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Google Improves Voice Recognition with Neural Algorithms

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February 20, 2013

In its latest version of the Android mobile operating system, Google installed a voice recognition system based on a neural network, or a computerized learning system that behaves like the human brain. The voice error rate on Android’s latest Jelly Bean is about 25 percent lower than previous versions of the software, making it far more comfortable for people to use voice commands on their devices. Continue reading Google Improves Voice Recognition with Neural Algorithms

CES 2013: Smart TV Alliance Announces 5 New Members and SDK

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January 6, 2013

Smart TV Alliance announced on Sunday that five new members have joined to help develop and launch smart TV applications and services. The new members include manufacturers Panasonic, ABOX42 and TechniSat, and solution providers IBM and Specific Media. Additionally, the organization announced a new software development kit designed to optimize the smart TV experience with 3D video, high quality video and audio, updated DRM and more. Continue reading CES 2013: Smart TV Alliance Announces 5 New Members and SDK

Digital Economy: U.S. Companies Push for New Internet Trade Rules

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November 4, 2011
  • “Google, Microsoft, Citigroup, IBM, GE and other top-tier American companies on Thursday urged the United States to fight for trade rules that protect the free flow of information over the Internet,” reports Reuters.
  • The coalition criticized federal requirements for companies to have their data centers within a country’s borders to provide services. Additionally, the group argued against governments blocking access to services such as Facebook, Twitter, WordPress, and YouTube.
  • The group says future U.S. trade pacts must “reflect the new realities of the global economy: specifically, the contribution of the Internet toward economic growth, toward job creation and exports,” said Bob Boorstin, director of public policy for Google.
  • “Even when Internet curbs are intended to support legitimate public interests such as national security of law enforcement, businesses can suffer when those rules are unclear, arbitrary, unevenly applied or more trade restrictive than they need to be to achieve their objectives,” suggests the group’s paper.
  • “We want the free flow of data just like we want the free flow of goods and services,” said Nuala O’Connor Kelly, chief privacy leader at General Electric. “In the information age, data is our widget.”

Computing: Researchers Predict Faster-Than-Ever Transformation

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November 2, 2011
  • IBM researchers are developing SyNAPSE, a new generation chip that can learn from experience, create its own hypothesis and remember. In a simple exercise, it learned to play Pong badly at first, but was unbeatable weeks later.
  • “As chips such as the one from SyNAPSE become smarter and smaller, it will be possible to embed them in everyday objects,” reports Businessweek. “That portends a future in which the interaction between computer and user is far more natural and ubiquitous.”
  • As previously reported on ETCentric, Microsoft is working on Holodesk, a 3D user interface that allows one to interact with 3D objects using an Xbox Kinect and an optical transparent display.
  • Intel’s 2020 CPU hopes to communicate with algorithms and other machines as well as “understand what it means to be human.”
  • “Computing is undergoing the most remarkable transformation since the invention of the PC,” said Intel CEO Paul Otellini. “The innovation of the next decade is going to outstrip the innovation of the past three combined.”

Google Acquires More Patents from IBM in Shopping Spree to Defend Android

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September 19, 2011
  • Google has purchased another 1,023 patents from IBM as part of what Digital Trends describes as Google’s Android defense strategy against smartphone lawsuits from Apple and other companies.
  • The article indicates that the transfers were recorded by the U.S. Patent and Trademark Office last week, and reminds us that Google also acquired 1,030 IBM patents in July and picked up 17,000 additional patents in its recent acquisition of Motorola.
  • “Indicative of how the patents are being put to use,” reports Digital Trends, “Google recently sold a batch of newly acquired patents to HTC — including some formerly owned by Motorola — in order to allow HTC to sue Apple.”
  • “Google is building an arsenal of patents that the company has said is largely designed to counter a ‘hostile, organized campaign’ by companies including Apple Inc. and Microsoft Corp. against the Android operating system for mobile devices,” adds Bloomberg.

Innovation: IBM and 3M to Jointly Develop Super-Fast 3D Semiconductors

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September 8, 2011
  • IBM and 3M have announced they will partner to build 100 layer silicon towers that promise a “computer chip 1,000 times faster than today’s fastest microprocessor enabling more powerful smartphones, tablets, computers and gaming devices.”
  • “That’s a heady claim for a tech that doesn’t yet exist, but is already taking swings at current faux 3D transistors,” comments Engadget.
  • Under the agreement, IBM will provide its experience in packaging the new processors, while 3M will develop an adhesive that can be applied in batches and allow for heat transfer without damaging logic circuitry.
  • If successful, the companies would create commercial microprocessors composed of layers of up to 100 chips. According to the press release: “Such stacking would allow for dramatically higher levels of integration for information technology and consumer electronics applications. Processors could be tightly packed with memory and networking, for example, into a ‘brick’ of silicon… The companies’ work can potentially leapfrog today’s current attempts at stacking chips vertically – known as 3D packaging.”

Google Rolls Out Ambitious Plan to Acquire Patents

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August 2, 2011
  • Google has purchased more than 1,000 patents from IBM, its most recent step in what the Los Angeles Times describes as “an arms race for patents.”
  • The acquisition is part of an effort to strengthen its intellectual-property portfolio and avoid legal assault.
  • It may also bolster the legal buffer surrounding its Android mobile OS court showdown with Oracle set for October.
  • Google has some 700 patents (mostly for search engine technology) while its competitors, especially those in the mobile industry, have thousands.
  • “Patents are instruments of war. Companies are acquiring patents to both defend their market share and to countersue competitors,” suggests technology patent valuation specialist Alexander Poltorak, chief executive of General Patent Corp. “Google neglected patents for many years because it did not realize that they were essential business tools. It can no longer neglect them.”

IBM Phase Change Memory Prototype: 100x Faster than Flash

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July 5, 2011
  • Big Blue announced a potential breakthrough in digital storage, with the unveiling of a new kind of phase change memory (PCM) chip.
  • Though still an early prototype, the chip demonstrated impressive advances over Flash memory, including a 100x speed increase, and a hundred-fold increase in the number of read-write cycles the chip can handle.
  • The need for fast, reliable data storage is projected to increase exponentially in coming years, as more data moves into the cloud.
  • IBM predicts that this new technology will cause a “paradigm shift” in data storage in the next five years.

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