IBM Unveils Chip Simulating Brain Functions
The technology company has developed a microchip that simulates functions of neurons, synapses and other features of the brain to perform calculations. IBM says the chip, a sharp break from the fundamental design used in most computers, excels at chores like recognizing patterns and classifying objects while using much less electrical power than conventional hardware.
TrueNorth, IBM says, uses 5.4 billion transistors—four times more than a typical PC processor—to yield the equivalent of one million neurons and 256 million synapses. They are organized into 4,096 structures called "neurosynaptic cores," each able to store, process and transmit data to any other using a communications scheme called a crossbar.
The design is "event-driven," Mr. Modha says. That means that individual cores fire up only when they are needed, rather than running all the time.
See the full story here: http://online.wsj.com/articles/ibm-unveils-chip-simulating-brain-functions-1407434402?mod=ST1
Best Buy Bets Ultra-High-Def Screens Make TVs Cool Again
The world’s largest electronics chain has teamed up with Samsung Electronics Co. andSony Corp. (6758) to open in-store showrooms staffed with Blue Shirts trained to tout the merits of Ultra High-Definition, or 4K, technology, which generates a picture four times sharper than existing high-definition TVs.
Televisions in particular have been dragging. While Americans continue to buy TVs to watch communal events like the Super Bowl in their living rooms, secondary sets for bedrooms and kitchens are losing out to tablets and computers, said Veronica Thayer, an analyst for IHS Technology based in Austin, Texas. U.S. TV shipments fell 13 percent to 34.3 million last year from 39.3 million in 2011, according to IHS. Best Buy’s U.S. revenue in the category has declined the past four years.
TV makers have been trying to come up with a successor to flat-panel, high-definition sets only to watch 3D televisions flop and Web-connected sets fail to catch on.
See the full story here: http://www.bloomberg.com/news/2014-07-31/best-buy-bets-ultra-high-def-screens-make-tvs-cool-again.html
Virtual reality offers dramatic possibilities — and challenges — for the film industry
“Your typical coverage in photography as well as just where somebody can stand and not be seen doesn’t necessarily exist,” Gratzner said. “Every perspective from top to bottom, 360 degrees, there has to be action and something going on at all times, otherwise the viewer can turn around and see there are people waiting for the take or turn around and see that basically nothing is happening.”
That requires creative equipment set ups too. Lighting and sound equipment need to be strategically placed outside the shot, just like people. One scene of “The Mission” took place in a dark bunker, where the crew rigged up giant mirrors and lights outside of cracks and small windows in the walls to direct a large amount of light inside.
A firm release date for “The Mission” has not been set, but presumably it will coincide with Oculus Rift’s launch to consumers sometime in the next year.
See the full story here: http://gigaom.com/2014/08/06/virtual-reality-offers-dramatic-possibilities-and-challenges-for-the-film-industry/
PARC’s technique of mincing chips into printer ink could revolutionize the way electronics are made.
Typically, chips are made in bulk on semiconductor wafers and then cut into individual units and placed on motherboards inside computers and other devices. But researchers at PARC, in Palo Alto, California, envision doing something different with the wafers: chopping them up into hairs-width “chiplets,” mixing them into an ink, and guiding the tiny pieces electrostatically to just the right spot and orientation on a substrate, from which a roller could pick them up and print them.
Because printers can deposit materials on different substrates, this technology could be used to make high-performance flexible electronic devices, tiny sensors festooned with dense arrays of diverse sensors, or 3-D objects with computing functions woven in, says Janos Veres, who manages PARC’s printed-electronics team. And the approach could make it easier for more people and small companies to design and manufacture custom computing devices.
The technology marshals chiplets into place using software-controlled electrical fields generated by arrays of wires beneath an assembly substrate. Like balls rolling into divots, the chiplets go to locations defined by the electrical fields.
The first hurdle is figuring out how to precisely assemble chiplets; so far, PARC has managed to place four at a time and then wire them together in a second step. Still, that achievement is a start toward “accelerating the evolution of microelectronics,” Veres says. “We can iterate new circuits every minute, opening up thousands of uses.”
See the full story here: http://www.technologyreview.com/photoessay/529761/micro-chiplets/?utm_campaign=newsletters&utm_source=newsletter-daily-all&utm_medium=email&utm_content=20140808
The New Foursquare Is Here, and It’s Surprisingly Good
Launching it for the first time, you'll be prompted to log in the same way you always have; but right afterward, the app begins creating a profile of you by asking what you're into. You like iced coffee? Thai food's your thing? How about cozy places? Choose as many or as few as you like, and Foursquare will know better which stuff to show you.
It uses these preferences — along with your check-in history, its own restaurant ratings and data from your Foursquare friends — to surface recommendations just for you. The more you use Foursquare, the smarter these recs will get, the company claims.
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In other words, the app needs to give you options, and those options are often overwhelming. Thankfully, the new Foursquare encourages liberal use of its many filters when looking for the best venue.
Filters are the magic potion that make Foursquare recommendations useful and unique. Not only does it include the usual suspects of filtering by price, cuisine and distance, you can also get much more granular: The app lets you filter search results by specific features, such as being dog-friendly or having Wi-Fi.
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See the full story here: http://mashable.com/2014/08/06/foursquare-8-review/?curator=MediaREDEF
Is There Any Way to Avoid Standards Wars in the Emerging Internet of Things?
[Philip Lelyveld comment; Consortia developing and publishing standards around a rapidly evolving technology is a waste of time. What they CAN do is pool their efforts and drive markets towards standardization, which can be codified later. Each of these groups is trying to do there for their narrowly defined portion of the Internet of Things ecosystem. It will be a venn diagram-driven battle later on. (Does anybody want to get with me and develop a consulting pitch around these ideas?)]
He points to three industry-wide groups that are each attempting to establish their own IoT standards—one of which is the IEEE, publisher of IEEE Spectrum. The other groups, small consortia of companies with IoT interests are: the Open Interconnect Consortium, which includes Intel, Atmel, Broadcom, Dell, Samsung, and Wind River; and the Thread Group, comprising Nest Labs, Samsung, Yale Security, Silicon Labs, Freescale Semiconductor, ARM, and Big Ass Fans. (No, that was not a typo. Samsung has decided to hedge its bets by joining both of the corporate groups.)
See the full story here: http://spectrum.ieee.org/tech-talk/consumer-electronics/standards/is-there-any-way-to-avoid-standards-wars-in-the-emerging-internet-of-things?curator=MediaREDEF
A heads-up display could be safer than glancing at your smartphone while driving—but some features may be more distracting than others.
Market research company IHS estimates that 348,000 cars will be sold in the U.S. with heads-up displays this year, up from 247,000 million in 2013. But cars with built-in systems tend to be pricey; what’s more, most heads-up displays tend to do just a few simple tasks, such as showing directions or speed.
Navdy began taking orders on Tuesday for its $299 device. It is expected to ship to customers early next year.
To make Navdy work, data is sent via Bluetooth from a companion smartphone app (both iPhone and Android will be supported initially). A tiny projector projects the image onto a small screen that the driver looks through to see part of the road.
An infrared camera—not built into the device I saw—will let the device recognize gestures such as swiping to accept an incoming call. You can also text and tweet by gesturing to bring up a microphone and dictating a message, Simpson says. Eventually the system will be opened to outside developers, but to start it will work only with a number of apps, such as navigation apps like Google Maps and music apps like Pandora and Spotify.
Paul Green, a research professor in the driver interface group at the University of Michigan Transportation Institute, says that whether a heads-up display is distracting depends on how it’s implemented—whether it interferes with you seeing things or is bright enough for use at night and during the day, for example.
