So why does it take so much computing power and time to teach AI? The problem is that modern neural networks like Google's DeepMind or IBM Watson must perform billions of tasks in in parallel. That requires numerous CPU memory calls, which quickly adds up over billions of cycles. The researchers debated using new storage tech like resistive RAM that can permanently store data with DRAM-like speeds. However, they eventually came up with the idea for a new type of chip called a resistive processing unit (RPU) that puts large amounts of resistive RAM directly onto a CPU.

DEDHAM, MA--(Marketwired - Jan 28, 2016) - Rage Frameworks, a provider of knowledge-based automation technology and services, today announced major additions to its pioneering RAGE AI platform, adding two new powerful frameworks to its suite. RAGE AI significantly extends the frontier of deep learning and machine intelligence technology from "natural language processing" to "natural language understanding." RAGE AI incorporates deep linguistic parsing and proprietary innovations to understand meaning in context, which makes its solutions completely transparent, auditable and flexible. The platform facilitates unsupervised to supervised learning and contains several innovations to support automated knowledge acquisition including pragmatic knowledge. RAGE AI is not a black box and does not rely on statistical patterns present in training data.

Technology has given us one-tap access to taxis, laundromats, all of history's collected information, and sex. Yet it can't give us a decent to-do list. There's an entire corner of the Internet dedicated to making people more productive. Hundreds of apps run the gamut from beautiful list-makers to an electronic nag that literally curses at you until you get your shit done. It's remarkably fulfilling to spend so much time organizing and planning instead of actually getting stuff done.

It's hard enough for non-technical users to deal with ransomware infections: understanding public-key cryptography, connecting to the Tor anonymity network and paying with Bitcoin cryptocurrency. A new malicious program now makes it even more difficult by completely locking victims out of their computers. The new Petya ransomware overwrites the master boot record (MBR) of the affected PCs, leaving their operating systems in an unbootable state, researchers from antivirus firm Trend Micro said in a blog post. The MBR is the code stored in the first sectors of a hard disk drive. It contains information about the disk's partitions and launches the operating system's boot loader.

At the dawn of the cloud computing revolution, the winners were determined in their ability to rule with an "iron" fist (the hardware) but over the next ten years, we will see that having an iron-fist basis for rule is far easier than ruling with nuanced, multi-layered intelligence–and it takes a special kind of leader to do that. It takes a leader with boots on the ground for data collection, one who can deploy innumerable ears around every corner, every-watching eyes that are tuned to the whole of citizenry, listening without discretion, silently but busily meshing all of that information into a consciousness of sorts–a collective knowledge base that can be combed, smoothed, and rolled out to appease different divisions in that land. While indeed, this is a bit of dramatization for effect, this is exactly the kind of game of thrones that is happening just now among the giants of cloud. The iron throne is less a symbol than it used to be, the new seat of power is softer, changes position with the times, but always offers a 360 degree view. In short, winter is coming for some of the most seasoned of the old guard.

After Twitter users were able to convince Tay, the name of Microsoft's chatbot available via text, Twitter and Kik, to spit out offensive and racist comments, it appears Microsoft is giving it a break. It was targeted at 18- to 24-year-olds in the United States and was developed by a staff that included improvisational comedians. The problem was that Tay was created to continue learning how to talk by studying the conversations she'd have with real people on Twitter, and you can guess what those people made a decision to talk to her about. According to a statement from a Microsoft representative, "The AI chatbot Tay is a machine learning project, designed for human engagement. As a result, we have taken Tay offline and are making adjustments", the spokesperson said.

Zevenbergen Capital Investments Llc decreased its stake in Criteo S.A. (NASDAQ:CRTO) by 37.62% based on its latest Q4 2015 regulatory filing with the SEC. Zevenbergen Capital Investments Llc sold 276,870 shares as the company's stock rose 8.32% with the market. The institutional investor held 459,180 shares of the advertising company at the end of Q4, valued at 18.18 million, down from 736,050 at the end of the previous reported quarter. Zevenbergen Capital Investments Llc who had been investing in Criteo S.A. since many months, could be less bullish the 2.52 billion market cap company. The stock increased 1.72% or 0.67 on March 24, hitting 39.73.

Microsoft Corporation (NASDAQ:MSFT) has made its key machine learning technology freely available to developers. In a blog statement announcing the move, the company said that it had decided to make its Computational Network Toolkit freely available to developers by moving it to the Github platform. It said that it strongly believes that machine learning is the next important frontier in the overall field of artificial intelligence and that it stands to gain a lot from the input of other developers who may use the CNTK to make important advances in the field and that this will benefit all the stakeholders as well. The CNTK is a complex technology that the company developed and has been using to help it develop different applications in the field of machine learning. So far, it has proven a valuable tool for the researchers of the company.

Ray Bradbury and others envisioned a world in which human needs are anticipated by the surrounding environment. In the late 1990s, this vision was termed "ambient intelligence" (AmI). Since that time, innovators have continued to imagine scenarios in which technology is ubiquitous, more transparent, and more valuable to humans than it ever has been. What the user interface will ultimately look like is a matter of debate. Some foresee a Minority Report scenario in which the surrounding environment itself adapts to individuals in context.

One interesting/terrifying aspect of today's modern society is that we have filled the airwaves with a multitude of radio signals. Ever since the pioneering days of Marconi, Braun, and others we have been using more and more of the electromagnetic spectrum to send audio, visual, and data signals. Everything from FM radio to 4G LTE, from digital satellite TV to military communication is all sent via one form of radio or another. The result is that the radio spectrum is full, it is bursting at the seams. In light of this, DARPA (the Defense Advanced Research Projects Agency) has launched its latest Grand Challenge, this time to bring advanced machine-learning capabilities to the way the radio frequencies are used. DARPA has named the new competition the Spectrum Collaboration Challenge (SC2).