In 2018, new hardware developments allowed more sophisticated and widespread use of AI, and software managed to make AI even more human-like. Take a look back at the developments in AI over the past year, and a look ahead to what may come next. The concept of artificial intelligence has been around for centuries, such as the story of the automaton Talos from ancient Greek mythology. But in 2018, as AI seeped further into everyday life, the rapid developments in AI hardware and applications sparked debate as to its very existence. Depending on how we define both "artificial" and "intelligence", we can determine whether we see AI as a marketing myth, a legitimate stride in technology, or a harbinger of a terrifying future.

So, you want to scale your computing muscle to train bigger deep learning models. Can your data center handle it? According to Nvidia, which sells more of the specialized chips used in machine learning than any other company, it most likely cannot. These systems often consume so much power, a conventional data center doesn't have the capacity to remove the amount of heat they generate. It's easy to see how customers without infrastructure that can support a piece of Nvidia hardware is a business problem for Nvidia.

Today's vision of a smart home has more to do with what's technologically possible than what people really need. Thus the endless parade of internet-connected wine openers, water bottles, meat thermometers and refrigerators, and a dearth of automation that would clean and fold our laundry, pick up things around the house or assist aging people as their physical strength wanes. Not that some tinkerers aren't trying to come up with life-changing tools, often while trying to persuade consumers to share their routines and shopping habits to make all this work -- and potentially opening the doors to hacking or surveillance in their homes. The annual CES gadget show, which opened in Las Vegas on Tuesday, is a showcase of the latest innovations from big corporations and tiny startups. Some of these inventions could soon be useful to consumers. Others look outlandishly impractical -- or maybe it's too soon to tell.

Today's vision of a smart home has more to do with what's technologically possible than what people really need. Thus the endless parade of internet-connected wine openers, water bottles, meat thermometers and refrigerators, and a dearth of automation that would clean and fold our laundry, pick up things around the house or assist aging people as their physical strength wanes. Not that some tinkerers aren't trying to come up with life-changing tools. The annual CES gadget show, which opened in Las Vegas on Tuesday, is a showcase of the latest innovations from big corporations and tiny startups. Some of these inventions could soon be useful to consumers. Others look outlandishly impractical -- or maybe it's too soon to tell.

Flash memory is being drawn into the mainstream of enterprise storage, but its tendency to deteriorate with use remains an Achilles' heel. A paper released at the Aug. 9 start of the Flash Memory Summit in Santa Clara, Calif., finds that machine learning can counteract that deterioration and drastically extend its life cycle. The paper was written by Tom Coughlin, president of Coughlin Associates (PDF), a solid state consultant in Atascadero, Calif. He is also general chairman of the summit. The paper was sponsored by NVMdurance, a Limerick, Ireland, firm that is applying machine learning in the software it creates for managing solid state devices.