Latest Feeds

Computer scientists at the world-famous  Massachusetts Institute of Technology  (MIT) have developed a system that can reliably make websites load 34 per cent faster.  As internet speeds have increased, websites have got more complex, leaving some pages sluggish and unresponsive. This is a problem for companies like  Amazon , who say that for every one-second delay in loading time, their profits are cut by one per cent. But a team of researchers, working at the university's Computer Science and Artifical Intelligence Laboratory, may have found the solution.  Named Polaris, the system cuts load-times by determining the best way to 'overlap' the downloading of different parts of a webpage. When you visit a new page, your browser reaches across the internet to fetch 'objects' like pictures, videos, and HTML files. The browser then evaluates the objects and puts them on the page. However, some objects are dependent on others, and browsers...

One of the most challenging issues for game players looks to be resolved soon with the introduction of a zero-latency gaming environment. A KAIST team developed a technology that helps game players maintain zero-latency performance. The new technology transforms the shapes of game design according to the amount of latency. Latency in human-computer interactions is often caused by various factors related to the environment and performance of the devices, networks, and data processing. The term 'lag' is used to refer to any latency during gaming which impacts the user's performance. Professor Byungjoo Lee at the Graduate School of Culture Technology in collaboration with Aalto University in Finland presented a mathematical model for predicting players' behavior by understanding the effects of latency on players. This cognitive model is capable of predicting the success rate of a user when there is latency in a 'moving target selection' task which requires...

The next big Raspberry Pi thing is now here, with lots more computing power and more options. The  Raspberry Pi Foundation  on Monday announced the availability of Raspberry Pi 4, a comprehensive upgrade that touches nearly every element of the computing platform. Raspberry Pi 4 offers users a choice of three memory capacities. The entry-level 1 GB RAM retains the signature US$35 price; 2 GB costs $45; 4 GB sells for $55. Prices exclude sales tax, import duty (where appropriate) and shipping. All three variants launched on Monday. The foundation built more of the 2 GB variant than others and will adjust the mix over time to meet demands. The upgrade to version 4 delivers a first-time PC-like performance while retaining the interfacing capabilities and hackability of the classic Raspberry Pi line, according to Eben Upton, Raspberry Pi cofounder and CEO of  Raspberry Pi Trading . The new features make it the most powerful version of Raspberry Pi to date, a...

LinkedIn on Tuesday disclosed algorithm changes designed to favor conversations catering to niche professional interests. Axios first reported the shift. The top 1 percent of power users grabbed much of the attention on its platform, LinkedIn found through internal research in 2018. The criteria for posts showing up in members' feeds can be summed up as "people you know, talking about things you care about," said LinkedIn Senior Director of Product Management Pete Davies. LinkedIn prioritizes and ranks posts based on the following criteria: Individuals a member has interacted with directly; The member's profile; The member's colleagues; and Who would benefit from hearing from the member. It terms this "creator side optimization." "The actual algorithms are fairly straightforward," said Stephen Lynch, senior communications manager at LinkedIn Engineering. One selects likely content for a member's feed, and the other...

'Robot blood' powers machines for lengthy tasks Researchers at Cornell University have created a system of circulating liquid -- "robot blood" -- within robotic structures, to store energy and power robotic applications for sophisticated, long-duration tasks. The researchers have created a synthetic vascular system capable of pumping an energy-dense hydraulic liquid that stores energy, transmits force, operates appendages and provides structure, all in an integrated design. "In nature we see how long organisms can operate while doing sophisticated tasks. Robots can't perform similar feats for very long," said Rob Shepherd, associate professor of mechanical and aerospace engineering at Cornell. "Our bio-inspired approach can dramatically increase the system's energy density while allowing soft robots to remain mobile for far longer." Shepherd, director of the Organic Robotics Lab, is senior author of "Electrolytic Vasc...

The tool, called CaImAn, replaces the process of manually tracking the location and activity of neurons Tracking the firings of individual neurons is like trying to discern who is saying what in a football stadium full of screaming fans. Until recently, neuroscientists have had to tediously track each neuron by hand. "People spent more time analyzing their data to extract activity traces than actually collecting it," says Dmitri Chklovskii, who leads the neuroscience group at the Center for Computational Biology (CCB) at the Flatiron Institute in New York City. A breakthrough software tool called CaImAn automates this arduous process using a combination of standard computational methods and machine-learning techniques. In a paper published in the journal  eLife  in January, the software's creators demonstrate that CaImAn achieves near-human accuracy in detecting the locations of active neurons based on calcium imaging data. CaImAn (an abbreviation of c...

Robotic Process Automation or RPA Like AI and Machine Learning, Robotic Process Automation, or RPA, is another technology that is automating jobs. RPA is the use of software to automate business processes such as interpreting applications, processing transactions. Robotic process automation (RPA) is the application of technology that allows employees in a company to configure computer software or a “robot” to capture and interpret existing applications for processing a transaction, manipulating data, triggering responses and communicating with other digital systems. Any company that uses labor on a large scale for general knowledge process work, where people are performing high-volume, highly transactional process functions, will boost their capabilities and save money and time with robotic process automation software. Just as industrial robots are remaking the manufacturing industry by creating higher production rates and improved quality, RPA “robots” are revolutio...