Supercomputing is awesome, and super-computed models of complex systems is something we ultratech geeks salivate over. This is especially true when discussing methods to solve the ever so elusive structural mysteries of one the most complicated thing in the cosmos – the human mind.
IBM’s Blue Brain project ambitiously seeks to re-create a model of the human brain, neuron per neuron, synapse per synapse entirely* in silico*. Recently they’ve managed to model a variety of interesting neural networks like cortical columns in mice, and recently published results of simulations that detailed aspects of networked cat neurophysiology. Filmaker Noah Hutton documents this ambitious project in this short film clip from his forthcoming documentary on the project.
Ambitious as this project is, its not without controversy. IEEE Spectrum ran a piecea couple of months back that puts this research into context. Still, its hard not to basque in the radiance of something as profound as building a virtual neural architecture and its implications for medicine, AI, and the eternally sexy topic of data infrastructure.
One day there will be contact lenses or some kind of cortical implant that will give you a built in data overlay for just about anything. In the meantime, we have to settle for far-less-integrated-yet-nonetheless-badass projects like this Augmented Reality demonstration at Columbia University.
Fans of zombie-shooter series Resident Evil rejoice as the first DLC pack for Resident Evil 5 hits the Xbox Live marketplace today with a release on the Playstation Network coming tomorrow. For under five bucks, you get access to a new scenario, exploring Spencer Mansion as seen previously only in flashbacks, as well as 2 exclusive characters for the online Mercenaries mini-game, each with their own weapons and costumes. (more…)
Battery life is the bane of most people’s existence, including mine. The good news is that there is certainly lots of buzz among materials engineers to develop something with greater capacity and efficiency than the ubiquitous lithium ion battery. Lewei Linat UC Berkeley is taking a different approach to extending battery life by using piezoelectric nanowires to generate electricity. For those of you new to the growing field of piezoelectric engineering, its where scientists and engineers are trying to develop novel materials that harvest kinetic energy. In other words, making a jacket that harvests electricity as a byproduct of your movement. (more…)
*Scientists at Brookhaven National Laboratory just fired up the Relativistic Heavy Ion Collider (RHIC) to produce a collisionthat yielded a temperature 250,000 times hotter than the core of the Sun *. When you look at the frontiers of experimental physics these days, its hard not to get excited about our collective future in understanding the cosmos. Powerful, primordial, 13.7 billion year old universe stuff. Video after the jump. (more…)
Google is making could computing more and more mainstream today. People are computing the cloud and not even knowing what it is.
However as corporations try to trim budgets and cut corners they’re looking more and more to the cloud. Two major players today in the enterprise computing sector made announcements that they’d have more cloud offerings. (more…)
I think we’ve all realized that the mobile device race is not about size anymore. Today’s race is about feature density and Toshiba has leapt past all of it competition in the mobile camera department.
Today Toshiba announced a TWELVE megapixel camera and chip for mobile. With most a US domestic cameras using cameras at or below 5 megapixels this is a chip that really pushes Moore’s law. (more…)
Neil Jacobstein gave a presentation to NASA Ames’ Singularity University in 2009 that nicely packages contemporary approaches and philosophies of Artificial General Intelligence (AGI). The footage of that presentation recently became available, and as such we’re posting it here because we like our neuron candy with Saturday cocktails. Its important to note that while hardware certainly doesn’t have a problem of scaling according to Moore’s Law, there are significant challenges facing approaches to software development.
Even if you’ve been following AI discussions since Marvin Minsky, this presentation is well worth its viewing time. More video after the jump
Panasonic announced today that part of it’s partnership with NBC would include giving NBC a 152-inch plasma display. According to Panasonic it’s the largest screen of it’s kind. The enormous screen will be used in the studio to enhance NBC’s coverage.
With the start of the Olympics here who better than the Canadians to keep us on top of the events. Canadian TV has an iPhone app to help you stay on top of your Olympic Games.