Some folks will be freaked out by this while others will luv it.
A visitor tries out an HP Spectre XT laptop computer featuring an Intel Ultrabook processor at the Internationale Funkausstellung (IFA) 2012 consumer electronics trade fair on August 31, 2012 in Berlin, Germany. (Getty Images — Representational Image)
AI and Quality Control in Genome data are made for each other.
A new study published in The Plant Journal helps to shed light on the transcriptomic differences between different tissues in Arabidopsis, an important model organism, by creating a standardized “atlas” that can automatically annotate samples to include lost metadata such as tissue type. By combining data from over 7000 samples and 200 labs, this work represents a way to leverage the increasing amounts of publically available ‘omics data while improving quality control, to allow for large scale studies and data reuse.
“As more and more ‘omics data are hosted in the public databases, it become increasingly difficult to leverage those data. One big obstacle is the lack of consistent metadata,” says first author and Brookhaven National Laboratory research associate Fei He. “Our study shows that metadata might be detected based on the data itself, opening the door for automatic metadata re-annotation.”
The study focuses on data from microarray analyses, an early high-throughput genetic analysis technique that remains in common use. Such data are often made publically available through tools such as the National Center for Biotechnology Information’s Gene Expression Omnibus (GEO), which over time accumulates vast amounts of information from thousands of studies.
Horizon Robotics, led by Yu Kai, Baidu’s former deep learning head, is developing AI chips and software to mimic how the human brain solves abstract tasks, such as voice and image recognition. The company believes that this will provide more consistent and reliable services than cloud based systems.
The goal is to enable fast and intelligent responses to user commands, with out an internet connection, to control appliances, cars, and other objects. Health applications are a logical next step, although not yet discussed.
Wearable Tech + Digital Health San Francisco – April 5, 2016 @ the Mission Bay Conference Center.
Cloud syncing and sharing software company Dropbox today announced that it has released an image compression algorithm called Lepton under an Apache open source license on GitHub.
Lepton can both compress and decompress files, and for the latter, it can work while streaming — that is, files can be expanded back into full size as they are being sent over the network. So Lepton is important for user experience, given how it can more quickly transfer data and show content. But at the same time, it has an impact on the data center infrastructure where files often end up.
“We have used Lepton to encode 16 billion images saved to Dropbox, and are rapidly recoding our older images. Lepton has already saved Dropbox multiple petabytes of space,” Dropbox software systems architect Daniel Reiter Horn wrote in a blog post.
It looks like a small piece of transparent film with tiny engravings on it, and is flexible enough to be bent into a tube. Yet, this piece of “smart” plastic demonstrates excellent performance in terms of data storage and processing capabilities. This novel invention, developed by researchers from the National University of Singapore (NUS), hails a breakthrough in the flexible electronics revolution, and brings researchers a step closer towards making flexible, wearable electronics a reality in the near future.
The technological advancement is achieved in collaboration with researchers from Yonsei University, Ghent University and Singapore’s Institute of Materials Research and Engineering. The research team has successfully embedded a powerful magnetic memory chip on a flexible plastic material, and this malleable memory chip will be a critical component for the design and development of flexible and lightweight devices. Such devices have great potential in applications such as automotive, healthcare electronics, industrial motor control and robotics, industrial power and energy management, as well as military and avionics systems.
Meet the world’s smallest hard drive.
Dutch scientists have developed a unique solution to deal with the data storage problem. By manipulating single atoms, researchers have created the world’s smallest hard drive capable of storing 1 kilobyte of data (8000 bits) in a space under 100 nanometers across. The technology means that all the books in the world could be stored on a device the size of a postage stamp.
In a study published Monday in the journal Nature Nanotechnology, scientists from the Technical University of Delft (TU Delft) said that they have created an atomic hard drive with a storage density that is 500 times greater than current hard drive technology.
Associate Professor at TU Delft and lead researcher Sander Otte and his team found that placing chlorine atoms on a copper surface created the perfect square grid. A hole appears in the grid when an atom is missing. Using a scanning tunneling microscope, scientists were able to move atoms around one by one and even drag individual atoms toward the hole.
More information on DARPA’s efforts in build new interface standards for modular design & practical circuit blocks.
Is it possible to develop chip technology that combines the high-performance characteristics of ASICS with the speedy, low-cost features of printed circuit boards?
Scientists at the Defense Advanced Research Projects Agency this week said they were looking for information on how to build interface standards that would enable modular design and practical circuit blocks that could be reused to greatly shorten electronics development time and cost.
+More on Network World: DARPA: Researchers develop chip part that could double wireless frequency capacity +
