Google is busy building a future where everyone relies on its AI chops.
At Google’s I/O developer conference, the company’s made it clear: everyone should use its AI wares. And that extends to people building AIs, too. Our own Will Knight reports that the firm has built powerful new machine learning chips that can be strung together into supercomputers, and it plans for the best AI researchers to use them. At the other end of the spectrum, it’s also developing AI software that builds AI software, so non-experts can also use its tools to build their own systems.
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Scientists have finally grown blood stem cells in the lab.
Two new studies show it may be possible to treat sufferers of blood disorders using their own cells rather than bone marrow transplants. Scientists at Boston Children’s Hospital in Massachusetts successfully turned human stem cells into the cells that produce red and white blood cells and platelets. A team at Weill Cornell Medical College in New York City achieved a similar feat starting with mouse cells. Results decades in the making, they may one day help create blood transfusions in the lab.
As more NSA hack leaks loom, what should the government do to stop them?
This past week, not one but two attacks have made use of vulnerabilities that were identified, weaponized, then lost by the U.S. National Security Agency. Now, the Shadow Brokers hacking collective that leaked those NSA files has threatened to release more every month. A bill proposed in Congress Wednesday seeks to improve the review process followed when new flaws are found by the government. But should security agencies even be allowed to stockpile software bugs anyway?
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