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According to Astro Teller, the Google self-driving car is “close to graduating from X.” Parsing out the meaning of that string of words is a little complicated, but basically it means that Alphabet isn’t thinking of self-driving cars so much as a crazy “moonshot,” but as a thing that’s just about ready to be a standalone business that could actually generate revenue.

If you’re not a close follower of Google, though, more explanation might still be in order. It’s coming, in the form of a segment on tonight’s NBC Nightly News with Lester Holt. They’ll be airing an inside look at X division inside Alphabet. That’s the group you know as Google X, but after last year’s corporate reorg, we’re all still getting used to the new naming conventions.

Holt interviewed Astro Teller and Obi Felten, who have the cheeky titles “Chief of Moonshots” and “Director of X Foundry,” respectively. It’ll likely be an overview of the projects that X is currently running — including self-driving cars, Project Loon, Project Wing, and Makani. Teller will also be candid about X’s failures. Failure being a favorite topic of his, actually — Holt tells us that inside X, “if you have an idea that crashes and burns, they give you a sticker.”

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Physicists may soon know if a potential new subatomic particle is something beyond their wildest dreams — or if it exists at all.

Hints of the new particle emerged last December at the Large Hadron Collider. Theorists have churned out hundreds of papers attempting to explain the existence of the particle —assuming it’s not a statistical fluke. Scientists are now beginning to converge on the most likely explanations.

“If this thing is true, it’s huge. It’s very different than what the last 30 years of particle physics looked like,” says theoretical physicist David Kaplan of Johns Hopkins University.

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Nice; however, I see also 3D printing along with machine learning being part of any cosmetic procedures and surgeries.

With an ever-increasing volume of electronic data being collected by the healthcare system, researchers are exploring the use of machine learning—a subfield of artificial intelligence—to improve medical care and patient outcomes. An overview of machine learning and some of the ways it could contribute to advancements in plastic surgery are presented in a special topic article in the May issue of Plastic and Reconstructive Surgery®, the official medical journal of the American Society of Plastic Surgeons (ASPS).

“Machine learning has the potential to become a powerful tool in plastic surgery, allowing surgeons to harness complex clinical data to help guide key clinical decision-making,” write Dr. Jonathan Kanevsky of McGill University, Montreal, and colleagues. They highlight some key areas in which machine learning and “Big Data” could contribute to progress in plastic and reconstructive surgery.

Machine Learning Shows Promise in Plastic Surgery Research and Practice

Machine learning analyzes historical data to develop algorithms capable of knowledge acquisition. Dr. Kanevsky and coauthors write, “Machine learning has already been applied, with great success, to process large amounts of complex data in medicine and surgery.” Projects with healthcare applications include the IBM Watson Health cognitive computing system and the American College of Surgeons’ National Surgical Quality Improvement Program.

Continue reading “‘Machine learning’ may contribute to new advances in plastic surgery” | >

Nice

Put yourself in the Pentagon – it’s “take a random civilian to work” day or something. You’re sitting with an Army general brooding over future land wars, as is their wont.

“Our combat vehicles need to be tougher to take the big hits from new weaponry!” he says.

Then a smarmy research guy chimes in.

Continue reading “- Daily Advance” | >

Lookout Silicon Valley — FDA is here. I do suggest tech companies working on technologies that enhances or alters any bio living things to ensure that your certifications, processes are well defined and govern, and in some cases the engineers, etc. will need some level of a medical background and certifications as well. Why many have stated that future engineers and technologists will need a bio background through education, etc.

Helmy Eltoukhy’s company is on a roll. The start-up is a leading contender in the crowded field of firms working on “liquid biopsy” tests that aim to be able to tell in a single blood draw whether a person has cancer.

Venture investors are backing Guardant Health to the tune of nearly $200 million. Leading medical centers are testing its technology. And earlier this month, it presented promising data on how well its screening tool, which works by scanning for tiny DNA fragments shed by dying tumor cells, worked on an initial group of 10,000 patients with late-stage cancers.

Just one thing is holding the company back: Guardant Health has yet to get approval from Food and Drug Administration.

Continue reading “There’s a new sheriff in town in Silicon Valley — the FDA” | >

Not only Google; there is Huawei and their AR contacts and Samsung are also making AR Contacts. And, the news 3 weeks ago shows that Samsung has applied for their own patent.

Google has filed a patent for what sounds like a bionic eye.

A patent filed in 2014 and published Thursday describes a device that could correct vision without putting contacts in or wearing glasses everyday.

But to insert the device, a person must undergo what sounds like a rather intrusive procedure.

Continue reading “Google has a crazy idea for injecting a computer into your eyeball” | >