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Data Mining Reveals How Smiling Evolved During a Century of Yearbook Photos
March 5, 2016
Data mining has changed the way we think about information. Machine-learning algorithms now routinely chomp their way through data sets of Twitter conversations, travel patterns, phone calls, and health records, to name just a few. And the insights this brings is dramatically improving our understanding of communication, travel, health, and so on. But there is another historical data set that has been largely ignored by the data-mining community—photographs. This presents a more complex challenge. For...
March 5, 2016
Data mining has changed the way we think about information. Machine-learning algorithms now routinely chomp their way through data sets of Twitter conversations, travel patterns, phone calls, and health records, to name just a few. And the insights this brings is dramatically improving our understanding of communication, travel, health, and so on. But there is another historical data set that has been largely ignored by the data-mining community—photographs. This presents a more complex challenge. For...
Legal Technology Spend at $3bn and Growing
February 29, 2016
The five key findings or market trends are: increasing number of attorneys; increasing matter volumes (more work); margin compression (for law firms); and the move from outside counsel to in-house counsel for corporations. Unless I missed something, which is always possible, that’s only four. I would add one more myself, which is the growth among alternative legal providers, especially legal process outsourcers, which according to a report and graphic in January by Thomson Reuters’ Legal Executive...
February 29, 2016
The five key findings or market trends are: increasing number of attorneys; increasing matter volumes (more work); margin compression (for law firms); and the move from outside counsel to in-house counsel for corporations. Unless I missed something, which is always possible, that’s only four. I would add one more myself, which is the growth among alternative legal providers, especially legal process outsourcers, which according to a report and graphic in January by Thomson Reuters’ Legal Executive...
Incredible 3D Printer Can Make Bone, Cartilage, and Muscle
February 28, 2016
A team of biomedical researchers at Wake Forest Institute for Regenerative Medicine has just completed an invention 10 years in the making. It's a 3D printer that can craft relatively simple tissues like cartilage into large complex shapes—like an infant's ear. Using cartridges that are brimming with biodegradable plastic and human cells bound up in gel, this new kind of 3D printer builds complex chunks of growing muscle, cartilage, and even bone. When implanted into animals, these simple fabricated...
February 28, 2016
A team of biomedical researchers at Wake Forest Institute for Regenerative Medicine has just completed an invention 10 years in the making. It's a 3D printer that can craft relatively simple tissues like cartilage into large complex shapes—like an infant's ear. Using cartridges that are brimming with biodegradable plastic and human cells bound up in gel, this new kind of 3D printer builds complex chunks of growing muscle, cartilage, and even bone. When implanted into animals, these simple fabricated...
The Big-Data Future Has Arrived
February 24, 2016
It is now possible to measure everything, from the movement of billions of stars to each heartbeat. Big data, the tech...
February 24, 2016
It is now possible to measure everything, from the movement of billions of stars to each heartbeat. Big data, the tech...
How Big Data Is Changing Disruptive Innovation
February 20, 2016
There is no doubt that disruption is underway here. These players create products that are cheaper and more accessible than their peers. But it’s not necessarily starting at the low end of the market, it’s coming from orthogonal industries with strong information synergy. It’s starting where the source of data is, then building the information enabled system to attack an incumbent industry. It’s time for executives, entrepreneurs, and innovators stop quibbling over whether something satisfies...
February 20, 2016
There is no doubt that disruption is underway here. These players create products that are cheaper and more accessible than their peers. But it’s not necessarily starting at the low end of the market, it’s coming from orthogonal industries with strong information synergy. It’s starting where the source of data is, then building the information enabled system to attack an incumbent industry. It’s time for executives, entrepreneurs, and innovators stop quibbling over whether something satisfies...
AlphaGo: Mastering the ancient game of Go with Machine Learning
February 14, 2016
Games are a great testing ground for developing smarter, more flexible algorithms that have the ability to tackle problems in ways similar to humans. Creating programs that are able to play games better than the best humans has a long history - the first classic game mastered by a computer was noughts and crosses (also known as tic-tac-toe) in 1952 as a PhD candidate’s project. Then fell checkers in 1994. Chess was tackled by Deep Blue in 1997. The success isn’t limited to board games, either...
February 14, 2016
Games are a great testing ground for developing smarter, more flexible algorithms that have the ability to tackle problems in ways similar to humans. Creating programs that are able to play games better than the best humans has a long history - the first classic game mastered by a computer was noughts and crosses (also known as tic-tac-toe) in 1952 as a PhD candidate’s project. Then fell checkers in 1994. Chess was tackled by Deep Blue in 1997. The success isn’t limited to board games, either...
Nate Silver Helps Thomson Reuters Get Into The Ediscovery Game
February 14, 2016
The ediscovery game just got a little more interesting. And no, doing actual discovery is still as boring as ever, but the competitive space is definitely more juicy. At an event earlier this week at Thomson Reuter’s Times Square headquarters, timed nicely during the Legaltech show, Eric Laughlin, managing director of Legal Managed Services for Thomson Reuters, hosted a fireside chat with Fivethirtyeight.com’s Nate Silver to launch Thomson Reuters new product eDiscovery Point. Now, what...
February 14, 2016
The ediscovery game just got a little more interesting. And no, doing actual discovery is still as boring as ever, but the competitive space is definitely more juicy. At an event earlier this week at Thomson Reuter’s Times Square headquarters, timed nicely during the Legaltech show, Eric Laughlin, managing director of Legal Managed Services for Thomson Reuters, hosted a fireside chat with Fivethirtyeight.com’s Nate Silver to launch Thomson Reuters new product eDiscovery Point. Now, what...
Singaporean Telco M1 Achieved 1Gbps Speeds Across its 4G Network
February 13, 2016
Singapore's third-largest telecommunications carrier, M1, has announced that it attained 1Gbps download/130Mbps upload speeds on its 4G mobile network in Singapore in partnership with Chinese technology giant Huawei. The trial was conducted inside of M1's LTE Advanced test lab, and attained through the combination of four network technologies: 4x4 Multiple-Input Multiple-Output (MIMO); two-component carrier (2CC) uplink carrier aggregation; 3CC tri-band downlink carrier aggregation; and Higher...
February 13, 2016
Singapore's third-largest telecommunications carrier, M1, has announced that it attained 1Gbps download/130Mbps upload speeds on its 4G mobile network in Singapore in partnership with Chinese technology giant Huawei. The trial was conducted inside of M1's LTE Advanced test lab, and attained through the combination of four network technologies: 4x4 Multiple-Input Multiple-Output (MIMO); two-component carrier (2CC) uplink carrier aggregation; 3CC tri-band downlink carrier aggregation; and Higher...
Profession at a Crossroads: Will Lawyers Lead, Follow or Get Out of the Way?
February 13, 2016
In October, I wrote about Richard and Daniel Susskind’s new book, The Future of the Professions: How Technology Will Transform the Work of Human Experts. The Susskinds will be visiting the U.S. (Cambridge and New York City) in a few weeks, so I thought it would be worth a little more time exploring the implications of their work. (Read my Q&A with Richard Susskind.) The Susskinds identify a number of trends that run across professions:
February 13, 2016
In October, I wrote about Richard and Daniel Susskind’s new book, The Future of the Professions: How Technology Will Transform the Work of Human Experts. The Susskinds will be visiting the U.S. (Cambridge and New York City) in a few weeks, so I thought it would be worth a little more time exploring the implications of their work. (Read my Q&A with Richard Susskind.) The Susskinds identify a number of trends that run across professions:
Google DeepMind AI Navigates a Doom-like 3D Maze Just by Looking
February 13, 2016
Google DeepMind just entered the 90s. Fresh off their success in playing the ancient game of Go, DeepMind’s latest artificial intelligence can navigate a 3D maze reminiscent of the 1993 shooter game Doom. Unlike most game-playing AIs, the system has no access to the game’s internal code. Instead it plays just as a human would, by looking at the screen and deciding how to proceed. This ability to navigate a 3D space by “sight” could be useful for AIs operating in the real world. The...
February 13, 2016
Google DeepMind just entered the 90s. Fresh off their success in playing the ancient game of Go, DeepMind’s latest artificial intelligence can navigate a 3D maze reminiscent of the 1993 shooter game Doom. Unlike most game-playing AIs, the system has no access to the game’s internal code. Instead it plays just as a human would, by looking at the screen and deciding how to proceed. This ability to navigate a 3D space by “sight” could be useful for AIs operating in the real world. The...
