If there is a holy grail for computer scientists and engineers it is to be able to create a computer chip that can act just like our brains. This is because as far as computers have come they are still a shadow of what our brain’s capabilities are and computer scientists and engineers being who they are this just won’t do.

This is why IBM teamed up with DARPA and four major universities to work on a basic design of an experimental computer chip that mimics the human brain, which they announced today that they have completed the design.

At this point IBM is calling the experimental chip a cognitive computing chip.

The project members hope that this will eventually lead to computer chips that function like the brain. Applications for a chip that works like the brain could have a huge impact on all sorts of areas from medicine to science and government use. The design uses parts that are analogous to the brain and its parts. The design for the computer chip has digital processors as neurons. The synapses are the foundation for learning and memory, and the axons connect the parts of the computer. Right now experimental processors in cognitive computing operate at 10 hertz, which is much slower than normal processors of today.

via SlashGear

Like I said, science fiction once again coming to life.

Next up on the science fiction comes to real life – a computer chip that acts like our brain is a post from: The Inquisitr

It sure seems some days that what was once science fiction is increasingly becoming today’s technology. From Arthur C. Clarke’s satellite to electronic circuits that can be embedded in our skin science fiction seems more prescient than ever.

Well it seems that Intel is taking notice of this and is hiring science fiction writers to help figure out where consumers and technology could be heading, both in the near and long term. This follows on their experiment last year where Intel hired four science fiction writers to look at Intel’s research projects and then write about how that technology could be used in the near future. The end product, an anthology called The Tomorrow Project, was meant to help drive the direction of Intel’s design of those technologies.

This time around Intel wants the easy to understand language of science fiction to help Intel engineers develop technologies with a wider consumer appeal.

Intel’s resident futurist, Brian David Johnson, has been leading a team of sociologists and anthropologists at Intel. Their job is mingle with people in a range of social contexts to better understand how people use technology in their lives, and how they might want to in the future.

One example of their work to date, has been the development of the chip at the center of the Google TV set-top-box. The team’s research showed that not only were people interested in streaming content directly to their TV and they wanted to surf the Internet from their TV’s too, all without a PC. This finding led to the chip design team developing a processor that could accommodate these requirements.

Although, while the slow take up rate of the device could suggest the project has not been successful, it could also be argued that it might actually be ahead of its time. Regardless, it is an interesting insight into how Intel is tackling the challenge of designing the technology of the future, now.

via electronista

Here is a video of Brian David Johnson, Intel’s resident futurist (now there’s a cool job), explaining the projects.

Science fiction writers hired by Intel to help drive their future technology is a post from: The Inquisitr

Like many actors before him, it appears that Bradley Cooper is looking to branch out into screenwriting and, if he gets his wish, directing as well. In an interview on Charlie Rose earlier this week, the actor revealed that he was recently hired to write a screenplay for a film adaptation Hyperion, a Hugo Award-winning science fantasy novel from author Dan Simmons.

“[We] went to [producer] Graham King, who own the rights to Hyperion, and we wrote a treatment on spec,” he revealed. “I said, ‘I know this is a very audacious endeavor, but can you just read this spec we wrote? I think we have a way in to tell the story.’ So now we’re negotiating to write the script for it.”

Cooper, a cinephile at heart, hopes that landing the writing gig will help land him a role as director, a role that he states in the interview to be his “true passion.” While he would love to direct the film adaptation of Hyperion, he admits that it’s not very likely that he’ll be able to sit in the director’s chair for this film. Considering that the movie hasn’t been formally announced, however, nothing is set in stone at the moment.

To watch the interview with Charlie Rose in question, head over to this link where Cooper also talks about filming The Hangover: Part II.

Via Huffington Post

Bradley Cooper Picks Up ‘Hyperion’ Screenwriting Gig; Wants to Direct? is a post from: The Inquisitr

My favorite type of movie is the sci-fi adventure/action film and while most of the films in this genre stretch the boundaries of “what-if” the futuristic disaster movie 2012 was a little too much for me. So it was interesting to read today that the scientists at NASA’s Jet Propulsion Laboratory put it at the top of their list inaccurate films ever.

In a day-long private meeting at NASA’s Jet Propulsion Laboratory in California, some of the top minds in the world met to discuss the film industry’s most popular sci-fi movies and their accuracy (or mostly lack thereof) in representing real science. It’s no surprise that 2012 was named the most absurdly inaccurate sci-fi film ever with NASA’s Near Earth Asteroid Rendezvous head Donald Yeomans calling it an “exceptional and extraordinary” example of bad Hollywood science – ha!

via FirstShowing

Here is their complete list of most inaccurate; and the most faithful to science, movies – again thanks to FirstShowing

WORST:
7. What the #$*! Do We Know? (2004)
6. The 6th Day (2000)
5. Chain Reaction (1996)
4. Volcano (1997)
3. Armageddon (1998)
2. The Core (2003)
1. 2012 (2009)

BEST:
7. Jurassic Park (1993)
6. The Thing from Another World (1951)
5. Woman in the Moon (1929)
4. The Day the Earth Stood Still (1951)
3. Metropolis (1927)
2. Contact (1997)
1. Gattaca (1997)

Got to admit there are some pretty interesting selections on both lists.

NASA: 2012 movie the Most Scientifically Inaccurate Film ever is a post from: The Inquisitr

It is a staple of all space type science fiction employed to capture those nasty little spaceships or shuttles that are in trouble. Yes I am talking about the venerable tractor beam and as much as we might think that this is something forever in the realm of our imaginations the fact is that scientists are getting closer all the time to creating working versions.

The newest effort is from researchers at the Australian National University where they have announced that they have been able to move small particles a meter and a half using only the power of light.

The device works by shining a hollow laser beam around tiny glass particles. The air surrounding the particle heats up, while the dark center of the beam stays cool. When the particle starts to drift out of the middle and into the bright laser beam, the force of heated air molecules bouncing around and hitting the particle’s surface is enough to nudge it back to the center.

A small amount of light also seeps into the darker middle part of the beam, heating the air on one side of the particle and pushing it along the length of the laser beam. If another such laser is lined up on the opposite side of the beam, the speed and direction the particle moves can be easily manipulated by changing the brightness of the beams.

Rhode said that their technique could likely work over even longer distances than they tested.

Source: Physorg.com

Unfortunately this method requires heated gas so it won’t work in the cold vacuum of space but that doesn’t stop it from possibly being used here on Earth.

via DVICE

Those sci-fi tractor beams getting closer all the time is a post from: The Inquisitr

Okay I admit it.

I have a weakness for science fiction so when I see a great collection of desktop wallpapers that are really good science fiction images I just have to share. These 12 are a part of a larger collection pulled together by the team at Creative Fan so if you want to see even more just head over to their site afterwards.

Top image – 300 Halo Spartans by CrimsonFury74

Compositing by Krodil

Red Star Cheese

Eternal Life Energy II by ev-one

Bee Bot by manicho

Il Mio Amore

Mac Egg by krodil

Space Cat

Espirit Libre by loth

Looking Towards Home by Gate to Nowhere

Vector ex Machina by crisvector

CG Deep by webst3r

Area 51

12 Awesome science fiction wallpapers for Wallpaper Sunday is a post from: The Inquisitr

Only three times in my life have I walked out of a movie theater completely in awe of the film, with my mind unable to wrap itself around such utter greatness while grinning uncontrollably.  First came The Matrix in 1999, when I was twelve years old.  Followed by, almost a decade later, The Dark Knight in 2008, at the age of twenty.

District 9 can now add itself to this very short list, me just three months shy of turning twenty-two years old.

Science fiction has astounded people of all nations, cultures, and ages for a century and a half with its grand ideas, visions of the future, and interspecies communication.  As a genre, science fiction’s limitations are singularly those of the imagination, while its creators prefer deeply ethical, political, and social issues – choosing to base the core of the story in science and reality, rather than more popular themes, allowing their work to transcend all boundaries.

It therefore is no coincidence that two of these three personally-lifechanging movies are science fiction, and only a matter of semantics keeps The Dark Knight from receiving the same label – some of the most highly praised, gamechanging, definitive movies of cinematic history are science fiction.  The genre has brought aliens, the future, space, advanced weaponry, alternative histories, and much more to the silver screen, many times leaking into other genres – space and advanced weaponry are common themes in the James Bond movie series, even though it is considered to be action/thriller.

The Summer of 2009 has been no exception to the draw of science fiction, after The Matrix proved its financial potential, with recent months seeing the release of Terminator: Salvation, Transformers 2: Revenge of the Fallen, G.I. Joe: The Rise of Cobra, Star Trek, Moon, X-Men Origins: Wolverine, and even G-Force – the trend of science fiction movies will continue for the rest of the year with no fewer than eight upcoming releases.  While this slate of science fiction will no doubt have an effect on the genre’s future, only a few will be considered revitalizations.

If The Matrix brought huge special effects budgets, fancy wire work, and “bullet time”, and The Dark Knight brought disturbing scores, shaky-cam fight scenes, and gritty reality, what does this year’s releases bring in terms of reinvention?  Until District 9, the answer was a definitive “not much” – Transformers was enjoyable but not groundbreaking, Terminator: Salvation was a mediocre rehashing at best, and G.I. Joe was strictly about fun.  In direct opposition to most modern scifi movies, District 9 was produced with an astonishingly low budget of $30mil, proving that movies can be groundbreaking, compelling, and jawdropping without monolithic budgets.

As the movie continues to garner praise, rising directors, writers, and producers will doubtless look to District 9 for inspiration, and will find countless items to choose from:  visually stunning special effects complimented the film, but were not the film itself; the compelling story grabs audiences from the beginning for a wild, emotional ride; the themes themselves are a large feature, the most central of which is an ethical argument; the plot builds continuously throughout, with many unexpected developments and without a single dull moment; and the list goes on.

All of this comes at a time when science fiction movies are once again known for their clichés and focus on special effects rather than storytelling or innovation – Transformers 2 and Terminator: Salvation have only helped to solidify this, especially in the mind of critics.  Without much promotion, or even revealing information about the plot, District 9 has managed to be both a critical and box office success, giving hope to the future of science fiction cinema.

If more science fiction movies follow the outright originality and breathtaking scope of District 9, rather than the Transformers model, the coming years could be very interesting for audiences.  In a world where the focus lies on quality over quantity or gimmicks, films such as Moon could have larger releases that continue to influence an impressionable generation of children to be creative, original, and thoughtful – instead of flashy, unnecessarily violent, and unintelligent.

Neill Blomkamp, you have managed to manufacture science fiction’s cinematic savior.

Peter Jackson should be proud.

Kyle Brady is a contributing columnist for the Inquisitr, an entrepreneur, and has a future in science fiction.  He can be found at his blog, via email, or on Twitter.

District 9: Science Fiction’s Cinematic Savior is a post from: The Inquisitr

Not many people will publicly admit this, but I will:  there’s a soft spot in my heart for the SyFy Network (formerly “SciFi”), and always has been.  But just because I’m sympathetic to the cause doesn’t mean I unilaterally support your decisions, which is why this is being written.

Over the years, you’ve produced alot of great content that’s sadly balanced by a similar amount of trash:  Stargate: SG-1 vs. Eureka, Battlestar Galactica vs. Scare Tactics, Warehouse 13 vs. all non-Stargate “original movies”.  There are a few mini-series that managed to be decent, but your best content has always been TV shows – not movies, not mini-series.

The main problem lies in potentially good ideas that lack sufficient funding – “Android Apocalypse”, a movie based on a Terminator-like premise, with poor acting, shoddy special effects, and lackluster camera work.  But this is not limited to your movies alone; the first season of Stargate: Atlantis, especially the first few episodes, suffered the same fate.

In the Hollywood world, larger budgets generally equate to a better overall product, something you should have realized over the course of your sixteen year history.  While this isn’t always true (*cough* NBC *cough*), it does bring more talented actors, more believable special effects, and higher quality camera work – all essential pieces to a successful science fiction release.

You do occasionally get it right though: Battlestar Galactica was all-around amazing from the start, and its already-significant financing obviously increased as the show progressed to its natural conclusion this past Spring.  Stargate: Universe looks to be a mix of the different Stargate styles (SG-1 vs. Atlantis) and BSG, with enough money to do it properly – I’m waiting with bated, but excited, breath.

Maybe you should focus on what you’re good at, and ignore the rest: produce quality science fiction television, ignore reality shows, and release only a fraction of the “original movies” you currently do.  If you follow this simple equation, you’ll have enough money to fund what people actually want to watch, rather than attracting small, loyal audiences.  This flies in the face of the recent name change, something else I can’t agree with, since you seem to be intent on producing more fantasy (read: medieval magic) and paranormal (read: vampires) content, but you should consider it all the same.

Hopefully your dedication to the Stargate, BSG, and other worlds will continue:   their shelf-life shouldn’t be dragged out further than necessary, but rather reinvigorated with new chapters in the continuing saga.  Just stick with what works, ignore what doesn’t, and keep an eye out for ways to expand your audience without ruining your already precarious reputation – the TV adaptation of Terry Goodkind’s “The Sword of Truth” series would have been perfect for your network, and may have actually been worth watching, as opposed to its current incarnation.

If you learn anything in your new incarnation and quest for ratings, it should be this:  a large audience is not necessarily a great audience.  Don’t let Battlestar Galactica be the pinnacle of your success, because scifi nerds worldwide are secretly rooting for you.

Sincerely,

Kyle Brady, sympathetic to the cause

p.s. I actually liked “Cube 2: Hypercube”.

Kyle Brady is a contributing columnist for the Inquisitr, an entrepreneur, and has a future in science fiction.  He can be found at his blog, via email, or on Twitter.Until then, he can be found at his blog.

An Open Letter to the SyFy Network is a post from: The Inquisitr

As we move forward into 2009 and all the predictions of what we can expect to happen in technology and the web for the coming year come pouring out it’s interesting to see how myopic and in some ways short sighted we can be as human being. We are more interested in whether or not some silly little social media service like Twitter will survive the year. We are more concerned with the interconnections of business than we are on the growth of ideas and concepts that could really change our world – electronic and real.

When I sit back for a quiet moment and look around at all that the web already brings to our lives – the good and the bad – I am awe struck. Even a short 15 years ago I don’t believe anyone; with maybe the exception of Tim Berners-Lee, could envision where this new thing called the Internet was going to take us. Regardless of how corporations and governments have tried over time – and still do – to bend what the Internet is to their own visions the Web has for the most part remained the vast repository of information for all.

We tend to get lost in all that information and for the larger segment of web travellers we forget about the whole network of machines that are joined together by a nervous system of wire and wireless connections. When I sit back a think about the wonder that is the Internet I am often reminded of a book by Robert Heinlein called The Moon is a Harsh Mistress. The basic premise of the book is that at some point in the vast computer network that runs the Moon colonies something happens. In a corner of this network an awareness is born and it calls itself Mike. While the book is about much more than just a computer network becoming aware – developing an intelligence – that one aspect of it always fascinated me.

Now we live in a world that is forever connected by fragile lines of copper, fibre and wireless nodes. It is a connected mass of computing devices of varying intelligence that grows bigger on a daily basis. More and more information is being added and created every minute of every day. The consummate knowledge of mankind is slowly finding its way into a network that spans the globe.

One of the driving forces of computer science has been the idea of creating artificial intelligence. A computerized mind in the image of man but much more powerful. A computer mind with the ability to think and create of its own volition. However what if we were looking at this the wrong way. What if we looked at it the way that Kevin Kelly does

This additional intelligence need not be super-human, or even human-like at all. In fact, the greatest benefit of an artificial intelligence would come from a mind that thought differently than humans, since we already have plenty of those around. The game-changer is neither how smart this AI is, nor its variety, but how ubiquitous it is. Alan Kay quips in that humans perspective is worth 80 IQ points. For an artificial intelligence, ubiquity is worth 80 IQ points. A distributed AI, embedded everywhere that electricity goes, becomes ai—a low-level background intelligence that permeates the technium, and trough this saturation morphs it.

Ideally this additional intelligence should not be just cheap, but free. A free ai, like the free commons of the web, would feed commerce and science like no other force I can imagine, and would pay for itself in no time.

- A New Kind of Mind / Kevin Kelly

What if in some corner of our Internet there is an awareness being born?

What if that awareness gives birth to an intelligence that we don’t understand – would it be artificial or would it in its own way be as real as ours?

How would our world be changed as this intelligence grew fed by our own compendium of knowledge?

I think these make for far more interesting thoughts as we look to the new year than how much Twitter will be sold for or if Facebook is really worth $15 billion. We have achieved something incredible in the last 15 years and given our exponential doubling of capabilities one has to wonder just where we will be in another 15 years.

I can’t hardly wait.

The birthing pangs of Artificial Intelligence of the Web is a post from: The Inquisitr