computer science

As the evening draw in it's once again time for the annual series of Gibbons Lectures at the University of Auckland. Each year the four weekly lectures follow a theme; this year's is titled:  The artificial human body - by computer design , exploring how computers are being used to model various aspects of the human body, from our genome to medical imaging. The first lecture on  Computational Physiology is by Distinguished Professor Peter Hunter, the Director of Auckland Bioengineering Institute on Thursday 5th of May at  6:30pm in the  Owen G Glenn Building room  260.092 (OGGB3) on Level 0. Further information about all the lectures can be found here . from The Universal Machine http://universal-machine.blogspot.com/ Put the internet to work for you. Turn off or edit this Recipe ...

Over in Sydney, the Museum of Contemporary Art has on show an exhibition of the work of Grayson Perry . Perry is a very modern artist who works in a wide variety of media, including painting and ceramics, poking fun at the shallowness of modern culture. He has also revived the medieval art of wall-hanging tapestry, producing some extremely large and colourfully wry works. It is not surprising that he even applies his social commentary to social media. One work, partly a parody of Van-Eyck and the annunciation images of the middle ages,  " The Annunciation of the Virgin Deal ", revolves around our infatuation with mega business deals and the latest technology. Notice the iPhone, the iPad, and the twin portraits of Steve Jobs and Bill Gates hanging on the wall. There is much more in the show – it is worth a visit if you are passing by. [This post was written by my colleague Bob Doran ] from The Universal Machine http://universal-machine.blogsp...

Microsoft's AI recently got all the wrong publicity when a chat-bot, called Tay, quickly learnt via Twitter to become a racist. Hopefully less contentious will be CaptionBot , which can recognise and describe the content of photos yo u upload to it. To the right you can see that it correctly identifies a photo of a boat I uploaded. Give it a try. Y ou can find out how CaptionBot works here . from The Universal Machine http://universal-machine.blogspot.com/ Put the internet to work for you. Turn off or edit this Recipe Recommended for you

My colleague, Bob Doran , brought this to my attention and he writes: Recently, a video appeared on Youtube purporting to show a Facit electro-mechanical calculator deriving pi.  In fact, the calculator is merely dividing 126358 by 40221. This gives a good approximation to pi. 126358/40221 = 3.14159270, whereas pi is 3.14159265. However, the video does give a neat demonstration of an algorithm called "non-restoring division". Calculators are really just simple adders that add two numbers in one revolution of the mechanism. These adders can also subtract if rotated the other way. Calculators may perform other simple actions such shifting numbers to the left or right, entering data, clearing registers and counting up or down. But to perform division (or multiplication) any simple calculator has to follow a program of many steps – a mechanical program, but a program none-the-less.    Consider how the few of us who can still do division with pencil...

What is computer science? This is a question I often get asked, or variants like, "what do computer scientists do?" Sometimes I struggle to find a simple answer. This doco from the BBC:  The Secret Rules of Modern Living: Algorithms does an excellent job of explaining, at least one core aspect, of what is computer science; namely, algorithms. It also shows how essential algorithms are to modern life. This excellent doco is currently available on YouTube . from The Universal Machine http://universal-machine.blogspot.com/ Put the internet to work for you. Turn off or edit this Recipe Recommended for you ...

D-Wave, the quantum computer company, has announced it's latest quantum computer the D-Wave 2X . "With 1000+ qubits... the D-Wave 2X will enable customers to run much larger, more complex problems on the system.  In addition to scaling beyond 1000 qubits, the new system incorporates other major technological and scientific advancements. These include an operating temperature below 15 millikelvin , near absolute zero and 180 times colder than interstellar space. With over 128,000 Josephson tunnel junctions, the new processors are believed to be the most complex superconductor integrated circuits ever successfully used in production systems." Quantum computers are set to become mainstream, perhaps. Read more about the D-Wave 2X here . from The Universal Machine http://universal-machine.blogspot.com/ Put the internet to work for you. ...