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'Trained monkey' from tech support saved know-it-all manager's mistake with a single keypress

3 days 17 hours ago
Righteous mockery entranced execs in ways slideware could not

On Call  Friday dawns with the promise of precious freedom, yet the world of tech support is seldom free from trouble. The Register always finds a way to celebrate anyway, by bringing you a fresh instalment of On Call, the reader-contributed column that tells your tales of breaking away from bad bosses and ungrateful users.…

Simon Sharwood

You Can Now Rent a Flesh Computer Grown In a British Lab

3 days 18 hours ago
alternative_right shares a report from ScienceAlert: The world's first commercial hybrid of silicon circuitry and human brain cells will soon be available for rent. Marketed for its vast potential in medical research, the biological machine, grown inside a British laboratory, builds on the Pong-playing prototype, DishBrain. Each CL1 computer is formed of 800,000 neurons grown across a silicon chip, and their life-support system. While it can't yet match the mind-blowing capabilities of today's most powerful computers, the system has one very significant advantage: it only consumes a fraction of the energy of comparable technologies. AI centers now consume countries' worth of energy, whereas a rack of CL1 machines only uses 1,000 watts and is naturally capable of adapting and learning in real time. [...] When neuroscientist Brett Kagan and colleagues pitted their creation against equivalent levels of machine learning algorithms, the cell culture systems outperformed them. Users can send code directly into the synthetically supported system of neurons, which is capable of responding to electrical signals almost instantly. These signals act as bits of information that can be read and acted on by the cells. But perhaps the greatest potential for this biological and synthetic hybrid is as an experimental tool for learning more about our own brains and their abilities, from neuroscience to creativity. The first CL1 units will reportedly ship soon for $35,000 each. Remote access can apparently be rented for $300 per week.

Read more of this story at Slashdot.

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