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Researchers develop energy-efficient probabilistic computer by combining CMOS with stochastic nanomagnet
Researchers at Tohoku University and the University of California, Santa Barbara, have unveiled a probabilistic computer prototype. Manufacturable with a near-future technology, the prototype combines a complementary metal-oxide semiconductor (CMOS) circuit with a limited number of stochastic nanomagnets, creating a heterogeneous probabilistic computer.... Read more
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Taichi: A large-scale diffractive hybrid photonic AI chiplet
A combined team of engineers from Tsinghua University and the Beijing National Research Center for Information Science and Technology, both in China, has developed a large-scale diffractive hybrid photonic AI chiplet for use in high-efficiency artificial general intelligence applications. Their paper is published in the journal Science.... Read more
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RVAM16: A low-cost multiple-ISA processor based on RISC-V and ARM thumb
The increasing demand in the embedded field has led to the emergence of several impressive Instruction Set Architectures (ISAs). However, when processors migrate from one ISA to another, software compatibility issues are unavoidable.... Read more
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Zap! California startup touts its new battery technology as a fast-charging 'universal adapter'
Officials at a startup based in Carlsbad, California, expect a battery technology they have engineered will transform the way e-bikes and electric-powered hand-held tools are charged. And once it's scaled up, they believe the technology will reshape even more sectors of the economy.... Read more
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Computer scientists discover gap in the latest security mechanisms used by some chips
Over the past few years, hardware manufacturers have developed technologies that ought to make it possible for companies and governmental organizations to process sensitive data securely using shared cloud computing resources. Known as confidential computing, this approach protects sensitive data while it is being processed by isolating it in an... Read more
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Proof-of-principle demonstration of 3D magnetic recording could lead to enhanced hard disk drives
Research groups from NIMS, Seagate Technology, and Tohoku University have made a breakthrough in the field of hard disk drives (HDD) by demonstrating the feasibility of multi-level recording using a three-dimensional magnetic recording medium to store digital information.... Read more
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Researchers develop a novel ultra-low–power memory for neuromorphic computing
A team of Korean researchers has developed a new memory device that can be used to replace existing memory or be used in implementing neuromorphic computing for next-generation artificial intelligence hardware for its low processing costs and its ultra-low–power consumption.... Read more
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Researchers 3D print key components for a point-of-care mass spectrometer
Mass spectrometry, a technique that can precisely identify the chemical components of a sample, could be used to monitor the health of people who suffer from chronic illnesses. For instance, a mass spectrometer can measure hormone levels in the blood of someone with hypothyroidism.... Read more
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Flexible microspectrometer for mobile applications
Researchers at the Fraunhofer Institute for Applied Optics and Precision Engineering IOF have developed a very compact spectrometer module. It maps spectra from 39 optical fibers onto one camera sensor in a small space. This is made possible by a special micro-optical system. The technology, which has potential for applications... Read more
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A helmet with a vibration sensor for excavator drivers
Fraunhofer researchers have developed a helmet with an integrated acceleration sensor for drivers of construction vehicles. The helmet sensor measures harmful vibrations that affect the body. The software analyzes the sensor signals and shows the stress on the affected person. This allows corresponding relief measures to be taken. A flexible... Read more
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A new strategy for fabricating high-density vertical organic electrochemical transistor arrays
Organic electrochemical transistors (OECTs) are an emerging class of transistors based on organic superconducting materials known for their ability to modulate electrical current in response to small changes in the voltage applied to their gate electrode. Like other electronics based on organic semiconductors, these transistors could be promising for the... Read more
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Research team develops next-generation semiconductor memory that operates in extreme environments
Researchers have developed a new manufacturing technology that enables the production of high-quality oxide films and effective patterning at low temperatures and manufactured non-volatile resistive random access memory. It is expected to be used in next-generation computing systems by overcoming the shortcomings of existing manufacturing technologies and developing memories with... Read more
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Amazon bets $150 billion on data centers required for AI boom
Amazon.com Inc. plans to spend almost $150 billion in the coming 15 years on data centers, giving the cloud-computing giant the firepower to handle an expected explosion in demand for artificial intelligence applications and other digital services.... Read more
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Climate change puts global semiconductor manufacturing at risk. Can the industry cope?
Semiconductors are the basic building blocks of microchips. These technological marvels are in everything from lightbulbs and toothbrushes to cars, trains and planes, not to mention the vast array of electronics that have become integral to many people's daily lives.... Read more
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Semiconductors at scale: New processor achieves remarkable speedup in problem solving
Annealing processors are designed specifically for addressing combinatorial optimization problems, where the task is to find the best solution from a finite set of possibilities. This holds implications for practical applications in logistics, resource allocation, and the discovery of drugs and materials.... Read more
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Thin, bacteria-coated fibers could lead to self-healing concrete that fills in its own cracks
Some say there are two types of concrete—cracked and on the brink of cracking. But what if when concrete cracked, it could heal itself?... Read more
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Nvidia unveils higher performing 'superchips'
Nvidia on Monday unveiled its latest family of chips for powering artificial intelligence, as it seeks to consolidate its position as the major supplier to the AI frenzy.... Read more
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What we know so far about the rumored Apple smart ring
Samsung officially announced the launch of a new smart ring-shaped wearable device, Galaxy Ring, as part of its Galaxy Unpacked event earlier this year. The ring, expected to be on sale in late summer 2024, will be able to monitor the user's health parameters and provide insights based on the... Read more
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Staying in the loop: How superconductors are helping computers 'remember'
Computers work in digits—0s and 1s, to be exact. Their calculations are digital; their processes are digital; even their memories are digital. All of which require extraordinary power resources. As we look to the next evolution of computing and developing neuromorphic or "brain-like" computing, those power requirements are unfeasible.... Read more
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Researchers design new analog chip architecture with high precision
While most computing in the world is still digital, the data around us is captured in analog via sensors–images through cameras, temperature, and sound, for example, and has to be converted into a digital form for precision. But imagine an autonomous vehicle that needs to capture what's on the road... Read more
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Reconfigurable electronics: More functionality on less chip area
Even the most complicated data processing on a computer can be broken down into small, simple logical steps: You can add individual bits together, you can reverse logical states, you can use combinations such as "AND" or "OR." Such operations are realized on the computer by very specific sets of... Read more
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What is a GPU? An expert explains the chips powering the AI boom, and why they're worth trillions
As the world rushes to make use of the latest wave of AI technologies, one piece of high-tech hardware has become a surprisingly hot commodity: the graphics processing unit, or GPU.... Read more
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Engineers collaborate with ChatGPT4 to design brain-inspired chips
Johns Hopkins electrical and computer engineers are pioneering a new approach to creating neural network chips—neuromorphic accelerators that could power energy-efficient, real-time machine intelligence for next-generation embodied systems like autonomous vehicles and robots.... Read more
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Tailoring a comfort-fit police jacket
In collaborative work between police organizations and experts in ergonomics and biomechanics, a new equipment vest has been developed to address the issue of musculoskeletal disorders, particularly lower back pain, among police officers.... Read more
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As auto industry deadlines loom for impaired-driver detection tech, researchers offer low-cost solution
Cameras similar to those already on newer model cars, combined with facial recognition tools, could read the "tells" of impairment in the face and upper body of a driver, University of Michigan engineers have shown.... Read more
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Lithium-ion batteries from drones might find second lives in less 'stressful' devices
Taking flight can be stressful—especially for a lithium-ion battery that powers a drone. Too much strain on these cells causes damage and shortens a device's overall lifespan. Research in ACS Energy Letters shows the potential to improve batteries in aerial electric vehicles that take off and land vertically. The team... Read more
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Engineers 3D print the electromagnets at the heart of many electronics
Imagine being able to build an entire dialysis machine using nothing more than a 3D printer.... Read more
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Exploring the use of silicon microresonators for artificial neural networks
Researchers have made significant progress in the development of artificial neural networks using tiny silicon devices called microresonators, paving the way for faster and more energy-efficient artificial intelligence systems. These networks mimic the computing capabilities of the human brain, breaking away from traditional digital computer architectures and leveraging the speed,... Read more
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Method identified to double computer processing speeds
Imagine doubling the processing power of your smartphone, tablet, personal computer, or server using the existing hardware already in these devices.... Read more
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An architecture for sub-picowatt logic computing based on self-biased molybdenum disulfide transistors
The continuous improvement of circuits and electronic components is vital for the development of new technologies with enhanced capabilities and unique characteristics. In recent years, most electronics engineers have been specifically focusing on reducing the size of transistors, while retaining a low power consumption.... Read more
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A multi-camera differential binocular vision sensor for robots and autonomous systems
Recent technological advances have enabled the development of increasingly sophisticated sensors, which can help to advance the sensing capabilities of robots, drones, autonomous vehicles, and other smart systems. Many of these sensors, however, rely on individual cameras, thus the accuracy of the measurements they collect is limited by the cameras'... Read more
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Aim policies at hardware to ensure AI safety, say experts
A global registry tracking the flow of chips destined for AI supercomputers is one of the policy options highlighted by a major new report calling for regulation of "compute"—the hardware that underpins all AI—to help prevent artificial intelligence misuse and disasters.... Read more
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International research team develops new hardware for neuromorphic computing
In the future, modern machines should not only follow algorithms quickly and precisely, but also function intelligently—in other words, in a way that resembles the human brain. Scientists from Dortmund, Loughborough, Kiev and Nottingham have now developed a concept inspired by eyesight that could make future artificial intelligence much more... Read more
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Implementing artificial neural network hardware systems by stacking them like 'neuron-synapse-neuron' structural blocks
With the emergence of new industries such as artificial intelligence, the Internet of Things, and machine learning, the world's leading companies are focusing on developing next-generation artificial intelligence semiconductors that can process vast amounts of data while consuming energy efficiently.... Read more
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Tiny AI-based bio-loggers revealing the interesting bits of a bird's day
Have you ever wondered what wildlife animals do all day? Documentaries offer a glimpse into their lives, but animals under the watchful eye do not do anything interesting. The true essence of their behaviors remains elusive. Now, researchers from Japan have developed a camera that allows us to capture these... Read more
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External drives taking too long to load?
This week a reader writes: I have a Mac desktop with two 1 terabyte external SSDs, one used for Time Machine backups and one for my daily files.... Read more
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New ultra-high speed processor to advance AI, driverless vehicles and more
A team of international scientists have developed an ultra-high speed signal processor that can analyze 400,000 real time video images concurrently, according to a paper published in Communications Engineering.... Read more
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New, super-smart hardware could provide drastic cuts in power consumption
Greener data processing requires systems that work smarter, faster, and are more energy efficient. Researchers from the Norwegian University of Science and Technology (NTNU) have developed a tiny piece of super-smart hardware that enables all of the above.... Read more
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Research team develops analog hardware solution for real-time compressed sensing recovery in one step
A research team led by Prof. Sun Zhong at Peking University has reported an analog hardware solution for real-time compressed sensing recovery. It has been published as an article titled, "In-memory analog solution of compressed sensing recovery in one step" in Science Advances.... Read more
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Researchers develop spintronic probabilistic computers compatible with current AI
Researchers at Tohoku University and the University of California, Santa Barbara, have shown a proof-of-concept of energy-efficient computer compatible with current AI. It utilizes a stochastic behavior of nanoscale spintronics devices and is particularly suitable for probabilistic computation problems such as inference and sampling.... Read more
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Hybrid phase-change memristors lead to new computing possibilities
By strategically straining materials that are as thin as a single layer of atoms, University of Rochester scientists have developed a new form of computing memory that is at once fast, dense, and low-power. The researchers outline their new hybrid resistive switches in a study published in Nature Electronics.... Read more
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Researchers use 2D material to reshape 3D electronics for AI hardware
Multifunctional computer chips have evolved to do more with integrated sensors, processors, memory and other specialized components. However, as chips have expanded, the time required to move information between functional components has also grown.... Read more
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Researchers develop device that can switch between photodetector and neuromorphic vision sensor
Photodetectors and neuromorphic vision sensors are two typical optoelectronic devices that play important roles in sensing and processing optical information. Photodetectors have fast light response and high sensitivity, making them suitable for optical sensing, communication, and imaging systems. Neuromorphic vision sensors can perceive, store, and process light signals.... Read more
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Cracking the da Vinci chronology: System tries to bring order to the works of a Renaissance genius
Leonardo da Vinci may have been a genius, but he was also a hot mess—at least in terms of organizing his works. When he died in 1519, the Renaissance master left behind 7,000 pages of undated drawings, scientific observations and personal journals, more or less jumbled up in a box.... Read more
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AI startup Anthropic to use Google chips in expanded partnership
Artificial intelligence startup Anthropic will be one of the first companies to use new chips from Alphabet Inc."s Google, deepening their partnership after a recent cloud computing agreement.... Read more
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Neuromorphic computing research: Team proposes hardware that mimics the human brain
Technology is edging closer and closer to the super-speed world of computing with artificial intelligence. But is the world equipped with the proper hardware to be able to handle the workload of new AI technological breakthroughs?... Read more
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Salt solution cools computers, boosts performance
Researchers at the City University of Hong Kong found the secret to a more efficient, less expensive approach to keeping massive computer systems cool: Just add salt.... Read more
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Researchers develop evaluation technique for radio-frequency components used in quantum computers
The development of quantum computers is underway around the world, and much attention is focused on increasing the number of qubits that perform operations. On the other hand, looking at the entire system of a quantum computer, the number of RF components to control them increases in proportion to the... Read more
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The future of AI hardware: Scientists unveil all-analog photoelectronic chip
Researchers from Tsinghua University, China, have developed an all-analog photoelectronic chip that combines optical and electronic computing to achieve ultrafast and highly energy-efficient computer vision processing, surpassing digital processors.... Read more
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Researchers co-design video game controller to provide social connection for kids with disabilities
When Formula 1 champion Lewis Hamilton shared a beautiful story of his brother Nicolas experiencing a professional F1 simulator, he said "The smile you see here never left his face."... Read more