DPL Reading List – October 12, 2018
Here are some of the articles we found this week.
Don’t Ignore Apple’s Machine-Learning Chops – “The neural engine in the A12 Bionic now has a dedicated block in the SoC, has jumped from two to eight cores, and is now capable of 5 trillion operations per second. But it all comes together in the software, where Apple is letting developers use CoreML to make apps we have never experienced before. Apple is getting dangerously close to making a great deal of science fiction a reality, with machine learning and computer vision at the center.”
How to Start Drawing – “Putting pen to paper has many benefits. It develops the capacity for close observation, introspection, patience, and humility—vital attributes during a time when the chaos of politics and technology dominate our days. Drawing, sketching, doodling, diagraming, or whatever you call it, is also a useful problem-solving tool, because it helps one visualize ideas and hunches.”
Sans Forgetica font makes readers remember text by being harder to read – “Sans Forgetica slows that process down, he said, demanding that the reader’s mind complete the circles and verticals of the distorted letters.”
Google DeepMind founder Demis Hassabis: Three truths about AI – “Today’s machine-learning and related AI technologies make it possible to carry out tasks such as image recognition and to find patterns in vast amounts of data, he said. But he’s particularly enthused about the potential applications of AI’s ability to optimize tasks that would otherwise be overwhelmingly complex, as demonstrated by AlphaGo’s success at a game where there are more potential moves than there are atoms in the universe.”
From Clockworks to Computers on Our Wrists – “Wristwatches have always been an extension of our bodies. With smartwatches becoming more powerful, and technology effectively merging with our bodies, we’re at the forefront of a new era of computing. Today, technology is not just used, but worn. This augmentation of our senses is paving the way for new types of experiences that simply haven’t been possible before. And whereas the Apple Watch might be the biggest upset in the watch industry since the Quartz revolution, the history of watches has taught us that past successes are remarkably poor predictors of the future.”
5 things I’m telling my kids to prepare them for the future – “I have four kids, ages 5 to 14, and I and know they’re very unlikely to follow the same educational path I did. I’m certain they’ll be preparing themselves for a very different job market. As my youngest is in kindergarten and my oldest just started high school, here are my thoughts for them.”
Quantum computing comes out of the closet – “Until recently, quantum computing has largely happened in the scientific underground–with large systems housed inside refrigerated cabinets at university and government labs, or in the skunkworks at cash-rich companies like Google. (Systems cost several million dollars and require specialized care and feeding.) But in 2016, IBM launched the Q Experience, providing online access to a quantum system so people without multimillion-dollar R&D budgets can kick the tires. This year, China’s Alibaba, California’s Rigetti, and now Canada’s D-Wave have followed suit.”
