News

It seems someone is producing a banned ozone-depleting chemical again

AI and Compute

We’re releasing an analysis showing that since 2012, the amount of compute used in the largest AI training runs has been increasing exponentially with a 3.5 month-doubling time (by comparison, Moore’s Law had an 18-month doubling period). Since 2012, this metric has grown by more than 300,000x (an 18-month doubling period would yield only a 12x increase). Improvements in compute have been a key component of AI progress, so as long as this trend continues, it’s worth preparing for the implications of systems far outside today’s capabilities.

Startup Wants to Replace Cars and Subways with Elevated Pods

If Solar and Wind Are So Cheap, Why Are They Making Electricity So Expensive?

FDA to start naming names of pharma companies blocking cheaper generics

Finland offers free online Artificial Intelligence course to anyone, anywhere

The Nengo Neural Simulator

Nengo is a graphical and scripting based Python package for simulating large-scale neural networks. Nengo can create sophisticated spiking or non-spiking neural simulations with sensible defaults in a few lines of code. Yet, Nengo is highly extensible and flexible.

Mice with 3D-Printed Ovaries Successfully Give Birth

AsKatherine Kornei at Science reports,the researchers used a 3D printer to build the scaffolding of the organs, weaving layers of gelatin to createtiny (15 x 15 millimeter) ovaries on glass slides. They then tested the scaffolds by embedding a follicle—the tiny sacs composed of hormone-secreting cells that containthe maturing eggs. This test suggested that the tightest weave supported the highest survival rates, reports Kornei.

How much of the Internet is using QUIC?

It’s been five years since Google launched QUIC — a new transport protocol that is deployed on the shoulders of UDP in user space. QUIC offers similar properties as TCP + TLS 1.3 but promises to incorporate new features more easily and without them being dropped by legacy systems that don’t support them, for example, middleboxes that block new TCP features — a problem that TCP has faced since its initial deployment. QUIC tackles the problem by offering a fully encrypted transport protocol, thereby removing the possibility for middleboxes to alter its content.

Fast fashion: for an e-commerce model in China, 150 outfits in 13 hours is a day’s work