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Archive for the ‘mobile phones’ category: Page 207

Mar 17, 2016

Remarkable nanowires could let computers of the future grow their own chips

Posted by in categories: computing, engineering, materials, mobile phones, nanotechnology, particle physics, robotics/AI

Now, we’re hitting Terminator mode with this.


If you’re worried that artificial intelligence will take over the world now that computers are powerful enough to outsmart humans at incredibly complex games, then you’re not going to like the idea that someday computers will be able to simply build their own chips without any help from humans. That’s not the case just yet, but researchers did come up with a way to grow metal wires at a molecular level.

At the same time, this is a remarkable innovation that paves the way for a future where computers are able to create high-end chip solutions just as a plant would grow leaves, rather than having humans develop computer chips using complicated nanoengineering techniques.

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Mar 16, 2016

This powerful headset can switch between virtual and augmented reality on the fly — you need to see it in action

Posted by in categories: augmented reality, computing, mobile phones

You may have never heard of AMD, but you’ve almost certainly used products powered by the company’s technologies.

AMD, or Advanced Micro Devices, is one of the biggest chipmakers in the world. The 46-year-old California company makes computer chips and all the related tech needed to power applications on PCs, smartphones, tablets, and more.

On Monday, AMD surprised everyone with its newest initiative: The Sulon Q, built out of a partnership with Ontario-based Sulon Technologies.

Continue reading “This powerful headset can switch between virtual and augmented reality on the fly — you need to see it in action” »

Mar 16, 2016

The revolutionary chipmaker behind Google’s project Tango is now powering DJI’s autonomous drone

Posted by in categories: business, computing, drones, mobile phones, robotics/AI, virtual reality

https://youtube.com/watch?v=hX0UELNRR1I

A few weeks ago DJI unveiled its newest drone, the Phantom 4, the first craft to offer robust obstacle avoidance at a price the average consumer can afford. It relied on computer vision to power its autonomous flight, and since DJI had shown off this kind of tech before, we assumed that all the hardware on the Phantom 4 was homegrown, or backed by a giant like Intel. But today the chipmaker Movidius announced that its latest offer, the Myriad 2, was at the center of the onboard processor powering the Phantom 4’s incredible new abilities.

As it turns out this isn’t the first time Movidius has partnered with a big name to develop cutting edge technology. Back in 2014 its first chip, the Myriad 1, was revealed as the brains inside of Google’s first generation of Project Tango tablets. After a decade toiling in relative obscurity, the small 125 person company is suddenly poised to emerge as a leader at the intersection of several major markets — from drones to phones to virtual reality — which are looking for ways to enable cheap, power-efficient computer vision.

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Mar 16, 2016

We Are Coming for You, Tesla, And You, Too, Google, Says Hacker Hotz

Posted by in categories: cybercrime/malcode, mobile phones, robotics/AI, sustainability, transportation

The legendary hacker George Hotz, known by his nom de guerre “geohot,” who first came to public attention by hacking Apple’s (AAPL) first iPhone, spoke this morning at the South by Southwest conference about taking on Tesla’s (TSLA) self-driving car initiatives with his own garage efforts, a talk titled “I built a better self-driving car than Tesla.”

By the end of the talk, it was clear he had numerous targets, including Alphabet’s (GOOGL) self-driving car efforts, despite mighty respect for the search giant.

Hotz’s achievement, rigging up home made parts to an Acura ILX to make it self-driving, first came to prominence with an article in mid-December by Bloomberg’s Ashlee Vance.

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Mar 15, 2016

Movies & TV

Posted by in categories: entertainment, media & arts, mobile phones

Enjoy millions of the latest Android apps, games, music, movies, TV, books, magazines & more. Anytime, anywhere, across your devices.

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Mar 14, 2016

Samsung announces new 14nm, octa-core SoC: Exynos 7 Octa 7870

Posted by in categories: energy, mobile phones

Samsung is bringing second-generation 14nm technology to its midrange smartphone devices this year, along with (we hope) a solid battery life boost. Hopefully manufacturers will use 14nm power savings to offer devices that prioritize battery life over shaving a few millimeters off the frame.

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Mar 14, 2016

Calling all MacGyvers: DARPA’s Improv program invites you to DIY a bomb

Posted by in categories: drones, military, mobile phones

The Defense Advanced Research Projects Agency (DARPA) is seeking techies to help fight terrorism. The US military, after spending decades in a struggle to defend itself against improvised weapons, is now inviting inventors to get explosively creative.

Whatever device this article is currently being read on, in the wrong hands, could become a weapon. Technology such as USBs, off-the-shelf software and cell phones have all been deployed against US or US-backed forces. Now the US hopes to return the favor, according to Ars Technica.

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Mar 14, 2016

Qualcomm brings virtual reality software development kit

Posted by in categories: energy, mobile phones, virtual reality

Chipset maker Qualcomm Technologies has introduced a virtual reality (VR) software development kit (SDK) targeting VR-capable Android smartphone and headset makers.

The Snapdragon VR SDK offers access to optimized VR features, to simplify development and to help developers with attain improved VR performance and power efficiency with the Snapdragon 820 for Android smartphones and upcoming VR headsets.

Qualcomm will be offering the SDK in the second quarter of 2016 through the Qualcomm Developer Network.

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Mar 13, 2016

Video: What early email looked like

Posted by in categories: computing, internet, mobile phones

It can be easy to take things like modern email for granted, and nothing highlights that more than this clip from the “Database,” an old tech show that aired in the 80s.

In the segment above, you can see what sending and receiving an email was like in 1984, back when you were greeted with prompts like “phone computer” and literally had to dial in using a rotary phone. These were the days when webpages were numbered and email was such a luxury that people would excitedly sign off on messages with phrases like “electronically yours.”

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Mar 11, 2016

Google Translate could become more accurate soon thanks to deep learning

Posted by in categories: information science, mobile phones, robotics/AI

Google has smartened up several of its products with a type of artificial intelligence called deep learning, which involves training neural networks on lots of data and then having them make predictions about new data. Google Maps, Google Photos, and Gmail, for example, have been enhanced with this type of technology. The next service that could see gains is Google Translate.

Well, let me back up. Part of Google Translate actually already uses deep learning. That would be the instant visual translations you can get on a mobile device when you hold up your smartphone camera to the words you want to translate. But if you use Google Translate to just translate text, you know that the service isn’t always 100 percent accurate.

In an interview at the Structure Data conference in San Francisco today, Jeff Dean, a Google senior fellow who worked on some of Google’s core search and advertising technology and is now the head of the Google Brain team that works on deep learning, said that his team has been working with Google’s translation team to scale out experiments with translation based on deep learning. Specifically, the work is based on the technology depicted in a 2014 paper entitled “Sequence to Sequence Learning with Neural Networks.”

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