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Archive for the ‘internet’ category: Page 257

Sep 14, 2017

Silicon Valley’s cryptocurrency boom

Posted by in categories: cryptocurrencies, internet

For the unwary, ICOs represent an even bigger risk, as uncertainty about how they should be regulated means most lack even basic protection of securities laws that governed the dotcom IPOs. As pure digital events, the online fundraisings are also exposed to familiar internet frauds, from phishing scams used to rip off the unwary to the hacking of the underlying software underpinning the new ventures — the fate that befell the first prominent ICO last year, for a company called the DAO.


Flood of initial coin offerings is aimed at bypassing Google and Amazon, but sceptics fear a bubble.

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Sep 12, 2017

Glowing Crystal Has the Quantum Internet Within Reach

Posted by in categories: internet, quantum physics

And the key element is already found in fluorescent lights and old TVs.

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Sep 8, 2017

High-speed quantum memory for photons

Posted by in categories: computing, internet, particle physics, quantum physics

Physicists from the University of Basel have developed a memory that can store photons. These quantum particles travel at the speed of light and are thus suitable for high-speed data transfer. The researchers were able to store them in an atomic vapor and read them out again later without altering their quantum mechanical properties too much. This memory technology is simple and fast and it could find application in a future quantum Internet. The journal Physical Review Letters has published the results.

Even today, fast in telecommunication networks employs short light pulses. Ultra broadband technology uses optical fiber links through which information can be transferred at the speed of light. At the receiver’s end, the transmitted information has to be stored quickly and without errors so that it can be processed further electronically on computers. To avoid transmission errors, each bit of information is encoded in relatively strong light pulses that each contain at least several hundreds of photons.

For several years, researchers all over the world have been working on operating such networks with single photons. Encoding one bit per is not only very efficient, but it also allows for a radically new form of information processing based on the laws of physics. These laws allow a single photon to encode not only the states 0 or 1 of a classic bit, but also to encode a superposition of both states at the same time. Such quantum bits are the basis for that could make unconditionally secure communication and super fast quantum computers possible in the future. The ability to store and retrieve single photons from a quantum memory is a key element for these technologies, which is intensively investigated.

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Sep 1, 2017

Facebook reveals map showing where EVERY human on the planet lives

Posted by in categories: internet, mapping


Facebook has created a map showing where every single person on the planet lives, it has been revealed.

The internet giant hopes the map will help it to offer internet access to more people by creating an ‘internet in the sky’.

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Aug 29, 2017

Fearless Parent Radio

Posted by in categories: internet, neuroscience, transhumanism

I recently did a 50-min interview with Pratik Chougule on transhumanism:


#105 — What is Transhumanism? ** August 23, 2017 Guest // Zoltan Istvan ** Host // Pratik Chougule, JD

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Aug 24, 2017

The Great US-China Biotechnology and Artificial Intelligence Race

Posted by in categories: biotech/medical, economics, health, internet, mobile phones, robotics/AI, security

The risk factor is that iCarbonX is handling more than personal data, but potentially vulnerable data as the company uses a smartphone application, Meum, for customers to consult for health advice. Remember that the Chinese nascent genomics and AI industry relies on cloud computing for genomics data-storage and exchange, creating, in its wake, new vulnerabilities associated with any internet-based technology. This phenomenon has severe implications. How much consideration has been given to privacy and the evolving notion of personal data in this AI-powered health economy? And is our cyberinfrastructure ready to protect such trove of personal health data from hackers and industrial espionage? In this new race, will China and the U.S. have to constantly accelerate their rate of cyber and bio-innovation to be more resilient? Refining our models of genomics data protection will become a critical biosecurity issue.

Why is Chinese access to U.S. genomic data a national security concern?

Genomics and computing research is inherently dual-use, therefore a strategic advantage in a nation’s security arsenal.

Continue reading “The Great US-China Biotechnology and Artificial Intelligence Race” »

Aug 24, 2017

Hyperentanglement across roof tops paves the way toward a global quantum Internet

Posted by in categories: internet, quantum physics, satellites

(Phys.org)—For the first time, physicists have demonstrated that hyperentangled photons can be transmitted in free space, which they showed by sending many thousands of these photons between the rooftops of two buildings in Vienna. Hyperentanglement means that the photons are simultaneously entangled in at least two different properties—in this experiment, the researchers combined two two-dimensionally entangled properties to achieve four-dimensional hyperentanglement.

By showing that hyperentanglement transmission is feasible in the real world and not only in the lab, the physicists expect that the demonstration could one day be scaled up to establish a highly secure quantum Internet that uses satellites to quickly and securely transmit across the globe.

The physicists, led by Rupert Ursin at the Institute for Quantum Optics and Quantum Information (IQOQI) at the Austrian Academy of Sciences in Vienna, have published a paper on the distribution of hyperentanglement via atmospheric free-space links in a recent issue of Nature Communications.

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Aug 23, 2017

Quantum Internet Is 13 Years Away. Wait, What’s Quantum Internet?

Posted by in categories: internet, quantum physics, space

That’s because so much of the technology is still in its infancy. Physicists still can’t control and manipulate quantum signals very well. Pan’s quantum satellite may have been able to send and receive signals, but it can’t really store quantum information—the best quantum memories can only preserve information for less than an hour. And researchers still don’t know what material makes the best quantum memory.


A Chinese physicist hopes that quantum communications will span multiple countries by 2030. So… what’s it for?

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Aug 22, 2017

Edge computing could push the cloud to the fringe

Posted by in categories: drones, internet, robotics/AI

If the idea of processing data at the edge sounds familiar, it should. Levine points out computing has gone in massive cycles, shifting from centralized to distributed and back again, and the coming move to the edge is just another manifestation of that.

In his view, it only makes sense that the next trend will swing back to a distributed system driven by the sheer volume of Internet of Things devices. When the number of devices on the planet is no longer limited by the number of humans, it has the potential to raise the number of computers in the world by an order of magnitude, and that will force a change in the way we think about computing in the future.

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Aug 21, 2017

This new AI-composed pop song sounds like something from a Spotify playlist

Posted by in categories: internet, media & arts, robotics/AI

Note by note, machines are learning to express themselves. But if you think the fusion of artificial intelligence and music is bound to produce soulless, robotic-sounding tunes, Taryn Southern urges you to give our weird future another listen. The singer and internet personality is prepping what she calls the world’s first AI-composed album, I AM AI. Of course, others have dabbled in AI-generated music, and the finished product is not entirely computer-composed (the lyrics and vocal melodies were written by Southern), but the human intervention is minimal. The output isn’t exactly Grammy material, but it’s not far off from something you might hear on a pop playlist on Spotify.

Using AI music creation software by Amper, Southern plugged in various parameters like mood, style, and tempo to auto-compose the underlying chords and instrumentation. The album will even be distributed online through Stem, a platform that allows royalties to be divvied up between various creators. So not only will machines write music in the future, they might even get paid.

Continue reading “This new AI-composed pop song sounds like something from a Spotify playlist” »