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Your future smartphone and tablet will have 48 cores: Intel

But will more power-efficient intelligent neurosynaptic chips replace them?
November 2, 2012 by Amara D. Angelica

Single-chip cloud computer (credit: Intel)

Intel researchers are working on a 48-core processor for smartphones and tablets — making them many times more powerful than today’s desktop computers within the next five to ten years, reports Computerworld.

Intel is distributing 100 of the experimental 48-core chips so researchers can work on the advanced parallel-computing programming models and software need to support these cores.

Intel says it’s using a prototype of a ”single-chip cloud computer” to… read more

Topics: AI/Robotics | Computers/Infotech/UI | Electronics | Energy

Comments (41)

The Onion | World’s oldest neurosurgeon turns 100

October 21, 2010

Source: The Onion — January 17, 2008

The Onion | Nothing can stop Carl Wainwright from doing what he loves best — performing surgery on the human brain.

Related:
The Onion News Network

Topics: Biomed/Longevity

Comments (1)

Will the Kinect 2 read your lips? Open the pod bay door, HAL

December 8, 2011 by Amara D. Angelica

3D Video Capture with Kinect (YouTube)

The next generation of the Kinect (bundled with future Xbox consoles) may be “so accurate it can lip read,” the Technology Review Hello World headline breathlessly reads — evoking HAL 9000 in 2001.

What’s more, says Eurogamer, citing a nameless source, “Kinect 2 will be so powerful it will enable games to detect when players are angry, and determine in which direction they are facing,… read more

Topics: Entertainment/New Media | VR/Augmented Reality/Computer Graphics

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Will corporations prevent the Singularity?

March 16, 2012 by Ben Goertzel

Singapore_skyscrapers

It occurred to me recently that the world possesses some very powerful intelligent organisms that are directly and clearly opposed to the Singularity — corporations.

Human beings are confused and confusing creatures. We don’t have very clear goal systems, and are quite willing and able to adapt our top-level goals to the circumstances. I have little doubt that most humans will go with the flow as Singularity approaches.… read more

Topics: AI/Robotics | Singularity/Futures | Social/Ethical/Legal

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Will a Dutch discovery lead to understanding dark matter and a real quantum computer? UPDATE APR 17

April 16, 2012 by Amara D. Angelica

Indium Antemonide

UPDATE APR 17, 2012: “One, however, has to be cautious because while this experiment from Delft has provided the likely necessary evidence for the existence of the Majorana, the sufficient conditions are more difficult to achieve and may take more time.” — Sankar Das Sarma, University of Maryland (press release). Also see: “Zero bias conductance peak in Majorana wires made of semiconductor-superconductor hybrid structures” C.H. Lin, J.D. Sau, and… read more

Topics: Nanotech/Materials Science | Physics/Cosmology | Quantum

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Why the sponge’s protosynapses never evolved into the real thing

June 25, 2012 by Amara D. Angelica

ucsb_sponge

It was a mystery: sponges had evolved a protosynapse — the beginning of a nervous system — but never actually developed a real synapse.

It was the evolutionary period of time when virtually the rest of the entire animal kingdom branched off from a common ancestor it shared with sponges, the oldest known animal group with living representatives.

Ironically, sponges themselves have no nervous system. So what happened to… read more

Topics: Biotech | Cognitive Science/Neuroscience

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Why SIRT1 in your brain may keep you smart

August 10, 2010 by David Despain

Can a protein called SIRT1 in your head boost brain power, learning and memory?

Picture a scene in the ancient wild: a time when drought and famine have taken the land, food is scant and predators are near, and staying alive depends on being active, alert, and quick-witted — and asking, “Where did I find those nuts last year, and where was that water hole?“

A protein called SIRT1 in our brains may explain how our ancestors lived through such nutritionally scarce situations… read more

Topics: Biomed/Longevity | Cognitive Science/Neuroscience | Social Networking/Web

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Why immersive virtual reality is the next generation of gaming: part 2

A new head-mounted display called Oculus RIFT promises to change the gaming industry
July 14, 2012 by James Iliff

Doom3 BFG

At the recent E3 2012 show, I saw the future of virtual reality and gaming.

It’s a robust stereoscopic head-mounted display (HMD) called the Oculus RIFT from hardware pioneer Palmer Luckey, shown off by legendary computer graphics guru John Carmack, technical director of Id Software.

Using aspheric lenses and side-by-side stereoscopy, the Oculus RIFT boasts a wide field-of-view of 90 degrees horizontal and 110… read more

Topics: Entertainment/New Media | Innovation/Entrepreneurship | VR/Augmented Reality/Computer Graphics

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Why immersive virtual reality is the next generation of gaming: part 1

DIY real virtual reality on your smartphone or iPad 3 is here
July 14, 2012 by James Iliff

FOV2GO

It’s now obvious that immersive virtual reality is finally back in the consumer market — with a vengeance.

Especially with the recent advent of FOV2GO, a free DIY portable fold-out iPhone and Android viewer that turns the smartphone screen into a 3-D VR system.

You can create one with foamboard and 2 cheap plastic lenses, and downloadable software lets you create your own virtual worlds or environments to display.… read more

Topics: Entertainment/New Media | VR/Augmented Reality/Computer Graphics

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Why do giraffes have long necks?

July 19, 2009 by L. Stephen Coles

ist1_7214210-zoo-animals

An article, “Why Do Dachshunds Have Short Legs? Science Has an Answer,” in R&D, July 17, 2009, reminds me of an observation. In the language of computer programming, a retrogene is a patch on a pre-existing piece of software. Could it be that the entire embryogenic/genomic network that dictates a creature’s morphology is nothing more than a set of onion-skin layers or patches on conserved coded-machinery that has worked before? If so, it’s going to take a lot of industrial-strength gene-insertion genomics to unravel it, since it has no real logic that would help us make sense of it and guide us to a proper reading frame. (This is more evidence that there’s no “intelligence” in the “Intelligent Design” of Darwinian evolution).… read more

Topics: Biotech

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Why China makes our electronic products (it’s not just cheaper labor)

January 22, 2012 by Amara D. Angelica

(Credit: Apple Inc.)

It’s not just that workers are cheaper abroad, according to an important article in The New York Times Saturday. Most of the components of cellphones, computers, and other electronic products are now manufactured in China (and European and other East-Asia countries), so assembling the device half-a-world away would create huge logistical challenges, the article points out.

China now has a far larger supply of qualified engineers than… read more

Topics: Electronics | Innovation/Entrepreneurship | Singularity/Futures | Social Networking/Web | Social/Ethical/Legal

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Who is John Galt?

April 18, 2011 by Amara D. Angelica

atlasshrugged

Atlas Shrugged Part I, the movie, an adaptation of Ayn Rand’s 1957 objectivist novel Atlas Shrugged, tells the first installment in the story of a dystopian future in which a collectivist society has forced the great thinkers of the world to go on strike, leaving the functioning world without scientists, engineers, philosophers, or artists.

Its theme is the role of individual achievement in society and its… read more

Topics: Entertainment/New Media | Social/Ethical/Legal

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When we cannot predict

March 29, 2011 by John Brockman

About a year ago, on Wednesday April 14th, I was on the way to London from JFK, when the pilot announced a slight delay into Heathrow in order to avoid the ash cloud coming out of the Icelandic volcano eruption. This was the first time I paid any attention to the subject. But once in London that is the only subject anybody talked about for a week.… read more

Topics: Environment/Climate | Survival/Defense

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When The Speed Of Light Is Too Slow: Trading at the Edge

November 11, 2010 by Thomas McCabe

optimaltradinglocations

Modern stock market trading computers have become so fast that the speed of light is now their key limiting factor. A new paper by a physicist and a mathematician explains how traders can take advantage of this ultimate speed limit.

Computers were originally introduced in trading because they are faster than us in responding to market signals. A human trader might buy up a million shares of Microsoft for… read more

Topics: Internet/Telecom

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When the Singularity happens, it will be ‘very obvious’: Vernor Vinge vs. the Singulars

December 7, 2011 by Amara D. Angelica

singularityfringe

How will we know if we have passed through a Singularity? Damn good question, one that keeps me up at night. Like right now.

Science fiction writer Vernor Vinge, originator of the technological Singularity concept, came up with some interesting answers in an io9 video interview: “When things begin to happen in the real world that no human has any explanation for … or if… read more

Topics: Singularity/Futures

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