MercuryNews.com | 07/13/2006 | Langberg: Plan-as-you-go `unconference' unleashes ideas: "Langberg: Plan-as-you-go `unconference' unleashes ideas
By Mike Langberg
Mercury News
How do you plan a tech conference agenda in the Age of the Internet, when everyone learns about developments in any given field as soon as they happen?
You don't.
Instead, you give up on planning and hold an ``unconference,'' also known as an open space meeting.
Mashup Camp, which began Wednesday and ends today at the Computer History Museum in Mountain View, is one such unconference.
An audience of about 350 assembled in the museum's auditorium on Wednesday morning to explore ``mashups,'' software that combines different sources of online information in creative new ways.
There were no assigned topics, panelists or moderators. Instead, participants spontaneously came up with lots of ideas for discussion. This approach seems like it can work well with any crowd that's passionate and well-informed, but might be tougher with a less involved audience.
The organizers simply put a big easel at the front of the room, displaying a grid with starting times and room numbers where discussion sessions could be held.
Participants wrote brief descriptions of ideas for proposed sessions on pieces of paper.
Then they lined up at a microphone to very briefly describe their ideas.
Next, they were handed a piece of"
20 August 2006
08 August 2006
Brainbox' Computer Mimics Human Brain
Discovery Channel :: News :: 'Brainbox' Computer Mimics Human Brain: "'Brainbox' Computer Mimics Human Brain
Tracy Staedter, Discovery News
Aug. 2, 2006 —A computer with thousands of microprocessors is being built to mimic and model the function of millions of nerve networks in the brain.
The Spinnaker — short for 'spiking neural network architecture' — system will not only help scientists better understand the complex interactions of brain cells, but it could also lead to fault-tolerant computers that, like the brain, work despite malfunctions in tiny circuits.
'You lose one neuron per second during your adult life. As they die, there doesn't seem to be any gross underperformance in the brain,' said Steve Furber of the University of Manchester in the U.K., leader of the Spinnaker project.
The idea, said Furber, is to mimic that kind of biological robustness in components of future electronic devices — which, as they inevitably shrink to smaller and smaller sizes, are likely to experience more and more failures.
But understanding how brains achieve such resilience is still a great mystery.
Scientists frequently use technologies such as functional magnetic resonance (commonly known as MRI) to image regions of the brain, and can probe to acquire an even finer picture of specific cellular networks.
But nerve cells are so tiny and numerous that pinpointing neural networks responsible for a particular activity is nearly impossible.
Pinpointing them on a computer brain should be much easier.
Furber's electronic version will contain silicon chips equipped with 20 tiny processors each, 19 of which will be designed to behave as neurons. The other will monitor the activity of the chip.
Each processor will model about a thousand neurons, so each chip will represent about 20,000 neurons. (The brain has hundreds of billions.) The system will replicate how signals propagate to accomplish specific tasks.
For example, the computer brain could duplicate what happens in the human brain when the eye sees an object — in other words, how an array of interconnected neurons in the cortex generates an image from electrical pulses passing down the eye's optic nerve.
Getting processors on computer chips to behave like neurons is no easy task, said Jim Austin, professor of neural computation at the University of York in the U.K.
Normally, computer chips have tiny clocks that help synchronize the computing power of the processors. But biological neurons function without a clock.
Furber's approach also eliminates the clock. Instead, each spike from the artificial neuron sends a packet of information to a selected location in the communication network, where it initiates additional neural spikes.
'This is an attempt to simulate the brain at a more realistic level,' said Austin.
Furber thinks his team is about two years away from a functioning system that contains 50 chips and a thousand processors. Once they successfully demonstrate the computer, they plan to build a bigger machine with more power."
Tracy Staedter, Discovery News
Aug. 2, 2006 —A computer with thousands of microprocessors is being built to mimic and model the function of millions of nerve networks in the brain.
The Spinnaker — short for 'spiking neural network architecture' — system will not only help scientists better understand the complex interactions of brain cells, but it could also lead to fault-tolerant computers that, like the brain, work despite malfunctions in tiny circuits.
'You lose one neuron per second during your adult life. As they die, there doesn't seem to be any gross underperformance in the brain,' said Steve Furber of the University of Manchester in the U.K., leader of the Spinnaker project.
The idea, said Furber, is to mimic that kind of biological robustness in components of future electronic devices — which, as they inevitably shrink to smaller and smaller sizes, are likely to experience more and more failures.
But understanding how brains achieve such resilience is still a great mystery.
Scientists frequently use technologies such as functional magnetic resonance (commonly known as MRI) to image regions of the brain, and can probe to acquire an even finer picture of specific cellular networks.
But nerve cells are so tiny and numerous that pinpointing neural networks responsible for a particular activity is nearly impossible.
Pinpointing them on a computer brain should be much easier.
Furber's electronic version will contain silicon chips equipped with 20 tiny processors each, 19 of which will be designed to behave as neurons. The other will monitor the activity of the chip.
Each processor will model about a thousand neurons, so each chip will represent about 20,000 neurons. (The brain has hundreds of billions.) The system will replicate how signals propagate to accomplish specific tasks.
For example, the computer brain could duplicate what happens in the human brain when the eye sees an object — in other words, how an array of interconnected neurons in the cortex generates an image from electrical pulses passing down the eye's optic nerve.
Getting processors on computer chips to behave like neurons is no easy task, said Jim Austin, professor of neural computation at the University of York in the U.K.
Normally, computer chips have tiny clocks that help synchronize the computing power of the processors. But biological neurons function without a clock.
Furber's approach also eliminates the clock. Instead, each spike from the artificial neuron sends a packet of information to a selected location in the communication network, where it initiates additional neural spikes.
'This is an attempt to simulate the brain at a more realistic level,' said Austin.
Furber thinks his team is about two years away from a functioning system that contains 50 chips and a thousand processors. Once they successfully demonstrate the computer, they plan to build a bigger machine with more power."
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