California’s Silicon Valley’s tech gurus are famous for their technical problem-solving skills, but as we’ve all experienced, sometimes there’s a ghost in the machine, that particular gremlin that no amount of tech support seems to exorcise. But tech companies know who to call, and it’s a specialist with a seemingly unlikely skillset…
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As part of the new Breakthrough Initiatives program, Russian billionaire Yuri Milner has announced a $1 million USD prize for crafting the best message to represent humanity to potential extraterrestrial contacts.
The message, of which would be transmitted as part of the ‘Breakthrough Message’ phase of the program, where the message would be beamed to stars that would be likely to support civilizations. Astronomer Franklin Drake, one of Breakthrough Initiatives’ members, and pioneering member of earlier searches for extraterrestrial contact, says that they will automatically eliminate anything written in a human language. "Some people have foolishly composed messages in English. Big mistake," Drake warns.
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A letter denouncing the development of autonomous weapons has been published by members of the International Joint Conference on Artificial Intelligence, held in Argentina.
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Extreme levels of pollution across China are becoming catastrophic, and now Beijing has begun taking radical steps toward developing clean energy by beginning construction on a 10 square mile solar power station that will generate a massive 200 megawats of solar thermal energy.
Announced by the Qinghai development and reform commission, the plant is expected to cover 10 square miles (25.9 km²), with enough capacity to power one million households. It is also designed to store 15 hours of heat, which will enable continuous power generation. This move is expected to cut the region’s coal usage by 4.26 million tons annually, and reduce carbon dioxide emissions by 896,000 tons.
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