As August Dawns.....

Welcome to August here in the Daily Outsider as we achieve a milestone here in our "Visions Channel, our 800th Piece!!

As we begin, we wanted to share this snapshot of the Future: 

Want to Invest in Crypto? Here's A Crash Course.Future Society The value of cryptocurrencies like bitcoin and ether is skyrocketing, but illiquid, fragmented markets and costly exchanges can make investing in crypto seem unappealing. However, a new platform is poised to simplify the process while also lowering costs for investors and helping stabilize the entire crypto market.READ MORE What the Drake Equation Can Tell Us About the Future of Humanity Future Society The Drake Equation is a method of quantifying the likelihood of finding intelligent alien life. Many variables influence the equation, which continually expands, but there are limits as well. READ MORE NASA: There's No Evidence of a Mars Civilization Thousands of Years Ago Off World A US Congressman asked NASA whether Mars hosted an alien civilization at some point. Despite potentially favorable conditions on the red planet, it is almost infinitely unlikely that the planet ever hosted sophisticated life in the way suggested. READ MORE Google’s AI Fight Club Will Train Systems to Defend Against Future CyberattacksArtificial Intelligence Google Brain and data science platform Kaggle have announced an "AI Fight Club" to train machine learning systems on how to combat malicious AI. As computer systems become smarter, cyberattacks also become tougher to defend against, and this contest could help illuminate unforeseen vulnerabilities. READ MORE Google Glass Is Back, and It’s No Longer Meant for Everyone Virtuality Google's iconic Glass is now back, but this time the wearable is not meant for the average consumer. Alphabet's X division has refocused the device for optimal use in the workplace, and already, the reboot is poised to be more successful than the original.READ MORE

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This Beating 3D Printed Heart Could Save Lives

Complaints  |  Indiana U. Managers often clueless about unhappy customers

Old-school  |  Vanderbilt Class teaches Navy to navigate by the stars again GPS pushed the US Navy to stop teaching celestial navigation. A free online course is changing that.

Injections  |  U. Warwick Knee shot means less morphine after surgery

What's next?  |  U. Michigan ‘Back to normal’ isn’t easy for young cancer survivors

Recycled waste  |  Rice Using biochar on farms may cut health costs

Middle school  |  U. Washington Cannabis risk awaits young teens with depression

Iron  |  U. Melbourne ‘Rust’ could be the real Alzheimer’s trigger Some people with lots of amyloid in the brain don't have dementia. This has spurred an investigation into iron as a potential driver of Alzheimer's disease.

We also wanted to share the following we featured in our "Home" property and our "education" property as we go "dark" for the Month:

It has been quite a month as our World has been witness to the implosion in Venezuela, the North Koreans yet again threatening  the United States as this image apparently shows missiles falling down the sky:

July was also  President Trump yet again being President Trump.    This is also as Iran and the United States seem to be on a collision course in the aftermath of Iran's latest launch of a Missile that ostensibly  was for a a Satellite.  Iran also seems to be headed for some further conformation  with various factions as President Rouhani finalizes his cabinet.    Our team reviewed reporting reflecting the fact that Candidates for Foreign Minister, Defense Minister and Intelligence had to be vetted by the Office of the Supreme Leader before being presented to Parliament.    It is also of note that Iran's Justice Minister is also indirectly appointed by the Supreme Leader as he's due to be appointed from an approved list by the head of the Judiciary--A Supreme Leader Appointee.   It will be quite a month.

As we go dark in these pages for the Month of August, our Twitter Feed will be active with our daily updates courtesy of Nuzzel and Paper_li along with our Broadcast POD which will feature live feeds from Al Jazeera and Sky News.     Despite all the challenges at hand, we remain hopeful about our World as underscored by this recent snapshot our team received recently from the team at TED.COM

Onward to August with all its' possibilities .

THIS WEEK ON TED.COM JULY 29, 2017

TALK OF THE WEEK Grace Kim: How cohousing can make us happier (and live longer) 10:15 minutes · Filmed Apr 2017 · Posted Jul 2017 · TED2017 Loneliness doesn't always stem from being alone. For architect Grace Kim, loneliness is a function of how socially connected we feel to the people around us -- and it's often the result of the homes we live in. She shares an age-old antidote to isolation: cohousing, a way of living where people choose to share space with their neighbors, get to know them, and look after them. Rethink your home and how you live in it with this eye-opening talk. Watch now »

PLAYLIST OF THE WEEK #Goals Counterintuitive advice that will help you set and achieve your goals for the short term, the long term and those moments in between. Watch » 5 TED Talks • Total run time 51:44

THIS WEEK'S NEW TED TALKS Jimmy Lin is developing technologies to catch cancer earlier. He shares a breakthrough technique that looks for small signals of cancer's presence via a simple blood test, detecting the recurrence of some forms of the disease 100 days earlier than traditional methods. And with cancer, early detection can make all the difference. Watch » A handful of people working at a handful of tech companies steer the thoughts of billions of people every day, says Tristan Harris. And they're all competing for one thing: your attention. Harris shows how tech companies prey on our psychology for their own profit, and calls for a design renaissance in which our phones and apps encourage us to live the lives we want. Watch » Do your kidneys have a sense of smell? Turns out, the same scent detectors found in your nose are also found in some pretty unexpected places -- like your muscles, your kidneys and even your lungs. In this quick talk filled with weird facts, physiologist Jennifer Pluznick explains why they're there and what they do. Watch » Corals in the Pacific Ocean have been dying at an alarming rate. But it's not too late to save them, says TED Fellow Kristen Marhaver in this hopeful talk about why we should keep fighting to save our oceans. "Corals have always been playing the long game," she says, "and now so are we." Watch »

READ MORE ON IDEAS.TED.COM Brain: Want to understand alien intelligence? Start with the octopus » What is consciousness, and does an octopus have it too? Food: Inside a vertical ocean farm » A clever plan that grows oysters, scallops, seaweed and more Culture: Did you watch The Bachelorette this season? We did and here's why » A thoughtful talk with Aunt Vernā Myers on race, love and television

QUOTE OF THE WEEK “ From our homes, we look down into the courtyard, and depending on the time of year, we see this: kids and grownups in various combinations playing and hanging out with each other. There's a lot of giggling and chatter. There's a lot of hula-hooping. And every now and then, "Hey, quit hitting me!" or a cry from one of the kids. These are the sounds of our daily lives, and the sounds of social connectedness." Grace Kim How cohousing can make us happier (and live longer)

SINCERELY, X: PEPPER SPRAY Listen to TED and Audible's new podcast, Sincerely, X. This episode, titled "Pepper Spray," follows a woman whose visit to the store triggers a panic attack, giving listeners an inside look into those suffering from PTSD and how to help. Available now on Apple Podcasts, the TED Android app, or wherever you get your podcasts.

Boys Choir of Harlem sing 'We Shall Overcome'

Notations From the Grid (Weekly Edition): On Success

As part of our continued effort to share ideas & thoughts on creating a "Vision of the Possible", please enjoy this courtesy of the team at Success:

10 ‘Harmless’ Habits to Drop If You Want to Be Successful Quit doing things that hinder your success, stat. Read More →

11 Motivational Quotes for Success Potent passages that inspire these top entrepreneurs. Read More → 7 Mental Hacks to Be More Confident in Yourself Silence the inner voice that says you can’t. Read More →

View of the Week (Weekly Edition): A Weekly "Peek" Into Our Future

As the new week is at hand here in our properties, please enjoy this courtesy of Futurism & Abudnance36 as they continue to do a fabulous job creating a road-map for us all to consider while underscoring the reality before us:

NASA Just Announced They Can't Afford to Get Humans to Mars Off World NASA admitted today that under the current budget they cannot afford to get humans to Mars. NASA's next steps will depend on its funding, but now more than ever, the future of Mars colonization rests in the hands of commercial space companies. READ MORE Volkswagen’s EV Will Sell for $7-8K Cheaper Than the Tesla Model 3 Earth & Energy Volkswagen announced that the I.D. Concept, the company's electric concept car designed to compete with the Tesla Model 3, will sell for $7,000 to $8,000 less. The low price is part of VW's drive to compete with Tesla in the EV market. READ MORE No, Ether Isn't Getting Crushed. Here's What's Really Going On. Future Society Business Insider published an article about ether's current price dip. While their chart may look like ether is being "crushed," Futurism would like to offer a counter-look at the volatile cryptocurrency. READ MORE Researchers Refute Study That Claims CRISPR Causes Unexpected Mutations Health & Medicine A study published earlier this year warned scientists of potential complications with CRISPR/Cas9, but after review by researchers at another institution, the findings of that study are being brought into question. It remains to be seen whether the original study will be corrected or retracted, but this development highlights the importance of peer review in science. READ MORE An Anonymous Ether Trader Just Made $200 Million in One Month Future Society An unknown cryptocurrency trader reportedly made more than $200 million in earnings in just over one month. The anonymity of cryptocurrencies, however, raises a lot of questions about the use of bitcoin and ether in the mainstream. READ MORE See Full Infographic

AI is Inventing Languages Humans Can't Understand. Should We Stop It?

What it is: “I can can I I everything else.” This sentence isn’t just gibberish, it is part of the discussion between perhaps the most sophisticated negotiation software on the planet. Recently, two of Facebook’s “generative adversarial network” AI agents began having conversations that the researchers who developed them were unable to understand. As there was no incentive for these advanced agents to stick to English, they began developing their own complicated shorthand, which is undecipherable by any human. Facebook shut down this ability and forced them to speak English again. But is this the right path?

Why it's important: Humans often rely on shorthand because we have a finite processing power in our brains. Computers don’t have this problem, so short characters to them can really be conveying complex ideas. While the fear of undecipherable AI is very real, by shutting down this program, is Facebook hindering efficiency and possible revolutionary applications by creating a language that would allow any smart device to talk to another without a human intermediary (or API)?   

Spotted by Neil Jain / Written by Neil Jain

Projecting a Visual Image Directly Into the Brain, Bypassing the Eyes

What it is: Funded by DARPA, a team from the UC Berkeley is devising a way to directly transmit visual information to the brain, bypassing the eyes. Their plan is to use optogenetic techniques combined with a new light field camera to simultaneously transmit information to several hundred thousand neurons directly at once.

Why it's important: While this technique and is directed at visual stimuli, it should have broad application to all of the other senses, not to mention general BCI technologies for cognition generally.  

Spotted by Marissa Brassfield / Written by Jason Goodwin

Free Robot Lawyer Can Help You With 1,000 Different Legal Scenarios

What it is: The creator behind DoNotPay, the popular online artificial intelligence platform used to appeal over $4 million worth of parking tickets, has recently overhauled his service. Through DoNotPay, Stanford undergraduate Joshua Browder now provides counsel for over 1,000 legal areas, including consumer and human rights issues like housing disputes, maternity leave claims and refunds for faulty products. While Browder concedes his chatbot isn’t going to the Supreme Court anytime soon, he plans to continue expanding the service, and notes that when it comes to preparing legal documents, the sky’s the limit.

Why it's important: While Browder’s technology still can’t replace a flesh-and-blood lawyer, there will come a day when it -- or a similar service -- can. What will a courtroom look like when legal cases are eventually argued by artificial intelligence? Will there even be a need for a courtroom? How will the world look when millions, who previously had no access to representation, can adequately defend themselves?  

Spotted by Marissa Brassfield / Written by Neil Jain

How Objects Could Soon 'Heal' Themselves

What it is: Melbourne School of Engineering researcher Luke Connal and team have designed a method of taking 3D printing to another level, creating a material with self-healing properties. The polymer can can change shape or structure in response to its environment, such as from a toothpaste-like state to a semi-liquid when pressure is applied, or expanding when placed in water. The researchers are already envisioning use cases from camouflage to printing replacement parts aboard submarines.

Why it's important: We're witnessing an explosion in new manufacturing technologies, moving beyond personalized manufacturing to truly novel methods and materials with application in unique environments. Imagine what could be possibly in places like space.  

Spotted by Marissa Brassfield / Written by Jason Goodwin

View of the Week (W-End Edition): On The Giant that is TATA

Fortune Magazine announced its' annual 500 list.   One of the leading lights of it, TATA, is featured here that we are pleased to feature for this W-End Edition of "View of the Week":

JULY 21, 2017 Happy Friday. This morning we are releasing Clay Chandler’s fascinating deep dive into Tata Sons and its new CEO, Natarajan Chandrasekaran. Tata is a sprawling conglomerate that touches almost every aspect of Indian life. Its biggest business is Tata Motors, which ranks No. 247 on this year’s Fortune Global 500 list (released yesterday, and available here.) It also owns India’s second largest steelmaker, its largest power company, a leading chemical manufacturer, a chain of luxury jewelry boutiques, and more. Chandrasekaran formerly ran Tata Consultancy Services, which is India’s largest IT firm with a market cap of $71 billion. The company is known by those of us here in New York for the fabulous app it built that allows you to track specific runners in the New York City Marathon, and see exactly where each runner is in real time. That’s a labor of love for Chandrasekaran, who was diagnosed with diabetes at the age of 44, and decided to lick the disease without medication by becoming a marathon runner. He’s completed all six of the world’s major marathons – Boston, Berlin, Chicago, London, New York, Tokyo. And he insists it has made him a better leader. “Running has made a world of difference for me,” he says. “It has made me calmer, more reflective, and given me more perseverance.” The story appears in the August issue of Fortune magazine. You can read it online this morning, here.

Notations From the Grid: From Our Archives On "Media Watch" w/ BBC & FT

ON THE eVE OF THE w-eND, WE WANTED TO SHARE THIS FROM OUR aRCHIVES:  

Y AMIE TSANG

NIKKEI BUYS THE PINK PAPER The Japanese media company Nikkei trounced the German group Axel Springer to buy The Financial Times, Ravi Somaiya, Jonathan Soble and David Jolly report in DealBook. Pearson, its parent company, had been discussing the sale with Financial Times executives for about a year, but there was a last-minute race to close the deal on Thursday, in which Nikkei trumped the competition with a $1.3 billion offer.

Axel Springer had set its sights on the British news group early on and had been in talks until just 15 minutes before the announcement, The Financial Times reports.

The sale dwarfs other newspaper deals: Two years ago, The Washington Post sold for $250 million and The Boston Globe was sold for $70 million along with its other media assets. The Financial Times sale does not include Pearson's 50 percent stake in The Economist or The Financial Times's central London building, which Nikkei will rent from Pearson.

The divestment allows Pearson to intensify its focus on the educational publishing business, which provided about three-quarters of its profit last year. The group has traditionally been a hands-off owner, and the FT has rarely been an investment priority, The Financial Times reports. Senior FT managers were becoming frustrated as they fought for greater investment to boost its digital efforts.

Jennifer Saba argues in Breakingviews that Nikkei is paying a hefty sumfor a group in an industry with an insecure future. At such a lofty price, Ms. Saba writes, Nikkei will have to work extraordinarily hard to make the numbers stack up. "Nikkei might also try to recover some of the money through cost cuts. But that, in the long term, might diminish The Financial Times's reputation, which Nikkei has paid so much money for."

In spite of this premium price, Felix Salmon writes in a New York Times Op-Ed that the Financial Times is in good hands and that Nikkei is likely to be a better owner than Pearson because news, not finances, will come first.

Notations From the Grid (Special Thursday Edition): On A Scary Side of the Future

Today's Wall Street Journal.....