Category Archives: Futurist

Theres basically no questionabout where Leonardo da Vincis Renaissance masterpiece, the Mona Lisa, is at any given moment. Barring unforeseen circumstances or the heist of the century the painting can be found in the Salle des Etats in the Louvre in Paris, France.

But when it comes to purely digital works of art like non-fungible tokens or NFTs, the answer to that question of where a given piece of art is actually stored is far more complicated.

In short, NFTs allow art collectors to prove ownership over a purely digital piece of art. That means the NFT can be an experience, a tweet, a techno song about NFTs, or even the burning of an original Banksy livestreamed on the internet.

NFTs have quickly risen to become one of the most lucrative ways for certain artists to sell their art online, all thanks to the power of the blockchain, a public ledger that allows the buyer to prove once and for all that they are the original owner of said art despite the existence of thousands of copies online.

But that raises an important question. What does the buyer actually get? Would their new-fangled piece of art, or rather the deed over said art, survive if the NFT exchange where the buyer got their piece were to fold?

In many cases, the answer appears to be no. The problem is the simple fact that the work of art itself isnt actually the NFT the NFT simply points to it.

Exactly where the art is depends on the NFT. In the most straightforward cases, the token itself is a document stored on Ethereum, a popular blockchain, that includes a simple URL to a server where the art is stored it would be far to cumbersome and expensive to store it on the Etherum blockchain itself, as CoinDesk points out.

In those cases, that effectively means that if a given NFT exchange were to fold, the original artwork would vanish with it.

To UK-based software engineer Jonty Wareing, that should give art collectors pause.

In short: Right now NFTs are built on an absolute house of cards constructed by the people selling them, Wareing argued in a Twitter thread. In other words, when the startup that sells you a given NFT shuts down, those files will disappear along with them.

A promising alternative is the InterPlanetary File System (IPFS). Just like a public blockchain ledger, IFPS attempts to decentralize where the content itself is being stored.

Rather than referring to one instance or file, like how your browser is pointing you to the HTTP address of this very webpage, IFPS points to a number of different copies of that artwork around the world.

If one were to call up said artwork, youd be connected to the nearest copy on the server closest to you.

Even then, IPFS only serves files as long as a node in the IPFS network intentionally keeps hosting it, Wareing argues in a follow-up tweet. Which means when the startup who sold you the NFT goes bust, the files will probably vanish from IPFS, too.

And as art engineer Micah Elizabeth Scott points out in a reply on Twitter, there already have been instances where some NFTs with IPFS resources are no longer being hosted anywhere.

More worryingly, Nifty Gateway, a popular NFT exchange, may already be losing NFTs on IPFS. Btw weve been tracking this for 7 days now and most of the files we check from Nifty Gateway on IPFS fail, Check My NFT, a voluntary asset ratings service that can check how well NFTs are stored, tweeted in response to Wareing.

Futurism has reached out to Nifty Gateway for comment. Well update this story is we hear back.

An NFT is also only a single deed on one given blockchain, meaning that if the entire blockchain were to vanish, the NFT would disappear along with it. That may not be as much of an issue for well-established blockchains like Ethereum, but many NFTs are being sold based on younger blockchains, as Fortune reports.

Generally speaking, there is currently no system in place to guarantee that any given NFT will persist over the years. The same cant be said about the Mona Lisa, or any physical piece of art for that matter.

NFT exchanges, however, are open to the idea of a USDA-certified-organic-style persistence seal, as CoinDesk reports.

As of right now, the hype surrounding NFTs is immense. But the trend brings up some tough questions that anybody who is willing to put down seven figures should be able to answer first.

Then again, perhaps NFTs are the embodiment of the hype itself.

When we talk about owning digital artwork, the thing we want is the glory of being the one who supported the artist, open-source advocate William Entriken told CoinDesk.

READ MORE: Its an NFT Boom. Do You Know Where Your Digital Art Lives? [Coindesk]

More on NFTs: Elon Musk Says His Techno Song NFT Isnt For Sale After All

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NFTs Have a Huge Persistence Problem - Futurism

The obvious lesson for filmmakers in the new science fiction thriller Chaos Walking is that sound recording is especially important to a story about hearing.

The men of the Prentice Town emit clouds of smoke from their heads as they think. The smoke usually carries spoken versions of their thoughts not things they actually say with their lips. Sometimes the smoke carries pictures of people they are thinking of.

They live on an Earth-like planet in the future. When they first arrived, perhaps twenty years before, there were women in their party. But the men, led by fur coat-sporting Prentice (Mads Mikkelsen), killed all the women. The explanation for this is spoken in dialog during the movie, and I couldnt hear it. The volume was too low.

When the movie is mostly about characters whose thoughts we can hear, the quality of the sound reproduction is paramount. But Chaos Walking has talking mixed low, and enough talking on top of talking that just about anyone will have trouble making out what is going on in the film.

The story is based on a novel that is usually shelved with adolescent series books. Peter Ness, the author of the books about these characters, co-wrote the screenplay.

But he wasnt responsible for the sound. One has to blame director Doug Liman, who we know from his movies Go, The Bourne Identity, and The Edge of Tomorrow. He is a capable if not a brilliant Hollywood director. Chaos Walking is not one of his more satisfactory films.

Even if we cant hear all the dialogue, though, we can still enjoy the story. In it another large space ship has traveled 80-some years from Earth to bring more settlers to the heavily-forested planet on which Prentice Town is one of the current colonies.

The heat shield on a landing capsule from that ship does not function correctly (or something) and settler Viola (played by the chilly Daisy Ridley) has to survive the crash. She is found hiding (in a barn, of course) by Todd (Tom Holland).

The ruling party from town want to control Viola (for reasons lost in the sound recording). Especially anti-woman is firebrand Aaron (David Oyelowo). There is an American in the castpop singer Nick Jonas. Not that his character is in any way important to the plot.

Of course double-talking Todd helps Viola to escape the posse Prentice has gathered. Much of the film is a record of their traveling adventures. The only interesting scene is a fight between Todd and a one-armed representative of the blackened natives of the planet.

This seems as if it would be a great opening for a discussion of dispossession by conquest, among other issues. But the movie seems to ignore this big chance, if I heard it right.

The escaping pair land in a different village, one sufficiently hospitable that Prentices gang attacks it. And then the pursuit continues, eventually leading us to a technology repair scene (acrophobia prompting) and a duel at the climax.

No, theres probably enough story here, even if many of its elements will be familiar to movie-goers.

But the other problem with the film is that the cast doesnt include any likable actors. One doesnt sympathize with Ridley or Holland. The only actor one likes in the movie is the dog. Now guess what happens to him.

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REVIEW | Futuristic 'Chaos Walking' hard to hear, though story is interesting - Manhattan Mercury

There may be far more water trapped inside Mars than we initially thought.

According to a new paper published by researchers at Caltech in the journal Science today, Mars may still hold anywhere between 30 and 99 percent of the ancient water from its lakes and oceans within its crust, with less water escaping through the planets atmosphere than previously thought.

Its an exciting prospect, suggesting that most of the water may not have disappeared into space as the planets atmosphere thinned out over the last three billion years.

Back then, scientists have theorized that Mars had enough water to cover the whole planet by an ocean 330 to around 5,000 feet deep, about half of the Atlantic ocean, according to a NASA statement on the new research.

Some of this water did escape into space via the Martian atmosphere but not all, according to the researchers.

Atmospheric escape doesnt fully explain the data that we have for how much water actually once existed on Mars, lead author and Caltech PhD candidate Eva Scheller said in the statement.

By analyzing data from a number of NASAs missions, the researchers studied how much water there was over the planets history and compared it to how much water there is in the planets atmosphere and crust now.

The researchers suggest that the two processes combined water being trapped in minerals in the planets crust and atmospheric escape could account for a relatively high percentage of observed deuterium.

Deuterium is a hydrogen atom which is heavier, because it has a proton and a neutron, when compared to its lighter counterpart, which has just a proton. This heavier hydrogen is far less likely to escape into atmosphere than its counterpart.

The team concluded that much of this water is trapped in hydrous minerals, something you can find here on Earth as well. This could account to anywhere between 30 and 99 percent of Mars total water loss in its first one to two billion years, according to the researchers, with atmospheric escape accounting for the rest.

Rather than being recycled back into the atmosphere through volcanism, the water trapped in minerals on Mars are drying out permanently. In other words, water [on Mars] is now locked up in the crust or been lost to space, according to Michael Meyer, lead scientist for NASAs Mars Exploration Program.

Theres a lot we still dont know about how much water there is on Mars right now, making it almost impossible to predict just how habitable the Red Planet is.

But we do know that Mars was likely far more habitable billions of years ago. Most excitingly, NASAs Perseverance Mars rover is exploring the Jezero crater, believed to have been an ancient lakebed several billion years ago.

It will be right there to investigate what might have been the mechanisms that caused water sequestration in these minerals in the crust, Scheller told MIT Technology Review.

READ MORE: Marss lost water may be buried beneath the planets crust [MIT Technology Review]

More on water on Mars: Scientists Just Found Three More Reservoirs of Liquid Water on Mars

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Mars' Oceans May Have Drained Into Its Interior - Futurism

A teenagers poem to account for a year under lockdown.

From this good roundupof statements andart created by US teenagers in response to the pandemic, we discovered"okay" by Brooklyn'sSuhaylah Sirajul-Islam, age 15. An excerpt:

Whats it like, being a teenager in quarantine?its the same i guess.except time passes more slowly.and youre not allowed to go outside.its feeling exhausted from all the schoolwork.and touch-starved because your friends arent there.suddenly, the two-bedroom apartment you share with five family members,finally begins to feel cramped.its feeling terrified, because you share a roomwith your covid-positive aunt, who refuses to see a doctor.and you can hear your dad, coughing through the walls.and your mom at 2 a.m., reciting quran andrushing to make tea for the both of them.she gets sick too.

The full poem is available as a pdf.

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Noah Smith makes the detailed argument that all futurism is Afrofuturism. - The Morning News

It'll come so close to Earth that you'll be able to see it with the naked eye.Earth to the Moon

An asteroid roughly the size of the Eiffel Tower passed by Earth on Friday and NASA scientists say its next flyby in 2029 might result in a collision with orbiting satellites.

On Friday night, the asteroid 99942 Apophis (named after the Ancient Egyptian demon serpent god of chaos) came within 10.4 million miles of Earth, according to Insider. While thats a comfortable distance away, NASA scientists say its going to get within 19,800 miles of the planet the next time it comes around in 2029. Thats pretty close, far less than the distance between the Earth and the Moon and its close enough to potentially collide with high-altitude communications satellites.

Dont worry if youre a little impatient to see what that might look like. NASA released an animation showing how close Apophis will get to our planet:

When the asteroid was initially discovered in 2004, some researchers calculated that it could actually impact Earth in 2029. That might explain its very,uh, heavy metal name.

Luckily, NASA now says that itll pass by without touching the planet and actually provide a chance to gather rich data from the asteroid.

The Apophis close approach in 2029 will be an incredible opportunity for science, said Marina Brozovi, a radar scientist with NASAs Jet Propulsion Laboratory in Pasadena, California. Well observe the asteroid with both optical and radar telescopes. With radar observations, we might be able to see surface details that are only a few meters in size.

Apophis is 1,120 feet wide (roughly three-and-a-half football fields) making it as wide as the Eiffel Tower is tall.

Its so large, and its flyby will be so close,that those on the ground will be able to witness it with their naked eye. Itll be closest to Earth at around 6pm ET on April 13, 2029, crossing the Atlantic ocean in just an hour. At some point, it will travel the entire width of the full Moon in a single minute and get as bright as the Little Dipper.

That distance will be able to provide scientists with ample opportunity to study it and gather data on the asteroids composition. Meanwhile, the rest of us get to be thankful that we dont have to send Bruce Willis and a crew of oil drillers to try and blow it up for us.

Editors note 3/6/2021: This story originally misstated the distance between the Earth and the Moon. It has been updated.

READ MORE: An Eiffel Tower-sized asteroid is about to whiz by Earth. When it returns in 8 years, it could cross paths with our satellites. [Insider]

More on asteroids: Scientists Discover Water, Organic Materials on Surface of Asteroid

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NASA: This Asteroid Will Get So Close It Could Smash Into Earth's Satellites - Futurism

"This type of photography is an incredible challenge."Sun Stunner

Anew homemade photo of the Sun looks absolutely mind-blowing.

A Redditor going by the moniker TheVastReachesposted the photo to the Space subreddit showcasing their highly-detailed and processed photograph of the Sun.

Perhaps more surprisingly, the photo wasnt taken from a high-tech observatory but from the users backyard.

This photo was shot on my backyard solar telescope, they wrote on the post.

According to the TheVastReaches, the photo shows the turbulent nature of the solar chromosphere or the second of three main layers of the Suns atmosphere.

This type of photography is an incredible challenge due to the overwhelming light of the photosphere below, the user wrote. Solar images are always software-processed to reveal contrast. I took those methods as far as I could, and then some!

Along with the stunning detail of the layer, the user points out that you can also see a massive sunspot near the edge thats big enough to swallow the Earth whole!

Though TheVastReaches was able to snap the photo from their backyard, they had some powerful (and pricey) equipment to help them out.

They listed the equipment as follows: Explore Scientific AR152, Daystar Quark Chromosphere, ASI174MM-Cool, and a Celestron AVX. At the time of publishing, the hardware would cost you a hefty sub-total of nearly $4,000.

But honestly, that might be worth it for such a cool hobby and equally cool photos to show for it.After all, its still less than NASAs $10 billion James Webb space telescope.

READ MORE: I developed a unique method for processing images of the Sun for extreme detail and clarity. This photo was shot on my backyard solar telescope. [Reddit]

More on the sun: The Sharpest-Ever Image of a Sunspot Looks Like a Portal to Hell

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This Photo of the Sun Is Unlike Anything You've Ever Seen - Futurism

The Centers for Disease Control and Prevention announced today that Americans who are fully vaccinated against COVID-19 can gather in small numbers indoors, The New York Times reports.

Other precautions, including social distancing and masking, are still in effect in public spaces.

Fully vaccinated means that at least two weeks have elapsed since a given person has received their second Pfizer or Moderna shot, or a single dose of the one-shot Johnson & Johnson vaccine.

In effect, as the Times points out, fully vaccinated grandparents are now able to visit their unvaccinated families without having to mask up or socially distance.

There are some activities that fully vaccinated people can begin to resume now in the privacy of their own homes, CDC director Rochelle Walensky said in a statement, as quoted by The Wall Street Journal. Everyone even those who are vaccinated should continue with all mitigation strategies when in public settings.

The recommendation did come flush with caveats and asterisks. For instance, the CDC noted that we still dont know for sure if those who are fully vaccinated are no longer at risk of spreading the virus unknowingly and without showing any symptoms. New discoveries in that area could change the guidelines.

We know that people want to get vaccinated so they can get back to doing the things they enjoy with the people they love, Walensky said.

To date, almost 60 million Americans have received at least one dose, while roughly half of those have been fully vaccinated, according to CDC data.

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CDC: People Who Are Fully Vaccinated Can Gather Indoors - Futurism

A Starship explosion has never looked this good.Big Boom

SpaceXs Starship SN10 prototype experienced a bit of an oopsie after managing to land.

The tower of stainless steel decided to give up the ghost several minutes after touchdown on Wednesday, going up in a massive plume of flames just like its two predecessors SN8 and SN9.

RIP SN10, honorable discharge, Musk tweeted after the event.

Courtesy of space launch photography YouTube account Cosmic Perspective, we can relive the event in incredible slow motion, including the sounds of a cheering crowd near the launch pad.

The rocket can be seen popping like an over-carbonated soda can, erupting into a gigantic fireball. Moments later, pieces of whats left of the rocket can be seen careening back to the surface below, landing with a satisfying thud.

The footage is detailed enough to show individual pieces of steel being flung in every direction.

It wont be long until we see the next full-scale Starship prototype fly. The next prototype, called SN11, is ready to roll out to the pad in the very near future, said John Insprucker, who was hosting Wednesdays live stream, as quoted by SpaceNews.

READ MORE: SpaceX Starship SN10 landing and explosion slowmotion [YouTube]

More on Starship: Theres a Robodog Walking Around the Site of the SpaceX Starship Explosion

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The Starship Landing Looks Absolutely Incredible in Slow Motion - Futurism

Apple's rumoured VR headset may be closer than we think after Apple analyst Ming-Chi Kuo gave a release window in a research note with TF International Securities (via MacRumors).

Kuo predicts Apple's mixed reality headset will be released by mid-2022, along with the Apple AR glasses by 2025. There's even word of futuristic AR contact lenses by 2030, which gives us a decade to get used to putting in contact lenses for those of us who get squeamish at the thought.

"We predict that Apple's MR/AR product roadmap includes three phases: helmet type by 2022, glasses type by 2025, and contact lens type by 20302040," stated Kuo. "We foresee that the helmet product will provide AR and VR experiences, while glasses and contact lens types of products are more likely to focus on AR applications."

The analyst also believes the headset will be lighter than other VR headsets with a weight of around 100g-200 grams and will have an emphasis on portability with its own chip and storage, much like the popular Oculus Quest 2. He also expects it to be priced at $1,000 in the U.S.

A previous rumour about the Apple VR headset from The Information stated it would have a $3,000 price tag, with 8K displays and advanced technology for eye-tracking. It also said the VR headset would release in 2022. This could mean various headset models will be coming out, including a premium edition and budget option.

The 2025 Apple AR glasses are also expected to feature micro OLED displays, and according to Kuo, will offer a see-through AR experience. We can imagine it beaming maps and messages into the user's field of vision, with the glasses being controlled through an iPhone.

As for the smart contact lenses? Apparently, Kuo says it will usher in the era of "invisible computing." Not much more was said, but Minority Report definitely comes to mind.

VR headsets have already hit mainstream thanks to the Oculus Quest 2, giving us next-gen experiences from VR exercising to VR dating. Apple is clearly looking to jump on that bandwagon and wants to get its foot in the door for AR contact lenses if what Kuo states is true.

Today's best Oculus Quest 2 deals

Read more:
Apple AR/VR headset to arrive in 2022 followed by futuristic smart contact lenses (report) - Laptop Mag

The Justice Ministry is to spend 2.5 million on a new futuristic compound in al Far to securely store assets recovered from crime, minister Edward ZammitLewis has said.

Plans of the new building housing the Asset Recovery Bureau were unveiled during a news conference on Tuesday.

The four-storey building will preserve recovered from criminal activities, including jewellery, works of art, boats, trailers and cars.

According to designers EMDP, the concept for the building is derived from traditional Maltese architecture such as porticos, forts and muxrabija to highlight the compound's function as a "secure heaven" and a "discrete sentinel".

Speaking at a press conference, Zammit Lewis explained that in terms of the law the bureau can confiscate assets from people suspected of having acquired them from the proceeds of crime. Such assets can be seized at the start of legal proceedings.

The Asset Recovery Bureau was set up by legislation in 2015 but its operations were stunted, with some regulations not having been brought into force for a couple of years, parliament heard last week

Asked in Parliament at the end of 2018 how much the ARB had recovered since 2017, then Justice Minister Owen Bonnici said the bureau confiscated 1,500 in August 2018 and 1,260 in October 2018.

In 2019, Times of Malta had reported thatthe bureau was left in the lurch after both the Police Commissioner and Inland Revenue Commissioner said they were short of staff to assign full-time officers to work there.

It was also announced in 2019 thatthe bureau had entered into a project with Wilsons Auctions, to provide technical assistance in the management, disposal and valuation services for crime-related assets.

The bureau ended up in hot water last year when it sold off a Ferrari owned by a suspected drug dealer, despite him never being convicted of a crime in Malta. The court had ordered the attorney general to pay the car's original owner 70,000 in compensation.

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Futuristic 2.5 million compound to house the Asset Recovery Bureau - Times of Malta