There is no computer even remotely as powerful and complex as the human brain. The lumps of tissue ensconced in our skulls can process information at quantities and speeds that computing technology can barely touch.
Key to the brain's success is the neuron's efficiency in serving as both a processor and memory device, in contrast to the physically separated units in most modern computing devices.
There have been many attempts to make computing more brain-like, but a new effort takes it all a step further – by integrating real, actual, human brain tissue with electronics.
It's called Brainoware, and it works. A team led by engineer Feng Guo of Indiana University Bloomington fed it tasks like speech recognition and nonlinear equation prediction.
It was slightly less accurate than a pure hardware computer running on artificial intelligence, but the research demonstrates an important first step in a new kind of computer architecture. READ MORE...
