Nick's Tech Talk

Let me just start off by showing you what a Babel fish is. Click here. Now that we have gotten that mess all straightened out I can tell you more about actual Babel fish earbuds. Google has announced their Babel fish earbuds. The reason they call them by that name Is because of what the babel fish in The Hitchhikers Guide to the Galaxy is. You stick the earbud in your ear and turn it on. The earbuds now translate foreign language in real time. Now you don’t have to worry about going to China and not having subtitles. As of now it can only translate a certain amount of languages but its a giant step towards the world understanding each other without learning the language. No longer would if have to worry about someone calling me inappropriate names behind my back. I understand what you’re saying now asshole.

How Is It Different from Traditional Google Translate App?

Firstly, Babel-fish earbuds provides you real-time translation after automatically figuring out which language the person is speaking, this feature makes it a handy approach than the traditional Google Translate App. Where the two-people communicating has to pass the phone to each other. Secondly, though the speech recognition through app was introduced way earlier but the external noise makes it difficult for an app to understand the words precisely. Babel-fish cancels the noise and translates even typical phrases and words with a large support of over 40 languages. It is fast enough to hold the conversation. Machine Learning and Artificial Intelligence are working behind the scene in making the system more intelligent by making a huge database with all possible word fragments to reduce the processing time each similar word pair needs to be translated. Information from Systweak.com

Overall, these new earbuds could become a travelers bestfriend and make foreign communication a breeze.

Click here for more information on the babel fish earbuds.

First let me start off this blog with a short video on what this topic mean exactly.

With this new boom in at-home genetic testing I want to let you guys know just how helpful it could be. Basically you buy a kit that is then sent to your home. You then give a saliva sample which then is tested for genetic markers for 10 diseases. This simple little test allows people to see what they could most likely get and help them to prepare or be proactive in not getting the disease. These tests aren’t a guaranteed diagnosis but more of a tool. You should still go to your doctor or professional for true diagnosis. These new at home genetic testers could prove to be very useful in the near future in learning how diseases are passed down and catch them early. Researchers are also using that data to refine, or develop entirely new, treatments for diseases that science had since deemed untreatable. From there, the prospect of curing incurable conditions seems closer than its ever been. Is it worth the risk though? As more people take these kind of tests the more information these researchers are gathering which allows for more progress towards treating diseases though untreatable such as Alzheimer’s. With the more information that is gathered scientist then can predict earlier what a person will develop if anything at all. This will allow parents to know before a baby is even born if it will develop any diseases so that the parents can start acting upon it earlier. So are these tests worth the effort. Yes I believe they are. They could be the make or break in crippling diseases being cured and forgotten about. Who doesn’t want to see a world with no more debilitating  diseases. I for one would love to see that.

As someone who uses the Internet quite frequently everyday. I hope that everything that I do on the internet is private to me and me only. You must be thinking the same thing. Well with this new kind of tool everything will be private. From proving that you are in fact 18 without giving date of birth and even financial matters without having to give your account balance. It is called Zero Knowledge Proof. This tool emerged when cryptocurrencies became a big deal. cryptocurrencies or blockchains are not private at all. In fact they say that everything is anonymous but given the right tools and time they can trace transactions back to just about anyone. With this new tool not only will it make blockchains a lot more private, it could spread out and potentially make the internet in general more private. Imagine not having to worry about the camera on your laptop or PC being hacked and watched. Imagine feeling safe putting information into a site and knowing that it can never be hacked. In 2018 we do everything on the internet. We buy computers, groceries, cars, houses, etc. all on the internet yet it’s still not safe to do that. We have become so dependent on the internet and all it’s benefits yet we still don’t have privacy on it. Cryptocurrencies have now become a part of life. It could possibly be the new way we pay for things. With the new zero knowledge proof when we buy things with cryptocurrencies (for now) we no longer have to compromise our identities or privacy any longer.

With true online privacy really only being centered around cryptocurrency for right now, later we may be able to keep what Mark Zuckerberg did to peoples information from happening to anyone else in the future. hopefully there will be no more leaked information.

Click here to read the full story

Imagine a world where robots were able to imagine things and create a mind of their own without the help of humans. That’s exactly what Google has done. Google has pitted two neural networks against each other so that they can start to imagine realistic images and sounds so that they can then have a better understanding of how the world works. Dr. Ian Goodfellow, lead researcher has explained that “what an AI cannot create, it cannot understand. If an AI can imagine the world in realistic detail—learn how to imagine realistic images and realistic sounds—this encourages the AI to learn about the structure of the world that actually exists,” he explains. “It can help the AI understand the images that it sees or sounds that it hears.” Basically he has one AI create realistic images and then has another AI analyze the image and determine whether the image is real or fake. This experiment could push artificial intelligence past human cognition and to me that’s very scary thought. Imagine having something that’s man made yet is smarter than any human being, can compute anything at the speed of light and feels independent. If I’m not mistaken that sounds almost exactly like iRobot featuring Will Smith or even Terminator. “I went home still a little bit drunk. And my girlfriend had already gone to sleep. And I was sitting there thinking: ‘My friends at the bar are wrong!'” he remembers. “I stayed up and coded GANs on my laptop.” The way he tells it, the code worked on the first try. “That was really, really lucky,” he says, “because if it hadn’t of worked, I might have given up on the idea.” But this is still a very difficult thing to pull off. It involves training not just one neural network, but two at the same time. Goodfellow hopes to refine the process. “The main thing that I, as a machine learning researcher, have to contend with is coming up with a way to make them very reliable to train,” he says.

click here to read more.

I know its not an AI powered microscope but it is a microscope. Imagine this being a hundredth of the size and being powered but AI, a robotic mind.

We have come a long way in 2018 as far as technology goes. We have seen Augmented Realty rise, Virtual Reality to enhance gameplay experience, 3D metal printing, etc. We now have the ability to create tiny AI powered robots with microscopes in order to get a better understanding of what makes up our water. We now have the power to see plankton how they act in water. With these microscope robots a human hair looks like a tree, imagine what we could do with this kind of tech. These robots have the ability to create 3D models of planktons movements which could prove useful in situations like oil spills. The way the microscope works is instead of having a lens for the microscope to focus it is lens less. This keeps the robot from having to keep the plankton in focus. The robot has an imager chip just like the ones in our smart phones. This imager chip instead tracks the shadow the plankton make on it allowing it to “focus” on multiple things at once. These robots load there data in real time so that if any abnormalities should rise then they could be acted upon faster. For example say the plankton start swimming down this could mean that a storm is passing over. They can then predict which way said storm is moving and warn everyone before anyone else can pick up the storm. Now this is still in the works but if we can make these robots functional this could change the world for the better. This could turn into something extraordinary. imagine not only studying plankton but finally being able to discover what’s really at the bottom of the ocean. We could finally discover more than just 5% of the ocean. I’m just thinking outside of the box here but just imagine knowing what monsters could really be in our oceans that we know nothing about.

Click here to read the article

This little guy is in many homes. we think of it as a useful tool that does what we say. This normal device has an AI powering it.

AI or artificial intelligence has come a long way from when we first imagined it’s possibilities. AI still has a bad rep to its name thanks to the well known movie, The Terminator. People still believe that one day artificial intelligence will out smart humans and end up taking over the world. Let me be the one to tell you the odds of that happening are, lack of a better term, impossible. The reason I’m writing about AI is because Amazon, Microsoft, and Google have announced that they are building an AI cloud where anyone can build themselves an AI just as easily as building a smartphone app. Not only is the AI becoming easier to build its also making the technology cheap. Because only a select few companies have access to building innovative AI its making the tech a lot more expensive and the AI isn’t necessarily easy to use. With cloud based Artificial intelligence more companies can get access to AI which in turn will boost the economy. The problem with AI is it’s only in the tech industry right now where it is making tech more innovative. other companies are struggling to get there foot in the door of AI use. Microsoft and Amazon hope that by creating Gluon (the AI cloud) and allowing everyone to use it, it will make it so artificial intelligence can make its way into companies and industries that otherwise would have never thought of such as; medicine, manufacturing and energy if the AI system is implemented fully. This will also give the economy a huge boost (theoretically). Unfortunately because people still don’t know how to use the cloud AI. Not a lot of companies are using it. Which is why Amazon and Google are setting up consultancy services to teach companies the importance of the system and how to use it.

Click here to read MIT’s review on the AI cloud

Stem cell research has improved tenfold over the yeas. Embryologists over at the University of Cambridge in the UK have developed a new way to make embryos without needing egg or sperm cells. It’s actually quite fascinating how they do it. The scientist combined embryonic stem cells and trophoblast stem cells (placenta stem cells) and what happened what incredible. The cells started to rearrange and make an early embryo. This embryo then could be planted in the uterus. This has been tested on mice and has been successful.

This type of breakthrough can change the world. We now have a way to save animals on the endangered species list that we otherwise couldn’t. Although experiments on stem cells is very beneficial and may solve many of our problems, it is still a very controversial topic. Zernicka-Goetz, lead scientist, says that she will stick to mouse embryos and won’t create a human embryo as there is too much backlash too it. This science-technology breakthrough, if able to be replicated in other mammals, could be the one thing needed to help endangered species. For now this kind of technology is still way to controversial to have any real significant change at the moment but in the near future we may start seeing animals who were once endangered thrive and survive because of these stem cells. These embryos once created will have to be placed inside of the uterus of the female species in order for the embryo to fully grow. It’s not 100% successful but with the right kind of technology and plenty of time it think that we can get there.

if you want to read more on this amazing technological breakthrough click here.

Here is a picture of the stem cells undergoing mitosis, breaking apart and replicating itself, in order to create an embryo.

We in this day and age have become accustomed to the idea of 3D printing plastic into whatever our hearts desire but if I told you that people have invented a way to 3D print metal into whatever we want. would you believe me? It sounds a bit ridiculous to believe but it is true. We now have a way to create intricately designed metal masterpieces at will.

The way this technology works is actually quite simple. First, the build chamber is filled with inert gas (for example argon) to minimize the oxidation of the metal powder and then it is heated to the optimal build temperature. Then, A thin layer of metal powder is spread over the build platform and a high power laser scans the cross-section of the component, melting (or fusing) the metal particles together and creating the next layer. The entire area of the model is scanned, so the part is built fully solid. Finally, the scanning process is complete, the build platform moves downwards by one layer thickness and the recoater spreads another thin layer of metal powder. The process is repeated until the whole part is complete. (3D HUB)

unfortunately there are some draw backs. The cost of the materials and process is very high that manufacturing small things is pointless. The build size is limited to the size of the printer. Finally, already existing models may not be suitable for the printer and may need to be modified. With this technology we can open more doors than we could possibly imagine. We can now fabricate parts that would otherwise be very difficult to find and order. Metal fabrication

click here to read moreI know that this is just an everyday printer but the 3D metal printer has the same concept as a regular printer.