COMPUTING
To Build a Better AI Supercomputer, Let There Be Light
Will Knight | Wired
“Lightmatter wants to directly connect hundreds of thousands or even millions of GPUs—those silicon chips that are crucial to AI training—using optical links. Reducing the conversion bottleneck should allow data to move between chips at much higher speeds than is possible today, potentially enabling distributed AI supercomputers of extraordinary scale.“
ROBOTICS
Apple Has Been Secretly Building Home Robots That Could End up as a New Product Line, Report Says
Aaron Mok | Business Insider
“Apple is in the early stages of looking into making home robots, a move that appears to be an effort to create its ‘next big thing’ after it killed its self-driving car project earlier this year, sources familiar with the matter told Bloomberg. Engineers are looking into developing a robot that could follow users around their houses, Bloomberg reported. They’re also exploring a tabletop at-home device that uses robotics to rotate the display, a more advanced project than the mobile robot.”
SPACE
A Tantalizing ‘Hint’ That Astronomers Got Dark Energy All Wrong
Dennis Overbye | The New York Times
“On Thursday, astronomers who are conducting what they describe as the biggest and most precise survey yet of the history of the universe announced that they might have discovered a major flaw in their understanding of dark energy, the mysterious force that is speeding up the expansion of the cosmos. Dark energy was assumed to be a constant force in the universe, both currently and throughout cosmic history. But the new data suggest that it may be more changeable, growing stronger or weaker over time, reversing or even fading away.”
COMPUTING
How ASML Took Over the Chipmaking Chessboard
Mat Honan and James O’Donnell | MIT Technology Review
“When asked what he thought might eventually cause Moore’s Law to finally stall out, van den Brink rejected the premise entirely. ‘There’s no reason to believe this will stop. You won’t get the answer from me where it will end,’ he said. ‘It will end when we’re running out of ideas where the value we create with all this will not balance with the cost it will take. Then it will end. And not by the lack of ideas.'”
TRANSPORTATION
The Very First Jet Suit Grand Prix Takes Off in Dubai
Mike Hanlon | New Atlas
“A new sport kicked away this month when the first ever jet-suit race was held in Dubai. Each racer wore an array of seven 130-hp jet engines (two on each arm and three in the backpack for a total 1,050 hp) that are controlled by hand-throttles. After that, the pilots use the three thrust vectors to gain lift, move forward and try to stay above ground level while negotiating the course…faster than anyone else.“
ROBOTICS
Toyota’s Bubble-ized Humanoid Grasps With Its Whole Body
Evan Ackerman | IEEE Spectrum
“Many of those motions look very human-like, because this is how humans manipulate things. Not to throw too much shade at all those humanoid warehouse robots, but as is pointed out in the video above, using just our hands outstretched in front of us to lift things is not how humans do it, because using other parts of our bodies to provide extra support makes lifting easier.”
FUTURE
‘A Brief History of the Future’ Offers a Hopeful Antidote to Cynical Tech Takes
Devin Coldewey | TechCrunch
“The future, he said, isn’t just what a Silicon Valley publicist tells you, or what ‘Big Dystopia’ warns you of, or even what a TechCrunch writer predicts. In the six-episode series, he talks with dozens of individuals, companies and communities about how they’re working to improve and secure a future they may never see. From mushroom leather to ocean cleanup to death doulas, Wallach finds people who see the same scary future we do but are choosing to do something about it, even if that thing seems hopelessly small or naïve.”
TECH
This AI Startup Wants You to Talk to Houses, Cars, and Factories
Steven Levy | Wired
“We’ve all been astonished at how chatbots seem to understand the world. But what if they were truly connect to the real world? What if the dataset behind the chat interface was physical reality itself, captured in real time by interpreting the input of billions of sensors sprinkled around the globe? That’s the idea behind Archetype AI, an ambitious startup launching today. As cofounder and CEO Ivan Poupyrev puts it, ‘Think of ChatGPT, but for physical reality.'”
FUTURE
How One Tech Skeptic Decided AI Might Benefit the Middle Class
Steve Lohr | The New York Times
“David Autor seems an unlikely AI optimist. The labor economist at the Massachusetts Institute of Technology is best known for his in-depth studies showing how much technology and trade have eroded the incomes of millions of American workers over the years. But Mr. Autor is now making the case that the new wave of technology—generative artificial intelligence, which can produce hyper-realistic images and video and convincingly imitate humans’ voices and writing—could reverse that trend.”
Image Credit: Harole Ethan / Unsplash
