Jeff Hawkins: Brain science is about to fundamentally change computing TED | Talks (video)

About this Talk
To date, there hasn't been an overarching theory of how the human brain really works, Jeff Hawkins argues in this compelling talk. That's because we still haven't defined intelligence accurately. But one thing's for sure, he says: The brain isn't like a powerful computer processor. It's more like a memory system that records everything we experience and helps us predict, intelligently, what will happen next. Bringing this new brain science to computer devices will enable powerful new applications -- and it will happen sooner than you think.




TED | Talks | Jeff Hawkins: Brain science is about to fundamentally change computing (video)

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MIT World » : The Six Webs, 10 Years On

The Six Webs, 10 Years On
SPEAKER:
Bill Joy
Partner, Kleiner Perkins Caufield & Byers
Former Chief Scientist, Sun Microsystems

ABOUT THE LECTURE:
It’s a good thing that a decade ago, some engineers at Sun Microsystems became dissatisfied with the limitations of the desktop PC and with kludgy TV remote controls. Their frustrations, according to Bill Joy, led to technology breakthroughs we count on today—and will likely in years to come. Joy and his colleagues grasped early on the impact the Internet would have on both computing and entertainment. Back in the 90s, they decided to play out how technologies imbedded in daily life would evolve under the influence of the internet. They envisioned the “far” web, as defined by the typical TV viewer experience; the “near” web, or desktop computing; the “here” web, or mobile devices with personal information one carried all the time; the “weird” web, characterized by voice recognition systems; the “B2B” web of business computers dealing exclusively with each other; and the “D2D” web, of intelligent buildings and cities. (Sun’s programming language Java was a deliberate attempt at a platform for all six webs.)

Joy sees the six webs as a great organizing principle for understanding how the internet will continue to change. He believes the “here” web will figure most prominently in our lives, with its “nomadic idea that instead of being tethered to an office, we carry around things of most interest to us.” He notes the increasing “cleavage between entertainment authored for the ‘here’ and ‘far’ webs.” The latter is dominated by such corporate interests as game companies intent on copy protection and rights management, while the “more anarchic world” of the internet leads to more interesting content, such as personal publishing, housed best on the “here” web. Says Joy, “Doing things with people you know through a small screen makes enormous sense.”

ABOUT THE SPEAKER:
Bill Joy led Sun's technical strategy from the founding of the company in 1982 until September 2003. While at Sun, he was a key designer of Sun technologies including Solaris, SPARC, chip architectures and pipelines, and Java. In 1995 he installed the first city-wide WiFi network. Joy has more than 40 patents issued or in progress.
Before co-founding Sun, Joy designed and wrote Berkeley UNIX - the first open source operating system with built-in TCP/IP, making it the backbone of the Internet. Fortune magazine dubbed him the "Edison of the Internet."
Joy has a B.S. in Electrical Engineering from the University of Michigan, an M.S. in Computer Science from the University of California, Berkeley, and a Ph.D. in Engineering, honoris causa, from the University of Michigan. He is a member of the National Academy of Engineering and the American Academy of Arts and Sciences, and is a trustee of the Aspen Institute.

NOTES ON THE VIDEO (Time Index):
Video length is 51:35.

MIT World » : The Six Webs, 10 Years On

MIT World » : Software Breakthroughs: Solving the Toughest Problems in Computer Science

Software Breakthroughs: Solving the Toughest Problems in Computer Science
SPEAKER:
William H. Gates III
Chairman, Chief Software Architect
Co-Founder, Microsoft Corporatiion
ABOUT THE LECTURE:
Bill Gates’ talk at MIT provided an optimistic view of the next generation of computer science, now that the “rough draft” is done. Gates finds a paradox today in that computer science is poised to transform work and home life, “but people’s excitement level is not as high as it was five years ago during the Internet bubble.” Because most sectors of the computer industry—from microchips to storage, displays to wireless connectivity— continuously improve in performance, Gates predicts a flood of new products and applications. He sported a wristwatch that receives data wirelessly, as well as keeps its user on schedule. Gates describes "rich, new peripherals" such as ultra-wideband digital cameras and he demonstrates software that allows pictures to be archived using a 3D visual interface with a built-in time, date, and keyword database. He says that computer science is merging with and making over such fields as astronomy and biology, by unifying vast, unwieldy data collections into easily navigable libraries. And Gates appears confident that technological breakthroughs will ultimately resolve urgent problems of computer and network security.

ABOUT THE SPEAKER:
Bill Gates was born in Seattle in 1955. He dropped out of Harvard in his junior year to devote his energies fulltime to Microsoft. He and childhood friend Paul Allen believed that computers would soon have a place in every home and office, and this vision of personal computing helped launch the software industry and led to Microsoft’s astonishing success.
Microsoft Corporation had revenues of $32.19 billion for the fiscal year ending June 2003, and employs more than 55,000 people in 85 countries and regions. The company invested more than $6.8 billion on research and development in the current fiscal year.
In 1999, Gates wrote Business @ the Speed of Thought, a book that shows how computer technology can solve business problems in fundamentally new ways. The book was published in 25 languages and is available in more than 60 countries. Gates' previous book, The Road Ahead, published in 1995, held the No. 1 spot on the New York Times' bestseller list for seven weeks.
Gates and his wife, Melinda, have endowed a foundation with more than $24 billion to support philanthropic initiatives in the areas of global health and learning. In 1999, Gates donated $20 million to MIT for construction of the William H. Gates Building, which is part of the Ray and Maria Stata Center for Computer, Information, and Intelligence Sciences.
Gates also founded Corbis, a comprehensive digital archive of art and photography from public and private collections around the globe.

NOTES ON THE VIDEO (Time Index):
Video length is 1:12:42.

MIT World » : Software Breakthroughs: Solving the Toughest Problems in Computer Science

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