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Computing

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  By 2020, you could have an exascale speed-of-light optical computer on your desk August 8, 2014 at 1:29 pm

  Optalysys, a UK technology company, says it’s on-target to demonstrate a novel optical computer, which performs calculations at the speed of light, in January 2015. If all goes to plan, Optalysys says its tech — which is really unlike anything you’ve ever heard of before — can put an exascale supercomputer on your desk by 2020.
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  Harvard & MIT create first self-assembling robots – the first real Transformers August 8, 2014 at 11:00 am

  Harvard and MIT engineers, showing reckless disregard for the robocalypse, have created origami robots that can self-assemble themselves — from a flat piece of paper and polystyrene — and walk away in just four minutes. “Getting a robot to assemble itself autonomously and actually perform a function has been a milestone we’ve been chasing for many years,” says Harvard’s Robert Wood, barely stifling a maniacal cackle.
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  IBM cracks open a new era of computing with brain-like chip: 4096 cores, 1 million neurons, 5.4 billion transistors August 7, 2014 at 2:00 pm

  Scientists at IBM Research have created by far the most advanced neuromorphic (brain-like) computer chip to date. The chip, called TrueNorth, consists of 1 million programmable neurons 256 million programmable synapses spread out across 4096 individual neurosynaptic cores. Built on Samsung’s 28nm process and with a monstrous transistor count of 5.4 billion, this is one of the largest and most advanced computer chips ever made. Perhaps most importantly, though, TrueNorth is incredibly efficient: The chip consumes just 72 milliwatts at max load, which equates to around 400 billion synaptic operations per second per watt — or about 176,000 times more efficient than a modern CPU running the same workload, or 769 times more efficient than other state-of-the-art neuromorphic approaches. Yes, IBM is now a big step closer to building a brain on a chip.
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  As Google acquisition looms, Twitch becomes just like the YouTube beast it tried to distance itself from August 7, 2014 at 1:53 pm

  In the wake of its rumored YouTube acquisition, Twitch.tv is making numerous significant changes to its content and copyright policing. The results are anything but positive.
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  UNC and Nvidia collaborate on ‘pinlight display’ augmented reality breakthrough August 7, 2014 at 11:20 am

  A new augmented reality approach from researchers at UNC and Nvidia could revolutionize the industry — and make advanced AR interfaces a reality.
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  Windows 9 kills off awful Charms bar, adds virtual desktops to win back disaffected Desktop defectors August 7, 2014 at 10:09 am

  According to the latest leaks out of Microsoft, the next major version of Windows — Windows 9, Windows Threshold — will kill off the Charms bar. And, if that wasn’t enough to win back the droves of Desktop users who were scared off by the disgusting blight of Windows 8 Metroficiation, Windows 9 will also have virtual desktops! Yes, it would seem Microsoft is serious about making Windows a first-class operating system for mouse-and-keyboard users yet again.
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  MIT can now eavesdrop through soundproof glass by watching the vibrations of a bag of chips August 7, 2014 at 8:01 am

  With a breakthrough that sounds more like the plot from the latest instalment of James bond than an academic research paper, engineers at MIT have managed to recover speech by analyzing the tiny vibrations of a potato chip bag from 15 feet away — with a video camera watching through soundproof glass. There are some obvious security and forensics repercussions from this work, but other interesting uses will surely emerge (such as recovering audio from silent film, perhaps?)
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  Chinese government bans use of Apple products in deepening US conflict August 6, 2014 at 1:41 pm

  A recent ban on Apple products in government procurements is the latest Chinese trade decision designed to put pressure on both the US government and US companies.
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  Windows 8.1 Update 2, due next week, shows Microsoft is finally ready to compete with its faster-moving competitors August 6, 2014 at 10:17 am

  With surprisingly little ceremony at all, Microsoft has announced that the next major update for Windows 8.1 is coming next week on August 12 — except calling it a ‘major update’ is a wee bit of an overstatement. In fact, despite rumors that we’d be seeing a significant ‘Update 2′ in August, Microsoft says that’s definitely not the case. In short, if you were hoping for something exciting from the second Windows 8.1 update, you will be sorely disappointed — unless you’ve been avidly awaiting some touchpad tweaks, anyway.
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  Western Digital’s HGST division creates new phase-change SSD that’s orders of magnitude faster than any NAND flash drive on the market August 6, 2014 at 9:02 am

  HGST is demonstrating a new type of phase change memory array that’s orders of magnitude faster than NAND — so fast, they had to redesign PCI-Express to make the protocol work.

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