Lifeboat Foundation

The quest to develop hydrogen as a clean energy source that could curb our dependence on fossil fuels may lead to an unexpected place—coal. A team of Penn State scientists found that coal may represent a potential way to store hydrogen gas, much like batteries store energy for future use, addressing a major hurdle in developing a clean energy supply chain.

“We found that coal can be this geological hydrogen battery,” said Shimin Liu, associate professor of energy and mineral engineering at Penn State. “You could inject and store the hydrogen energy and have it there when you need to use it.”

Hydrogen is a clean burning fuel and shows promise for use in the most energy intensive sectors of our economy—transportation, electricity generation and manufacturing. But much work remains to build a hydrogen infrastructure and make it an affordable and reliable energy source, the scientists said.

It’s been a strange week. On the technological side, it has been exciting. Since there is the possibility that Apple announces its headset soon, all the companies are rushing to announce what they have in the pipeline before the big day. This means that these days we are going to have a lot of announcements. This and the next editions of the newsletter are going to be full of cool pieces of news.

On the work side, it has been busy, very busy. I’m also working on a cool tech prototype and I will share it with you very soon in the next few days on this blog. Be sure not to miss it! Next week I’ll also be at AWE. So the next 2–3 weeks are going to be crazy for me, so sorry if I will make the comments on the newsletter a bit shorter than usual.

Continue reading “The XR Week Peek: Leaks and rumors about Apple headset intensify, VRChat to launch Creator Economy, and more!” »

Believe it or not, one of the most important technology announcements of the past few months had nothing to do with artificial intelligence. While critics and boosters continue to stir and fret over the latest capabilities of ChatGPT, a largely unknown 60-person start-up, based out of Tel Aviv, quietly began demoing a product that might foretell an equally impactful economic disruption.

The company is named Sightful and their new offering is Spacetop: “the world’s first augmented reality laptop.” Spacetop consists of a standard computer keyboard tethered to pair of goggles, styled like an unusually chunky pair of sport sunglasses. When you put on the goggles, the Spacetop technology inserts multiple large virtual computer screens into your visual field, floating above the keyboard as if you were using a computer connected to large external monitors.

Continue reading “The End of Screens?” »

Tokyo can boast of political stability, a soaring stock market and potential victory over deflation, though longer-term challenges remain.

Summary.

As businesses and governments race to make sense of the impacts of new, powerful AI systems, governments around the world are jostling to take the lead on regulation. Business leaders should be focused on who is likely to win this race, moreso than the questions of how or even when AI will be regulated. Whether Congress, the European Commission, China, or even U.S. states or courts take the lead will determine both the speed and trajectory of AI’s transformation of the global economy, potentially protecting some industries or limiting the ability of all companies to use the technology to interact directly with consumers.

Page-utils class= article-utils—vertical hide-for-print data-js-target= page-utils data-id= tag: blogs.harvardbusiness.org, 2007/03/31:999.357112 data-title= Who Is Going to Regulate AI? data-url=/2023/05/who-is-going-to-regulate-ai data-topic= Government policy and regulation data-authors= Blair Levin; Larry Downes data-content-type= Digital Article data-content-image=/resources/images/article_assets/2023/05/May23_28_5389503-383x215.jpg data-summary=

Continue reading “Who Is Going to Regulate AI?” »

TOKYO, May 20 (Reuters) — Leaders of the Group of Seven (G7) nations on Saturday called for the development and adoption of international technical standards for trustworthy artificial intelligence (AI) as lawmakers of the rich countries focus on the new technology.

While the G7 leaders, meeting in Hiroshima, Japan, recognised that the approaches to achieving “the common vision and goal of trustworthy AI may vary”, they said in a statement that “the governance of the digital economy should continue to be updated in line with our shared democratic values”.

The agreement came after European Union, which is represented at the G7, inched closer this month to passing legislation to regulate AI technology, potentially the world’s first comprehensive AI law.

Our technological age is witnessing a breakthrough that has existential implications and risks. The innovative behemoth, ChatGPT, created by OpenAI, is ushering us inexorably into an AI economy where machines can spin human-like text, spark deep conversations and unleash unparalleled potential. However, this bold new frontier has its challenges. Security, privacy, data ownership and ethical considerations are complex issues that we must address, as they are no longer just hypothetical but a reality knocking at our door.

The G7, composed of the world’s seven most advanced economies, has recognized the urgency of addressing the impact of AI.

To understand how countries may approach AI, we need to examine a few critical aspects.

Continue reading “Generative AI Shakes Global Diplomacy At G7 Summit In Japan” »

NEW YORK, May 12 (Reuters Breakingviews) — Trying to predict how a nascent and promising technology will affect society is hubris, but history suggests people are going to have some serious leisure time if the development of artificial intelligence continues apace. Whether that makes them happy, and how the spoils will be divided, are harder to predict.

Over the past 50 years, technology has tended to grow faster than the wider economy. From 2006 to 2016, the digital economy grew at an average annual rate of 5.6% according to the U.S. Bureau of Economic Analysis, or almost four times faster than the overall output. That sort of expansion appears to be oddly consistent. Revenue earned by technology companies in Fortune’s list of the 100 biggest U.S. firms has, adjusted for inflation, increased at a similar rate for five decades.

American employee productivity has increased about 2% annually for seven decades. While higher capital intensity and more skilled labor steadily contribute, what varies more is the ability to deploy technology successfully. Sectors able to automate tasks and reduce workers, such as manufacturing, will generally see higher productivity, while others, such as education, may have a harder time. This process also takes time. In 1987, the economist Robert Solow famously said computers were visible everywhere expect in the productivity statistics. A decade later, productivity shot up.

The battery wars are heating up as the modern global economy begins transitioning to a low-carbon future.