Category Technology/Electronics

ComText allows robots to understand contextual commands such as, “Pick up the box I put down.” Credit: Tom Buehler/MIT CSAIL

ComText, from MIT’s Computer Science and Artificial Intelligence Laboratory, allows robots to understand contextual commands. Computer scientists have developed an Alexa-like system that allows robots to understand a wide range of commands that require contextual knowledge about objects and their environments. They’ve dubbed the system ‘ComText,’ for ‘commands in context.’ Despite what you might see in movies, today’s robots are still very limited in what they can do. They can be great for many repetitive tasks, but their inability to understand the nuances of human language makes them mostly useless for more complicated requests.

For example, if you put a specif...

Researchers from CSAIL have devised a new system for data center caching that uses flash memory. In addition to costing less and consuming less power, a flash caching system could dramatically reduce the number of cache servers required by a data center. Credit: MIT News

Flash-memory system could reduce power consumption of data center ‘caches’ by 90%. Researchers have developed a new system for data center caching that uses flash memory, the kind of memory used in most smartphones. Most modern websites store data in databases, and since database queries are relatively slow, most sites also maintain so-called cache servers, which list the results of common queries for faster access...

KIPAC scientists have for the first time used artificial neural networks to analyze complex distortions in spacetime, called gravitational lenses, demonstrating that the method is 10 million times faster than traditional analyses. (Greg Stewart/SLAC National Accelerator Laboratory)

Brain-mimicking ‘neural networks’ can revolutionize the way astrophysicists analyze their most complex data. Researchers from the Department of Energy’s SLAC National Accelerator Laboratory and Stanford University have for the first time shown that neural networks – a form of artificial intelligence — can accurately analyze the complex distortions in spacetime known as gravitational lenses 10 million times faster than traditional methods...

Schematic of the epitaxial growth procedure of ZnSe/GaAs heterostructure growth using either light-start or dark-start growth procedures. (a) Prior to ZnSe epilayer growth, the GaAs epilayer was grown in a dedicated III-V MBE chamber and was covered with an amorphous arsenic film prior to transferring it to a dedicated II-VI chamber. (b) The amorphous arsenic film was then thermally desorbed and the interface growth was initiated with a Zn pre-treatment under either a light-start or dark-start condition. During light-start sample growth, UV light was directed onto the growth surface from the beginning of Zn pre-treatment until the end of the ZnSe growth (f–h). During dark-start sample growth, UV light was directed onto the growth surface only during ZnSe epilayer growth (c–e).

A discov...