Last week’s announcement of AlphaCode, DeepMind’s source code–generating deep learning system, created a lot of excitement—some of it unwarranted—surrounding advances in artificial intelligence. As I’ve mentioned in my deep dive on AlphaCode, DeepMind’s researchers have done a great job in bringing together the right technology and practices to create a machine learning model that can find solutions to very complex problems. However, the sometimes-bloated coverage of AlphaCode by the media highl
By industry leaders and academic researchers alike, Python is touted as one of the absolute best languages for novice programmers. And they’re not wrong — but that doesn’t mean that it doesn’t confuse the shit out of programming newbies anyway. Take dynamic typing as an example. It seems amazing at first: Python literally figures out by itself what sort of value a variable might take, and you don’t need to waste another line of code by telling it. This makes everything go faster! At first. Then
What if we could zoom out past our own myopic point of view and see the planet Earth and all of its inhabitants as one giant global intelligence? That’s the question a trio of researchers recently tackled in a paper titled “Intelligence as a planetary scale process.” AKA: the “By your powers combined, I am Captain Planet” theory, as we like to call it here at Neural. This one’s a bit of a doozy. The paper itself is intriguing, but my first instinct was to call it ironically boring and painfully
We aren’t joking when we talk about cars as big fat data generating computer centers on wheels. If you go on Glassdoor, there’s even an interview question, “How many lines of code does a Tesla have?” I’m not entirely sure, but even a decade ago, premium cars contained 100 microprocessor-based electronic control units (ECUs), which collectively executed over 100 million lines of code. Then there’s telematics, driver-assist software, and infotainment system, to name but a few other components that
We aren’t joking when we talk about cars as big fat data generating computer centers on wheels. If you go on Glassdoor, there’s even an interview question, “How many lines of code does a Tesla have?” I’m not entirely sure, but even a decade ago, premium cars contained 100 microprocessor-based electronic control units (ECUs), which collectively executed over 100 million lines of code. Then there’s telematics, driver-assist software, and infotainment system, to name but a few other components that
Good news, Batman lovers! A fully functional Batmobile replica exists — and you can even drive it outside of Gotham City. Led by architect and artist Nguyen Dac Chung, the Vietnam-based Macro Studios used blueprints from Christopher Nolan’s Dark Knight trilogy to faithfully recreate the movie’s Tumbler vehicle. The result? A replica that’s the spitting image of Batman’s iconic beast. But that’s not all, it also comes with an eco-friendly twist: it’s electric. Without further ado, I present to
Ever wanted to watch a $2.4 million, 1,914 horsepower car get mangled? Well, friends, you’re in luck. The video in question is from Carwow’s Mat Watson, who joined the final crash test of the Rimac Nevera, a battery electric hypercar. It’s the last installment in a series of 44 trials required for certification before its official rollout in Europe and the US. Even a scratch on this beautiful machine makes me wanna cry. Image: Rimac Once you move past the pain of watching this much money bursti
I have a problem. Well, to be accurate, I have lots of them — but today I’m talking about one in particular: having multiple Apple IDs. I entered the Apple system about 17 years ago, in the days before iCloud and the App Store. I was also a foolish child back then — and my decisions from that time still haunt me in the shape of two separate Apple IDs. One email — which I no longer have access to — is connected to my iTunes and App Store purchases, the other to iCloud. Of course isn’t an overwhel
For the past few weeks, Russia has been deploying military forces into strategic positions on Ukraine’s borders. However, there is another, virtual dimension to the escalating conflict: cyber-attacks on the Ukrainian government and business websites and services. Attacks on Ukraine’s information systems are part of a type of hybrid warfare that Russia has been fine tuning for the past couple of decades but is now far more sophisticated. Cyber espionage and information warfare have become an intr
You know how it is. You’re on social media minding your own business when suddenly, through no fault of your own, you post an antisemitic tweet comparing Canadian government overreach to the state-sponsored murder of millions of Jewish people. Now you’re the bad guy? Is everyone a snowflake? It’s not like you have any choice in the matter. You’re a 50-year-old billionaire currently under investigation for allegedly creating a safe haven for what can only be described as Quentin-Tarantino-movie l