Excellent marathon runner, A.I. pioneer or outstanding scientist: who was Alan Turing? Read more here đ http://bit.ly/1USRuOF
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Sep 3, 2016
Anthrobotics: Where The Human Ends and the Robot Begins
Posted by Elmar Arunov in categories: neuroscience, robotics/AI
The Anthrobotics Cluster seeks to start conversations (and answer questions) regarding some of the biggest topics in AI research. Here, Luis de Miranda, one of the founders, discusses anthrobots and the relationship between humans and machines.
Technology is accelerating at an ever increasing rate. Each year, we develop smaller and smarter systemsâŠsystems that allow us to interact with information in ways that previous eras only dreamed about. In fact, given their ability to process, identify, and categorize informationâand their uncanny ability to synthesize information and make judgmentsâmany of our systems seem to be developing a true form of intelligence. In this respect, it seems that the dawning age of AI is truly upon us.
But what does this mean?
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Sep 3, 2016
Robot âemployeesâ coming to select Loweâs this fall
Posted by Elmar Arunov in category: robotics/AI
Friday, Sep 2, 2016 4:35 PM UTC
Robot âemployeesâ coming to select Loweâs this fall.
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Sep 3, 2016
An Investigation of How Telomerase Cancers can Switch to Become ALT Cancers
Posted by Steve Hill in categories: biotech/medical, life extension
Traditional cancer research is well funded but ALT cancers are not. SENS Research is aiming to raise funds to address this vital gap in our scientific knowledge. Most scary thing of all is that some regular cancers that abuse telomerase can switch to this ALT method to keep growing when telomerase blocking therapies are used.
The paper Iâll point out today is a timely one, given that the SENS Research Foundationâs fundraiser for early stage work on a therapy for alternative lengthening of telomeres (ALT) cancers is nearing its close. There are still thousands of dollars left in the matching fund, so give it some thought if you havenât yet donated. The search for ways to safely sabotage ALT is a useful, important line of research because blocking telomere lengthening is a path to a universal cancer therapy, those research groups presently working on it are all looking to achieve this goal by interfering in the activities of telomerase, cancers can switch from using telomerase to using ALT, and next to no-one is working on ways to suppress ALT mechanisms. It seems fairly clear based on the evidence to date that the universal cancer therapy that lies ahead, built by inhibiting telomere lengthening, must involve a blockade of both telomerase and ALT. The open access paper below reinforces this point, the authors investigating how exactly cancers switch from telomerase to ALT to maintain their dangerous growth.
Cancer research today has a grand strategy problem. There is only so much funding and only so many researchers, but hundreds of subtypes of cancer. Therapies tend to be highly specific to the peculiarities of one type of cancer or a small class of cancers, meaning that great expense and time leads to a treatment that is only applicable for a fraction of cancer patients, all too often a tiny fraction. Further, since tumors evolve at great speed, any one individual patientâs cancer may find its way out from under the hammer by changing its signature and mode of operation. All is not doom and gloom, however. Consider that the research community could build a therapy applicable to all cancers with little to no modification, where the cost of development would be no greater than any one of the highly specific therapies presently in use and under development. That therapy would be, of course, based on the blockade of telomere lengthening.
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Sep 3, 2016
US soldiers could soon travel like stormtroopers on new âhoverbikeâ
Posted by Dan Kummer in category: military
Engineers showed laboratory research into the âhoverbike,â a rectangular shaped quadcopter that has since been named the Joint Tactical Aerial Resupply Vehicle, or JTARV.
âAnywhere on the battlefield, Soldiers can potentially get resupplied in less than 30 minutes,â said Army researcher Tim Vong.
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Sep 3, 2016
Neuromorphic Chips: a Path Towards Human-level AI
Posted by Shailesh Prasad in categories: computing, neuroscience, robotics/AI
[Figure about depicts a layout, showing two âsomasâ, or circuits that simulate the basic functions of a neuron. The green circles play the role of synapses. From presentation of K.K. Likharev, used with permission.]
One possible layout is shown above. Electronic devices called âsomasâ play the role of the neuronâs cell body, which is to add up the inputs and fire an output. In neuromorphic hardware, somas may mimic neurons with several different levels of sophistication, depending on what is required for the task at hand. For instance, somas may generate spikes (sequences of pulses) just like neurons in the brain. There is growing evidence that sequences of spikes in the brain carry more information than just the average firing rate alone, which previously had been considered the most important quantity. Spikes are carried through the two types of neural wires, axons and dendrites, which are represented by the red and blue lines in figure 2. The green circles are connections between these wires that play the role of synapses. Each of these âlatching switchesâ must be able to hold a âweightâ, which is encoded in either a variable capacitance or variable resistance. In principle, memristors would be an ideal component here, if one could be developed that could be mass produced. Crucially, all of the crossnet architecture can be implemented in traditional silicon-based (âCMOSâ-like) technology. Each crossnet (as shown in the figure) is designed so they can be stacked, with additional wires connecting somas on different layers. In this way, neuromorphic crossnet technology can achieve component densities that rival the human brain.
Likarevâs design is still theoretical, but there are already several neuromorphic chips in production, such as IBMâs TrueNorth chip, which features spiking neurons, and Qualcommâs âZeroethâ project. NVIDIA is currently making major investments in deep learning hardware, and the next generation of NVIDIA devices dedicated for deep learning will likely look closer to neuromorphic chips than traditional GPUs. Another important player is the startup Nervana systems, which was recently acquired by Intel for $400 million. Many governments are are investing large amounts of money into academic research on neuromorphic chips as well. Prominent examples include the EUâs BrainScaleS project, the UKâs SpiNNaker project, and DARPAâs SyNAPSE program.
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Sep 3, 2016
Portable Underwater Turbines Can Power Your Next Camping Trip
Posted by Shailesh Prasad in category: energy
Sep 3, 2016
New solar cell is more efficient, costs less than its counterparts
Posted by Shailesh Prasad in categories: engineering, solar power, sustainability
35 percent efficiency.
The cost of solar power is beginning to reach price parity with cheaper fossil fuel-based electricity in many parts of the world, yet the clean energy source still accounts for slightly more than 1% of the worldÂs electricity mix.
To boost global solar power generation, researchers must overcome some of the technological limitations that are preventing solar power from scaling up even further, which includes the inability to develop very high-efficiency solar cells  solar cells capable of converting a significant amount of sunlight into usable electrical energy  at very low costs.
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Sep 3, 2016
This Speaker Will Upgrade Your Pool Party
Posted by Shailesh Prasad in category: futurism
Click on photo to start video.
This waterproof speaker will upgrade your pool party
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Sep 3, 2016
Turing Learning breakthrough: Computers can now learn from pure observation
Posted by Shailesh Prasad in categories: computing, innovation
Soon, the machines really might be watching your every move â and, for the first time, independently making sense of what they see.