Much ink was spilled in 2015 about the Internet of Things. It’s a concept that has been bandied about for several years—remember the use case of your refrigerator letting your local grocer know when you’re out of milk? The coming together of smartphones, sensors, GPS, Bluetooth and other technologies that enable mobile interconnectivity has moved … continue reading
How can programmers benefit from the “the year of Neural Nets”? Statistical machine learning techniques have been surging in popularity in academic settings for years, but 2015 was a watershed in terms of industry awareness and deployment. It was not long ago when the term “Deep Neural Networks” seemed about as dubious an explanation as … continue reading
Kids can build their own computer this holiday. Kano, a computer and coding kit for children ages 6 and up, released the new Kano Screen Kit in time for the holidays. Kids can use the kit to build a computer with plug-and-play pieces, make music, create games, code with Minecraft, and they can also learn … continue reading
Companies have been ramping up their research on convolutional neural networks or “deep learning,” which is a method of training computers to recognize images and speech. It’s an advancement in technology that, when developed correctly, makes computers almost as capable as humans at the task. Microsoft is one of these companies, and it recently announced … continue reading
The creator of Wolfram Alpha, Stephen Wolfram, is making a version of his “knowledge-based programming” open source. The Wolfram Language, which is a question/answer technology that computes answers from its storehouse of knowledge, is available as a free cloud service so that it can be accessible to more people like students and children, according to … continue reading
Facebook has announced plans to open-source its artificial intelligence hardware design. The Open Rack-compatible hardware, codenamed Big Sur, is designed to handle AI computing at a large scale, according to the company. “At Facebook, we’ve made great progress thus far with off-the-shelf infrastructure components and design,” wrote Facebook developers Kevin Lee and Serkan Piantino in … continue reading
Atlassian has officially set its IPO at US$21 a share, raising $482 million, the New York Times reported. The price is above the previously reported expected range, which was at about $16.50 to $18.50 per share for $370 million. According to the Times, the IPO price values the company at $4.38 billion. “Today is a … continue reading
Samsung has announced a new browser designed for its virtual reality device, Gear VR. Internet for Gear VR is designed to enable users to browse the Web in a more immersive atmosphere without having to download VR content. “As a pioneer in the mobile VR industry, Samsung has continually worked to provide our users with … continue reading
Wikipedia has a past of being notorious for incorrect information, since it’s a site that anyone can edit. Aaron Halfaker, a senior research scientist at the Wikimedia Foundation, has built an artificial intelligence (AI) engine to identify these acts of vandalism, a step toward replacing some of the volunteer editors with AIs. His engine relies … continue reading
Microsoft researchers say they are making advancements in computer vision, deep learning, and understanding images. The company, along with colleagues from Carnegie Mellon University, has developed a new system that analyzes images and interprets it as a human would. “The ability to answer questions is critical to developing artificial intelligence tools, and this breakthrough could … continue reading
Mozilla has announced the Firefox OS 2.5 developer preview along with an experimental Android app. The app lets developers experience Firefox OS as an alternate home screen on their Android device, without having to re-flash and replace Android installation. Version 2.5 features add-ons that can extend apps, a new privacy feature that allows users to … continue reading
Facebook wants to be more than just a social media platform. The company has been dabbling in virtual reality, software development, open-source software, Internet access, and more recently artificial intelligence. “Many people think of Facebook as just the big blue app, or even as the website, but in recent years we’ve been building a family … continue reading
