Been thinking about AI for a while but realized there was nothing on the record. It’s good to have some record of what we are thinking about, as illustrated by the recent tweet I sent showing our first post following the launch of the iPhone. What is artificial intelligence today? Roughly speaking, it’s technology that takes in huge amounts of information from a specific domain (say, loan repayment histories) and uses it to make a decision in a specific case (whether to give an individual a loan) in the service of a specified goal (maximizing profits for the lender). Think of a spreadsheet on steroids, trained on big data. 
Been thinking about AI for a while but realized there was nothing on the record. It’s good to have some record of what we are thinking about, as illustrated by the recent tweet I sent showing our first post following the launch of the iPhone. What is artificial intelligence today? Roughly speaking, it’s technology that takes in huge amounts of information from a specific domain (say, loan repayment histories) and uses it to make a decision in a specific case (whether to give an individual a loan) in the service of a specified goal (maximizing profits for the lender). Think of a spreadsheet on steroids, trained on big data.
I am frustrated by my dependence on electricity. It’s not that great to decide where one sits in an airport, not on the basis of the view but on the proximity to a plug point. We’ve been keeping an eye on developments on the power front for some time, and are happy that the momentum is finally picking up. “When wireless power is everywhere, battery life and charging rates will no longer be critical factors in mobile devices as our devices will always be charging,” Ms. Perry said.
Increasingly, we are finding that it is impossible to talk about ICTs, without also talking about electricity. Interesting new development on that front is reported by NYT. EBay plans to use about six million watts of power generated on-site by fuel cells, which are a substantially cleaner and more efficient source of energy than coal, in its new data center in South Jordan, Utah. The company also operates PayPal, the online payment service, out of the South Jordan site. Bloom Energy, a private company in Sunnyvale, Calif.
Not quite at the point of harvesting energy from passing em waves and making batteries obsolete, but still a major advance from the current nuisances of carrying a host of charging devices and looking for compatible plugs: WiTricity has signed a technology transfer and licensing agreement with MediaTek, a semiconductor company in Taiwan, to collaborate on systems for wireless charging of mobile handsets, tablet computers, game controllers and other devices, Mr. Giler said. WiTricity is also developing technology for wireless charging of electric vehicles and, later, for use in implanted medical devices like heart pumps, said Katie Hall, its chief technology officer. The technology is based on magnetic induction — the process used to recharge electric toothbrushes. In the toothbrush, the base has a magnetic coil that generates a magnetic field.