Digital Technologies

What is AI? We drew you a flowchart to work it out


What is AI, exactly? The question may seem basic, but the answer is kind of complicated. In the broadest sense, AI refers to machines that can learn, reason, and act for themselves. They can make their own decisions when faced with new situations, in the same way that humans and animals can. As it currently…

Source: What is AI? We drew you a flowchart to work it out

A detour from business as usual

Sorry, graphene—borophene is the new wonder material that’s got everyone excited


Not so long ago, graphene was the great new wonder material. A super-strong, atom-thick sheet of carbon “chicken wire,” it can form tubes, balls, and other curious shapes. And because it conducts electricity, materials scientists raised the prospect of a new era of graphene-based computer processing and a lucrative graphene chip industry to boot. The…

Source: Sorry, graphene—borophene is the new wonder material that’s got everyone excited

Biomedical Applications

Grocery bills can predict diabetes rates by neighborhood


In 1826, the French gastronomer Jean Anthelme Brillat-Savarin published a book called The Physiology of Taste. The work is famous for introducing the aphorism “Tell me what you eat and I will tell you what you are”—the origin of the saying “You are what you eat.” Brillat-Savarin would no doubt have much to say about…

Source: Grocery bills can predict diabetes rates by neighborhood

Digital Technologies

Say goodbye to Alexa and hello to gadgets listening to the voice inside your head


Controlling your gadgets by talking to them is so 2018. In the future, you won’t even have to move your lips. A prototype device called AlterEgo, created by MIT Media Lab graduate student Arnav Kapur, is already making this possible. With Kapur’s device—a 3-D-printed plastic doodad that looks kind of like a skinny white banana…

Source: Say goodbye to Alexa and hello to gadgets listening to the voice inside your head