Lifeboat Foundation

CWI senior researcher Sander Bohté started working on neuromorphic computing already in 1998 as a PhD-student, when the subject was barely on the map. In recent years, Bohté and his CWI-colleagues have realized a number of algorithmic breakthroughs in spiking neural networks (SNNs) that make neuromorphic computing finally practical: in theory many AI-applications can become a factor of a hundred to a thousand more energy-efficient. This means that it will be possible to put much more AI into chips, allowing applications to run on a smartwatch or a smartphone. Examples are speech recognition, gesture recognition and the classification of electrocardiograms (ECG).

“I am really grateful that CWI, and former group leader Han La Poutré in particular, gave me the opportunity to follow my interest, even though at the end of the 1990s neural networks and neuromorphic computing were quite unpopular”, says Bohté. “It was high-risk work for the long haul that is now bearing fruit.”

Spiking neural networks (SNNs) more closely resemble the biology of the brain. They process pulses instead of the continuous signals in classical neural networks. Unfortunately, that also makes them mathematically much more difficult to handle. For many years SNNs were therefore very limited in the number of neurons they could handle. But thanks to clever algorithmic solutions Bohté and his colleagues have managed to scale up the number of trainable spiking neurons first to thousands in 2021, and then to tens of millions in 2023.

Right now generative AI has an “insatiable demand” for electricity to power the tens of thousands of compute clusters needed to operate large language models like OpenAI’s GPT-4, warned chief marketing officer Ami Badani of chip design firm Arm Holdings.

If generative AI is ever going to be able to run on every mobile device from a laptop and tablet to a smartphone, it will have to be able to scale without overwhelming the electricity grid at the same time.

“We won’t be able to continue the advancements of AI without addressing power,” Badani told the Fortune Brainstorm AI conference in London on Monday. “ChatGPT requires 15 times more energy than a traditional web search.”

Scientists have created a method to produce 3D full-color holographic images using smartphone screens instead of lasers. This innovative technique, with additional advancements, holds the potential for augmented or virtual reality displays.

Whether augmented and virtual reality displays are being used for gaming, education, or other applications, incorporating 3D displays can create a more realistic and interactive user experience.

“Although holography techniques can create a very real-looking 3D representation of objects, traditional approaches aren’t practical because they rely on laser sources,” said research team leader Ryoichi Horisaki, from The University of Tokyo in Japan. “Lasers emit coherent light that is easy to control, but they make the system complex, expensive, and potentially harmful to the eyes.”

In science fiction, holograms are used for anything from basic communications to advanced military weaponry. In the real world, 3D holographic displays have yet to break through to everyday products and devices. That’s because creating holograms that look real and have significant fidelity requires laser emitters or other advanced pieces of optical equipment. This situation has stymied commercial development, as these components are complex and expensive.

More recently, research scientists were able to create realistic 3D holographic images without lasers by using a white chip-on-board light-emitting diode. Unfortunately, that method required two spatial light modulators to control the wave fronts of the emitted light, adding a prohibitive amount of complexity and cost.

Now, those same scientists say they have created a simpler, more cost-effective way to create realistic-looking 3D holographic displays using only one spatial light modulator and new software algorithms. The result is a simpler and cheaper method for creating holograms that an everyday technology like a smartphone screen can emit.

Researchers have developed a 3D full-color display method that uses a smartphone screen rather than a laser to create holographic images. With further development, the new approach could be useful for augmented or virtual reality displays.

On this day in 1976: Apple was founded.

Apple Inc., originally named Apple Computer, Inc., is a multinational corporation that creates and markets consumer electronics and attendant computer software, and is a digital distributor of media content. Apple’s core product lines are the iPhone smartphone, iPad tablet computer, and the Macintosh personal computer. The company offers its products online and has a chain of retail stores known as Apple Stores. Founders Steve Jobs, Steve Wozniak, and Ronald Wayne created Apple Computer Co. on April 1, 1976, to market Wozniak’s Apple I desktop computer,^[2] and Jobs and Wozniak incorporated the company on January 3, 1977,^[3] in Cupertino, California.

A new report warns of potentially major disruption to UK employment from the coming wave of AI. An estimated 11% of tasks are already exposed to current AI, a figure that could rise to 59% during a second wave. But there could also be opportunities for economic growth.

From the discovery and use of fire in the Stone Age, through to the handheld smartphones of today, technology has improved our living standards and is the foundation of modern society. Yet unmanaged technological change comes with risks and disruptions. The current wave of technology including generative AI – described by some as the “Fourth Industrial Revolution” – promises transformative benefits, while at the same time bringing potential disruption through its impact on wage inequality, wealth inequality, and job displacement.

Portable AI-powered devices that connect directly to a chatbot without the need for apps or a touchscreen are set to hit the market. Are they the emperor’s new clothes or a gamechanger?

New app for smartphones to detect forgery in documents with the pilot project expected to be deployed in Zurich later this month.