Lifeboat Foundation

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Summary: A recent study highlights the cognitive benefits of Interlingual Respeaking (IRSP), where language professionals collaborate with speech recognition software to create live subtitles in another language. This process, which combines simultaneous translation with the addition of punctuation and content labels, was the focus of a 25-hour upskilling course involving 51 language professionals.

The course showed significant improvements in executive functioning and working memory. Researchers emphasize that such training not only enhances cognitive abilities but also equips language professionals for the rapidly evolving AI-driven language industry.

Deep learning AI models could be used to screen for autism and check on the severity of the condition, according to new research – and all the AI might need is a photo of the subject’s retina.

Previous studies have linked changes in retinal nerves with altered brain structures, and from there to Autism Spectrum Disorder (ASD). The evidence suggests the eye really is a window to the brain, via the interconnectedness of the central nervous system.

“Individuals with ASD have structural retinal changes that potentially reflect brain alterations, including visual pathway abnormalities through embryonic and anatomic connections,” researchers write in their new paper.

They really just don’t want to get caught.

A system that records the brain’s electrical activity through the scalp can turn thoughts into words with help from a large language model – but the results are far from perfect.

By James Woodford

Aizip’s breakthrough starts with sneakers and then…who knows.

It’s rare that a computer component sets pulses racing beyond the tech industry. But when Nvidia Corp. issued a blowout sales forecast in May to send its market value above $1 trillion, the star of the show was its latest graphics processing unit, the H100. The new data center chip is showing investors that the buzz around generative artificial intelligence — systems that can perform a wide range of tasks at superpowered speed — is translating into real revenue, at least for Nvidia. Demand for the H100 is so great that some customers are having to wait as long as six months to receive it.

The H100, whose name is a nod to computer science pioneer Grace Hopper, is a graphics processor. It’s a type of chip that normally lives in PCs and helps gamers get the most realistic visual experience. Unlike its regular counterparts, though, the chip’s 80 billion transistors are arranged in cores that are tuned to process data at high speed, not generate images. Nvidia, founded in 1993, pioneered this market with investments in technology going back almost two decades, when it bet that the ability to do work in parallel would one day make its chips valuable in applications outside of gaming.

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A robot that automates a common technique for animal cloning has been used to produce a litter of cloned pigs in China — with a much higher success rate than human scientists.

The challenge: China is both the world’s biggest producer of pork and its largest consumer, so having ideal breeding stock — animals that birthe large litters of quick-growing piglets — is important for the nation’s economy and food security.

However, in 2018 and 2019, an epidemic of deadly African swine fever wiped out almost 50% of China’s pig population. As a result, many farmers have had to import breeding pigs, and China is now eager for its pork industry to become almost entirely self-sufficient.

DARPA has tapped Raytheon to design and develop a wireless, airborne relay system to “deliver energy into contested environments,” as part of its Energy Web Dominance program, in which DARPA wants to be able to power anything from nearly anywhere.

Under a two-year, US$10 million DARPA contract, Raytheon will create a Persistent Optical Wireless Energy Relay (POWER) system, using a series of high altitude unmanned aircraft equipped with laser-based power receiving and transmitting capabilities. Energy will be beamed up to high altitude, then relayed across however many jumps are necessary to reach the target area.

That target might be on the ground, or it might itself be another autonomous aerial platform, in which case it could stay airborne as long as necessary, its batteries being constantly charged from afar.