Brigadoon Weekend
Emerging issues shaping commerce and culture.
October 24, 2020
Computing Only.
COMPUTING DEEP DIVE SEVEN
Why glass might be the future of data storage: Microsoft’s Project Silica is an attempt to develop storage for cloud computing. Unlike tape or a hard drive, glass storage could last for hundreds or thousands of years. It does not degrade and is resistant to data corruption — known as “bit rot” — from heat, floods or even solar flares, which can sometimes affect magnetic storage.
+ FT
The CIA and Jeff Bezos bet on quantum computing: With funding from the Amazon founder and the CIA’s investment arm, the Canadian company D-Wave is gaining momentum for its revolutionary approach to computing.
+ MIT Technology Review
New 'Aurora' supercomputer poised to be fastest in US history: It’s as if millions of people in coffee shops across the United States were using their laptops to do mathematical calculations while sipping their lattes — more than a billion calculations a second for each person. That’s how Rick Stevens, an associate director at Argonne National Laboratory in Lemont, Illinois, explains the unprecedented computational power of the lab’s new supercomputer. Dubbed Aurora, the $500-million device will be delivered to the lab in 2021. The powerful device could help researchers model climate change or discover new cancer drugs.
+ NBC News
Baidu jumps on the quantum bandwagon: Baidu debuted Quantum Leaf, intended for companies to access experimental quantum computing technologies via the Chinese search giant’s cloud computing arm. Baidu joins a growing list of tech companies like Microsoft, IBM, and Rigetti Computing that are offering cloud-based quantum computing services, which are still early in their development.
+ SiliconANGLE
An algorithm that can spot cause and effect could supercharge medical AI: The technique, inspired by quantum cryptography, would allow large medical databases to be tapped for causal links.
+ MIT Technology Review
Why we must unshackle AI from the boundaries of human knowledge: A lot of research today focuses on teaching AI to do things the way we do them. For example, computer vision and natural language processing – two of the hottest research areas in the field – deal with building AI models that can see like humans and use language like humans. But instead of teaching computers to imitate human thought, the time has now come to let them evolve on their own, so instead of becoming like us, they have a chance to become better than us.
+ Viraj Kulkarni
The contest to protect almost everything on the internet: The world’s top cryptographers are competing to develop algorithms that can withstand attacks from an ultrafast quantum computer.
+ WSJ
ROSS RANT
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Need to know ...
Where to find the best street tacos in Mexico City?
What's the best coffee shop in Des Moines?
What's the best ecommecre site for Japanese pencils?
Where's the best bookshop in Singapore?
How to plan a journey from London to Edinburgh by app?
What's the best steakhouse in Seattle?
Which hotel in Detroit is better - Shinola or Foundation?
What's the best vegetarian lunch stand in Laguna Beach?
Where's the best hotel lobby bar in Rome?
We got you covered.
You ask, we answer; it is that simple.
PS - Here are the answers:
El Tizoncito
Java Joe's
JetPens.com
BooksActually
Rome2rio
Metropolitan Grill
Shinola
The Stand Natural Foods
Hotel de Russie
-Marc
COMPUTING DATA POINTS
Automakers tap VR to banish boredom in autonomous cars.
Nearly 1 in 5 students in the US don't have access to computers at home.
A survey last month found that 75% of Black and Latino families with children in under-resourced schools in Los Angeles don't use computers regularly.
According to Pew Research, 91% of Americans “agree” or “strongly agree” that people have lost control over how personal information is collected and used. By 2025, it’s estimated that 463 exabytes of data will be created each day globally – that’s the equivalent of 212,765,957 DVDs per day.
When Steve Jobs launched the first Apple retail store he said, “People don't just want to buy personal computers; they want to know what they can do with them."
New forms of "empathetic computing" are helping human users feel more comfortable in opening up to a program. Axios reports, our mental health has taken a major hit during the COVID-19 pandemic, while social distancing means it's harder to meet in person with therapists. That has opened a space for emotionally attuned machines to help us.
Cloud gaming and carbon: Gaming takes 7 percent of global network demand and 95 percent of that is people downloading content from the cloud one time and running it on their device at home. A new study modeled a scenario where if 30 percent of gamers switched to the cloud it would cause a 29.9 percent increase in carbon emissions, and one where if 90 percent moved to the cloud would cause a 112 percent increase.
$3 billion: Japan-based conglomerate Toshiba said it’s aiming to generate $3B in revenue from quantum key distribution (QKD) — an emerging encryption tech that could enable ultra-secure communications — by the end of the decade.
The Trump administration's 2021 budget will earmark nearly $2 billion for AI research by 2022, up from $973 million today. It also includes $860 million in "quantum information sciences" spending within the next two years, double the 2020 number.
BRIGADOON READS | COMPUTING
The Strangest Man: The Hidden Life of Paul Dirac, Quantum Genius
+ Graham Farmelo
Quantum Computing for Everyone
+ Chris Bernhardt
Quantum Computing Since Democritus
+ Scott Aaronson
BRIGADOON WATCHES | COMPUTING
Quantum computer in a nutshell
+ Documentary
The hype over quantum computers, explained
+ CNBC
Quantum computers explained – limits of human technology
+ Kurzgesagt
A beginner's guide to quantum computing
+ Shohini Ghose - TED Talk
TWEET
"If people do not believe that mathematics is simple, it is only because they do not realize how complicated life is."
- John von Neumann, first national meeting of the Association for Computing Machinery in 1947
@pickover
Clifford Alan Pickover is an American author, editor, and columnist in the fields of science, mathematics, science fiction, innovation, and creativity.
Have a great weekend. See you next week.
-Marc
Curation and commentary by Marc A. Ross
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