Comments on: Future of Education Part II http://joeduck.com/2009/06/12/future-of-education-part-ii/ Have Blog. Will Travel. Sat, 11 Feb 2012 18:54:27 +0000 hourly 1 http://wordpress.com/ By: Max http://joeduck.com/2009/06/12/future-of-education-part-ii/#comment-118445 Fri, 26 Nov 2010 19:42:59 +0000 http://joeduck.com/?p=3167#comment-118445 Boston University scientists unveil roadmap to build intelligent machines with silicon synapses
— In a featured article to appear on the IEEE Spectrum December issue, Massimiliano Versace and Ben Chandler explain how the memristor-based approach to AI will allow to build brain-scale chips that mimics how neurons process information.—

BOSTON, MA — November 29, 2010 – Massimiliano Versace and Ben Chandler , two scientists of the Neuromorphic Lab, Department of Cognitive and Neural Systems, Boston University, are featured on the cover page on the December issue of IEEE Spectrum , the publication of world’s largest professional technology association. The feature article, appeared online on November 34, 2010, describes the ongoing effort at Boston University in building brain-scale neural models to power the next generation, low power, massively parallel chips to be realized in the DARPA SyNAPSE project in collaboration with Hewlett-Packard.

The DARPA sponsored SyNAPSE (Systems of Neuromorphic Adaptive Plastic Scalable Electronics) project, launched in early 2009, aims to “investigate innovative approaches that enable revolutionary advances in neuromorphic electronic devices that are scalable to biological levels.” DARPA has awarded funds to three prime contractors (HP, IBM, and HRL), with HP and HRL working with Boston University researchers in the CELEST center, where the Neuromorphics Lab is housed.

In the article, Versace and Chandler talk about recent trend in bio-inspired computing, and how these are going to shape the future of computing beyond neuroscience. In particular, the article explain how a revolutionary technology based on memristors is enabling the manufacturing of paradigm changing devices, allowing to implement low power, dense memories closer to where computation occurs, decreasing wiring length, power dissipation, and enabling to build large-scale, low power, portable devices that implement intelligent computation.

More information on this project is available on the Neurdon blog, started by students and postdocs at Boston University, who has rapidly become a central hub in computational neuroscience and neuromorphic technology.

]]> By: Bobby Mucic http://joeduck.com/2009/06/12/future-of-education-part-ii/#comment-96293 Sat, 20 Jun 2009 18:22:04 +0000 http://joeduck.com/?p=3167#comment-96293 Did you just watch the Matrix again? In all seriousness, there is such a disparity among the world’s inhabitants that the singularity will have some issues if it wanted to “take over”. To many people are not connected and never will be. There is a parallel to the current education issue – the literacy rate will never be %100.

In an comment on your blogs a few months ago, I did mention that trying to predict future technologies impact is not usually ever on target when we look back. No flying cars. super pills, or transporters yet. Back in 1950 who would have predicted what we have now? 2 years ago, what was Twitter?

It is still fun and thought provoking to do so, and we may come up with great ideas for the now, so please don’t think I am not encouraging new ideas and discussion.

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