A new blood test can tell what time it is in your body
WHY THIS MATTERS IN BRIEF Certain drugs have to be delivered at certain times, and as we start to use nanomachines to release drugs telling the time in someone’s body becomes vitally important. Recently I wrote about new simple blood tests that can detect cancer and chronic pain, and now...
US Navy puts AI brains into its 3D printers to make them creative and intelligent
WHY THIS MATTERS IN BRIEF By combining the power of AI with 3D printing the US military hopes to revolutionise how products are designed and made everywhere. One thing about aircraft, especially ones that fly from aircraft carriers, that are increasingly being turned into floating factories and flying fortresses,...
IBM breakthrough uses AI to make blockchain more energy efficient
WHY THIS MATTERS IN BRIEF Mining blockchain uses up an extraordinary amount of electricity, equivalent to an entire country, so companies are trying to fix the issue. Proof of Work (PoW), the common consensus mechanism that secures Bitcoin and numerous other cryptocurrency blockchains, has given the technology a reputation for...
Can your smartphone detect when you’re depressed? This startup thinks so
WHY THIS MATTERS IN BRIEF Mental health issues are growing in number but in many cases they go left undiagnosed or treated, this breakthrough could help change that. Today we can use smartphones to detect cancer, dementia, eye diseases, heart disease, illness and even inherited genetic conditions, but could...
AI is now better at diagnosing eye diseases than human experts
WHY THIS MATTERS IN BRIEF They say the eyes are the windows to the soul, but they’re also a window to our health. Recently we’ve seen breakthroughs where Artificial Intelligence (AI) is better at diagnosing dementia, fatal heart conditions, inherited genetic diseases, lung diseases, pancreatic cancer, skin cancer, and even the...
Doctors will soon be able to track your health through walls using your wifi
WHY THIS MATTERS IN BRIEF Imagine being able to have your health and emotions monitored wirelessly wherever you were, whether it’s in your house or even out in the street, that’s the promise of this new technology. Imagine a box, yes, that’s it, similar to the wifi router you...
World’s first AI government policy maker gives China a diplomatic advantage
WHY THIS MATTERS IN BRIEF AI will play an increasingly central role in both government policy making and governing as China rolls out their first AI policy maker. If you’re a foreign policy maker with a government then, whether you like it or not, you’ll soon be working with...
Mine hunting bees tracked with Lidar help farmers boost crop yields
WHY THIS MATTERS IN BRIEF Bees help pollinate nearly 75 percent of our crops, this new system can track their progress and predict deadly colony collapses before they happen. You might expect to hear an angry buzzing when honeybees have been disturbed. But some apiarists reckon they can also...
Collapsing bee colonies prompt researchers to build robo bees
WHY THIS MATTERS IN BRIEF We rely on bees to pollinate nearly 75 percent of our crops, but as colonies continue to collapse researchers are looking for new alternatives to pollinate crops. Food security continues to come under the spotlight which is why we’ve recently seen research that uses...
Hackers use data science to evade state of the art AI cybersecurity systems
WHY THIS MATTERS IN BRIEF By figuring out what data sets cybersecurity are training their AI’s on hackers have found a way to create malware that can’t be detected. Walking around the exhibition floor at this week’s massive Black Hat cybersecurity conference in Las Vegas many people were struck...
Coursera’s AI tells your boss what skills you lack and how to get them
WHY THIS MATTERS IN BRIEF Every job is a combination of different competencies but most training courses only focus on a few, now AI can tell you all the competencies you lack and how to get them. Here’s the conundrum with corporate online learning, there are so many classes available from...
Jeff bezos announces target to build the world’s first Moon base in 2023
WHY THIS MATTERS IN BRIEF At some point in the future humanity will become an interplanetary species, and several billionaires want it to be sooner rather than later. Blue Origin, the space company run by Jeff Bezos, who wants to one day use the service to deliver goods to...
Stopping the DIY bio-terrorists, US military embraces AI and Ginkgo Bioworks
WHY THIS MATTERS As the cost of powerful DIY gene editing kits continue to fall bioterrorism is going to be on the rise, so we need a way to defend against it. Recently I gave a talk on the “Future of Cybersecurity” in the Critical National Infrastructure (CNI) sector...
200 Quadrillion calculations per second, Summit, world’s most powerful AI supercomputer goes live
WHY THIS MATTERS IN BRIEF As supercomputers become increasingly powerful they will increasingly help us realise new breakthroughs in everything from drug discovery and energy generation, through to materials and space travel, and everything in between. It’s the most powerful computing platform on Earth, for now at least –...
Revolutionary AI chip that replaces GPU’s hailed as the “future” by ARM’s founder
WHY THIS MATTERS IN BRIEF The future will be powered by AI and Machine Learning, and it could also be powered by a new type of chip, an “Intelligence Processing Unit,” which is the next evolutionary step after the GPU. What comes after the CPU and the GPU? The...
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...
CGI “Virtual influencers” on Instagram battle it out in public, snag real ad cash
WHY THIS MATTERS IN BRIEF Today we are used to the majority of our influencers, and contacts, being human, but as we progress into the future more of the encounters we have will be with virtual entities, in the form of avatars, bots and virtual vloggers like these. It...
General AI, the “holy grail” of AI, demonstrated for the first time
WHY THIS MATTERS IN BRIEF AI’s that can learn quickly, and from very small data sets, will fundamentally change how we train AI’s, their capabilities, and how fast they are deployed into the market. Recently we saw a new “Master algorithm” that could be used to create the first...
This AI reads your mind to recreate the faces you’re thinking of
WHY THIS MATTERS IN BRIEF Being able to read someone’s mind leads down two roads. It can either be used as part of a dystopian state apparatus, or to help catch criminals and help people who can’t communicate communicate. It’s frustrating to have a clear mental image of something...
Rigetti combines Quantum computing with Machine Learning to boost AI
WHY THIS MATTERS IN BRIEF Tomorrow’s ultra powerful Quantum Computers could revolutionise the direction and development of future AI’s, and companies are making some interesting breakthroughs. While many of Quantum computing’s practical applications remain largely unknown, with, arguably, only our imagination being the limit of what we can do...
