In order to better solve complex challenges at the dawn of the third decade of the 21st century, Alphabet Inc. has tapped into relics dating to the 1980s: video games.
The parent company of Google reported this week that its DeepMind Technologies Artificial Intelligence unit has successfully learned how to play 57 Atari video games. And the computer system plays better than any human.
Atari, creator of Pong, one of the first successful video games of the 1970s, went on to popularize many of the great early classic video games into the 1990s. Video games are commonly used with AI projects because they challenge algorithms to navigate increasingly complex paths and options, all while encountering changing scenarios, threats and rewards.
As of right now, Cortical’s mini-brains have less processing power than a dragonfly brain. The company is looking to get its mouse-neuron-powered chips to be capable of playing a game of “Pong,” as CEO Hon Weng Chong told Fortune, following the footsteps of AI company DeepMind, which used the game to test the power of its AI algorithms back in 2013.
“What we are trying to do is show we can shape the behavior of these neurons,” Chong told Fortune.
READ MORE: A startup is building computer chips using human neurons [Fortune].
While many of us are still trying to figure out how to break up the monotony of self-isolation without spending countless hours in front of the television, perhaps some entertainment courtesy of Mother Nature herself might do the trick?
Aurora borealis (or Northern Lights) is one of nature’s most incredible phenomenons – and now you can livestream it directly into your living room.
Explore.org and Polar Bears International use footage from a camera located in Churchill, Manitoba, Canada, which is situated underneath the aurora oval – thought to be one of the best places on earth to view the aurora borealis.
Gaming and data demands offset weakness in other areas. Those two categories could be a boon for industry peers, the “Mad Money” host said.
Science fiction has always been a medium for futuristic imagination and while different colored aliens and intergalactic travel are yet to be discovered, there is an array of technologies that are no longer figments of the imagination thanks to the world of science fiction. Some of the creative inventions that have appeared in family-favorite movies like “Back to the Future” and “Total Recall,” are now at the forefront of modern technology. Here are a few of our favorite technologies that went from science fiction to reality.
These modern-day technologies appeared in science fiction decades before their time.
All restaurants, cafés, cinemas and clubs in France will close at midnight in an effort to stop the spread of the coronavirus, the French prime minister Édouard Philippe said in a press conference.
He said the virus is spreading faster even though limitations on mass gatherings were imposed.
“People are still going to cafes and restaurants which is something that I would normally enjoy because this is the French way of living but not during these times,” he said.
Foldit is crowdsourcing a cure and needs lots new players. All Transhumanist should participate.
The University of Washington is taking a novel approach to combat the spread of coronavirus around the world.
A new puzzle game from the university challenges scientists and the public alike to build a protein that could block the virus from infiltrating human cells. The game is on Foldit, a 12-year-old website created by the university’s Center for Game Science designed to crowdsource contributions to important protein research from more than 200,000 registered players.
The most promising ideas generated by the game will be tested and possibly manufactured by UW’s Institute for Protein Design in Seattle.
On October 4, 1923, the American composer George Antheil made his highly anticipated Paris debut at the Champs Elysées Theatre, in front of a rioting audience. A few minutes into the recital the crowd became unsettled; members of the audience started to protest the offensive nature of the music, others jumped to the musician’s defence, and before long the house was out of control. Unbeknownst to Antheil, the riot was in fact staged by his friends Marcel L’Herbier and Georgette Leblanc, who needed to film just such a scene for their upcoming movie, The Inhuman Woman. The ruse would only be revealed to him about a year after the incident. As he recalls:
I went to see a movie called L’Inhumaine, featuring Georgette LeBlanc. In this silent movie (still preserved by our New York Museum of Modern Art) you can if you wish see a vast rioting public… However, most curiously, this riot is no fake one. It is an actual riot, the same riot through which I played and lived that night. [1]
Antheil took the manipulative stunt well, recognizing that the disturbance made for great publicity, and that it served his reputation as an enfant terrible, a self-styled “bad boy” of contemporary music: