Tech giants prepare for the next giant leap in quantum computing
WHY THIS MATTERS IN BRIEF As the race to build quantum computers heats up it could be the company who has the most accurate quantum computer, not the one who has the largest, that wins the game. The hype that has been building around quantum computing, a potentially revolutionary technology...
US military and DARPA team up to develop tech to uncover fake news
WHY THIS MATTERS IN BRIEF The advent of powerful AI tools, adaptable neural networks and the democratisation of hi definition rendering have taken fake news to a new level and this program aims to unmask the fakes. We’ve all seen that video where Artificial Intelligence (AI) powered algorithms make it seem like Barack...
Futurist in the press: Tech giants and Trust in the dock, Associated Press
WHY THIS MATTERS IN BRIEF Large platform dominate today’s internet landscape and in this article AP asks whether or not they are good stewards of our information, and, more importantly, whether they can be trusted with it. The Associated Press needs no introduction, today they are news organisation behind...
The US military is funding an AI that’s learning to write its own code
WHY THIS MATTERS IN BRIEF One day non-programmers will be able to instruct AI’s to create software on their behalf, this is one step in realising that goal and it has wide ranging ramifications for al of us, and AI development. If you’re tired of writing your own boring...
Google’s lifelike sounding AI assistant, Duplex, blows past uncanny valley
WHY THIS MATTERS IN BRIEF I’ve been saying this for a long time, very soon you won’t know whether the content you’re consuming was generated by a human or a machine, and Google’s latest product, Duplex, moves us all one step closer to that time. At Google’s I/O developer...
Your next smartphone could have sonar
WHY THIS MATTERS IN BRIEF With biometrics becoming an increasingly important way of authenticating people some of todays technologies still leave much to be desired, as a result teams around the world are continually looking to push the boundaries. VoiceGesture is an app that could make phones far more...
Google’s Lunar XPrize will continue, without Google
WHY THIS MATTERS IN BRIEF Sometimes the prize isn’t the prize, it’s just a bonus, and in this case most of the teams who were involved in the original Google Lunar XPrize still have their sights set on a Moon landing in 2019. The Google Lunar XPRIZE, a $30...
World first as Waymo’s self-driving taxi service opens to the public
WHY THIS MATTERS IN BRIEF Many people think the future takes a long time to arrive, when in matter of fact it’s arriving faster than it ever has in the past, and now that Waymo’s service is live others will quickly follow. Self-driving taxis, the type that stay on...
Google are testing a 72 Qubit quantum computing chip
WHY THIS MATTERS IN BRIEF Quantum computing companies are in a race to reach a major performance milestone called Quantum Supremacy, and Google looks like they might beat the rest of the world to the post. A few months after Intel revealed their first 17 Qubit quantum chip, IBM...
Google’s AI can rate photos on aesthetic appeal
WHY THIS MATTER IN BRIEF Google’s AI is moving from just being able to identify and categorise images to being able to identify them according to their aesthetics, and that’s big. Today’s slew of photo apps can help you find objects in your pictures but they don’t tell you...
Google’s revolutionary new “Codeless AI” lets non programmers build their own AI’s
WHY THIS MATTERS IN BRIEF AI will help revolutionise every corner of society and Google is helping democratise the technology so everyone, with any capability, programmers and non programmers, can build models and make use of it. With the dramatic rise of Artificial Intelligence (AI) in recent years it’s...
$30m Google Lunar XPrize moonshot competition ends without a winner
WHY THIS MATTERS IN BRIEF The Google Lunar XPrize was ambitious moonshot, but, like any competition time was against the teams from the start. After 10 long years, the Google sponsored competition, the Google Lunar XPrize, which aimed to land a robot on the moon for millions of dollars of prize money...
DeepMind’s self-learning AI took four hours to learn and master chess
WHY THIS MATTERS IN BRIEF Generalised AI’s that can learn and master complex subjects within hours will have wide ranging benefits for industry and society alike. As most people will happily tell you Chess isn’t an easy game, at least by human standards, but for an Artificial Intelligence (AI)...
Google’s AI is helping scientists unravel the mysteries of the human genome
WHY THIS MATTERS IN BRIEF With the advent of personalised medicine and new revolutionary gene treatments, being able to interpret and make sense of the vast volumes of human genomic data in order to better predict disease indicators and outcomes, and provide patients with better treatments, will become increasingly crucial....
DeepMind unveils the world’s first test to assess dangerous AI’s and algorithms
WHY THIS MATTERS IN BRIEF AI is being strapped into everything from self-driving cars and autonomous weapons systems and until now we had no way to assess how dangerous, or how much of a threat, those AI’s could become. Earlier this year a group of world experts convened to...
Google’s AI just created its own child AI and it beat human experts
WHY THIS MATTERS IN BRIEF AI’s that can create new child AI’s, let alone ones that are better than anything humans are capable of creating, will revolutionise industry and society. In a move that will both amaze and terrify people, probably at the same time, this week Google announced...
DeepMind’s newest AI learns by itself and creates its own knowledge
WHY THIS MATTERS IN BRIEF An AI that can learn by itself, with no human interaction, and that can “create its own knowledge” could give us a new perspective on issues affecting the world, and transform industry, innovation and society. A couple of month’s ago Google’s Artificial Intelligence (AI)...
The future according to Google search results
WHY THIS MATTERS IN BRIEF Lots of people want to know what the future holds and Google, it has to be said, is most people’s go to reference, so is Google good at predicting the future? Well, check it out for yourself. Have you ever wondered what the future...
Google goes all in on building AI’s that build new AI’s
WHY THIS MATTERS IN BRIEF The majority of companies today see AI as the future, but there is a shortage of individuals and skills in the market to meet demand, as a result companies are now developing AI’s that design and build new AI’s for them. In recent months...
Google says Quantum Supremacy is just months away
WHY THIS MATTERS IN BRIEF There will come a time when quantum computers will outperform even the fastest “classical” computers, and now that time could be just a few months away The great promise of quantum computing is its ability to perform calculations of astonishing complexity that are far...
