privacy – IT WORKz

Feb92017 by adminNo Comments

Learning words from pictures

Software, The Web

MIT researchers have developed a new approach to training speech-recognition systems that doesn’t depend on transcription. Instead, their system analyzes correspondences between images and spoken descriptions of those images, as captured in a large collection of audio recordings. Image: MIT News Speech recognition systems, such as those that convert speech to text on cellphones, are generally the result of machine learning. A computer pores through thousands or even millions of audio files and their transcriptions, and learns which acoustic features correspond to which typed words. But transcribing recordings is costly, time-consuming work, which has limited speech recognition to a small subset of languages spoken in wealthy nations. At the Neural Information Processing Systems conference this week, researchers from MIT’s Computer Science and Artificial Intelligence Laboratory (CSAIL) are presenting a new…

Feb22017 by adminNo Comments

Helping policy and technology work together

Software, The Web, Tips & Tricks

Engineering grad student Keertan Kini is working to strengthen the intersection of policy and technology. “When you’re part of a community, you want to leave it better than you found it,” says Keertan Kini, an MEng student in the Department of Electrical Engineering, or Course 6. That philosophy has guided Kini throughout his years at MIT, as he works to improve policy both inside and out of MIT. As a member of the Undergraduate Student Advisory Group, former chair of the Course 6 Underground Guide Committee, member of the Internet Policy Research Initiative (IPRI), and of the Advanced Network Architecture group, Kini’s research focus has been in finding ways that technology and policy can work together. As Kini puts it, “there can be unintended consequences when you don’t have…

Jan262017 by adminNo Comments

How video games can help us hack the human brain

Graphics, Hardware

Examining the brain in real-time Technology is really a marvel. So often, as new advances come out that allow us to do things that were thought impossible in the past, we hear the phrase "The future is now." Popular Science and XPRIZE are teaming up to explore and explain technologies like these in a video series called Future First. Episode thirteen of Future First is titled "Brain Hacking With Video Games." In it, we take a look at how new technologies—including virtual reality—help us to track activity within the human brain in real time, how different experiences affect different parts of the brain, and how we can use that information to further our knowledge of the mind. Helping to lead the discussion is Adam Gazzaley, MD, PhD., director of the…

Jan192017 by adminNo Comments

How Intel Makes a Chip

Business, Tips & Tricks

The development of a microprocessor is one of the riskiest, costliest, and most technically complex feats in business. Inside Intel's Chip Factory Before entering the cleanroom in D1D, as Intel calls its 17 million-cubic-foot microprocessor factory in Hillsboro, Oregon, it’s a good idea to carefully wash your hands and face. You should probably also empty your bladder. There are no bathrooms in the cleanroom. Makeup, perfume, and cosmetics are forbidden. Writing instruments are allowed, as long as they’re special sterile pens; paper, which sheds microscopic particles, is absolutely banned. If you want to write on something, you’ll have to use what is known in the industry as “high-performance documentation material,” a paperlike product that doesn’t release fibers. After you put on a hairnet, your next stop is the gowning station,…

Aug262015 by adminNo Comments

Top 10 computer mistakes beginners make

Hardware, Software, Tips & Tricks

Below we've listed the top 10 mistakes we find beginner computer users making and how you can avoid falling into the same mistakes. Not backing up important files One of the biggest mistakes anyone can make is not backing up important information. Today, there are so many different methods of backing up your information that there is no longer any excuse for not backing up your information. Make sure to backup all important information before it is too late. Clicking Next or Ok without reading Everyone has become more impatient thanks to the instant gratification we all enjoy every day on the Internet. However, because of this impatience it is not uncommon for new users to click Ok or Next without reading what they are agreeing to and not making…