Category Archives: Futurism

Clash of the Titans

According to a recent Reutersexclusive, tech giant Apple is working on a self-driving car that could hit the market as soon as 2024. The vehicle, known as Project Titan, has been in the works for over six years.

Despite layoffs, Apple has ambitious plans for its first foray into the passenger vehicle market: a radically redesigned car battery that uses next-level technologies. The report was short on details about this new battery tech beyond it using a monocell battery design.

Tesla CEO Elon Musk reflected on the surprising announcement via Twitter Tuesday afternoon and revealed some interesting history between the two companies.

There was a time, Musk revealed, that he tried to interest Apple in buying the nascent Tesla.

During the darkest days of the Model 3 program, I reached out to Tim Cook to discuss the possibility of Apple acquiring Tesla (for 1/10 of our current value), Musk wrote in a separate tweet.

Tesla had to overcome numerous production challenges with its Model 3. The sedan faced several years of delays, with the company struggling to scale up production fast enough to meet demand. At one point, Musk resorted to sleeping on a couch at the companys factory in Fremont, California.

But Cook refused to take the meeting, Musk recalled.

Musk also weighed in on Reuters reporting that Apple will be using a next-generation battery. According to Musk, Tesla may already have implemented similar technologies in its cars.

Tesla already uses iron-phosphate for medium range cars made in our Shanghai factor, Musk wrote.

A monocell is electrochemically impossible, as max voltage is ~100X too low, he added. Maybe they meant cells bonded together, like our structural battery pack?

More on the iCar: Apple Is Reportedly Releasing a Self-Driving Car in 2024

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Elon Musk Reveals That Apple Refused to Buy Tesla - Futurism

Careful Packaging

When Google AI scientists publish work on topics deemed to be sensitive, the company subjects them to extra scrutiny and makes sure that they portray the technology in a positive light.

Starting this past summer, according to a bombshell NBC News investigation, the company imposed a sensitive topics reviewthat seems to be preventing scientists from accurately tackling the potential dangers of emerging technology especially ones developed by Google and other Alphabet companies.

Under the guise of not disclosing trade secrets, the reports suggest that Google may be more concerned with its public perception than with publishing important, well-executed research.

Maybe thats not surprising corporations arent known for their commitment to a free and open debate but it is eyebrow-raising coming from a company where the slogan used to be dont be evil.

Googles alleged mishandling of controversial topics in AI especially its recent ousting of top AI ethicist Timnit Gebru who had spoken out about issues with the company has brought the company under new scrutiny over the past several weeks. Now, Gebrus colleague Margeret Mitchell, a senior scientist at Google, is speaking up.

If we are researching the appropriate thing given our expertise, and we are not permitted to publish that on grounds that are not in line with high-quality peer review, then were getting into a serious problem of censorship, Mitchell told NBC.

Googles new review policy guides scientists to take great care to strike a positive tone, according to internal correspondence obtained by NBC. Scientists also are told to refrain from mentioning Google products when writing about sensitive topics, distancing their own work from the ethical conundrums of facial recognition, self-driving cars, and other forms of controversial technology.

For example, one paper on recommendation AI like that deployed by YouTube to suggest new videos, originally said the tech can promote disinformation, discriminatory or otherwise unfair results and insufficient diversity of content. The final version, after the review, said it could promote accurate information, fairness, and diversity of content.

READ MORE: Google told its scientists to strike a positive tone in AI research, documents show [NBC News]

More on Google: Google Ousts Top AI Ethicist

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Google Reportedly Forcing Its Researchers to Say Its Tech Is Good - Futurism

I feel like slapping all those people including myself for being so excited about 2020. I remember saying, 2020! It has an amazing ring to it. You could call me a futurist I guess, as the sound of our banging utensils to drive corona kept ringing in our ears for quite some time. The year started with me having a terrible bout of cold along with everybody else in the house. Everyone blamed each other for their Rudolph noses. None of nanis nuskas were helping so I had to rely on my fathers oft-repeated advice: Having medicine will treat the common cold in five days and not having it will treat it in paanch din. It was in this spirit of resilience that we started to believe that perhaps this testing year has come to teach us something. And indeed it did test my patience in several ways. For instance, when my arduous effort at baking was used as stapu by my kids to play hopscotch, or when the atmanirbhar decorations we (mostly me) made for our daughters birthday were crumpled in an instant and used in a paper ball fight by my angelic monsters, or when my screen time meant watching endless episodes of My Little Pony, and also when spending quality time with my partner meant I had worn out my ingenuity having practically used every position in every nook and corner of the house.

Heck, my patience was tested even before the lockdown was imposed with Trumps efforts at pronouncing Swami Vivekananda. I guess thats what set the tone for the year ahead. But it was time to take matters into my hand. And so with a resilient spirit I woke up every morning before everyone did and spent my early morning hours writing. Of course, these were disrupted with exciting activities like lighting diyas, finding the perfect utensil or instrument to make maximum noise and preparing for cyclone Nisarga. Thankfully not a single plant pot budged in our balconies leaving us relieved and the kids a bit disappointed. But I did manage to write The Lockdown Tales, a series of short stories that highlighted the triumph of the human spirit that could help us sail through tough times. I dont know if it helped anyone but it certainly did contribute towards my own sanity. Once the writing bug bit me, I completed my fourth book The 12 commandments of being a woman But as the fears and conspiracy theories around this novel virus were increasing, we all quickly packed our bags and left for Chandigarh to be with our parents. The first few weeks went into managing the protocol for them. Sanitizer to be used, and not to be kept as a show piece. Masks to be worn on face covering nose and mouth, and not to be used as tha tha worn by sardarjis on their chin to set their beards. Also, use of hands, kerchiefs and dupattas are an epic fail! No hugs and handshakes, even though papa resisted saying but he is a nice man Gawd, it took me forever to explain unlike some of us, coronavirus isnt homophobic, it likes nice men too! But these tests of patience were nothing compared to the shattering news of Sushant Singhs suicide. There was disbelief, sadness and a bigger reason to hate 2020. But what was appalling and disheartening was the way vested interests and politics rode roughshod over humanity. But this is also where I saw courage amongst many people who stood up for their beliefs. The fear of trolls came in secondary to their pursuit in seeking peace. Another major change was when the government banned 59 Chinese apps including the popular TikTok.

Again, I saw popular media influencers support those who lost their account on other apps. Humanity scored over rivalry.

The year hasnt ended and we are seeing the biggest peaceful farmers protest over three bills of agriculture reforms that were introduced in Parliament. While I see agitation, I also see humanity once again sprouting on highways and roads where the protesting farmers have started growing small crops, where they are educating the lesser fortunate with free tuition while sitting on dharna, and where they are feeding everyone including the cops. Everyone is entitled to their opinion and a progressive society is a result of these differences of opinions. But what makes it human is when the conflicts are resolved with dignity and peace. 2020 has taught me a lot.

On a lighter note, it has also taught me that common cold need not be a family experience. I once again have a seasonal cold with runny nose and sneezes. But the Covid isolation routine replete with mask and sanitizer ensured that no other family member got it. Common cold ceased to be a common experience courtesy of the coronavirus protocol. Dekha 2020 is constantly teaching us!

Views expressed above are the author's own.

END OF ARTICLE

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All the lessons that 2020 taught me - The Times of India Blog

After we got past Y2K, 2020 towered like a beacon of light, attracting the moths of prognostication. Twenty years before, the 20/20 promise of perfect vision was simply too enticing to ignore.

Some projected spectacular advances in technology, breakthroughs in health care and sweeping changes in the world order.

Few foresaw that a spiky microscopic ball would completely dominate the landscape in 2020, wreaking death, depression and recession.

Before we give 2020 one last kick in the pants, lets look back at what the past year was supposed to bring.

In 1997, futurists Peter Schwartz and Peter Leyden predicted that Americans would be voting electronically from home long before 2020 rolled around.

While the novel coronavirus prompted many states to expand mail-in voting, can you imagine the controversy that electronic home voting would have caused in the 2020 election? The lawsuits would still be flying.

Schwartz and Leyden took another flyer when they predicted that China was on the path to democracy.

The Chinese people, of course, still suffer under the yoke of authoritarian rule, and the government still draws scrutiny for human rights violations, particularly against the Uighurs, minority Muslims whove been subjected to reeducation camps.

While the idea that the Chinese intentionally unleashed the coronavirus on the rest of the world has been thoroughly discredited, theres no doubt that the Chinese government is more than capable of harming people at home and abroad.

In 2005, Ray Kurzweil, a futurist and computer scientist, wrote that by the 2020s, nanobots would be used inside the human body to feed cells and remove waste. Kurzweil projected that these nanobots would render eating and drinking obsolete.

Yuck. That sounds like an even worse 2020 than the one we got.

Kurzweil also thought that print books would be dead by 2020, greatly exaggerating the demise of an industry.

Last year, 650 million printed books sold in the United States, according to statistica.com.

Schwartz and Leyden predicted that almost every new car sold would be a hybrid in 2020 and that most would use hydrogen power.

They were a little bit off. Hybrids, plug-in hybrids and all-electric cars account for just 4% of the light vehicle market today in the United States, according to the U.S. Bureau of Transportation Statistics.

Few cars sold in the country use hydrogen power.

The Space Studies Board of the National Research Council predicted in 1996 that NASA would coordinate possible human exploratory missions to the moon and Mars within the next quarter century, explicitly projecting that humans would land on Mars by 2018.

While weve sent eight unmanned missions to Mars, men walking on the red planet are limited to fictional accounts.

And this one seems fitting to end.

Dave Evans, a futurist for Cisco Visual Networking, predicted that there would be no more need for predictions from futurists.

By 2020, predicting the future will be commonplace for the average person, he said in 2012. We are amassing unprecedented amounts of data New image and video analysis algorithms and tools will unlock this rich source of data, creating unprecedented insight. Cloud-based tools will allow anyone to mine this data and perform what-if analysis, even using it to predict the future.

Well, we certainly all could have used that technological crystal ball going into 2020. If wed known what was coming, we would have been highly motivated to build a time machine and leap a year ahead.

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Scott Underwood column: 2020 wasn't what it was cracked up to be - The Herald Bulletin

Yet another new strain of the coronavirus, called 501.V2, has surfaced in South Africa, Reuters reports prompting several countries to implement travel restrictions.

The news comes after a separate strain of the virus spread quicker than expected in the United Kingdom, causing similar travel restrictions earlier this week.

This new variant [from South Arica] is highly concerning, because it is yet more transmissible, and it appears to have mutated further than the new variant has been discovered in the U.K., British Health Secretary Matt Hancock said, as quoted by Al Jazeera.

Experts believe that the U.K. strain, called N501Y, could be up to 70 percent more transmissible than existing strains of the virus.

Public Health England, an agency run by the U.K. government, now believes it has identified two people who contracted the South African strain, The Guardian reports.

Both of [the strains] look like theyre more transmissible, Public Health England spokesperson Susan Hopkins told Al Jazeera. We have more evidence on the transmission for the UK variant because weve been studying that with great detail with academic partners. Were still learning about the South African variant.

We are seeing a much earlier and much sharper rise in the second wave or resurgence than we anticipated, Ian Sanne, a member of South Africas Ministerial Advisory Committee, told South Africas News24.

Fortunately, experts say the COVID-19 vaccines currently being administered will provide protection against the new strains.

Ugur Sahin, the CEO of German pharmaceutical company BioNTech that co-developed the first vaccine with Pfizer, said Tuesday that it is highly likely that the immune response by this vaccine also can deal with the new virus variants.

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There's Yet Another COVID Strain Spreading - Futurism

On a recent discussion on NDTV about the controversial new farm laws, activist Yogendra Yadav noted that some well-meaning agricultural experts who supported the new legislations were reading them somewhat innocently. But farmers and their leaders could smell the political intent of the laws, which they fear will leave them at the mercy of corporations, he said.

Why is this happening?

For the innocent experts and others who share their view of development, a dominant theme is that capital investment, private-sector participation, scientific expertise, technological futurism (and saviourism) need to come together as a formulaic package to catalyse rural and agrarian development.

In this formulation, politics is viewed with suspicion. Experts consider the role of facts in decision-making as being superior to values related to democracy, ecology and equity.

To them, politics is messy and must be left to politicians while experts work with sincerity to bring growth, progress and prosperity to the people. This view was reflected most recently when NITI Aayog CEO Amitabh Kant declared guilelessly during an online discussion that India was too much of a democracy to be able to effect tough reforms.

This separation of facts from values leads to the role of experts being depoliticised and simultaneously allow them to take a narrow technical view of the problems at hand.

This reductionism enables them to ride roughshod over a complicated welter of issues and to narrow them down to a set of problems that could easily be fixed by employing tools from their disciplines. For instance, in this view, poverty is seen as an engineering problem that could be solved using technology and innovation.

The experts end up providing technical fixes rather than comprehensive solutions. They remain innocent of the dangers by failing to take the ability of science to change the material and social world seriously.

For instance, in the case of the new farm laws, do we know how the Central government concluded that bypassing mandis run by Agricultural Produce Market Committees is the best possible solution to make the agricultural markets efficient in India?

Why couldnt the mandis itself be made competitive enough by incentivising more players to come there to participate in auctions? Bypassing the mandis seems easier (and faster) to the experts than working with multiple state governments to make the mandis competitive.

On their part, some experts claim that the consultations have been going on at least since 2003 when the Model Act on agriculture marketing was first discussed by the National Democratic Alliance government. However, there is no correlation between those consultations and the controversial farm laws. Those consultations are being used to provide a semblance of legitimacy to the recently passed legislation.

With this as the context, it isnt surprising that experts are reading the texts of the three laws innocently. In fact, it would have been surprising if they had actually read the political signals and other values written within these laws.

Across the divide, why are the protesting farmers, who are seemingly not experts either in law or economics, smelling the true intent of the three laws? That answer also lies within the dominant discours.

The futurism promised by the dominant discourse has not been fulfilled. A large section of rural, agrarian residents have found themselves hopping and fumbling towards a promised future without actually arriving at one.

This ever-changing destination has been a recurrent phenomenon. In this endeavour, several socio-economic shocks induced through centralised decision-making since demonetisation have aggravated their concerns. These various reforms and decisions have combined to shape their lives.

Of course, smelling the intent of the laws is one thing it is quite another to come out and protest against them. Mobilisation and protests involve the creation of a shared identity based on a homogeneous set of demands. As is apparent from the statements of farmers sitting at Delhis borders under harsh winter conditions, protests require organisational efforts and coordination among a large number of people.

They require people to leave their economic and social security momentarily and willingly to participate in protests. Besides, protests are inherently fragile.

It is not as if farmers have failed to detect the signals about declining returns from agriculture. It is about under what conditions (such as caste and class, geography, social and cultural factors) that those signals at individual and community levels get consolidated and result in protests. Some of these conditions also shape the kind of demands protesters make on their rulers.

The role of the media is also important. Amidst the dearth of rural and agrarian reporting, the news media neither detect the incipient signals from rural residents nor can it reflect their grievances. This leaves farmers no option but to take to the streets to protest against unjust laws.

Farmers in Punjab had been protesting since September. But their grievances only became newsworthy when they decided to shift their protests to Delhi early in December.

Similarly, coverage of protests in states such as Maharashtra, Karnataka and Kerala has been almost non-existent in the national news media.

It is high time we recognise the politics of expertise and shed our elitism to consider the possibility that what the protesting farmers have identified is radical interdisciplinarity. When looked at from the perspective of protesting farmers, the reforms and policy decisions break down disciplinary silos as well as the implicit (and artificial) hierarchy between disciplines that is itself a creation of the dominant discourse.

For the farmers, these combine to radically to shape their lives. Thats the smell that Yogendra Yadav was talking about. And thats what our innocent experts, thinking within their disciplinary silos, fail to appreciate.

Nikhit Kumar Agrawal is a PhD. student in the Department of Anthropology at the University of California, Los Angeles.

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Why experts believe the new agricultural laws are beneficial but farmers dont - Scroll.in

SAN DIEGO, Nov. 2, 2020 /PRNewswire/ -- In his thought-provoking book, Meek points out how the 1% has co-opted the United States political system and government, which has marginalized the American People into a separate downtrodden serfdom class of citizens.

The 62-year-old futurist explains that a perfect storm has occurred that has completely adulterated every American Government Institution that includes the Executive, Judicial, Legislative, and the Federal Reserve.

Benjamin Franklin is quoted as saying, "The ordaining of laws in favor of one part of the nation to the prejudice and oppression of another is certainly the most erroneous and mistaken policyAn equal dispensation of protection, rights, privileges, and advantages, is what every part is entitled to, and ought to enjoy."

In his abstract, Meek offers solutions to put the power back in the American People's hands. A single financial transaction tax, citizen jurists, universal income, universal education, on-line voting, and reducing the national voting age to 16.

The New Libertarian Party's (N.L.P) platform, also called the Great American Consolidation, along with the rapid adoption of Bitcoin, Blockchain, and Artificial Intelligence, will revolutionize how our government will operate within the next five years.

Meek states, "For Generations X, Y, Z, the traditional political parties offer zero solutions to a Fascist controlled government that has lost its mind and moral compass.

He further adds, "Nothing will change with the current antiquated infrastructure other than the rich getting richer."

The N.L.P genesis began at a place called Giant Rock, located in the Mohave Desert. Chad C. Meek lived here during this discovery time and witnessed the thousands of people who attended the annual space convention over three decades.

Meek's first novel and a screenplay called Giant Rock were released in 2016 and profiled his family's and others' experiences who made direct contact with extraterrestrial entities.

The people of Giant Rock created a movement led by his uncle George Van Tassel circa 1910-1978, which promoted Peace, U.F.O. disclosure, free-energy, and a non-nuclear carbon-free world.

"The ideas that my uncle and the eclectic group out at Giant Rock were able to channel from the Universal Mind were 50 years before their time."

Books available on Amazon

http://www.nlpamerican.com

http://www.giantrockthemovie.com

Media Contact:Chad Meek[emailprotected]805-308-1949

SOURCE Chad C. Meek

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Chad C. Meek, Author, Futurist Has Just Released a Book Entitled The New Libertarian Party, Revolution for America - PRNewswire

Closer Look

A new study takes the closest look yet at Psyche, an object in our solar systems asteroid belt thats thought to be the leftover core of a protoplanet that was destroyed before it could finish forming, possibly by an epic prehistoric collision that ripped off its outer layers.

In addition to taking clearer images of Psyches surface, the Southwest Research Institute study, published Monday in The Planetary Science Journal, is the first to observe the asteroid in ultraviolet, which revealed weathering effects due to being exposed in space for countless aeons. As NASA plans to launch a mission to Psyche in 2022, the new research could give the space agency a much better idea of what to expect once it arrives.

Psyche is one of the largest objects in the asteroid belt, orbiting the Sun between Mars and Jupiter. When they imaged it under UV light, the scientists found that Psyche has been gradually oxidizing thanks to solar winds.

Weve seen meteorites that are mostly metal, but Psyche could be unique in that it might be an asteroid that is totally made of iron and nickel, Southwest Research Institute scientist and study author Tracy Becker said in a press release. Earth has a metal core, a mantle and crust. Its possible that as a Psyche protoplanet was forming, it was struck by another object in our solar system and lost its mantle and crust.

If Psyche is the ghostly remains of a new planet, it would give NASA an unprecedented glimpse into whats happening beneath our feet on Earth.

What makes Psyche and the other asteroids so interesting is that theyre considered to be the building blocks of the solar system, Becker said. To understand what really makes up a planet and to potentially see the inside of a planet is fascinating.

READ MORE: Study offers more complete view of massive asteroid Psyche [Southwest Research Institute]

More on Psyche: NASA Hires SpaceX To Launch Mission To Giant Metal Asteroid

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New Images Show Leftover Planetary Core Floating Between Mars and Jupiter - Futurism

We just got our first look at an upcoming COVID movie called Songbird, produced by the one and only Michael Bay and its a doozy.

The film examines the current disaster that is 2020, and contemplates what it would be like to live under quarantine for another few years until the year 2024, when the movie is set. Is this what four more years could do to America?

The trailer paints a gloomy picture of the near future. Basically, it sounds like the dystopian timeline that nobody wants to think about right now.

Heres the premise. The number of deaths has risen to 110 million, caused by a mutated COVID-23 virus with a high mortality rate.

Yes, dear reader, this is a movie the industry wants us to actually watch.

Filmmakers Simon Boyes and Adam Mason wrote the outline for the story during lockdown this year, as Entertainment Weekly reports. Mason apparently called it a crazy idea when he pitched the idea to movie producer Adam Goodman.

Surprising nobody, there will be a love story at the center of the film.Its Romeo and Juliet, but theyre separated by her front door and by the virus, Mason told EW.

According to a press release, the protagonists of the story is an essential worker who has a rare immunity, played by teenage heartthrob KJ Apa, from Riverdale fame.

Production kicked off on July 8 in Los Angeles, the first film to be made in the city since March, according to EW. Strict safety measures made filming complicated, with crews being limited to 40 or less. It took only 17 days to complete shooting the film.

A major question remains: Whos this movie for?

This is how Sofia Carson, whos playing the love interest, pitches the movie, despite the fact that anxiety is at an all time high across much of the globe: Even though this is the pandemic thriller and its suspenseful and terrifying, the heart of a story is hope, she told EW.

READ MORE: Get your first look at pandemic thriller Songbird, starring KJ Apa [Entertainment Weekly]

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In a New Movie, COVID Mutates and America Is Still Locked Down in 2024 - Futurism

Internal Harassment

Employees at the Silicon Valley security startup Verkada were reportedly using the companys own facial recognition-equipped security cameras to take pictures of women who worked at the company and make sexually explicit comments about them.

A sales director at Verkada, which sells security cameras and facial recognition software to companies, government agencies, and police departments, took a picture of a female colleague with one of the cameras the company uses in its own office, then posted it to the company Slack channel alongside sexually explicit comments, Motherboard reports. Other employees followed suit and did the same to other women at the company and all of them are still employed.

The incident and the months it took to disclose it to the company, according to a full account of the events from IPVM shows the clash of several toxic Silicon Valley trends. At Verkada, multiple employees told Motherboard about a pervasive misogynistic, fraternity-like workplace culture thats now in spotlight for illustrating how emerging tech can be used to exploit and abuse others.

I think its 100 percent fair to say I left Verkada because of the culture, a former employee told Motherboard. The worst part of it was that it seemed like the men in this crew continued to be celebrated and remained in leadership positions. Thats how [management] has made the toxic culture theyve created okay.

The four men responsible for the sexual harassment all kept their jobs but lost some of their stock options, Motherboard reports. To women at the company and those affected by the harassment, attempts to improve workplace culture fell short.

Everyone wants to stay there for the potential money they could make, but especially for women its hard to stay there, another former employee told Motherboard. Theres no support. They dont care about you.

READ MORE: Surveillance Startup Used Own Cameras to Harass Coworkers [Motherboard]

More on work culture: The Tech Industrys Gender Problem Isnt Just Hurting Women

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Men at Facial Recognition Startup Used Its Own Tech to Sexually Harass Coworkers - Futurism