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Category: computing

To all those who said it couldn’t happen for another 10+ years; this article is definitely for you.

Robert Wolkow, University of Alberta

Robert Wolkow, University of Alberta physics professor and the Principal Research Officer at Canada’s National Institute for Nanotechnology, has developed a technique to switch a single-atom channel.

What does it all mean? With applications for practical systems like silicon semi-conductor electronics, it means smaller, more efficient, more energy-conserving computers, as just one example of the technology revolution that is unfolding right before our very eyes (if you can squint that hard).

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Machine learning will drop the cost of making predictions, but raise the value of human judgement.

To really understand the impact of artificial intelligence in the modern world, it’s best to think beyond the mega-research projects like those that helped Google recognize cats in photos.

According to professor Ajay Agrawal of the University of Toronto, humanity should be pondering how the ability of cutting edge A.I. techniques like deep learning —which has boosted the ability for computers to recognize patterns in enormous loads of data—could reshape the global economy.

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“If we were to draw energy from a typical AA battery based on this design, it would last for a billion years.” — Sungsik Lee, PhD, in the journal Science.

Schematic cross-section of an Indium-gallium-zinc-oxide (IGZO) thin-film transistor [inset: schematic illustrations of atomic structures for less compensated (left) and more compensated (right) IGZO films, respectively] (credit: Sungsik Lee and Arokia Nathan/Science)

The transistors can be produced at low temperatures and can be printed on almost any material, such as glass, plastic, polyester fabrics, and paper.

Similar to a computer in sleep mode, the new transistor harnesses a tiny “leakage” of electrical current, known as “near-off-state current.” This leak at the point of contact between the metal and semiconducting components of a transistor, the “Schottky barrier,” is normally an undesirable characteristic of all transistors.

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There have been significant advances in developing new prostheses with a simple sense of touch, but researchers are looking to go further. Scientists and engineers are working on a way to provide prosthetic users and those suffering from spinal cord injuries with the ability to both feel and control their limbs or robotic replacements by means of directly stimulating the cortex of the brain.

For decades, a major goal of neuroscientists has been to develop new technologies to create more advanced prostheses or ways to help people who have suffered spinal cord injuries to regain the use of their limbs. Part of this has involved creating a means of sending brain signals to disconnected nerves in damaged limbs or to robotic prostheses, so they can be moved by thought, so control is simple and natural.

However, all this had only limited application because as well as being able to tell a robotic or natural limb to move, a sense of touch was also required, so the patient would know if something has been grasped properly or if the hand or arm is in the right position. Without this feedback, it’s very difficult to control an artificial limb properly even with constant concentration or computer assistance.

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Tough times lay ahead for human workers. With the advent of automation comes a much smaller job market and an ever-shrinking work force. Jobs traditionally held by humans are now being taken over by robots and computer software. Now, another job sector is being threatened by automation: the public sector.

A study conducted by Oxford University and Deloitte, a business advisory firm, found that 850,000 public sector jobs in the UK are at risk of being lost by 2030 due to automation. The report also mentions how more than 1.3 million administrative jobs in the public sector have a 77% probability of being automated. These jobs include highly repetitive jobs like clerical work and transportation work.

–This report comes as good news to fiscal policy makers who wish to cut costs. It shows the government can save up to £12 billion in public sector wages by 2030.

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Drug discovery is a long and difficult process that requires a comprehensive understanding of the molecular structures of compounds under investigation. It’s difficult to have an idea of the precise shape of complex molecules such as proteins, but researchers at University of Melbourne in Australia have come up with a way of seeing the location of individual atoms within biomolecules.

Using quantum bits, most notably utilized in quantum computer research, the investigators offer a way of producing a magnetic resonance sensor and a magnetic field gradient that can work as a tiny MRI machine. The machine would have the resolution capable of seeing single atoms components of larger molecules. This MRI machine has yet to be actually built, but the steps have been laid out based on comprehensive theoretical work. If it proves successful in practice, the technology may overcome current imaging techniques that rely on statistical averages and don’t work well on molecules that don’t crystallize well.

“In a conventional MRI machine large magnets set up a field gradient in all three directions to create 3D images; in our system we use the natural magnetic properties of a single atomic qubit,” said lead author of the research Viktor Perunicic. “The system would be fabricated on-chip, and by carefully controlling the quantum state of the qubit probe as it interacts with the atoms in the target molecule, we can extract information about the positions of atoms by periodically measuring the qubit probe and thus create an image of the molecule’s structure.”

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