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Apr 17, 2019

Intel’s Neural Compute Stick 2 is 8 times faster than its predecessor

Posted by in categories: computing, neuroscience

At an event in Beijing, Intel debuted the Neural Compute Stick 2, which packs a Myriad X system-on-chip it claims has an 8 times performance advantage.

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Apr 17, 2019

Reaching Into The Parallel Universe With Intel’s Xeon Processor

Posted by in categories: cosmology, robotics/AI

Training bigger neural networks can be challenging when faced with accelerator memory limits. The size of the datasets being used by machine learning models is very large nowadays. For example, a standard image classification datasets like hashtagged Instagram contains millions of images. With the increasing quality of the images, the memory required will also increase. Today, the memory available on NVIDIA GPUs is only 32 GB.

Therefore, there needs to be a tradeoff between memory allocated for the features in a model and how the network gets activated. It is only understandable why the accelerator memory limit needs to be breached.

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Apr 17, 2019

Intel buys into an AI chip that can transfer data 1,000 times faster

Posted by in category: robotics/AI

Intel and others are investing $13 million in Untether AI, a startup that’s working on a novel type of chip for artificial intelligence that promises to perform neural-network calculations at warp speed.

Speedup: Untether, based in Toronto, Canada, has already developed a prototype device that transfers data between different parts of the chip 1,000 times more quickly than a conventional AI chip. That’s an impressive achievement, but it should be treated cautiously since the prototype is far larger than an actual chip—and because other factors will contribute to the overall performance of the finished device.

Bottleneck: One of the key challenges with modern chips is shuttling data from memory to the units used to perform logical operations. This is especially problematic as the amount of data that chips need to process increases, as is the case with AI applications such as face or voice recognition. Untether uses what’s known as “near-memory computing” to reduce the physical distance between memory and the processing tasks, which speeds up data transfer and lowers power consumption.

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Apr 17, 2019

Cassini reveals surprises with Titan’s lakes

Posted by in category: space

On its final flyby of Saturn’s largest moon in 2017, NASA’s Cassini spacecraft gathered radar data revealing that the small liquid lakes in Titan’s northern hemisphere are surprisingly deep, perched atop hills and filled with methane.

The new findings, published April 15 in Nature Astronomy, are the first confirmation of just how deep some of Titan’s lakes are (more than 300 feet, or 100 meters) and of their composition. They provide new information about the way liquid methane rains on, evaporates from and seeps into Titan—the only planetary body in our solar system other than Earth known to have stable liquid on its surface.

Scientists have known that Titan’s hydrologic cycle works similarly to Earth’s—with one major difference. Instead of water evaporating from seas, forming clouds and rain, Titan does it all with methane and ethane. We tend to think of these hydrocarbons as a gas on Earth, unless they’re pressurized in a tank. But Titan is so cold that they behave as liquids, like gasoline at room temperature on our planet.

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Apr 17, 2019

Even moderate intake of red meat raises cancer risk, study finds

Posted by in categories: biotech/medical, food

This is an old study with new data from UK Biobank.


People more or less keeping to NHS guidelines at higher risk than those who eat little.

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Apr 17, 2019

If we’re in a simulated universe, could we make a search engine out of it?

Posted by in category: futurism

28 votes and so far on Reddit.

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Apr 17, 2019

Water on Mars: Exploration & Evidence

Posted by in category: space

Mars has water trapped in the polar ice caps. More water may lie just beneath the surface. A new study suggests that water also flows on the surface.

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Apr 17, 2019

Polarizing the Data Center: Spin Lasers Deliver 240 Gigabits Per Second

Posted by in categories: computing, internet

Next-generation, low-power optical data transmission may rely on polarization rather than switching laser pulses on and off.

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Apr 17, 2019

Fast digital forensics sniff out accomplices

Posted by in category: futurism

Software that rapidly analyses digital devices and builds a list of a suspect’s known associates could be a powerful tool for solving crimes.

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Apr 17, 2019

Qualcomm Aims for Quantum AI Chips

Posted by in categories: information science, quantum physics, robotics/AI

Qualcomm said it plans to begin testing its new Cloud AI 100 chip with partners such as Microsoft Corp later this year, with mass production likely to begin in 2020.

Qualcomm’s new chip is designed for what artificial intelligence researchers call “inference” – the process of using an AI algorithm that has been “trained” with massive amounts of data in order to, for example, translate audio into text-based requests.

Analysts believe chips for speeding up inference will be the largest part of the AI chip market.

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