea that technologies whose aim was to change or transform the human being—whether genetic, biological or reconstructive—would lead to a future worthy of Mary Shelley’s Frankenstein.

For all those people wandering around our great Australian cities and spewing they can’t watch a streaming video over 4G because of network access and congestion — we’ve found a place where you can get access to a brand new 4G network that isn’t being hammered. The downside — you’ll need to travel about 384,000km to get there. Nokia and Vodafone are teaming up to put 4G on the moon.

German company PTScientists is planning the first privately-funded Moon landing in 2019, using a SpaceX Falcon 9 rocket from Cape Canaveral. Their plan is is to look at an old roving vehicle left behind back in 1972, when the last Apollo mission left the lunar surface. And, to do that, the new vehicles they’re sending up small, 1kg, base stations to transmit HD images from the moon’s surface back to earth for the first time. Audi is building the vehicles that will be used on the lunar surface.

Nokia said “The 4G network will enable the Audi lunar quattro rovers to communicate and transfer scientific data and HD video while they carefully approach and study NASA’s Apollo 17 lunar roving vehicle that was used by the last astronauts to walk on the Moon”.

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Scientific American

Scientific American Volume 318, Issue 3

Continue reading “The Untold Story of the Women Who Made the Internet” »

T he Moon will have a 4G mobile network installed next year, according to plans set out by Vodafone and Nokia.

The mission, organised by space exploration company PTScientists, will be the first ever privately-funded Moon landing.

Nokia masts will be launched on a SpaceX rocket in 2019 from Cape Canaveral Air Force Station in Florida, USA.

Continue reading “Vodafone to install 4G network on the Moon” »

Intel partners with Microsoft, Dell, HP, and Lenovo.

Intel has partnered with four major PC makers to bring 5G technology to laptops by the end of next year.

The chip giant is working with Microsoft, HP, Dell, and Lenovo to bring 5G connectivity to PCs with Intel’s XMM 8000 series modems.

Continue reading “Laptops with 5G connectivity coming next year” »

Godfrey Bloom is a member of the British Parliament. His in-your-face style of educating and shocking his peers has made him a controversial politician. He has occasionally been escorted out of the assembled parliament because of his rowdy rhetoric.

Consider the video below. Bloom offers a critical, but simple and clear explanation of the Fractional Reserve banking system used in the US and Europe. This gets to the heart of the matter! _{[continue below video]…}

Conclusion (mine, and not Mr. Bloom’s): It is in the interest of governments to use a form of money that they cannot manipulate, print, spend, hide or lend without first earning, taxing or legitimately borrowing — and then balancing the books, openly.

Continue reading “Would an ethical government surrender control of monetary policy?” »

Networks that harness entanglement and teleportation could enable leaps in security, computing and science.

• By Davide Castelvecchi, Nature magazine on February 16, 2018

Elon Musk’s company has been working on launching satellite broadband for years. Its first test starts soon.