Jeremy Hsu

IBM's new brain [News]

The TrueNorth neuromorphic chip takes a big step toward using the human brain‚s architecture to reduce computing‚s power consumption. Neuromorphic computer chips meant to mimic the neural network architecture of biological brains have generally fallen short of their wetware counterparts in efficiency-a crucial factor that has limited practical applications for such chips. That could be changing. At a power density of just 20 milliwatts per square centimeter, IBM‚s new brain-inspired chip [above] comes tantalizingly close to such wetware efficiency. The hope is that it could bring brainlike intelligence to the sensors of smartphones, smart cars, and–if IBM has its way–everything else.

D-Wave's year of computing dangerously [News]

After a year of outside investigation, questions remain about a controversial quantum computer. When in 1935 physicist Erwin Schrodinger proposed his thought experiment involving a cat that could be both dead and alive, he could have been talking about D-Wave Systems. The Canadian start-up is the maker of what it claims is the worlds first commercial-scale quantum computer. But exactly what its computer does and how well it does it remain as frustratingly unknown as the health of Schrodingers poor puss. D-Wave has succeeded in attracting bigname customers such as Google and Lockheed Martin Corp. But many scientists still doubt the long-term viability of D-Waves technology, which has defied scientific understanding of quantum computing from the start.

Three paths to exascale supercomputing

For most of the decade, experts in high-performance computing have had their sights set on exascale computers - supercomputers capable of performing 1 million trillion floating-point operations per second, or 1 exaflops. And we’re now at the point where one could be built, experts say, but at ridiculous cost.

Nervana systems: Turning neural networks into a service [Resources_Startups]

Deep learning is Silicon Valleys latest and greatest attempt at training artificial intelligence to understand the world by using data to train algorithmic models with many layers of processing. One promising approach to building such layers is to loosely imitate how neurons in the brain work. And a startup called Nervana Systems, based in San Diego, aims to make such neural-network-based deeplearning AI even more widely available by turning it into a cloud service.

Boeing and SpaceX test the next U.S. ride to space: The international space station is expecting two visitors this month: Starliner and Crew Dragon - [News]

Two possible successors to NASAs space shuttle are scheduled to visit the International Space Station this month, in their last big step before they transport humans. A successful flight test for Boeings CST-100 Starliner and SpaceXs Crew Dragon spacecraft would show that these vehicles are finally ready to carry both NASA astronauts and space tourists into orbit.

What you need to know about Europe's data privacy rules [Resources_At Work]

On 25 May, enforcement will begin of the European Unions General Data Protection Regulation (GDPR): a law covering any organization anywhere in the world that handles the personal data of EU residents. Many individual developers and small-business owners will need to make sure that their applications, services, and websites comply with the GDPR, even if they do not live in EU countries.

Magnetic hammer propels tiny medical bot

A tiny robot that jackhammers its way through the body sounds like the stuff of science fiction nightmares. But such a robot exists, and it could play an important role in the future of medicine.

Fishing for space junk [News]

A spacecraft may soon be able to snare space junk by firing harpoons and nets. A European mission was expected to begin tests in late May of space-age versions of those ancient tools to clean up Earths cluttered orbital lanes. Space junk has already destroyed at least one satellite, damaged others, and periodically forces the crew aboard the International Space Station to take evasive action. There are more than half a million pieces of space debris larger than a marble and tens of thousands of significantly larger specimens left over from spent rocket boosters and defunct satellites. To head off future catastrophe, experts from NASA and the European Space Agency have proposed removing 5 to 10 large pieces of debris each year.

AI to ensure fewer UFOs

Is it a bird? A plane? Or is it a remotely operated quadrotor conduct ing surveillance or preparing to drop a deadly payload? Human observers won’t have to guess—or keep their eyes glued to computer monitors— now that there’s superhuman artificial intelligence capable of distinguishing drones from those other flying objects. Automated watchfulness, thanks to machine learning, has given police and other agencies tasked with maintaining security an important countermeasure to help them keep pace with swarms of new drones taking to the skies.

Finding one face in a million [News]

Helen of Troy may have had the face that launched a thousand ships, but even the best facial recognition algorithms might have had trouble finding her in a crowd of a million strangers. The first public benchmark test based on 1 million faces has shown how facial recognition algorithms from Google and other research groups around the world still fall well short of perfection. Facial recognition algorithms that had previously performed with more than 95 percent accuracy on a popular benchmark test involving 13,000 faces saw significant drops in accuracy when taking on the new MegaFace Challenge. The best performer, Googles FaceNet algorithm, dropped from near-perfect accuracy on the five-figure data set to 75 percent on the million-face test. Other top algorithms dropped from above 90 percent to below 60 percent. Some algorithms made the proper identification as seldom as 35 percent of the time.