When a phalanx of the top Silicon Valley executives—Mark Zuckerberg, Jeff Bezos, Elon Musk, and Google’s Sundar Pichai—aligned behind President Trump during the Inauguration in January, many observers saw an allegiance based on corporate interests. The ultra-wealthy C.E.O.

Aside from the physical heft of data centers seen from highways and the fiber optic cables crawling into homes and offices, the digital world mostly exists in our imagination. That imagination is shaped by the people selling services that rely on that infrastructure.

The term Luddite is usually used as an insult. It suggests someone who is backward-looking, averse to progress, afraid of new technology, and frankly, not that bright. But Brian Merchant claims that that is not who the Luddites were at all.

Inside the many debates swirling around the rapid rollout of so-called artificial intelligence, there is a relatively obscure skirmish focused on the choice of the word “hallucinate”.

Big Tech’s warnings about an AI apocalypse are distracting us from years of actual harms their products have caused. On Tuesday morning, the merchants of artificial intelligence warned once again about the existential might of their products.

On May 30, a research organization called the Center for AI Safety released a 22-word statement signed by a number of prominent "AI scientists," including Sam Altman, the CEO of OpenAI; Demis Hassabis, the CEO of Google DeepMind; and Geoffrey Hinton, who has been described as the "godfather" of AI.

Marcelo Rinesi remembers what it was like to watch Jurassic Park for the first time in a theater. The dinosaurs looked so convincing that they felt like the real thing, a special effects breakthrough that permanently shifted people’s perception of what’s possible.

Marcelo Rinesi remembers what it was like to watch Jurassic Park for the first time in a theater. The dinosaurs looked so convincing that they felt like the real thing, a special effects breakthrough that permanently shifted people’s perception of what’s possible.

Making predictions about looming social and political catastrophes is a dicey business, because most of the exciting things in history did not happen predictably. You can try to draw historic parallels based on broad economic or cultural trends.

Te Hiku Media gathered huge swathes of Māori language data. Corporates are now trying to get the rights to it

For more from the AT&T Archives, visit http://techchannel.att.com/archives

Jim Henson made this film in 1963 for The Bell System. Specifically, it was made for an elite seminar given for business owners, on the then-brand-new topic — Data Communications. The seminar itself involved a lot of films and multimedia presentations, and took place in Chicago. A lengthy description of the planning of the Bell Data Communications Seminar — sans a mention of the Henson involvement — is on the blog of Inpro co-founder Jack Byrne. It later was renamed the Bell Business Communications Seminar.

The organizers of the seminar, Inpro, actually set the tone for the film in a three-page memo from one of Inpro's principals, Ted Mills to Henson. Mills outlined the nascent, but growing relationship between man and machine: a relationship not without tension and resentment: "He [the robot] is sure that All Men Basically Want to Play Golf, and not run businesses — if he can do it better." (Mills also later designed the ride for the Bell System at the 1964 World's Fair.) Henson's execution is not only true to Mills' vision, but he also puts his own unique, irreverent spin on the material.

The robot narrator used in this film had previously starred in a skit for a food fair in Germany (video is silent), in 1961. It also may be the same robot that appeared on the Mike Douglas Show in 1966. Henson created a different — but similar — robot for the SKF Industries pavilion at the 1964 World's Fair.

This film was found in the AT&T Archives. Thanks go to Karen Falk of the Henson Archives for providing help and supporting documentation to prove that it was, indeed, a Henson production..

Footage courtesy of AT&T Archives and History Center, Warren, NJ

Cybersalon explores the controversial role of Tor encryption and it’s impact on contemporary culture, and what recent events mean for human rights workers, activists and whistleblowers around the world.

http://www.cybersalon.org/darknet/

SRI is developing new technology to reliably control thousands of micro-robots for smart manufacturing of macro-scale products in compact, integrated systems.

The latest documentary from VICE's MOTHERBOARD team is about a clinic in Los Angeles that uses Virtual Reality simulations to treat war veterans with PTSD. With host Jody Mitic, a former master sniper for the Canadian military, this short doc explores the efficacy of these systems to treat a highly mysterious mental condition.

Read more: http://motherboard.vice.com/read/the-diy-engineer-who-built-a-nuclear-reactor-in-his-basement

Follow MOTHERBOARD Facebook: http://www.facebook.com/motherboardtv Twitter: http://twitter.com/motherboard

Many people I meet in forums don't know that there is a difference between video codecs and containers. The confusion is so widely spread that I decided to make an explanatory video on it. With a German accent. And my very first animation. Maybe it still helps...

Here are some useful software links on the topic.

Handbrake, a great tool to convert video codecs: http://handbrake.fr/

A little tool I programmed to change video containers without reencoding: http://sourceforge.net/projects/containerswitch/

The video was animated in Apple Motion 5. The graphics included are from openclipart.org, thanks a lot to them.

Another Fun Friday video! Everyday life in weightlessness holds many surprises. CSA Astronaut Chris Hadfield pulls the lid back on the secret world of mixed nuts in space. Credit: CSA/NASA

Here's a lovely film I had to watch for my Data Structures and Algorithms class. Very nerdy, but helpful if you are a programmer since you can visually identify the best and worst sorting methods.

http://www.ted.com From deep in the TED archive, Danny Hillis outlines an intriguing theory of how and why technological change seems to be accelerating, by linking it to the very evolution of life itself. The presentation techniques he uses may look dated, but the ideas are as relevant as ever.

TEDTalks is a daily video podcast of the best talks and performances from the TED Conference, where the world's leading thinkers and doers give the talk of their lives in 18 minutes. Featured speakers have included Al Gore on climate change, Philippe Starck on design, Jill Bolte Taylor on observing her own stroke, Nicholas Negroponte on One Laptop per Child, Jane Goodall on chimpanzees, Bill Gates on malaria and mosquitoes, Pattie Maes on the "Sixth Sense" wearable tech, and "Lost" producer JJ Abrams on the allure of mystery. TED stands for Technology, Entertainment, Design, and TEDTalks cover these topics as well as science, business, development and the arts. Closed captions and translated subtitles in a variety of languages are now available on TED.com, at http://www.ted.com/translate

If you have questions or comments about this or other TED videos, please go to http://support.ted.com

From the upcoming Special Edition Ascent: Commemorating Space Shuttle DVD/BluRay by NASA/Glenn a movie from the point of view of the Solid Rocket Booster with sound mixing and enhancement done by the folks at Skywalker Sound. The sound is all from the camera microphones and not fake or replaced with foley artist sound. The Skywalker sound folks just helped bring it out and make it more audible.