Technology, features and articles | Educational Science

Jan 29, 2016

Mind-Reading Computer Instantly Decodes People's Thoughts

A new computer program can decode people's thoughts almost in real time, new research shows. Researchers can predict what people are seeing based on the electrical signals coming from electrodes implanted in their brain, and this decoding happens within milliseconds of someone first seeing the image, the scientists found. The...

Mar 3, 2016

Tiny Molecules Could Solve Problems Supercomputers Take Lifetimes to Crack

The molecules that help muscles contract could one day help drive a new kind of molecular supercomputer, researchers said. These biological computers could quickly solve complex problems that conventional supercomputers would take lifetimes or more to crack, scientists added. Modern supercomputers are staggeringly powerful. The world's fastest supercomputer, Tianhe-2 in...

Mar 3, 2016

US Government Invites Hackers to 'Hack the Pentagon'

The Pentagon is about to pay hackers to break into government security systems. The U.S. Department of Defense (DoD) announced yesterday (March 2) that it plans to launch the first cyber bug bounty program in the history of the federal government. The so-called Hack the Pentagon program, which is slated...

Mar 7, 2016

Do Computer Coding Toys for Kids Really Work?

From beating the best human players at chess, to flying planes, to running stock market transactions, computers are now used in virtually every facet of modern-day life. But children aren't being adequately prepared to understand and use this omnipresent technology, experts say. That's why many parents are turning to coding...

Jun 17, 2016

New 'Artificial Synapses' Could Let Supercomputers Mimic the Human Brain

Large-scale brain-like machines with human-like abilities to solve problems could become a reality, now that researchers have invented microscopic gadgets that mimic the connections between neurons in the human brain better than any previous devices. The new research could lead to better robots, self-driving cars, data mining, medical diagnosis, stock-trading...

Aug 29, 2016

Computers Can Sense Sarcasm? Yeah, Right

Humans pick up on sarcasm instinctively and usually do not need help figuring out if, say, a social media post has a mocking tone. Machines have a much tougher time with this because they are typically programmed to read text and assess images based strictly on what they see. So...

Sep 6, 2016

New 'Gel' May Be Step Toward Clothing That Computes

A gel-like material that can carry out pattern recognition could be a major step toward materials that compute, with possible applications for smart clothing or sensing skins for robots, according to a new study. Recent advances in both materials and computer science have prompted researchers to look beyond standard silicon-based...

Sep 26, 2016

1st Computer-Generated Music Record from Alan Turing's Lab Restored

The first-ever computer-generated music, recorded in the labs of computer pioneer Alan Turing in 1951, has been restored, according to The British Library. A BBC unit in Manchester, England, made the recording using a primitive computer that filled much of the ground floor of Turing's Computing Machine Laboratory. The computer...

Sep 26, 2016

New 'Artificial Synapses' Pave Way for Brain-Like Computers

A brain-inspired computing component provides the most faithful emulation yet of connections among neurons in the human brain, researchers say. The so-called memristor, an electrical component whose resistance relies on how much charge has passed through it in the past, mimics the way calcium ions behave at the junction between...

Oct 2, 2016

Why Did Yahoo Take So Long to Disclose Security Breach?

This article was originally published at The Conversation. The publication contributed the article to Live Science's Expert Voices: Op-Ed & Insights. In late September, Yahoo announced that at least 500 million user accounts had been compromised. The data stolen included users’ names, email addresses, telephone numbers, dates of birth and...

Oct 20, 2016

Are You Ready for a Computer That Reads Your Mind?

This article was originally published at The Conversation. The publication contributed the article to Live Science's Expert Voices: Op-Ed & Insights. The first computers cost millions of dollars and were locked inside rooms equipped with special electrical circuits and air conditioning. The only people who could use them had been...

Dec 16, 2016

IBM's Watson Turns Its Computer Brain to NASA Research

IBM's question-answering whiz, the Watson computer system, famously beat former winners on Jeopardy in 2011 — and now it's digging into aerospace research and data to help NASA answer questions on the frontier of spaceflight science and make crucial decisions in the moment during air travel. More than 60 years...

Mar 15, 2017

Mind-Controlled Cats?! 6 Incredible Spy Technologies That Are Real

Bond, James Bond (Image credit: Stokkete/Shutterstock)Killer umbrellas, stick-on fingerprints and lock-picking cellphones — James Bond and his nemeses certainly used their share of bizarre spy gadgets over the years. But many of the most far-out devices seen in old movies have been made obsolete by incredible leaps in today's consumer...

Mar 21, 2017

Vintage Apple-1 Computer Could Fetch $300,000 at Auction

Nostalgic for the days when Apple was just a computer startup and not the Silicon Valley giant it is today? If so, you could own a piece of the tech company's history when one of the original Apple-1 computers goes up for auction. The device, which will go on sale...

Mar 23, 2017

King George's Letters Betray Madness, Computer Finds

Hundreds of letters written by King George III, the so-called Mad King, support the modern diagnosis that he suffered from mental illness during his later years, a new study found. Using computer analysis, researchers investigated letters written by George during his 60-year reign over Great Britain and Ireland, from 1760...