|
Advertisement:
|
OCAU News |
Wednesday Afternoon
(3 Comments)
(link) Wednesday, 27-January-2016 13:53:44 (GMT +10) - by Agg
|
Marvin Minsky, considered by many to be the father of artificial intelligence, has passed away, aged 88. Minsky viewed the brain as a machine whose functioning can be studied and replicated in a computer — which would teach us, in turn, to better understand the human brain and higher-level mental functions: How might we endow machines with common sense — the knowledge humans acquire every day through experience? How, for example, do we teach a sophisticated computer that to drag an object on a string, you need to pull, not push — a concept easily mastered by a two-year-old child?
Apple have reported the largest quarterly profit ever, some $18.4B. Apple's profits typically skyrocket during the fourth quarter, when new models of the iPhone often arrive and shiny new devices are purchased as holiday gifts. Last year Apple notched a record $18 billion in profit during this period, the largest ever recorded by a single public corporation. This year the company topped that, generating a profit of $18.4 billion on $75.9 billion in revenue during the last three months of 2015. The average sale price for its best selling devices, the iPhone, iPad, and Mac, was also a record high, boosting Apple's margins to 40.1 percent.
Phoronix have an 1080p NVIDIA Linux comparison. Earlier this week I carried out an OpenGL performance comparison of NVIDIA GPUs going back 10 years that included 27 different graphics cards from the GeForce 8 series through the latest-generation GeForce 900 Maxwell graphics cards. In this weekend article are some complementary tests from this comparison with the OpenGL benchmarks at 1920 x 1080.
DARPA have a new brain-computer interface project. This isn’t DARPA’s first foray into brain implants. Only just last year, a project designed to use electrodes within the brain to stimulate memory formation in those suffering from neurological damage was green-lit. This new program, Neural Engineering System Design (NESD), aims to turn a science fiction concept into reality.
TechGage wonder if virtual reality is viable on PC. VR is touted as the next big thing in PCs, and products like the Oculus Rift and the HTC Vive show it’s more than a mere pipe dream. However, is VR viable enough to eventually become mainstream tech, particularly on PCs? Or does it have a better shot at thriving on another platform? Techgage offers an op-ed on the matter.
Meanwhile Tweaktown ask if you are ready for VR. Its only the first month into the year of 2016, and Virtual Reality is already taking the technology sector by storm. Manufacturers from all backgrounds are working on their own versions of a head mounted display with motion tracking capabilities. Sony, Oculus, HTC/Valve, and Samsung are the major players that have been working on the technology behind such devices. 2016 serves as the first year in which each company takes Virtual Reality to new heights. Read on to see if you are ready!
PeterCR spotted this BASIC programming in Minecraft. Many people who play Minecraft limit themselves to using its building blocks more or less for their intended purpose, whether it's by building simple houses or creating sprawling, unforgettable underwater wonderlands. Yet YouTuber SethBling has repeatedly found them well-suited to higher callings. For his latest project, he used command blocks to cobble together a functional interpreter for the BASIC programming language that works within the confines of vanilla Minecraft's existing ruleset.
Return to OCAU's News Page
|
|
Advertisement:
All original content copyright James Rolfe.
All rights reserved. No reproduction allowed without written permission.
|
Advertisement:
|
|
|