D-Wave Systems

D-Wave Systems is the world’s first and only source of quantum computing for commercial applications. We believe quantum technology in concert with classical, digital processors, can and will represent broad and significant advancements in the application of computer science. In February 2007, D-Wave unveiled and demonstrated this technology publicly for the first time. The company plans to deliver field-deployable systems in 2008.

Site – http://www.dwavesys.com

StemLifeLine

StemLifeLine is a life sciences company offering a novel service for individuals who have undergone in vitro fertilization, fulfilled their childbearing needs and now have to decide what to do with their remaining stored embryos. We can help transform these embryos into individual stem cell lines that our clients may one day use to create personalized therapies for themselves and their families. Think of our service as insurance for the future. With more than a decade of scientific research supporting the future use of embryonic stem cells and several therapies currently under development, personalized therapies based on an individual’s own genetic make-up may be just around the corner.

Site – http://www.stemlifeline.com

SENSOPAC

The SENSOPAC project will combine machine learning techniques and modelling of biological systems to develop a machine capable of abstracting cognitive notions from sensorimotor relationships during interactions with its environment, and of generalising this knowledge to novel situations. Through active sensing and exploratory actions the machine will discover the sensorimotor relationships and consequently learn the intrinsic structure of its interactions with the world and unravel predictive and causal relationships. Together with action policy formulation and decision making, this will underlie the machine’s abilities to create abstractions, to suggest and test hypotheses, and develop self-awareness. The project will demonstrate how a naïve system can bootstrap its cognitive development by constructing generalization and discovering abstractions with which it can conceptualize its environment and its own self. The continuous developmental approach will combine self-supervised and reinforcement learning with motivational drives to form a truly autonomous artificial system. Throughout the project, continuous interactions between experimentalists, theoreticians, engineers and roboticists will take place in order to coordinate the most rigorous development and testing of a complete artificial cognitive system.

Site – http://www.sensopac.org

The Singularity Summit 2007

In futures studies, the singularity represents an “event horizon” in the predictability of human technological development past which present models of the future cease to give reliable or accurate answers, following the creation of strong AI or the enhancement of human intelligence. Many futurists predict that after the singularity, humans as they exist presently won’t be the driving force in scientific and technological progress, eclipsed cognitively by posthumans, AI, or both, with all models of change based on past trends in human behavior becoming obsolete. While some regard the singularity as a positive event and work to hasten its arrival, others view the singularity as dangerous, undesirable, or unlikely. The most practical means for initiating the singularity are debated, as are how (or whether) the singularity can be influenced or avoided if dangerous. The Singularity Summit 2007 will explore these nuances. We invite you to join us.

Site – http://www.singinst.org

The Future of the Workplace: No Office, Headquarters in Cyberspace

Imagine a work world with no commute, no corporate headquarters and perhaps not even an office in the physical world at all. For Bob Flavin, a computer scientist at IBM; Janet Hoffman, an executive at a management consulting firm; and Joseph Jaffe, a marketing entrepreneur, the future is already here. Like 42 percent of IBM’s 350,000 employees, Flavin rarely comes in to an IBM office. “We don’t care where and how you get your work done,” said Dan Pelino, general manager of IBM’s global health care and life sciences business. “We care that you get your work done.” IBM says it saves $100 million a year in real estate costs because it doesn’t need the offices.

Site – http://abcnews.go.com

The Universe: Search for ET

Ray Kurzweil, SETI senior astronomer Seth Shostak, and other experts will be featured on The “Universe: Search for ET,” kicking off a new series on the History Channel, “The Universe,” Tuesday, August 28 at at 9:00pm, 8:00 Central. “In a galaxy filled with a billion stars, in a universe filled with a hundred billion galaxies–are we alone? SETI–the Search for Extraterrestrial Intelligence–is a privately funded project using radio telescopes and optical telescopes to scan the stars for signals. NASA is planning missions to Mars, Jupiter’s sixth moon, Europa, and Saturn’s largest moon, Titan, to look for primitive, microbial life in ice concentrations. Whether we discover primitive or intelligent life, how will that knowledge impact humankind’s view of itself? Cutting-edge computer graphics are used to bring the universe down to earth to show what life would be like on other planets, and to imagine what kind of life forms might evolve in alien atmospheres.”

Site – http://www.history.com

Huge Hole Found in the Universe

The universe has a huge hole in it that dwarfs anything else of its kind. The discovery caught astronomers by surprise. The hole is nearly a billion light-years across. It is not a black hole, which is a small sphere of densely packed matter. Rather, this one is mostly devoid of stars, gas and other normal matter, and it’s also strangely empty of the mysterious “dark matter” that permeates the cosmos. Other space voids have been found before, but nothing on this scale. Astronomers don’t know why the hole is there. “Not only has no one ever found a void this big, but we never even expected to find one this size,” said researcher Lawrence Rudnick of the University of Minnesota.

Site – http://www.space.com

Google Earth given celestial view

The constellations of Andromeda, Hydra and Vulpecula are now just a mouse click away for amateur star-gazers, following the launch of Google Sky. The tool is an add-on to Google Earth, a program that allows users to search a 3D rendition of our planet’s surface. Sky will allow astronomers a chance to glide through images of more than one million stars and 200 million galaxies. Optional layers allow users to explore images from the Hubble Space Telescope as well as animations of lunar cycles.

Site – http://news.bbc.co.uk

64-core chip promises to be a big leap ahead

Tilera Corp. is pioneering a new chip architecture based on MIT research and has begun to ship a 64-core processor, promising dramatic advances in powering devices for the networking and multimedia industries. Tilera claims they will deliver more than 10 times the performance of current dual-core processors and 40 times the performance of today’s digital signal processors, and can be scaled to much larger grids.

Site – http://www.boston.com

Suicide Sports Club

B_Rock is a sub label of Bedrock, set up by John Digweed with a view to promote artists whose musical fascinations transgress the boundaries of electronic dance music. Luke Branaccio and Bruce Aisher, chosen as the first producers to be released on the label, combine in their “Electric Mistress” album electronic music and rock. The result is amazing. It’s a crossover sound with diverse compelling vibes. I didn’t want to stop listening even for a while. 2 20 Girl has to be my favorite song on the album. I discovered it after hearing many remixes of the song on John Digweed’s KISS100 show.

Site – http://www.suicidesportsclub.com

Robot wars are a reality

The deployment of the first armed battlefield robots in Iraq is the latest step on a dangerous path – we are sleepwalking into a brave new world where robots decide who, where and when to kill. Already, South Korea and Israel are deploying armed robot border guards and China, Singapore and the UK are among those making increasing use of military robots. The biggest player yet is the US: robots are integral to its $230bn future combat systems project, a massive plan to develop unmanned vehicles that can strike from the air, under the sea and on land. Congress has set a goal of having one-third of ground combat vehicles unmanned by 2015. Over 4,000 robots are serving in Iraq at present, others in Afghanistan. And now they are armed.

Site – http://www.guardian.co.uk

Space to think

The fantasy worlds of his bestselling Eighties novels were uncannily prophetic, but where does the sci-fi writer go for inspiration when the future catches up on us? More than 20 years after he coined the term ‘cyberspace’, he talks to Tim Adams about the shape of things that came to pass. The present has recently caught up with William Gibson. The great prophet of the digital future, who not only coined the word ‘cyberspace’ in his debut novel Neuromancer in 1984, but imagined its implications and went a long way to suggesting its YouTube and MySpace culture, has stopped looking forwards. ‘The future is already here,’ he is fond of suggesting. ‘It is just not evenly distributed.’

Site – http://observer.guardian.co.uk