The news around machine learning (ML) just keeps getting better, as new and improved tools and techniques become available and more developers (not just computer science PhDs) can gain experience developing ML-based apps. The latest: Apple recently announced the release of the Create ML framework, a set of methods that developers can use to create and train ML models using Apple’s well-known Swift programming environment.
“Big data”—the gathering, manipulation, analysis, and reporting of data based on one or more data sets that are too large to be managed by traditional means—has had a big problem: Because of the vast quantity of data to be processed, a single computer, or even a high-end virtual or physical server with multiple CPU cores, is not up to the task of processing that much data efficiently. It’s much better to divide the work among several computers or servers operating in parallel.
An old metaphor, intended to explain the concept of “infinity,” states that an infinite number of monkeys, banging away at an infinite number of keyboards, would write code just as well as we humans can, with better commenting.
For much of its history, artificial intelligence (AI) technologies of all kinds have been relegated to computer science laboratories and arcane academic papers. As discussed many times in this space, only recently has the technology, specifically machine learning techniques, advanced to a state where developers at large can experiment with it without requiring a PhD in computer science.
Johannes Kepler (1571–1630) was, to say the least, a pretty smart guy... in fact, some say he was almost as smart as me. Without the aid of even a dollar-store calculator, he established the physical laws that describe the motion of planets through the heavens. His work predated and inspired Isaac Newton’s development of the theory of universal gravitation.
Ask the average person on the street what IBM does, and you might get a blank stare, or perhaps “Didn’t they do that 'Jeopardy!’ thing a few years ago?” Once a household name whose mainframes, PCs, and typewriters could be found in nearly every large company around the world, IBM has mostly fallen off the pop culture radar in the last few years.
