SNS: The Ultimate Biocomputer: Brain or Cell? Part I

SNS Subscriber Edition
Volume 18, Issue 3
Week of January 19, 2015
 
In This Issue

Feature: The Ultimate Biocomputer: Brain or Cell? Part I

• Understanding Neurons
• The Internal Design
• The Grand Design

Quotes of the Week

Takeout Window

• Malware Going Exponential

Upgrades and Numbers

• Russia at War: Ukraine
• Elon Musk Re-Visions Teledesic

Ethermail

In Case You Missed It…
SNS Members Making News

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We have been writing about the importance of pattern recognition since 1995 – and, more recently, about the need for Pattern Recognition Processor (PRP) chips to do this specific task in computing (“SNS: The Most Important Chip Not Yet Invented,” 2.12.13). SNS members have followed the recent spate of announcements in the fields of neuromorphic processors, brain-inspired design, neural networks, and artificial intelligence (which still seems like a misnomer).

Clearly, from DARPA to Google, from IBM to Qualcomm, from the Allen Institutes to the EU Brain Project, something is afoot: the world has decided that biomimicry is the way to go in moving computing forward.

We’re copying (or “inspired by”) the brain.