Microsoft’s CTO lays out the 2 tech trends he believes will change the world: ‘People haven’t wrapped their heads around this yet’

5bf82bf81011425f743e0f37-1334-667

Microsoft’s chief technology officer, Kevin Scott, sees two big things coming down the pipeline in the tech industry, he told Business Insider.

  • The first is an explosion of cheap, powerful silicon processors coming in the next five to eight years, leading to every device, everywhere, getting a microprocessor capable of running advanced artificial intelligence.
  • The second, related trend Scott sees is the increased importance of reinforcement learning, the style of machine learning that helps power Google DeepMind’s famous game-playing software bots.
  • Combined, the explosions of software and hardware will give developers everywhere the tools they need to easily solve computing problems once thought impossible in a way that’s cheap and efficient enough for every car, toy, and appliance manufacturer to take advantage.
  • A big part of Microsoft’s role in this is making it easier for developers to take advantage of these trends in their own software, Scott said Continue reading… “Microsoft’s CTO lays out the 2 tech trends he believes will change the world: ‘People haven’t wrapped their heads around this yet’”

Photos show how Microsoft took a big step forward in its crazy plan to power the internet from the sea

IMG_7760

Microsoft has put a data centre in the sea in an experimental effort to see if it can provide internet services faster to coastal cities using renewable energy.

As part of its bigger Project Natick “moonshot,” Microsoft has put the data centre on the seafloor close to Scotland’s Orkney Islands.

The data centre is submerged 117 feet under the sea and is powered by a submarine cable running from Orkney. Microsoft picked the islands because it wants its data centres to run on renewable power, and Orkney is a major hub for renewable energy.

Continue reading… “Photos show how Microsoft took a big step forward in its crazy plan to power the internet from the sea”

A new AI breakthrough will soon make it much easier to communicate with anyone in the world

IMG_5971

Machines are getting much better at the jobs we humans normally do.

As any translator will tell you, transforming the words from one language into another is a task that draws on an enormous reservoir of training, experience, and art.

Continue reading… “A new AI breakthrough will soon make it much easier to communicate with anyone in the world”

The top five battlegrounds for tech platforms in 2017

a

Large platform companies like Amazon, Apple, Google, Samsung, and Microsoft want to provide the operating system for our lives, and they will fight hard in 2017 to establish their foothold in the emerging technologies we will likely come to rely on in the future. Who will succeed?

Continue reading… “The top five battlegrounds for tech platforms in 2017”

AI: A five-point plan to stop the Terminators taking over

Boston Dynamics robots

Tech behemoths Google, Facebook, Microsoft, IBM and Amazon announced this week that they are teaming up to develop new standards for Artificial Intelligence (AI). It’s a much-needed move. Soon AI will change everything from warfare to our bodies. But we don’t want to become slaves to the robots, so how do we stop the Terminators?

Continue reading… “AI: A five-point plan to stop the Terminators taking over”

Microsoft’s speech recognition is now as accurate as a human’s

Robots are now just as good at transcribing speech as humans.

According to a paper published yesterday, a team of Microsoft engineers in the Artificial Intelligence and Research division reported their system reached a word error rate (WER) of 5.9 percent, a figure that is roughly equal to that of human abilities.

Continue reading… “Microsoft’s speech recognition is now as accurate as a human’s”

Microsoft hopes to ‘solve’ cancer within 10 years by ‘reprogramming’ diseased cells

 Microsoft has vowed to “solve the problem of cancer” within a decade by using ground-breaking computer science to crack the code of diseased cells so they can be reprogrammed back to a healthy state.

Continue reading… “Microsoft hopes to ‘solve’ cancer within 10 years by ‘reprogramming’ diseased cells”

Discover the Hidden Patterns of Tomorrow with Futurist Thomas Frey
Unlock Your Potential, Ignite Your Success.

By delving into the futuring techniques of Futurist Thomas Frey, you’ll embark on an enlightening journey.

Learn More about this exciting program.