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Archive for the ‘computing’ category: Page 834

Jan 16, 2014

‘Sorry, Dave, I can’t let you do that’: Robots learn, network without humans

Posted by in categories: computing, human trajectories, information science, robotics/AI

HAL 9000, the intelligent computer from Stanley Kubrick’s ‘2001: A Space Odyssey’

A World Wide Web for robots just got more real as scientists ready to demo a project four years in the making: a cloud-based hive mind for robots to upload and download information and learn new tasks from each other, completely independent of humans.

Comparisons to The Terminator’s Skynet began flooding in all the way back in 2011, when a breakthrough was made after researchers at the University of Technology in Munich, Zaragoza, Stuttgart, and Philips assembled in Eindhoven to form the Robo Earth project.

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Jan 11, 2014

IBM’s Artificial Intelligence Problem, or Why Watson Can’t Get a Job

Posted by in categories: big data, computing, supercomputing

The IBM computer system known as Watson

What if we built a super-smart artificial brain and no one cared? IBM (IBM) is facing that possibility. According to the Wall Street Journal, the company is having a hard time making money off of its Jeopardy-winning supercomputer, Watson. The company has always claimed that Watson was more than a publicity stunt, that it had revolutionary real-world applications in health care, investing, and other realms. IBM Chief Executive Officer Virginia Rometty has promised that Watson will generate $10 billion in annual revenue within 10 years, but according to the Journal, as of last October Watson was far behind projections, only bringing in $100 million.

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Jan 9, 2014

Intel Aims For Post-Smartphone Era With SD Card-Sized Computer

Posted by in categories: business, computing, human trajectories, innovation

Written By: — Singularity Hub

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Up to now, wearable computing has been a niche market dominated, but for Google Glass, by startups. Yet, with the tiny size and low cost of sensors and chips, wearable computing could be a huge market in which smart sensors in everything from baby diapers to workout gear connect to users’ smartphones, giving them constant insight into how things formerly hidden are operating.

It may sound like yet another techno-topian promise, and before the 2014 Consumer Electronics Show it might have been. But at the annual Las Vegas tech blowout earlier this month, Intel, one of the weightiest firms in the tech industry, endorsed wearable computing with the launch of a new chip designed for it.

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Jan 9, 2014

The Bitcoin-Mining Arms Race Heats Up

Posted by in categories: bitcoin, business, computing, economics, hardware


Behind this week’s coverJoel Flickinger’s two-bedroom home in the hills above Oakland, Calif., hums with custom-built computing gear. Just inside the front door, in a room anyone else might use as a den, he’s placed a desk next to a fireplace that supports a massive monitor, with cables snaking right and left toward two computers, each about the size of a case of beer. Flickinger has spent more than $20,000 on these rigs and on a slower model that runs from the basement. They operate continuously, cranking out enough heat to warm the house and racking up $400 a month in electric bills. There isn’t much by way of décor, other than handwritten inspirational Post-it notes:

“I make money easily,” one reads. “Money flows to me.” “I am a money magnet.”

Flickinger, 37, a software engineer and IT consultant by trade, doesn’t leave the house much these days. He’s a full-time Bitcoin miner.

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