Tech World Research Articles

Special report : Can we copy the brain? - The neuromorphic chip's make-or-break moment

People in the tech world talk of a technology the by making the leap from early adopters to the mass market. A case study in chasm crossing is now unfolding in neuromorphic computing. The approach mimics the way neurons are connected and communicate in the human brain, and enthusiasts say neuromorphic chips can run on much less power than traditional CPUs. The problem, though, is proving that neuromorphics can move from research labs to commercial applications. The field's leading researchers spoke frankly about that challenge at the Neuro Inspired Computational Elements Workshop, held in March at the IBM research facility at Almaden, Calif. There currently is a lot of hype about neuromorphic computing, said Steve Furber, the researcher at the University of Manchester, in England, who heads the SpiNN aker project, a major neuromorphics effort. It's true that neuromorphic systems exist, and you can get one and use one. But all of them have fairly small user bases, in universities or industrial research groups. All require fairly specialized knowledge. And there is currently no compelling demonstration of a high-volume application where neuromorphic outperforms the alternative.

Light Years by Emily Ziff Griffin

Reviewed by: Light Years by Emily Ziff Griffin Kate Quealy-Gainer, Assistant Editor Griffin, Emily Ziff Light Years. Simon Pulse, 2017 304p Trade ed. ISBN 978-1-5072-0005-6 $17.99 E-book ed. ISBN 978-1-5072-0006-3 $10.99 R Gr. 7-10 When Luisa’s synesthesia kicks in during her interview for a fellowship with Thomas Bell, a giant in the tech world, Bell soundly dismisses her. Her personal disappointment, however, is soon eclipsed by a growing epidemic that takes the life of her best friend and sickens her father. When she is sent a mysterious message implying that she may already be in possession of a cure, Luisa heads out to California with friends, hoping someone from the massive volunteer effort there can clue her in to the messenger’s meaning. What makes Griffin’s world particularly frightening is its similarity to our own—Beyoncé and Taylor Swift are still musical powerhouses, but deadly global terrorist attacks have upped policing and put everyone on edge. The threat of militants and infection gives Luisa’s cross-country trek urgency and tension, but there’s also room for character development, especially as Luisa struggles with her relationship with her parents and with the challenges caused by her synesthesia. It’s that condition, though, that combines with her coding program (which tracks the pervasive sentiment of the population around certain events) to get a hit on the virus’s cause which seems related to Bell; the revelation that the deadly illness is spread by compassion for its victims and designed to rid the world of sentiment is particularly thought provoking. While there’s an element of mysticism that doesn’t quite jibe with the book’s tone at the end, a sequel seems likely, and readers will want to join Luisa’s efforts fight for empathy and humanity. Copyright © 2017 The Board of Trustees of the University of Illinois

Providing Authentication by Using Biometric Multimodal Framework for Cloud Computing

Secret knowledge, like remembering password or token based authentication systems are deemed inconvenience and difficult to use for users such as password may be forgotten or token may be lost. So burdens like remembering password and stolen or forged token based authentication have raised a current trend of biometric authentication system. Now in this current tech world, everyone needs security everywhere to protect our personal gadgets. So to keep it secured, biometric based approach can be applied for better convenience and ease of use for the user. In this paper, a novel hybrid multimodal approach for ear recognition and finger print recognition has been presented for better robustness and efficiency which can be applied in various fields of applications like authentication in banking transactions. Biometric based human recognition is rapidly gaining popularity due to breached of traditional security systems and the lowering cost of sensors. This paper comprehensively reviews multimodal recognition using ear pattern and finger print data, it is concluded that further research should investigate fast and fully automatic ear-finger print multimodal systems robust to occlusions and deformations.

China’s social and mobile companies set to shake the tech world

The days of China simply being a country that copies, pirates and counterfeits US and European technology are coming to end. Platforms like social and mobile are at the forefront of China’s current technological revolution. The interconnectedness of the modern world is creating a whole host of ways to market a product and/or a service. Chinese blogs, micro-blogs, content communities, social networking sites, virtual game worlds and virtual social worlds are leading this new technological revolution. Companies like WeChat, QQ, Weibo, Hexun, Youku, Jiepang, Qieke, Ushi, Taobao and Ku6 are all experiencing exponential growth. In China, the competition for consumers is incredibly fierce, especially in the social media space. This competition, however, does have a dark side: many companies regularly employ ‘artificial writers’ to seed positive content about themselves online and attack competitors with negative news they hope will go viral. On the e-commerce front, Taobao has formed a synergistic partnership in which store owners on Taobao create accounts on Weibo and utilise it as a channel to market their products and communicate with customers. On the virtual social world front, China might also be leading the world with sites like yy.com, which have found a way to monetise karaoke. Technology has always moved at the speed of light, but today the barriers of culture, language and communication are falling by the wayside and China is finding itself at the forefront of this new technological revolution.

Providing Authentication by Using Biometric Multimodal Framework for Cloud Computing

Secret knowledge, like remembering password or token based authentication systems are deemed inconvenience and difficult to use for users such as password may be forgotten or token may be lost. So burdens like remembering password and stolen or forged token based authentication have raised a current trend of biometric authentication system. Now in this current tech world, everyone needs security everywhere to protect our personal gadgets. So to keep it secured, biometric based approach can be applied for better convenience and ease of use for the user. In this paper, a novel hybrid multimodal approach for ear recognition and finger print recognition has been presented for better robustness and efficiency which can be applied in various fields of applications like authentication in banking transactions. Biometric based human recognition is rapidly gaining popularity due to breached of traditional security systems and the lowering cost of sensors. This paper comprehensively reviews multimodal recognition using ear pattern and finger print data, it is concluded that further research should investigate fast and fully automatic ear-finger print multimodal systems robust to occlusions and deformations.

The Internet is not the answer

Since its creation during the Cold War, the Internet, together with the Web, personal computers, tablets and smartphones, has ushered in one of the greatest shifts in society since the Industrial Revolution. The Digital Revolution has contributed to the world in many positive ways, but we are less aware of the Internets deeply negative effects.The Internet Is Not the Answer, by longtime Internet skeptic Andrew Keen, offers a comprehensive look at what the Internet is doing to our lives. The book traces the technological and economic history of the Internet, from its founding in the 1960s through the rise of big data companies to the increasing attempts to monetize almost every human activity. In this sharp, witty narrative, informed by the work of other writers, reporters, and academics, as well as his own research and interviews, Keen shows us the tech world, warts and all.Startling and important, The Internet Is Not the Answer is a big-picture look at what the Internet is doing to our society and an investigation of what we can do to try to make sure the decisions we are making about the reconfiguring of our world do not lead to unpleasant, unforeseen aftershocks.

Regulating Artificial Intelligence Systems: Risks, Challenges, Competencies, and Strategies

TABLE OF CONTENTS I. INTRODUCTION II. THE TROUBLE WITH AI A. What Is AI? B. The Problematic Characteristics of AI 1. Autonomy, Foreseeability, and Causation 2. Control 3. Research and Development: Discreet, Diffuse, Discrete, and opaque C. A Role for the Law? III. INSTITUTIONAL COMPETENCE A. Legislatures 1. Democratic Legitimacy 2. Lack of Expertise 3. Delegation and oversight B. Agencies 1. Flexibility 2. Specialization and Expertise 3. Independence and Alienation 4. Ex Ante Action C. The Common Law Tort System 1. Fact-Finding 2. Reactive (and Reactionary) 3. Incrementalism 4. Misaligned Incentives IV. A REGULATORY PROPOSAL A. The Artificial Intelligence Development Act B. The Agency C. The Courts' Role V. CONCLUSION I. INTRODUCTION It may not always be obvious, but we are living in the age of intelligent machines. Artificial intelligence (AI) permeates our lives in numerous subtle and not-so-subtle ways, performing tasks that, until quite recently, could only be performed by a human with specialized knowledge, expensive training, or a government-issued license. Driverless cars have been approved for road operation in four states and the District of Columbia; (1) their inevitable arrival on the consumer market may revolutionize road transportation. Autonomous machines can execute complex financial transactions, flag potential terrorists using facial recognition software, and (most alarmingly for this author and his legal contemporaries) perform document review. (2) More mundanely, computer chess engines can defeat the strongest human players in the world, and Google Translate can generate passable English translations of Le Monde articles. In fact, robot journalists may even have written the Le Monde articles themselves. (3) The increasing ubiquity and rapidly expanding commercial potential of AI has spurred massive private sector investment in AI projects. Firms such as Google, Facebook, Amazon and Baidu have got into an AI arms race, poaching researchers, setting up laboratories and buying start-ups. (4) With each passing month, AI gains footholds in new industries and becomes more enmeshed in our day-to-day lives, and that trend seems likely to continue for the foreseeable future. (5) The potential for further rapid advances in AI technology has prompted expressions of alarm from many quarters, including some calls for government regulation of AI development and restrictions on AI operation. (6) That in and of itself is hardly surprising; fear of technological change and calls for the government to regulate new technologies are not new phenomena. What is striking about AI, however, is that leaders of the tech industry are voicing many of the concerns. Some of the concerns stem from the familiar fears of technological unemployment (7) and the potential for new technologies to be misused by humans. (8) But many of the fears cut much deeper. In an interview at MIT's 2014 AeroAstro Centennial Symposium, Elon Musk eschewed the skepticism of regulation that characterizes most of Silicon Valley's business titans and suggested that some government intervention might be wise in the case of artificial intelligence: I think we should be very careful about artificial intelligence. If I had to guess at what our biggest existential threat is, it's probably that .... I'm increasingly inclined to think there should be some regulatory oversight, maybe at the national and international level, just to make sure that we don't do something very foolish. (9) Other prominent figures in the tech world--most notably Bill Gates and Steve Wozniak--have voiced similar concerns regarding the long-term risks of AI. (10) At the very least, more mundane legal issues surrounding AI seem likely to crop up in the near future. Who (or what) will be held liable when an autonomous vehicle causes an accident? …

SP-0354 Low tech solutions in a high tech world - positioning to decrease radiation induced breast toxicity

SP-0354 Low tech solutions in a high tech world - positioning to decrease radiation induced breast toxicity

New Product Preannouncement: Phantom Products, Unexpected Cannibalization and the Osborne Effect

By making new product preannouncements (NPP) firms encourage consumers to postpone purchase and wait for the firms' new product that in turn cannibalizes current sales, both own and competitor's. Profitability of NPP depends on which firm's sales are cannibalized and relative margins on current and future products. A stylized fact, particularly in the tech world, is the unexpected cannibalization of own sales following NPP that can lead to severe financial problems. This has resulted in folk wisdom that firms should never preannounce. Our paper bridges the gap between theory and practice by incorporating the 'phantom product effect' into NPP analysis and demonstrating a plausible reason for the high level of cannibalization of current sales that extant NPP models would find to be unforeseen. We show that: 1. the relative preferences of consumers who do not wait for the new product by postponing their purchase can be dramatically altered by just being exposed to NPP, which can explain the unexpectedly high level of cannibalization of current sales and 2. this effect of NPP on the consumers' relative preferences for existing products results in equilibrium firm behavior that differs from conventional NPP analysis.

Development of Multimodal Biometric Framework for Smartphone Authentication System

Secret knowledge, like remembering password or token based authentication systems are deemed inconvenience and difficult to use for users such as password may be forgotten or token may be lost. So burdens like remembering password and stolen or forged token based authentication have raised a current trend of biometric authentication system. Now in this current tech world, everyone needs security everywhere to protect our personal gadgets. Now-a-days smartphone gradually becoming a vital tool to manipulate enormous applications which were being done in a computer before. So to keep it secured, biometric based approach can be applied for better convenience and ease of use for the user. In this paper, a novel hybrid multimodal approach for ear recognition and speech recognition has been presented for better robustness and efficiency which can be applied in various fields of applications like authentication in banking transactions. Here two techniques DWT (using haar wavelet) and GLCM have hybridized to extract both shape and texture information from ear images. Again MFCC technique has applied to extract features from speech signals. Afterwards fusion is applied to mix both of those ear and speech features. Those features can be easily and efficiently manipulated by applying Euclidean distance and Bhattacharya distance as the similarity or dissimilarity measures. This proposed approach is very convenient and simple to use, thereby its ease of use allows very fast feature extraction. General Terms Image Processing, Biometrics, Security, Authentication

A Piece of the Pie Chart: Feminist Robotics

This paper analyzes the robotic gallery installation A Piece of the Pie Chart. The project addresses gender inequity in the tech world. It consists of a computer workstation and a food robot. The food robot puts pie charts onto edible, pre-baked pies. They depict the gender gap in technical environments. Visitors use the robot to create pies. Pictures of the pies are disseminated via Twitter, and the physical pies are mailed to the places where the data originated. In the following text, the author disassembles the machine in the context of feminist theory, feminist technology research, visualization, and political robotics.

The pitfalls of prediction [Spectral Lines

This year is the 50th anniversary of IEEE Spectrum. A half century is a milestone that cannot go uncelebrated, but how to do it? Two of the standard approaches for a magazine?s commemorative issue are to take a fond look backward or a bold look forward. The Sports Illustrated swimsuit issue, also 50 this year, took the former tack, with a look at bikinis over the decades (it turns out that they get smaller, they get a little bit bigger, and then they get smaller again). Forecasting is harder but more interesting. For our 50th, we wanted an inspiring and compelling view of the world of tech 25 to 50 years from now, beyond the window of straightforward prediction. We liked the idea of making inferences, at least, about a future as distant from today as we are now from the year of the magazine?s founding.

What's hot in the tech world in LATAM

Researchers in LATAM are fascinated with technology. They work in a region where online market research is still developing, but reaching the levels of the UK and USA—although a bit delayed—could be a great opportunity.

Self-Sufficient Energy Harvesting in Robots using Nanotechnology

Latest research and technology development have been focusing on improving the performance and the efficiency of intelligent and automated machines / systems used in human services, factories , transportation means, space exploration and may others applications. As the tech world is shrinking rapidly, industries are seeking to miniaturize the devices to the level of nano-machines /nanorobots without compromising their efficiency. Scientists have made significant progress in nanoroboics research field but have not officially released their new products. On the other hand, they opened a new world of discoveries, possibilities and applications in different fields such as military defense, medicine, industry, space exploration, energy. In this article, we will present the role of nanotechnology and nanostructures in energy harvesting systems used in robots to be able to sense and adapt heat, light, sounds, surface texture and chemicals from the environment, as well as to move, communicate and perform complex calculations.

3. Astra Tech World Congress - Creating the Future by Going back to the Roots

Über 3000 Besucher und Besucherinnen aus allen Teilen der Welt waren vom 9.–12. Mai nach Göteborg gereist. Ein 4-tägiges, prall gefülltes Programm, über 150 Referenten, Simultanübersetzungen in 7 Sprachen und eine große Industrieausstellung bildeten die perfekt organisierte Basis dieses 3. Astra Tech World Congress.

Designing for Technology's Unknown Tribes

This article elaborates how anthropology is opening new design opportunities in everything from consumer products and computer interfaces to mechatronics systems and industrial design. Anthropology can reframe human understanding of familiar places and behavior. Unlike market researchers and designers, anthropologists start with people rather than products. Design anthropology has become a fixture in the tech world. Citrix, Claro, Facebook, Fujitsu, Google, IBM, Microsoft, Motorola, Nokia, and Sapient, all employ anthropologists. Even anthropologists employed by non-tech firms, such as JCPenney and Target, often work on the tech side. Design anthropology is the kind of lens that enables designers to see things in a new light. They can see the people who use a product and how they use it. They can also understand what the product means to the person who buys it.

Cardinal Rules [IEEE Student Branch Profile

As far as impacting the tech world, no school has had a more influential hand in cultivating leaders than Stanford University in California. Companies including Google, Cisco Systems, Hewlett-Packard, Sun Microsystems, and Yahoo! all can trace their origins back to Stanford. But as successful companies such as these expand and flourish outside of Stanford's walls, the university's IEEE Student Branch (SB) continues to reel them back in to speak to the next generation of engineering pioneers.

Effects of a 21st-Century Curriculum on Students’ Information Technology and Transition Skills

A pretest—posttest control group experimental design was used to evaluate the effectiveness of EnvisionIT, a 10-unit web-based curriculum designed to teach secondary students information technology (IT) skills in the context of transition-planning activities. Fifteen high schools were stratified by socioeconomic status and randomly assigned to the EnvisionIT experimental condition or a control condition in which students received traditional instruction. Pre- and posttest data for 287 students—119 (41%) of whom had disabilities—were analyzed using hierarchical linear modeling. Findings indicated that students in the experimental group made significantly greater gains in IT literacy than students in the control group. Students in the experimental group also showed greater gains in several transition skills, including goal setting, knowledge of how to find jobs, and information about college. Results support the conclusion that the EnvisionIT curriculum produces improvements in students’ acquisition of the 21st-century skills needed for success in today’s high tech world.

High Touch in a High-Tech World

In a world of high tech and low touch, it is easy for public relations programs to stray from tried-and-true interpersonal strategies long associated with solid communication planning. New technologies allow communications professionals to quickly send e-mails and telephone calls to selected groups. Social media sites provide users immediate information, including video and photos from an endless variety of sources. The list of technology options grows and grows. However, even with so many technology tools available to communicators, formal plans must include strategies using important person-to-person research and targeted communications. For the Ritenour School District, such plans, incorporating high technologies and high touch, resulted in significant improvements.

Back to the Drawing Board Reconstructing DaVinci's Vitruvian Man to Teach Anatomy

[ILLUSTRATION OMITTED] In today's high tech world, one hardly expects to see original chalkboard or blackboard utilized in research, teaching, or scientific communication, but having spent an equal number of years doing both art and biology and dabbling in computer graphics, I have found simple technology of chalkboard and chalk to have incredible flexibility and potential for teaching almost any subject in biology. Overwhelmed by onslaught of new technologies, I had forgotten simple and elegant untapped universe of a blank slate and some pre-formed calcium carbonate. I started to experiment with lesson plans, dissections, and even animations on this black space and rediscovered what I knew instinctively as a child: That this simple, fiat, open vista of opportunity had enormous potential for inquiry learning and for deep, meaningful, and engaging teaching at all levels in life sciences-and it's fun! The chalkboard, or for sake of this article, blackboard, appears before us in almost every classroom: blank, inviting, sometimes ominous, and often forgotten. I have found no technology that can replace it or even come close to allowing creative potential of drawing skills to come in teaching biology. And feeling of chalk and slate, just like feeling of a paper and pencil, is a rich tactile, sensorial experience that you can only achieve with natural objects. But blackboard is more than just a space, it is an invitation to scientific inquiry, creative dialogue, and a format for diverse conceptually-based storytelling in front of a live audience. It is also an integral component of almost all cultures and their pictorial affirmation of being part of nature. It has potential to reveal stories on everything from ecological networks to molecular pathways; it can reveal complex procedures and processes, and teaches us about ephemeral nature of living systems--one minute they're there, next minute they're gone-all via eraser. While there are endless possibilities with chalkboard or blackboard, I have chosen to demonstrate and discuss use of Leonardo DaVinci's Vitruvian Man in teaching introductory anatomy because it demonstrates how blackboard allows a teacher to work out, experiment with, and imagine a lesson in a limited amount of time and produce a lecture with a pleasing visual aesthetic that can be replicated. Sometimes with technology, content and experience become flattened, and for a subject as dynamic and alive as biology, that is a very undesirable effect. Devoid of interaction with others or mind-body interaction, learning biology can literally become lifeless. That is why Leonardo DaVinci's work is ideal for infusing that spark that is biology, and his images and life are ingenious for teaching all levels of biology and even medical school. DaVinci's work both distinguishes and blends art processes and life sciences in a way that conveys his deep love of natural world and establishes a framework upon which to build almost any life science lesson. * The Blackboard & Biology Education's Mind Body Connection In Art and Experience, Dewey commented that Even in caves, human habitations were adorned with colored pictures that kept sense experiences with animals that were so closely bound with lives of humans (p. 7). John Dewey was considered to be the father of modern educational philosophy. Darwin believed that direct experience, which involved actually physically doing, making, creating was a major component of any learning process. Dewey emphasized mind and body merging for optimal learning experiences. Drawing on blackboard is one of those experiences. Dewey refers to doing as part of experience, ... thought is immediately embodied in object art. The experience of biology lecture that engages students in drawing can be informative, inspiring, engaging, and heightened with instructor refining and intensifying knowledge, involving audience, and organizing flow of information. …