IBM

IBM Marks 15 Years Since Deep Blue Defeated Garry Kasparov

by Socrates
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May 11, 2012 marks the 15-year anniversary since IBM’s chess-playing supercomputer Deep Blue defeated the reigning world chess champion Garry Kasparov. In the video below IBM Research scientist Dr. Murray Campbell, one of the original developers, talks about the challenges and breakthroughs of building Deep Blue. Designed as a “brute force” high-power parallel processing super-computer, Deep Blue could analyze 200 million chess positions per second. It defeated Kasparov 3.5-2.5 after losing 4-2 the previous year. After the game Deep Blue was used to develop drug treatments, analyze risk and conduct data mining. It also paved the way for the next generation of its replacements –  Blue Gene and Watson.   Related articles David Ferrucci on Singularity 1 on 1: Pursue the Big Challenges Elementary, my dear, Watson: Who is Smarter than Human? They Were There: Errol Morris’ Centennial Documentary About [...]

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DOME: IBM and ASTRON’s Exascale Computer for SKA Radio Telescope

by Socrates
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ASTRON, the Netherlands Institute for Radio Astronomy and IBM today announced an initial 32.9 million EURO, five-year collaboration to research extremely fast, but low-power exascale computer systems targeted for the international Square Kilometre Array (SKA). The SKA is an international consortium to build the world’s largest and most sensitive radio telescope. Scientists estimate that the processing power required to operate the telescope will be equal to 100 million of today’s fastest desktop computers. ASTRON is one of the leading scientific partners in the international consortium that is developing the SKA. Upon completion in 2024, the telescope will be used to explore evolving galaxies, dark matter and even the very origins of the universe – dating back more than 13 billion years. An interesting thing to consider is DOME’s processing power versus that of a human brain – roughly around 10^18 [...]

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David Ferrucci on Singularity 1 on 1: Pursue the Big Challenges

by Socrates
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This Monday I interviewed Dr. David Ferrucci on Singularity 1 on 1. David is the IBM team leader behind Watson – the computer that succeeded in dethroning humanity’s greatest ever jeopardy champion – Ken Jennings. I met both Dr. Ferrucci and Ken Jennings during last year’s Singularity Summit where both of them spoke about Watson and the opportunities and challenges associated with it. It was then and there that I hatched my plan to get David (and Ken) on Singularity 1 on 1. I have to say that I learned a lot from and enjoyed talking to David very much. My favorite quote that I will take away from him is this: “Pursue the big challenges and do the big things that inspire people and make them scratch their heads.” During our conversation with Dr. Ferrucci we also discuss topics [...]

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They Were There: Errol Morris’ Centennial Documentary About IBM

by Socrates
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Last week I interviewed James Martin for my Singularity 1 on 1 podcast. Among many other things James spent decades at IBM and was among the key people who super-charged the company’s rise to dominance during the 1950s, ’60s and ’70s, and in the process changed the world. During our conversation James noted the vital importance of companies such as IBM, HP, Google and Microsoft, and stressed that it was firms like those (and not governments) that deserve credit for technological innovation and progress. Yesterday, as I watched Errol Morris‘ centennial documentary about IBM, I recalled Martin’s words about the pioneering work the company has done for the last 100 years. While the movie was most likely commissioned by IBM itself, and does not go over some of the few dark spots of the firm’s history, it does a fantastic [...]

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Dharmendra Modha on How to Build a Brain-like Computer

by Socrates
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Mapping the entire human brain one neuron at a time, discovering its complete functionality and then simulating it in a virtual environment is one of the major benchmarks on the way to the singularity. If successful it will have wide ranging implications for a variety fields from medicine and supercomputing to neuroscience and artificial intelligence. I have previously posted some interesting videos of Henry Markram and his Blue Brain project. In this video Dharmendra Modha, manager of Cognitive Computing department at IBM and a principle investigator for a DARPA funded project called SyNAPSE, talks about his goal to build a brain-like computer which is both cheap and easy to make and, similarly to a human brain, has a very low energy consumption. Related articles by Zemanta Artificial Brains Are Imminent… Not! (scientificamerican.com) When Will We Be Able to Build Brains [...]

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IBM Creates Smallest 3D Nano-Map

by Socrates
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The documentary Nano, the Next Dimension is interesting and worth watching but is a bit dated because it was produced in 2002. Just two days ago IBM announced a fresh breakthrough in the field of nanotechnology and to demonstrate its capabilities created the world’s smallest 3D nanoscale map. See this video detailing the challenges and breakthroughs of the project: Read an excerpt from IBM’s Press Release: ZURICH & SAN JOSE, Calif. – 23 Apr 2010:  IBM (NYSE: IBM) scientists have created a 3D map of the earth so small that 1,000 of them could fit on one grain of salt. The scientists accomplished this through a new, breakthrough technique that uses a tiny, silicon tip with a sharp apex — 100,000 times smaller than a sharpened pencil — to create patterns and structures as small as 15 nanometers at greatly [...]

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Elementary, my dear, Watson: Who is Smarter than Human?

by Socrates
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In the 1940s Alan Turing famously predicted that one day computers will defeat humans in chess. In 1997 IBM’s Deep Blue defeated the reigning world chess champion Gary Kasparov. Currently, IBM is building a natural language processing computer named Watson, designed to compete in the game show Jeopardy and, ultimately, defeat any human opponent. (You can test yourself against Watson by playing the NY Times Trivia Challenge Game here.) As you can see in the videos Watson is still very much a work in progress. However, is there anyone who honestly doubts the inevitable? Do you need to be a Sherlock Holmes to see what’s coming? I think it’s elementary. Big deal. Someone will say. I remember reading once that famous linguist Noam Chomsky commented that Deep Blue defeating Kasparov in chess was as interesting as a bulldozer winning the [...]

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IBM: 5 Innovations that will Change Cities in the Next 5 Years

by Socrates

Buildings that know when they need to be fixed before something breaks; sensors that tell the fire department details of a fire before they receive the emergency phone call; smart water and sewage systems that filter and recycle water. . . See the modern city as it will be in 5 years time as foreseen by IBM. (Main story at http://asmarterplanet.com)

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