Might nature’s bottomless pits actually be ultra-efficient quantum computers? That could explain why data never dies.
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Whoops.
CAPE CANAVERAL, Fla. (AP) — An explosion rocked a SpaceX launch site Thursday during a routine rocket test.
SpaceX was conducting a test firing of its unmanned rocket when the blast occurred shortly after 9 a.m., according to NASA. The test was in advance of a planned Saturday launch from Cape Canaveral Air Force Station, which is next to NASA’s Kennedy Space Center.
Buildings several miles away shook from the blast, and multiple explosions continued for several minutes. Dark smoke filled the overcast sky. A half-hour later, a black cloud hung low across the eastern horizon.
Nantero, Fujitsu Semiconductor and Mie Fujitsu Semiconductor today announced an agreement for Fujitsu and Mie Fujtisu to license that Nantero’s technology for NRAM, non-volatile RAM using carbon nanotubes, and to conduct joint development towards releasing a product based on 55-nm process technology.
Three companies are aiming to develop a product using NRAM non-volatile RAM that achieves several 1000 times faster rewrites and many thousands of times more rewrite cycles than embedded flash memory, making it potentially capable of replacing DRAM with non-volatile memory.
Fujitsu Semiconductor plans to develop an NRAM-embedded custom LSI product by the end of 2018, with the goal of expanding the product line-up into stand-alone NRAM product after that. Mie Fujitsu Semiconductor, which is a pure-play foundry, plans to offer NRAM-based technology to its foundry customers.
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A pocket-sized AI that sees everything you see, learns who you are, and anticipates your needs? Meet Asteria, the future of artificial intelligence.
To date, the promises of AI have largely remained unfulfilled. 2016’s cast of artificial characters—Siri, Cortana, Alexa—are still glorified chatbots, summoned only when we remember to check the weather, or when we need a gimmick at a house party.
Real artificial intelligence—the kind that thinks; the kind that feels; the kind that observes; the kind you might fall in love with if you’re not careful—is still a developer’s daydream. Meanwhile, the AI we do have seem trapped in the same cycle of incremental evolution as the devices they inhabit.
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The film about pushing the limits of technology recruited Watson to make a trailer.
For a film about the risks of pushing the limits of technology too far, it only makes sense to advertise for it using artificial intelligence.
Morgan, staring Kate Mara and Paul Giamatti, is a sci-fi thriller about scientists who’ve created a synthetic humanoid whose potential has grown dangerously beyond their control. Fitting, then, that they’d employ the help of America’s AI sweetheart IBM Watson to build the film’s trailer.
IBM used machine learning and experimental Watson APIs, parsing out the trailers of 100 horror movies. It did visual, audio, and composition analysis of individual scenes, finding what makes each moment eerie, how the score and actors’ tone of voice changed the mood—framing and lighting came together to make a complete trailer. Watson was then fed the full film, and it chose scenes for the trailer. A human—in this case, the “resident IBM filmmaker”—still needed to step in to edit for creativity. Even so, a process that would normally take weeks was reduced to hours.
