Aubrey de Grey, Chief Science Officer of the SENS Foundation will be speaking at the next Humanity+ Summit @Melbourne (to be held on 4-6 May 2012).
http://sens.org

De Grey’s research focuses on whether regenerative medicine can thwart the aging process. He works on the development of what he calls “Strategies for Engineered Negligible Senescence” (SENS), a tissue-repair strategy intended to rejuvenate the human body and allow an indefinite lifespan. To this end, he has identified seven types of molecular and cellular damage caused by essential metabolic processes. SENS is a proposed panel of therapies designed to repair this damage.

Everyone has heard of nanotech. Nano means a billionth. Nanotech is short for nanometer scale technology, i.e. molecular scale engineering, or mechanical chemistry, where molecular sized robots could pick up a single atom and put it anywhere to build molecular machines, e.g. nanosized computers that could be programmed to detect viruses or cancer cells and kill them, hence ridding humanity of disease, or to repair aging cells, hence creating immortality. Progress is being made monthly in nanotech. This leads to the question, “what’s next?” Nature provides no substance at the picometer scale, so the next step must be femtotech (i.e. femtometer scale technology). A femtometer is a million times smaller than a nanometer, i.e. the scale of quarks and nuclei. I am now researching the possibility of using elementary particle physics, nuclear physics, topological quantum field theory, etc to try to find phenomena in physics that might serve as the basis for a femtotech, which if successful would outperform nanotech by a factor or a trillion trillion. Artilects (artificial intellects, i.e. massively intelligent machines) based on femtotech would be truly godlike, making the notion of a universe designing and building deity much more scientifically respectable.

See my article “Fermitech : Searching for Phenomena in Physics That May Serve as Bases for a Femtometer Scale Technology”

http://profhugodegaris.files.wordpress.com/2011/04/femtotech.pdf

Abstract -Topological Quantum Computing (TQC)

Quantum computers are 2expN times more powerful than classical computers (where N is the number of (qu)bits in the quantum register.) Once they become scalable and robust, our century’s science and technology will never be the same, because quantum computers will be able to simulate nature, which is quantum based. Today’s quantum computers, have N = 8 or so, which is useless. The biggest problem is the enormous fragility of the qubits. For example, if you store a bit of information on the spin of an electron, then the slightest interaction of that electron with a local particle or field will disturb it and destroy the information. Topological quantum computing introduces a new idea by suggesting that qubits can be stored using topological states of matter, which is a hot research topic in “condensed matter physics” nowadays. There is a phenomenon called the “fractional quantum Hall effect”, which is explained theoretically using topological quantum fields which allow information to be stored topologically, and hence robustly, allowing quantum computers to scale up. A race is on to find so called “anyons” which have these properties. Anyon chips have been proposed that would compute quantum mechanically using anyons. Nobel Prizes would then be won.

The teaching of TQC in computer science departments will mean that CS will become much more math and physics based, revolutionizing the subject, e.g. see my article “Topological Quantum Computing ” The “TQC Shock Wave”, and Its Impact on University Computer Science Teaching”

http://profhugodegaris.files.wordpress.com/2011/04/tqcarticle.pdf

I believe that the world should not have to be the way that it is and that we have to do better. I envision a world where robots can do the jobs that people should not have to do, that are ready to provide a helping hand, and that are able to work in areas we often dare not even consider.

In this regard, I look for AI projects that have non-narrow, evolutionary and human-like embodiment characteristics. I will discuss these characteristics and how they relate to well known projects such as Blue Brain, China Brain, OpenCog, Cyc, and NELL, as well as my own work.

Stefan Harrer recieved the B.Sc., Diploma, and Ph.D. degrees in electrical engineering and computer science with special focus on medical engineering, nanotechnology and nanoelectronics from the Technical University of Munich.

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Melbourne Law School Theatre
Ground Floor, Melbourne Law School, 185 Pelham Street, ( map )
Carlton South, Victoria Austrlia

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This is an ICT 4 Life Sciences Event

This discussion will raise issues of rational evaluation of Transhumanism and the Technological Singularity, and the implications for those in the H+ and Singularity ‘communities of interest’ if these ideas really hit the public consciousness.

The Maker Revolution/Movement PDF

Fig 1. Jonathan Oxer

I’m author of How To Build A Website And Stay Sane (Oft Press, 2004), Ubuntu Hacks (O’Reilly, 2006), and Quickstart Guide to Google AdWords (Lulu Press, 2008). I also write occasionally for a variety of newspapers and magazines including The Age and Sydney Morning Herald, and my articles have been translated into French, Brazilian Portuguese, Italian, Norwegian, and Spanish and appeared in dozens of publications.

I’m one of the few people in the world to have been surgically implanted with an RFID chip, which I’m using to experiment with technical issues such as authentication techniques and exploits as well as philosophical issues related to privacy and identity.

I’m also Founder and Technical Director of Internet Vision Technologies.

Commencing trading in 1994 as Mission Internet, IVT was one of the first businesses in the world to focus on managing dynamic website content using databases. It was also one of the first companies ever to do real-time event coverage via the Internet when I ran a live feed from the floor of the national Bicycle Industry Trade Show in Sydney, Australia in 1995. IVT has since developed hundreds of websites, intranets, extranets and custom web applications for clients ranging from backyard businesses to multinational corporations.

I have been a Debian GNU/Linux developer since 2002, and have convened the Debian Miniconf in a different city every year since 2003. I have presented more than 70 tutorials, papers and keynotes on various technology and business topics at both corporate and government seminars and at conferences around the world including LinuxTag, linux.conf.au, Open Source Developers Conference, and Debian Miniconf, and at usergroups including Melbourne PHP User Group (of which I am a past committee member) and Linux Users Victoria. I have also appeared on a number of top-rated television shows including Sunrise with Kochie and Mel, been the butt of Paul McDermott’s jokes on Good News Week, and done dozens of radio interviews in Australia, New Zealand, and the UK.

I previously sat on the Advisory Group of Swinburne University’s Centre for Collaborative Business Innovation, responsible for researching and formulating IT-related post-graduate curriculum strategies, and on the Australian Federal government’s e-Research Coordinating Committee Reference Group. I also spent three years as President of Linux Australia, the national organisation for Linux users and developers and one of the largest FOSS organisations in the world.

In late 2008 I was Technical Supervisor for the first season of The Phone, a reality-TV show produced by Beyond Productions for Fox-8. I designed and built custom hardware and software used by show contestants.

I live in Melbourne, Australia with my wife, daughter and son, and you can contact me on jon@oxer.com.au.

The Maker Revolution/Movement PDF