Mathematics is everywhere, if you know where to look. A recently opened exhibition at the North Carolina Museum of Art (NCMA) is displaying the St. John Altarpiece, a 14th-century work by Francescuccio Ghissi. It has nine scenes in total: eight smaller pictures featuring St. John the Evangelist flanking a larger central Crucifixion. At the end of the 19th century, the altarpiece was separated into parts by a saw and eight of the nine resulting panels were sold to different collectors. One panel, the last of the smaller scenes, was lost.

Without cloud computing, today's artificial intelligence (A.I.) boom would not exist. Both the advent of cloud computing and advances in machine intelligence have made it easier for companies to deliver A.I.-based features that create new ways of engaging customers. Most companies now use cloud-based systems for complex computing tasks that require intense CPU/GPU utilization, data operations and analytics work, or other tasks that would cause a traditional, locally-managed server to have a bad day within a few minutes. A.I.-based systems typically rely on these same computing characteristics because they often require several models of the machine's understanding of data to provide a reliable "human-like" result. Three of the largest technology companies -- Google, Amazon and IBM -- have already begun to provide A.I.-based systems on top of their existing platforms in an effort to push the limits of cloud computing forward.

MIT economist Erik Brynjolfsson provides his learned perspective on the future of U.S. productivity in a recent Bloomberg podcast, "54: The Optimist's Guide to the Economy." Given the widely-held belief that "U.S. productivity growth has stagnated and the economy has been unable to break out of 2 percent expansion," Professor Brynjolfsson explains why he thinks the current wave of advances in technology means we don't have to worry about stagnation. Below are excerpts from Professor Brynjolfsson and "The Optimist's Guide to the Economy:" Opening Thoughts I think much better days are ahead of us. And my optimism comes not from extrapolating what happened with productivity recently. It comes from going out and visiting companies. The Promise of Artificial Intelligence When we [co-author Andrew McAfee] wrote the book [The Second Machine Age, 2014], humans could see better than machines; now, in many tasks, machines are much better, for instance at recognizing street signs or interpreting images in big databases like ImageNet.

Nvidia Corp. has unveiled two more graphics processing unit (GPU) chips aimed at the fast-growing branch of artificial intelligence called deep learning. At the GPU Technology Conference currently underway in Beijing, Nvidia CEO Jen-Hsun Huang (pictured) introduced the Tesla P4 and Tesla P40 GPUs that form part of the Pascal architecture-based deep learning platform. The company had officially entered the deep learning market in April with the announcement of the 15-billion transistor Tesla P100 chip, aimed at deep learning. "With the Tesla P100 and now Tesla P4 and P40, Nvidia offers the only end-to-end deep learning platform for the data center, unlocking the enormous power of AI for a broad range of industries," said Ian Buck, general manager of accelerated computing at Nvidia. While the Tesla P100 focuses on training tasks, the Tesla P4 and P40 has been designed specifically for inferencing.

A simple Google image search for'women's professional hairstyles' returns the following: We're back in New York this November for the 4th edition of our growth-focused technology event. That is, until you try searching for'unprofessional women's hairstyles' and find this: In it, you'll find a hodge-podge of hairstyles sported by black women, all of which seem, well, rather normal. In fact, Boing Boing spotted this back in April. In five years, 10 years, 25 years, you can imagine how much of our lives will be dictated by algorithms.

Shares of tech companies rebounded after a stellar stock-market debut for a software company quieted fears about lack of appetite for new tech issues. Nutanix shares more than doubled on its stock-market debut after the maker of software for data management priced its initial public offering above expectations. Japanese conglomerate Softbank's Chief Executive Masayoshi Son said the company plans to invest around 4.5 billion in South Korea's technology sector over the next decade, expressing interest in emerging fields of smart robots, the "Internet of Things" and artificial intelligence.

This vendor-written tech primer has been edited by Network World to eliminate product promotion, but readers should note it will likely favor the submitter's approach. Everyone says there is an information security talent gap. In fact, some sources say the demand for security professionals exceeds the supply by a million jobs. Their argument is basically this: attacks are not being detected quickly or often enough, and the tools are generating more alerts than can be investigated, so we need more people to investigate those alarms. We believe that, even if companies aroaund the world miraculously hired a million qualified InfoSec professionals tomorrow there would be no change in detection effectiveness and we would still have a "talent gap."

Joey: I come to this restaurant called Greenspan Grilled Cheese, and oh my god, the sandwiches here are so fly, you wouldn't even believe it. If there was going to be a Joey Bada grilled cheese, what would be on it? Joey: It would be tuna, toasted bread, of course some nice cheese, tomato sauce and grapes, because that's how they make theirs. Joey: I'm going to be back in Brooklyn as soon as my tour is over. No Brooklyn shows coming up, but I'm sure we'll book one very soon.

Last of a four-part series on the faith many investors are placing in technology stocks -- and how they could be disappointed. The burgeoning fourth industrial revolution, featuring big data, robotics, 3D printing, and new ways to combat disease, isn't likely to have the powerful impact as the three that came before it. The impact of any period of sustained period of innovation on economic activity depends on the degree of the change, the effect on growth and productivity, its longevity, dispersion, and evolution. For example, this current, third industrial revolution (beginning in 1960) has focused on computing and telecommunications. The first industrial revolution, between 1750 and 1830, focused on coal, steam engines, railroads and textiles.

Brad Pitt and Angelina Jolie have come to a temporary, three-week agreement on custody of their six children, a person familiar with the negotiations said Friday. The deal was voluntary and doesn't reflect any ruling from the court regarding permanent custody, legal or physical, the source said. Both Pitt and Jolie agreed to get individual counseling, the source said, and Pitt offered to submit to drug and alcohol testing, which was not required. The couple agreed that Pitt's first visit with the kids would include a therapist, but there was no requirement for a monitor during subsequent visits. Decision-making for Maddox, 15; Pax, 12; Zahara, 11; Shiloh, 10; and 8-year-old twins Knox and Vivienne will follow a structured plan agreed to by both parents.