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Microsoft is partnering with Axelar to offer new blockchain-based interoperability solutions and to make artificial intelligence (AI) more widespread, through the Azure marketplace.
Information technology giant, Microsoft, has chosen Axelar for its new partnership that will enable developers to access blockchain interoperability solutions and explore artificial intelligence (AI).
The main goal is precisely to advance blockchain adoption to Web3 enterprises and startups. Not only that, developers will also be able to explore ways in which blockchain can help make AI more mainstream.
The present partnership embracing blockchain is not the first from Microsoft. Last May, for example, the tech giant along with other big firms such as Goldman Sachs, Deloitte, S&P Global and Moody’s joined together to support the launch of Canton Network.
This is a blockchain network that aims to provide companies with a decentralized infrastructure that could make transactions more efficient. Basically, Canton Network wants to connect financial systems together, enabling them to operate in a synchronized manner.
KPMG will invest at least $2 billion over the next five years with Microsoft to co-develop cloud and generative AI tools, the companies announced Tuesday.
Why it matters: Rival consulting giants like PwC and Accenture also have made large-scale commitments toward AI-powered changes.
KPMG and Microsoft also will work together to train KPMG's 265,000 global employees on how to use AI and the new products to their advantage.
The big picture: Companies across industries have been rushing to demonstrate their embrace of generative AI since OpenAI's ChatGPT stunned the world with its capabilities.
The company has published a paper that proposes a new AI transformer model variant called Microsoft LongNet. A transformer model is a type of neural network architecture that can process sequential data, such as natural language or speech. Large language models (LLM) such as GPT-4 from OpenAi, LLaMA from Meta or PaLM 2 from Google are based on a transformer model that has been trained on extensive text data.
Natural Language Processing (NLP) is the field of AI that deals with understanding and generating human language. But before we can feed text to a computer, we need to break it down into smaller pieces that the computer can handle. This process is called tokenization, and it's one of the most basic and essential steps in NLP.
Tokenization is like cutting a cake into slices: you take a large and complex text and split it into smaller and simpler units, such as words, sentences, or characters. For example, the sentence “I love NLP” can be tokenized into three words: “I”, “love”, and “NLP”.
This means LongNet is able to model long sequences and also general language tasks. David Shapiro explains that Microsoft's paper signals a push towards artificial general intelligence (AGI). He points out that the ability to have more tokens means it can accurately cover massive tasks instantly. Shapiro offers medical research as an example, where thousands of journals can be read by the AI.
By the way, that's the ability to read the entire internet all at once and within seconds. It is also worth noting that LongNet is just the start. As the concept becomes more powerful Shapiro says it will eventually be able to see trillions of tokens and even one day the entire internet. Once that happens the growth will extend beyond human capabilities and the AI could move towards AGI.
Elon Musk, who has hinted for months that he wants to build an alternative to the popular ChatGPT artificial intelligence chatbot, announced the formation of what he’s calling xAI, whose goal is to “understand the true nature of the universe.”
On a website unveiled Wednesday xAI said its team will be led by Musk and staffed by executives who have worked at a broad range of companies at the forefront of artificial intelligence, including Google’s DeepMind, Microsoft Corp. and Tesla Inc., as well as academic institutions such as the University of Toronto.
The 12 men listed on the website as of Wednesday morning (including Musk) include Jimmy Ba, an assistant professor at the University of Toronto who studied under AI pioneer Geoffrey Hinton, and Christian Szegedy, who spent years as a research scientist working on AI at Google.
In April, the Financial Times reported that Musk was holding discussions with Tesla and Space Exploration Technologies Corp. investors about helping fund an AI startup, citing unidentified people familiar with the matter. The billionaire has acquired thousands of processors from Nvidia Corp. for the new project, the paper said.
Musk, 52, now oversees six companies: Tesla, SpaceX, Twitter, Neuralink, the Boring Co. and now xAI. In regulatory filings, Tesla says the auto giant is “increasingly focused on products and services based on artificial intelligence, robotics and automation.” Tesla’s website invites people to help “build the future of artificial intelligence” with a variety of products, from the “Tesla Bot” known as Optimus to AI interface chips that will run the electric automaker’s automated driving software.
The xAI website says that it is a “separate company from X Corp,” the parent company that Musk merged Twitter into earlier this year, but that it will “work closely with X (Twitter), Tesla, and other companies.”
Announcing xAI
July 12th 2023
Today we announce the formation of xAI.
The goal of xAI is to understand the true nature of the universe.
You can meet the team and ask us questions during a Twitter Spaces chat on Friday, July 14th.
Our team is led by Elon Musk, CEO of Tesla and SpaceX. We have previously worked at DeepMind, OpenAI, Google Research, Microsoft Research, Tesla, and the University of Toronto. Collectively we contributed some of the most widely used methods in the field, in particular the Adam optimizer, Batch Normalization, Layer Normalization, and the discovery of adversarial examples. We further introduced innovative techniques and analyses such as Transformer-XL, Autoformalization, the Memorizing Transformer, Batch Size Scaling, and μTransfer. We have worked on and led the development of some of the largest breakthroughs in the field including AlphaStar, AlphaCode, Inception, Minerva, GPT-3.5, and GPT-4.
America’s leading home appliance firm Whirlpool is considering settling cross-border transactions in its factory in Argentina using the Chinese Yuan. The U.S. dollar shortage in Argentina is forcing several multinational corporations to depend on the Chinese Yuan for trade settlements. Whirlpool is not alone in its quest to ditch the U.S. dollar in Argentina as the dwindling supply of the greenback is hurting businesses. The move comes at a time when the BRICS alliance is working on the formation of a new currency.
The BRICS currency aims to end reliance on the U.S. dollar and the Chinese Yuan is benefitting from the development. Whirlpool is falling prey to the BRICS ploy and the Chinese Yuan is being used instead of the US Dollar.
Russia will start testing a digital version of its rouble currency with consumers from August, the Interfax news agency reported on Tuesday, citing the central bank.
Russia, like many countries, has been developing digital money over the last couple of years in a bid to modernise its financial system and head off cryptocurrencies like bitcoin.
The bank plans to enable users to make phone payments by integrating its digital yuan app with specialized “super SIM cards” with near-field communication capabilities.
The Bank of China, one of the largest state-owned banks in China, is currently conducting trials for a novel offline payment system that connects to SIM cards. This payment method is designed specifically for the digital yuan — China’s central bank digital currency (CBDC).
The July 10 announcement revealed the bank’s partnership with telecommunication operators China Telecom and China Unicom, and its intention to commence testing the next day.
The bank plans to enable users to make phone payments by integrating its digital yuan app with specialized “super SIM cards” with near-field communication capabilities. Users simply need to bring their mobile phones near the point of sale terminals for payment, eliminating the need to turn the phone on.
INCOMING INTEL FROM A SOURCE: He said an ICE agent that he’s become friends with told him that they have been watching Chinese nationals coming across the border in droves and dispersing to all areas of the country. He said their intel is they are here to take the grid down and disrupt infrastructure. He said they are being held back a lot from higher ups on doing anything about this.
Senators left a classified briefing on artificial intelligence Tuesday with a deeper understanding of how AI is already being used to bolster U.S. national security and the looming threat China poses as it deploys its own AI capabilities.
"I think, from a military perspective, it's very existential because China's playing for keeps," Sen. Eric Schmitt, R-Mo., told Fox News Digital after the closed-door session. "On the commercial side, there's a lot of innovation that's happening. So, it's moving quickly, but I think the best we can do right now is get a firm understanding."
Tuesday afternoon’s briefing was the first-ever classified meeting with senators and key Pentagon officials about AI. Discussion included how the U.S. is using AI to maintain its national security edge and how adversaries like China are using this emerging tool.
Chinese researchers published 850 papers pertaining to artificial general intelligence (AGI) between 2018 and 2022, indicating Beijing's efforts to create a thinking machine are real and active – possibly including research on brain/computer interfaces.
So says think tank the Center for Security and Emerging Technology (CSET) in a recently released report that claims Beijing's effort "challenges emerging global norms, underscoring the need for a serious open source monitoring program to serve as a foundation for outreach and mitigation."
While acknowledging the Beijing-area concentration, given AGI's multi-disciplinary basis and the multiple paths through which it may be realized, the possibility of breakthroughs elsewhere in China cannot be ruled out," the report states. "Limited data suggest that Beijing may be serving as China's AGI research hub for testing and deployment done elsewhere in China, in Wuhan especially."
The report asserts "China appears to be exploring multiple paths to AGI, including a potential approach not covered in this study, namely, cognitive sharing through BCIs."
BCIs are brain/computer interfaces – a meeting of wetware and hardware.
The China Mobile Research Institution (CMRI) and Origin Quantum Computing Technology Co have realized the first case of algorithm verification based on a real universal quantum computer in China, scientists said on Monday, further validating the feasibility of quantum computing for applications in mobile telecom networks, especially the next-generation 6G.
Cui Chunfeng, an official from CMRI, said that the company is the current chair of the Future Research Institute of China Mobile Research Institute, noting that China Mobile is currently in the stage of 5G operation and 6G research and development.
The CMRI and Origin Quantum signed a Memorandum of Understanding on June 30, to jointly promote the integration of quantum computing into the communication network and arithmetic network as the core of the mobile information network.
Cui said that in the future, China Mobile will design quantum algorithms with improved performance and promote progressive integration of quantum computing into the country’s high-speed mobile networks. This in turn will drive the integrated development of quantum computing and telecom industry, and explore a leapfrog path for the development of China’s mobile information network.
Aiming to empower citizens, support businesses and shape global standards, the European Commission has outlined a comprehensive strategy to navigate the transition toward Web 4.0 and the metaverse.
The European Commission adopted a robust strategy on Web 4.0 and the metaverse on July 11. This initiative is designed to create a digital environment that is open, secure and inclusive, reflecting the principles of the EU:
Europe throws its hat in the ring to become a world leader in Web 4.0 and virtual worlds.
The new internet will impact the way people live together, bringing many benefits.
And we need to have people at the centre and shape it according to our EU digital rights and principles.
By the end of 2023, the Commission will promote guiding principles for virtual worlds and develop a “Citizen toolbox” by Q1 2024. This toolbox aims to increase public awareness and foster a talent pool of virtual world specialists.
In addition, societal progress and virtual public services are key aspects of the strategy, leveraging the benefits that virtual worlds can offer. The Commission is also launching two flagship projects: “CitiVerse,” a virtual urban environment, and a European Virtual Human Twin, intended to aid in clinical decisions and personal treatments.
“The Web 4.0 and virtual worlds will bring benefits for health, contribute to the green transition and better anticipate natural disasters. But we need to have people at the centre and shape it according to our EU digital rights and principles, to address the risks regarding privacy or disinformation.”
What is Web 4.0?
Web 4.0 is the expected fourth generation of the World Wide Web. Using advanced artificial and ambient intelligence, the internet of things, trusted blockchain transactions, virtual worlds and XR capabilities, digital and real objects and environments will be fully integrated and communicating with each other, enabling truly intuitive, immersive experiences, seamlessly blending the physical and digital worlds.
Why is the Commission launching a new initiative on Web 4.0 and virtual worlds?
We are at the onset of a major technological transition, Web 4.0. Virtual worlds are an important enabler of Web 4.0 that can significantly revolutionise the daily lives of people and open a wide range of opportunities in many business and industrial ecosystems. The European Commission wants to make sure that EU society, businesses and public bodies are prepared to grasp the new opportunities, but also address the challenges that come along.
Web 4.0 (aka the #Metaverse 🥽) will allow an integration between digital and real objects and environments.
Europe has what it takes to lead this next technological transition — notably for the #industry.
originally posted by: Thoughtful2
Circling back...
originally posted by: Thoughtful2
Circling back...
Earlier excavations at the Jamestown site discovered carcasses of dogs, cats and horses consumed during the winter of 1609-10, but no evidence of cannibalized human remains. Then last August, archaeologists working as part of the Preservation Virginia Jamestown Rediscovery project (which began in 1994) found skeleton fragments belonging to a girl around the age of 14 buried in a debris-filled cellar in the Jamestown fort. After examining the bones, Douglas Owsley, a physical anthropologist at the Smithsonian National Museum of Natural History in Washington, found that the girl’s skeletal remains—including a skull, lower jaw and leg bone—all bear marks of an ax or cleaver and a knife, which he characterized as telltale marks of cannibalism.
Using technologies like synthetic biology and precision fermentation, mad scientists are concocting cultured "meat" synthetics along with other cell-based and gene-edited parodies of real food.
. Sure and
Lab-grown meat does not come from cancer cells
5G has no causal connection to COVID-19, contrary to several recent misguided online rumors.
To be fair, these health organizations also don’t completely rule out the possibility of non-ionizing radiation having some impact on human health, saying simply that more science still needs to be done on long-term exposure to it. However, virtually all of their caution relates to the possibility of causing cancer after years (or even decades) of usage – not just one month.
Specifically, they pointed out that if the signal levels being generated remain below their suggested settings, which all current devices and networks do, that public health impacts are not a concern. In fact, tests have shown that some networks in the UK function at less than 1% of the organization’s recommended levels.
frankenfood
TRUTH: Lab-grown “meat” produces 25x more carbon dioxide “pollution” than traditional animal husbandry
Food tyranny: NYC to monitor household food consumption as biotech companies take over food production
frankenfood.news...#
Gene Editing Causes Chaos in the Genome
At present, the U.S. has no specific regulations for gene edited plants. The same regulations that apply for conventional crops apply for GMOs.
Between genetically altered produce and lab-created meats, we’re getting close to not having many real, unadulterated whole food options left. Importantly, many meat alternatives fall into the category of ultraprocessed foods, which we already have far too much of.
originally posted by: socialmediaclown
Secret Service to close White House coc aine probe without finding suspect: congressional sources
www.google.com... aine-probe-without-finding-suspect.amp
Surprised?
originally posted by: RelSciHistItSufi
Make of it what you will - If true then the PAIN is about to start for us too:
"THE **EUROPEAN BANKING SYSTEM HAS COLLAPSED** - GONE TO ZERO! ...**THE EUROPEAN FINANCIAL SYSTEM IS GONE** - THERE IS NOTHING LEFT!"
It seems we are waiting for this to become public over the coming few days? He suggest the US stock market is likely to crash when the above is revealed to the public.