Intelligent Machines
Apple’s AI director: here’s how to supercharge deep learning.
Ruslan Salakhutdinov, who leads Apple’s AI efforts, says emerging techniques could make the most popular approach in the field far more powerful.
Continue reading “Apple’s AI director: Here’s how to supercharge deep learning” »
Could artificial intelligence make devices easier to use? According to Samsung, it sure can, and that’s what it the company out to prove with its Bixby AI service.
Bixby is being loaded on the Galaxy S8 and S8+ smartphones, which were announced on Tuesday. Bixby is an agent that can help the smartphones talk, recommend, and remind, said Mok Oh, vice president of service strategy at Samsung.
The AI service is being positioned as a more intuitive way to use and interact with smartphones. For example, Bixby can help smartphones execute tasks with a voice command. It also brings cool features like image recognition and language translation on board the S8 smartphones.
Continue reading “5 things the Samsung Galaxy S8’s Bixby artificial intelligence service will do” »
SpaceX’s Falcon 9 rocket will deliver SES-10, a commercial communications satellite for SES, to a Geostationary Transfer Orbit (GTO). SES is a world-leading satellite operator, providing reliable and secure satellite communications solutions across the globe.
The SES-10 mission will mark a historic milestone on the road to full and rapid reusability as the world’s first reflight of an orbital class rocket. Falcon 9’s first stage for the SES-10 mission previously supported the successful CRS-8 mission in April 2016.
Back in August 2014, researchers at Michigan State University created a fully transparent solar concentrator, which could turn any window or sheet of glass (like your smartphone’s screen) into a photovoltaic solar cell. Unlike other “transparent” solar cells that we’ve reported on in the past, this one really is transparent, as you can see in the photos throughout this story. According to Richard Lunt, who led the research at the time, the team was confident the transparent solar panels can be efficiently deployed in a wide range of settings, from “tall buildings with lots of windows or any kind of mobile device that demands high aesthetic quality like a phone or e-reader.”
Now Ubiquitous Energy, an MIT startup we first reported on in 2013, is getting closer to bringing its transparent solar panels to market. Lunt cofounded the company and remains assistant professor of chemical engineering and materials science at Michigan State University. Essentially, what they’re doing is instead of shrinking the components, they’re changing the way the cell absorbs light. The cell selectively harvests the part of the solar spectrum we can’t see with our eye, while letting regular visible light pass through.
Scientifically, a transparent solar panel is something of an oxymoron. Solar cells, specifically the photovoltaic kind, make energy by absorbing photons (sunlight) and converting them into electrons (electricity). If a material is transparent, however, by definition it means that all of the light passes through the medium to strike the back of your eye. This is why previous transparent solar cells have actually only been partially transparent — and, to add insult to injury, they usually they cast a colorful shadow too.
March 28 (UPI) — Researchers at Northwestern University created a synthetic version of the female reproductive system that can be used to test drug therapies.
The system is shaped like a cube and consists of a series of small tubes, each containing cells from a different part of the female reproductive system, including the uterus, cervix, vagina, fallopian tubes and liver.
Continue reading “Scientists create tiny female reproductive system in a dish” »
LIMA, Peru (AP) — If human beings finally reach Mars, they may find themselves depending on the humble, if hardy potato.
Scientists in Peru have used a simulator that mimics the harsh conditions on the Red Planet to successfully grow a small potato plant.
It’s an experiment straight out of the 2015 Hollywood movie “The Martian” that scientists say may also benefit arid regions already feeling the impact of climate change.
Mushroom buildings, jurassic park and terraforming.
Did you ever hear about synthetic biology? No? Imagine that we could alter and produce DNA from scratch just like an engineer. Doesn’t it sound like one of the greatest interdisciplinary achievements in recent history?
Think about it, a bio-technologist is doing more or less the work of a programmer but instead of using a computer language he’s doing it by arranging molecules embedded in every living cell. The outcome, if ever mastered, could reshape the world around us dramatically.
Continue reading “How The Power Of Synthetic Biology could reshape the world” »
