Quantum computing is one of the most exciting technologies there is, but its basis in quantum physics makes it a pain in the ass to understand and even harder to do anything with. A recent breakthrough in physics research, however, might change all of that and start a computing revolution. It wouldn’t be the first […]
There’s an arms race underway to develop the next generation of computers—known as “quantum” computers—and there’s no guarantee that the United States is going to win. It’s a positive sign that Congress is taking initial steps on legislation to accelerate development of this technology. The House and Senate are poised to consider the National Quantum […]
The shift to cloud computing continues to gain momentum, with nearly half of application spending going on-demand within the next four years. Across key areas of enterprise technology investment — including system infrastructure and software, application software and business process outsourcing — 19 percent of spending currently goes on cloud services. According to tech analyst […]
Lutheran Hospital is returning to normal and off diversion after a computer virus attack Tuesday, according to Public Relations Supervisor Geoff Thomas. The Lutheran Health Network IT staff stopped the virus this afternoon. As a precaution, all phones and computers were “taken down.” The virus attack forced Lutheran Hospital to cancel remaining elective cases for […]
The largest liquid-argon neutrino detector in the world has just recorded its first particle tracks, signaling the start of a new chapter in the story of the international Deep Underground Neutrino Experiment (DUNE). DUNE’s scientific mission is dedicated to unlocking the mysteries of neutrinos, the most abundant (and most mysterious) matter particles in the universe. […]
In New York in 1997, the reigning world chess champion Garry Kasparov faced off against Deep Blue, a computer specially designed by IBM to beat him. Following a similar match in Philadelphia the previous year, which Kasparov won 4–2, the man widely regarded as the greatest chess player of all time was confident of victory. […]
A startup with ties to Amazon is sampling a 16-nm chip mainly targeted for data centers that it claims handily beats CPUs and GPUs for deep-learning inference jobs. Habana is raising funds to support its production and a roadmap that includes a 16-nm training chip sampling next year as well as follow-on 7-nm products. The […]
A group of scientists at the University of Tokyo has recorded the largest magnetic field ever generated indoors—a whopping 1,200 tesla, as measured in the standard units of magnetic field strength. By comparison, this is a field strength about 400 times higher than those generated by the huge, powerful magnets used in modern hospital MRI […]
As a result of climate change, population growth, and rising expectations regarding quality of life, energy requirements for cooling processes are growing much faster worldwide than for heating. Another problem that besets today’s refrigeration systems is that most coolants cause environmental and health damage. A novel technology could provide a solution: refrigeration using magnetic materials […]
Artificially intelligent (AI) systems are as diverse as they come from an architectural standpoint, but there’s one component they all share in common: datasets. The trouble is, large sample sizes are often a corollary of accuracy (a state-of-the-art diagnostic system by Google’s DeepMind subsidiary required 15,000 scans from 7,500 patients), and some datasets are harder […]
Sebastian Thrun, one of the best known entrepreneurs in Silicon Valley, is taking on a new challenge that’s a big shift from his work in autonomous transportation or online education: He’s working to automate sales chats. Thrun, who founded Google’s research lab X and its autonomous car project, education start-up Udacity, and electric aircraft company […]
Google’s Now Playing song recognition was clever when it premiered late in 2017, but it had its limits. When it premiered on the Pixel 2, for instance, its on-device database could only recognize a relatively small number of songs. Now, however, that same technology is available in the cloud through Sound Search — and it’s […]
