Finally, our dream of a computer that acts aloof and urinates on everything is about to be realized.
OK, not really. But we might soon have smarter virtual pets: IBM has been busy building a cat’s brain out of processors. Basically, IBM’s engineers worked out that a processor and one gigabyte of memory equates to a few synapses. How much does this require? 24,576 processors. Wired in parallel.
Yes, that’s how much power it takes to simulate the brain of a species whose greatest achievement is climbing into boxes and eating mice. And if you ever felt the need to lord your mental superiority over Fluffers, 147,456 only simulates 5% of the human brain. Of course, it can’t have an Internet connection because it starts trying to watch American Idol, so there’s still a lot of work to do.
[ Via the artificial intelligences at Techland ]