Breakthrough AI convolutional neural network using an optical coprocessor

Optalysys has created convolutional neural network using its optical coprocessor. The UK-based company has developed optical computing hardware that uses lasers and spatial light modulators (SLMs) to perform complex numerical processing at extremely high speeds and using very little power. The optical laser technology enables them to process this model several orders of magnitude faster …

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Optical computing for deep learning with a programmable nanophotonic processor

Researchers at MIT and elsewhere has developed a new approach to deep learning AI computing, using light instead of electricity, which they say could vastly improve the speed and efficiency of certain deep learning computations Soljačić says that many researchers over the years have made claims about optics-based computers, but that “people dramatically over-promised, and …

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Dubai plans roll out of chinese single passenger Ehang 184 self-flying pod taxis starting July 2017

Dubai has tested a Chinese prototype of a self-driving hover-taxi, its transport authority said on Monday, with the aim of introducing the aerial vehicle in the emirate by July. The test of the one-man electric vehicle comes as the city state in the United Arab Emirates seeks to ensure a quarter of its means of …

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Space Experts Review EMDrive and give recommendations at Centauri Dreams

Centauri Dreams has a review of the EMDrive by Marc Millis, former head of NASA’s Breakthrough Propulsion Physics project and founding architect of the Tau Zero Foundation and other experts. They have spent the last two months reviewing the relevant papers. Millis enlisted the help of scientists with expertise in experimental issues, all of whom …

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China still needs to improve jet engine technology to make FC31 competitive with US F35

China flew an improved version of its Shenyang FC-31 Gyrfalcon stealth fighter. Compared to the previous prototype, the new version features a host of refinements and has started to resemble a genuine fifth-generation stealth aircraft in many ways. The FC-31 is intended for military export markets. It is expected to be priced around $70 million. …

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More highly educated and healthier people have smaller families so world population would have lower increases if poor in Africa and Asia were educated

Today, the future of world population growth looks more uncertain than it did a decade ago because of a controversial recent stalling of fertility decline in a number of African countries and a controversy over how low below replacement level fertility will fall, particularly in China. Probabilistic population projections try to quantify these uncertainties based …

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Friedwardt Winterberg believes gravitational wave background noise is masking gravitational waves

Friedwardt Winterberg is known for his work in the fields of nuclear fusion and plasma physics, and Edward Teller has been quoted as saying that he had “perhaps not received the attention he deserves” for his work on fusion In a 1955 paper Winterberg proposed a test of general relativity using accurate atomic clocks placed …

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Hyperloop Transportation Technologies has raised $30 million in capital and $77 million in commitments and land rights

Hyperloop One and Hyperloop Transportation Technologies (HTT) are the two main companies working on Elon Musk’s vision of the Hyperloop. Both have set eyes on similar markets – the US, Emirates, Northern and Eastern Europe – to try and launch a first prototype of the innovation. Both are working on a magnetic levitation system that …

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Nuclear Energy Startups want to make nuclear energy radically less expensive like Spacex has made orbital launch cheaper

In graduate school at the University of Wisconsin, Rachel Slaybaugh began studying the Boltzmann Transport Equation — “a single equation that describes where all of the neutrons are in a nuclear system,” Slaybaugh explains. “Anything in a nuclear system starts with where all of the neutrons are, so it lets you figure out everything else.” …

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BAE Systems reveals vision of unmanned hypersonic bombers that are grown in chemical vats

Armed forces of the future could be using rapid response aircraft equipped with engines capable of propelling those aircraft to hypersonic speeds – similar to the Synergetic Air-Breathing Rocket Engine (SABRE) which is currently being developed by Reaction Engines Limited, a small British company in which BAE Systems has invested £20.6 million. Engineers and scientists …

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