Researchers at Stanford have built a synchronous computer that operates using the unique physics of moving water droplets. The droplet processor is significantly slower than an electronic computer, but the research team says that speed is not their aim; rather, they want to develop a completely new class of computers that can precisely control and […]
University of Rochester computer scientists have developed innovative software that turns smartphones into mental health monitoring devices. Describing the project at this week’s American Association for Artificial Intelligence conference in Austin, Texas, researcher Jiebo Luo said the program analyzes “selfie” images and videos taken as the user engages with social media. Rather than direct interaction […]
Computer security systems may one day get a boost from quantum physics, as a result of recent research into a “one-shot” memory unit, whose contents can be read only a single time. The research, by Yi-Kai Liu from the National Institute of Standards and Technology, is being presented this week at Princeton’s Innovations in Theoretical […]
Social networks like Facebook may soon be able to tell which urban tribe you belong to. University of California, San Diego computer scientists are developing an algorithm that uses group pictures to determine whether you’re a hipster, Goth, biker, or surfer. So far, the algorithm is about 5 times more accurate than chance, but the […]
Over time, organisms appear to become increasingly capable of evolving in response to changes in the environment, but computer boffins at the University of Central Florida say the traditional explanation – competition to survive in nature – may not actually be necessary for evolvability to increase. In their paper, published in PLOS ONE, the researchers […]
A research team from Japan’s National Institute for Materials Science and Michigan Technological University has replicated the problem-solving actions of neurons in an organic molecular layer that they say is massively parallel and self-healing – the first time such a brain-like circuit has been created. Writing about his work in Nature Physics, lead researcher Anirban […]
Father’s Day has prompted one fertility expert to issue a fresh warning to men who use their laptop computers on, er, their laps. Suzanne Kavic, director of reproductive endocrinology at Loyola University, says that most men underestimate the effect that the heat from laptops can have on sperm production. “Laptops are becoming increasingly common among […]
In work that could lead to much-improved computer vision systems, Massachusetts Institute of Technology (MIT) neuroscientists have tricked the visual cortex into confusing one object with another, thereby demonstrating that time teaches us how to recognize objects. Because an object such as a cat can produce innumerable different impressions on the retina – depending on […]
Computers usually execute whatever task they are programmed to do without “thinking” about the consequences. A new software language, however, promises to equip computers with reasoning powers that better reflect the subtleties intended by the commands of their human operators. Developed by a multi-national team of researchers working at the National Institute of Standards and […]
