Tag: connectivity

Don't look now, but in silico brains just got closer

, ,

According to this article in Nano Letters, scientists at the University of Michigan have built a memristor — a chip that conserves memory, as neurons do:


A memristor is a two-terminal electronic device whose conductance can be precisely modulated by charge or flux through it. Here we experimentally demonstrate a nanoscale silicon-based memristor device and show that a hybrid system composed of complementary metal−oxide semiconductor neurons and memristor synapses can support important synaptic functions such as spike timing dependent plasticity. Using memristors as synapses in neuromorphic circuits can potentially offer both high connectivity and high density required for efficient computing.

Just in case you missed the implications, the title of their article is Nanoscale Memristor Device as Synapse in Neuromorphic Systems.

I discovered this article from this article in New Scientist (this link may or may not work for you). New Scientist cheerfully calls this memristor the “missing link” on the path towards true electronic brains, and points out that “the military” is already hard at work looking for applications. Gee, this all sounds so exciting! Why am I suddenly feeling very queasy?

Any of y’all others intrigued by implications of nanomachines and brains– and perhaps with a healthy touch of technoparanoia — are encouraged to check out my novels (if you haven’t done so already), especially the critically acclaimed Acts of the Apostles now available in sundry ebook formats!

Freedom 2 Connect Returns to Silver Spring

, , ,

I am a big fan of David Isenberg generally, and of his annual F2C: Freedom to Connect conference in particular. It pains me no end that I am going to miss it this year because I will be in Israel. But I urge anyone interested in the big policy issues around connectivity to attend.

Why? Because David has a genius for bringing together smart people of the higest caliber, who will be involved in these policy debates from every angle. And unlike an industry trade conference, or even a meeting of all my friends at something like the National Conference on Media Reform, no one gets a free ride. Despite David’s personal interest in preserving net neutrality, no punches get pulled in the back and forth. The issues get discussed and debated in an atmosphere conducive to genuine audience participation — rather than the usual dog and pony show.

It helps that the conference site is not your standard hotel ballroom or convention center. The conference takes place at the American Film Institute HQ in Silver Spring, MD (about half a mile from my home, an inducement that does not apply to everyone). David also has the delightful innovation of including a musician to provide music for transitions and breaks. While that may sound unconventional and weird, it works very well without getting all new age-y and stuff. The AFI’s physical lay out encourages socializing dring the breaks, and the large theater is quite comfortable. Also, at the previous conferences, Dewayne Hendricks has provided reliable wireless.

So click through to the F2C Website and scope out the program.

Stay tuned . . . .

Yet Another Amazing Esme Conference Comes To a Close

, , , , , ,

Sorry to go dark for so long. As future posts will explain, it’s been a busy time and likely to get busier.

One thing keeping me busy has been my presence here at Esme’s latest conference on muniwireless broadband. In addition to time with the fabulous Esme herself a number of very cool people are also here.

The conference has morphed quite a bit since I attended the first one below. My brief reflections (and what it means for the muniwireless industry generally) below.

Continue reading

Inventing the Future: digital convergence happens

, , , ,

Croquet is “about” real-time collaboration. A bunch of people can be in the same virtual environment and see the live effects of each other moving around and manipulating things. It seems natural to add audio chat using existing Voice Over Internet Protocol (VoIP) technology. So now you can talk to folks in the same space while you work together. We’re working on Webcam video, too, so that it’s generally suitable for holding distance meetings in a Croquet place. I didn’t think much about displacing land-line telephones. Who cares.

We thought a bit about how you could connect the telephone system so that you could call in to a Croquet place and join a meeting (audio only?) from a cell phone.

But then I read this quote from Patrick Scaglia, Vice-President and Director of the Internet and Computing Platforms Research Center at HP Lab:

“Croquet is a first in many ways. It represents a major step in our vision of computation as a communications platform and service, available anytime, anywhere, from any device. Soon, Croquet will run on everything, from a PDA through a set-top box; persistent Croquet worlds will be ubiquitous on the Internet, routed intelligently to each user through computational services overlays like PlanetLab. This will change the way people think about software and computation, from today’s device-oriented perspective to a perspective of computation as a persistent, pervasive, service”.

It took a day to sink in.

Eventually, people will want and get always-on connectivity for mobile devices, just as over half of American Internet users now get for fixed-position access. After demand evens out, I think device costs are first-order proportional to the number of chips, with the complexity of chips being a second-order effect. So the cost of a PDA capable of running Croquet will someday not be inherently much more expensive then a cell phone such as is now being given away by providers.

So, will we have telephones? Of any kind?

As far as I know, the Croquet developers didn’t set out to replace the telephone. If I had, my wife would have threatened divorce for such a hair-brained idea. And I’m not predicting that Croquet will displace the telephone. But it is interesting that progress in solving an abstract and general problem
mightlead to the merging of computers and telephones.