Posts by Mike Knight
The Birth of The IC
Around this time 62 years ago (April 25th, 1961), Robert Noyce (co-founder of Fairchild Semiconductor) patented his invention – a monolithic integrated circuit (IC). Jack Kilby patented a similar invention, but his version was difficult to mass produce due to external gold wire connections. Thus, Noyce’s version of the IC became widely adopted due to…
Read MoreWhat Is Universal Basic Income?
In this insight, we look at what ‘Universal Basic Income’ is, how it relates to the tech industry, its potential benefits and pitfalls, plus what similar ideas are being discussed and explored. UBI Universal Basic Income (UBI) is a policy proposal in which all individuals in a given society receive a regular, unconditional cash transfer…
Read MoreGoogle To Use Generative AI For Ad Campaigns
A report in the Financial Times (drawing upon an internal Google Presentation) claims that Google plans to use AI to generate new advertisements, drawing upon those already created by humans. Creates The Ads For You The use of generative AI will mean that advertisers will only need to supply a small amount of creative content…
Read MoreMicrosoft Drops Twitter From Advertising Platform
Following Twitter’s announcement two months ago that it will be charging a minimum of $42,000 per month to enterprise users of its API, Microsoft is dropping Twitter from its advertising platform. What Is The Microsoft Advertising Platform? The Microsoft Advertising Platform is a digital advertising platform that enables businesses to create and run advertising campaigns on…
Read MoreWhat Is ‘Jailbreaking’ ChatGPT?
In this insight, we look at the ‘Jailbreaking’ concept in ChatGPT and other LLMs, and at what steps can be taken to mitigate the risks to users. Jailbreaking Jailbreaking, in general, refers to the process of removing restrictions or limitations imposed by a device or software, often to gain access to features or functionality that…
Read MoreOpenAI Now Exploring Humanoid Robots
A humanoid robotics company (1X Technologies) has announced that it raised $2.5m Series A2 funding led by ChatGPT’s creators OpenAI to pursue producing androids/humanoid robots at commercial scale. Funding The funding round to develop more androids was led by the OpenAI Startup Fund, with participation from Tiger Global and a consortium of Norway-based investors, including…
Read MoreQuantum Threat Growing
Following large investments in quantum computing followed by the ensuing advancement of this technology in recent years, as well as looking forward to benefits this could bring, there is also the growing threat of ‘quantum hacking.’ Quantum Computers Quantum computers can carry out complex calculations at high speed. Whereas traditional computers store data in binary…
Read MoreAmazon Launches AI App-Building Platform
Amazon has announced the launch of ‘Amazon Bedrock,’ a new service which it says is the easiest way for customers to build and scale generative AI-based applications using foundation models (FMs). What Is A Foundation Model (FM)? A foundation model is an “ultra-large” machine learning model that generative AI uses. FMs, which are machine learning…
Read MoreDon’t Make Me Think!
That’s the title of a book by Steve Krug – K R U G – like the champagne. It’s a ground-breaking book that has significantly impacted the field of web design and user experience. Its concise, witty, and easily digestible writing style has made it a favourite among developers, designers and – crucially – business…
Read MoreA Trip to the Zoo and $1.6 Billion Later …
On April 23, 2005, at exactly 8:31:52 pm local time, the first ever YouTube video was uploaded. It was titled ‘Me at the Zoo’ and is a 19 second recording of the co-founder of YouTube (Jawed Karim) standing in front of an elephant enclosure. It’s grainy and with poor audio – yet it made history.…
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