Computing
Latest significant advancements in computing. Reporting on the far-reaching impacts of improvements within the realm of computing on society and humanity.
In the Future, Everyone Might Use Quantum Computers
Computers were once considered high-end technology, only accessible to scientists and trained professionals. But there was a seismic shift in the history of computing during the second half of the 1970s. It wasn’t just...
Microsoft Is Building an All-In-One DNA Data Storage Device
The modern world is facing a tsunami of data. DNA is emerging as an ultra-compact way of storing it all, and now researchers supported by Microsoft have created the first system that can automatically...
Intel Is Building the World’s Most Powerful Supercomputer
A supercomputer capable of a quintillion operations a second will go online in 2021 after the US government handed Intel and supercomputer manufacturer Cray a contract to build an exascale computer called Aurora. This...
Finally, Proof That Quantum Computing Can Boost Machine Learning
Quantum supremacy sounds like something out of a Marvel movie. But for scientists working at the forefront of quantum computing, the hope—and hype—of this fundamentally different method of processing information is very real. Thanks...
IBM Introduces ‘Quantum Volume’ to Track Progress Towards the Quantum Age
Quantum computing companies are racing to squeeze ever more qubits into their devices, but is this really a solid sign of progress? IBM is proposing a more holistic measure it calls “quantum volume” (QV)...
Quantum Computing, Now and in the (Not Too Distant) Future
Fifty years ago, smartphones would have been the ultimate computing wizardry. Just as classical computers were almost unimaginable to previous generations, we’re now facing the birth of an entirely new type of computation, something...
What Games Are Humans Still Better at Than AI?
Artificial intelligence (AI) systems’ rapid advances are continually crossing rows off the list of things humans do better than our computer compatriots.
AI has bested us at board games like chess and Go, and set...
Neuroscientists Just Found a Way to Image the Brain 1,000 Times Faster Than Ever Before
You know those stories of scientific breakthroughs, in which the lone genius scientist struggles for years until his “eureka!” moment?
Yeah, that’s a lie.
With the big data revolution well under way, today scientific discoveries are...
Quantum Communication Just Took a Great Leap Forward
Researchers in the field of quantum communication have recently made great strides, taking us closer to a perfectly secure method of communication.
For years, researchers struggled to find ways to amplify quantum signals, store large...
How Blockchain Is Changing Computer Gaming
Ripples of change are starting to spread throughout the $108.9 billion computer gaming industry, as blockchain technology looks set to change core aspects of games enjoyed by 2.2 billion people around the world.
Better security...
The SpiNNaker Supercomputer, Modeled After the Human Brain, Is Up and Running
We've long used the brain as inspiration for computers, but the SpiNNaker supercomputer, switched on this month, is probably the closest we’ve come to recreating it in silicon. Now scientists hope to use the...
How Quantum Computing is Enabling Breakthroughs in Chemistry
Note: Mark Jackson is Scientific Lead of Business Development at Cambridge Quantum Computing
Quantum computing is expected to solve computational questions that cannot be addressed by existing classical computing methods. It is now accepted that...
From Quantum Computing to a Quantum Internet—a Roadmap
Quantum computers are making all the headlines these days, but quantum communication technology may actually be closer to practical implementation. In a bid to hasten its arrival, researchers have now mapped out the path...
DeepMind’s Eerie Reimagination of the Animal Kingdom
If a recent project using Google’s DeepMind were a recipe, you would take a pair of AI systems, images of animals, and a whole lot of computing power. Mix it all together, and you’d...
Why Rigetti’s New Quantum Hybrid Cloud Service Is a Big Deal
Despite their potential power, today’s quantum computers are still taking baby steps and need a fair bit of hand-holding from their conventional cousins. That’s why computing startup Rigetti has launched a hybrid cloud service...
A Student Took Down One of Quantum Computing’s Top Applications—Now What?
The possibility that quantum computing could turbocharge machine learning is one of the most tantalizing applications for the emerging technology. But an 18-year-old student just put that vision in doubt after finding a classical...
Could Machine Learning Mean the End of Understanding in Science?
Much to the chagrin of summer party planners, weather is a notoriously chaotic system. Small changes in precipitation, temperature, humidity, wind speed or direction, etc. can balloon into an entirely new set of conditions...
Waste Heat: The Overlooked Energy Problem, and How to Solve It
With the exponential increase in the number of data centers and electronic devices over the last decade, waste heat has become a big but overlooked environmental problem. It is frequently hidden away, out of...
DNA Computing Gets a Boost With This Machine Learning Hack
As the master code of life, DNA can do a lot of things. Inheritance. Gene therapy. Wipe out an entire species. Solve logic problems. Recognize your sloppy handwriting.
Wait, What?
In a brilliant study published in...
Why Most of Us Fail to Grasp Coming Exponential Gains in AI
By now, most of us are familiar with Moore’s Law, the famous maxim that the development of computing power follows an exponential curve, doubling in price-performance (that is, speed per unit cost) every 18...
Big Tech Should Take the Lead on Climate Change—Here’s Why
At Collision, which calls itself “North America’s fastest-growing tech conference,” former United Nations climate chief Christiana Figueres threw down a challenge to tech titans: move the world from incremental to exponential action on climate...
Bot vs. Bot: Will the Internet Soon Be a Place Without Humans?
The internet, as it stands, is a global system of interconnected computer networks that allows humans to interact with each other, do business, gain knowledge, and be entertained. Google allowed us to find everything...
Three Huge Ways Tech Is Overhauling Healthcare
We are on the brink of a revolution in healthcare. AI is making the drug discovery process >100X faster and cheaper, and 90 percent more likely to succeed in clinical trials. Mobile health is...
VR Fireside Chat: Inside a Virtual World Full of Surprises
Two weeks ago, I gave my first virtual reality presentation—a virtual fireside chat with my friend Philip Rosedale, the CEO of High Fidelity and creator of Second Life.
At the time, in conjunction with the...
The Smart Road Tech That’s Making Driving Faster, Safer, and Just Better
From autonomous cars to flying taxis to electric-powered aircraft, technological innovations in transportation vehicles seem to be moving faster than Elon Musk’s express loop underneath Chicago. But when it comes to regular roads and...
This New Chip Design Could Make Neural Nets More Efficient and a Lot Faster
Neural networks running on GPUs have achieved some amazing advances in artificial intelligence, but the two are accidental bedfellows. IBM researchers hope a new chip design tailored specifically to run neural nets could provide...
Microsoft’s Wild New Project Puts Servers at the Bottom of the Ocean
Last week, a few miles off the northern coast of Scotland, a cylinder the size of a shipping container was carefully lowered to the bottom of the ocean floor. Sounds like a clever (if...
Will Bitcoin Use as Much Electricity as All of Austria by the End of the Year?
Cryptocurrencies like Bitcoin were designed to be efficient, low-friction alternatives to traditional financial systems. But it seems their creators maybe didn’t think too hard about their sustainability.
An analysis published in the journal Joule this...
This DeepMind AI Spontaneously Developed Digital Navigation ‘Neurons’ Like Ours
When Google DeepMind researchers trained a neural network to tackle a virtual maze, it spontaneously developed digital equivalents to the specialized neurons called grid cells that mammals use to navigate. Not only did the...
Why the Discovery of Room-Temperature Superconductors Would Unleash Amazing Technologies
Superconductors are among the most bizarre and exciting materials yet discovered. Counterintuitive quantum-mechanical effects mean that, below a critical temperature, they have zero electrical resistance. This property alone is more than enough to spark...
New Tech Marries the Best of Photonics and Electronics on the Same Silicon Chip
Optical communication has revolutionized long-distance data transfer, but scaling it down to microchips is tougher. Now, though, a new technique means optical components can be integrated into general purpose chips using standard manufacturing processes...
Scientists Discover How to Harness the Power of Quantum Spookiness by Entangling Clouds of Atoms
From tunneling through impenetrable barriers to being in two places at the same time, the quantum world of atoms and particles is famously bizarre. Yet the strange properties of quantum mechanics are not mathematical...
A Data Storage Revolution? DNA Can Store Near Limitless Data in Almost Zero Space
In the age of big data, we are quickly producing far more digital information than we can possibly store.
Last year, $20 billion was spent on new data centers in the US alone, doubling the...
How Big Is the Gap Between ‘Ready Player One’ and Current VR Tech?
Steven Spielberg's blockbuster Ready Player One depicts a future where VR technology can transport people into a completely realistic alternate universe. But how close is real-life tech to that vision?
Much of the coverage of...
IBM’s New Computer Is the Size of a Grain of Salt and Costs Less Than 10 Cents
The miniaturization of electronics has been progressing steadily for decades, but IBM just took a major leap. The company has created what it's calling the world's smallest computer, and it’s the size of a grain...
The Wild New Materials of the Future Will Be Discovered With AI
How materials for computer chips, solar panels, and batteries are developed looks to be in the early stages of a radical change. The same goes for research related to areas like superconductors and thermoelectrics.
The...
Powerful New Algorithm Is a Big Step Towards Whole-Brain Simulation
The renowned physicist Dr. Richard Feynman once said: “What I cannot create, I do not understand. Know how to solve every problem that has been solved.”
An increasingly influential subfield of neuroscience has taken Feynman’s...
In the Future, There Will Be No Limit to What AI Can Accomplish in Science
New planets found in distant corners of the galaxy. Climate models that may improve our understanding of sea level rise. The emergence of new antimalarial drugs. These scientific advances and discoveries have been in...
Silicon Valley Is Winning the Race to Build the First Driverless Cars
Henry Ford didn’t invent the motor car. The late 1800s saw a flurry of innovation by hundreds of companies battling to deliver on the promise of fast, efficient and reasonably-priced mechanical transportation. Ford later...
What Global Challenges Will We Solve With Exascale Supercomputers?
Though nearly seventy percent of Earth’s surface is comprised of water, only three percent is considered fresh and drinkable—and most of that striking minority is trapped in glaciers or polar ice caps. Juxtapose the...
Brain-Like Chips Now Beat the Human Brain in Speed and Efficiency
Move over, deep learning. Neuromorphic computing—the next big thing in artificial intelligence—is on fire.
Just last week, two studies individually unveiled computer chips modeled after information processing in the human brain.
The first, published in Nature...
Why Quantum Computers Will Be an Amazing Tool for Social Innovators
While most people think quantum computing is still a few years off, your next taxi ride in Bangkok may be attached to a quantum computer. Toyota Tsusho and Denso recently announced plans to use...
Why the World Is Still Getting Better—and That’s Likely to Continue
If you read or watch the news, you’ll likely think the world is falling to pieces. Trends like terrorism, climate change, and a growing population straining the planet’s finite resources can easily lead you...
AI Uses Titan Supercomputer to Create Deep Neural Nets in Less Than a Day
You don’t have to dig too deeply into the archive of dystopian science fiction to uncover the horror that intelligent machines might unleash. The Matrix and The Terminator are probably the most well-known examples of self-replicating,...
New Plasmonic Device to Help the Internet Keep Growing and Getting Faster
The volume of data shuttled around the internet is growing unchecked, placing ever greater burdens on our communication infrastructure. But a new device that takes advantage of the unusual properties of plasmons could tackle...
IBM Just Simulated the Biggest Quantum Computer to Date—What That Means for the Field
Google was in poll position to win the race for quantum supremacy, the point at which a quantum computer can do things a conventional one can't. But IBM seems to have pulled the rug...
Is Quantum Computing an Existential Threat to Blockchain Technology?
Amid steep gains in value and wild headlines, it’s easy to forget cryptocurrencies and blockchain aren’t yet mainstream. Even so, fans of the technology believe blockchain has too much potential not to have a...
Tech Is Becoming Emotionally Intelligent, and It’s Big Business
Many people get frustrated with technology when it malfunctions or is counterintuitive. The last thing people might expect is for that same technology to pick up on their emotions and engage with them differently...
Can You Be Hacked by the World Around You?
You’ve probably been told it’s dangerous to open unexpected attachment files in your email—just like you shouldn’t open suspicious packages in your mailbox. But have you been warned against scanning unknown QR codes or...
New Photonic Synapses Mimic the Brain and Compute With Light
Computing with light and designing brain-inspired hardware are at the experimental fringes of technology research. But they both come with potentially enormous advantages, so a group of scientists has decided to combine them.
Neuromorphic computing...
