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Sep 14, 2018

Ryff lets advertisers place any virtual object into commercials and films

Posted by in categories: entertainment, robotics/AI

Ryff has a big idea that it says could turn the $23 billion product placement market upside down. Product placement is the advertising tactic of placing a branded object, like a bottle of Coca-Cola, in a scene in a movie or a TV show.

Los Angeles-based Ryff has figured out how to do this digitally with cloud technology. Ryff figures out the places in video content where virtual objects can be placed in a scene where they seem like they are a natural part of the environment. That means the objects have to be rendered realistically enough so they can be mistaken for being part of a real scene, as recorded in a movie or TV show or a commercial, said Roy Taylor, CEO of Ryff, at an event on Thursday evening.

“We are on a new platform that makes images intelligent,” Taylor said. “Ryff is the world’s first image technology company using AI and visual computing to change the way we experience entertainment.”

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Sep 14, 2018

Amazon’s Jeff Bezos launches a $2 billion ‘Day One Fund’ to help homeless families and create preschools

Posted by in categories: futurism, space travel

The fund will launch with a $2 billion commitment, split between the Day 1 Families Fund — helping homeless families — and the Day 1 Academies Fund — creating a “network of new, non-profit, tier-one preschools in low-income communities,” Bezos said.


As CEO of Amazon, founder of rocket company Blue Origin and owner of The Washington Post, Bezos is the wealthiest man in modern history, with a net worth of at least $150 billion.

Critics have long called for him to put his billions toward philanthropic efforts.

Continue reading “Amazon’s Jeff Bezos launches a $2 billion ‘Day One Fund’ to help homeless families and create preschools” »

Sep 14, 2018

What NASA satellites found around Typhoon Ompong’s eye

Posted by in category: satellites

Storms within a superstorm.

U.S. National Aeronautics and Space Administration (NASA) satellites tracking Typhoon Ompong (international name Super Typhoon Mangkhut) have found powerful storms surrounding the eye of the tropical cyclone days before its landfall over northern Luzon.

On September 13, the MODIS instrument on the Aqua satellite looked at Ompong in infrared as it was approaching the Philippines, NASA Goddard Space Flight Center’s Rob Gutro said in a blog post.

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Sep 14, 2018

Plants have their own kind of nervous system

Posted by in category: media & arts

https://www.youtube.com/attribution_link?a=BlRCHLwoCZA&u…ture=share

Model mustard plant uses the same signals as animals to relay distress.

Read more— https://scim.ag/2MsrniA

Read the research— https://scim.ag/2p4hTAE

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Sep 14, 2018

George Church talks about reversing human aging and claims they made mice live twice as long

Posted by in categories: biotech/medical, life extension

He says this has been done successfully with mice. They have mice live twice as long. They are testing aging reversal in dogs in 2018–2019. Human treatments could be available on a general basis by 2025.


George Church is developing better and better organs using pigs. They are working to slow or reverse the aging in the organs to be used for transplant.

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Sep 14, 2018

Ultrasound patch goes deep to better-monitor blood pressure

Posted by in category: biotech/medical

Earlier this year, we heard how scientists from the University of California San Diego had developed a flexible ultrasound patch that allows users to see the inner structure of irregular-shaped objects. Well, now they’ve made one that measures a patient’s blood pressure from deep within the body.

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Sep 13, 2018

Physicists plan hunt for Higgs boson pairs

Posted by in category: particle physics

![Figure][1]

The giant CMS detector at the Large Hadron Collider will search for double-Higgs events.

IMAGE: MICHAEL HOCH AND MAXIMILIEN BRICE

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Sep 13, 2018

NASA picked this West African country to find out more about an asteroid in outer space

Posted by in categories: security, space

A few factors were taken into consideration. These included security conditions, climatic conditions at that time of year, the existence of potential scientific partners, and what facilities were available.

Senegal has made great strides in astronomy and planetary sciences in recent years. That’s been largely driven by the Senegalese Association for the Promotion of Astronomy, led by Maram Kaire. Some Senegalese researchers are also involved in the African Initiative for Planetary and Space Sciences, which I head up.

And so, NASA focused its efforts in Senegal. It sent 21 teams to the country, and six to Columbia, which had less favorable climatic conditions. One team, composed of Algerian astronomers from the Centre de Recherche en Astrophysique et Géophysique, also attempted to observe the occultation in the south of Algeria.

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Sep 13, 2018

SpaceX President talks BFR and Mars exploration in laid-back Madrid Q&A session

Posted by in categories: alien life, futurism

Speaking at a Q&A session hosted for a Madrid university’s Master’s of Business Administration students, SpaceX President and COO Gwynne Shotwell talked for nearly an hour about the launch company’s next-generation BFR rocket, the reality of long-term life on Mars, and more, revealing a number of interesting tidbits in the process.

Almost entirely led by questions from the unusually well-informed audience, the graduate students and professors predominately kept the famous SpaceX exec more or less focused on the company’s future, delving into the reasoning behind BFR. Shotwell had only praise for the next-generation launch vehicle, which is targeting initial hop tests in late 2019 and its first full launches as early as 2021, a delay of several months from previous schedule estimates targeting hops in early 2019 and orbit by 2020.

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Sep 13, 2018

Opportunity, Phone Home!

Posted by in categories: cosmology, space travel

The dust is settling on the Red Planet. Is the remaining Mars Exploration Rover about to rise and shine after three months of slumber? MER Project Manager John Callas returns with a realistic yet hopeful assessment. He also tells us what Opportunity will be asked to do after we hear from her. Planetary Society Senior Editor Emily Lakdawalla returns with a preview of China’s next two missions to the Moon, one of which will make the first-ever farside landing. How close is the nearest black hole? We’ll get the answer as Bruce and Mat explore the night sky in this week’s What’s Up.

Wake up Opportunity!

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