Josh Dannan discusses the Latest Technology Trends

Josh Dannan has always been a technology buff. But even he is surprised at the latest technology trends. For instance, he watched in amazement when a computer beat contestants on the quiz show, Jeopardy! Yes, it is quite evident that we now live in a more and more advanced computer age that shows no signs of abating. But Josh Dannan believes that we haven’t seen anything yet!

Here are just a few of the latest technological trends that seem more like science fiction.

Computers that Reconstruct Shredded Paper

Josh Dannan was amazed when he read about the “Shredder Challenge.” Much like solving a puzzle, computer scientists are tasked with solving a series of shredded documents—that increase in difficulty, of course—to win a cool $50,000. This is not just a game, however. The sponsor of the Shredder Challenge is US Defense Advanced Research Project Agency (DARPA), so you can be sure they have some top secret purposes for the final results of this challenge.

iPhone 4S

Josh Dannan has seldom been surprised at the inventions of Apple‘s co-founder, Steve Jobs. But when the iPhone 4S was recently introduced, even he was blown away.

The iPhone 4S has a personal assistant (computerized, of course) called Siri. Using sophisticated voice recognition technology combined with natural language processing, Siri makes appointments, dials phone numbers, and tells you the weather forecast just because you ask it to–verbally. Josh Dannan expects this type technology to go even further in the next several years.

Shock Wave Energy for Hybrid Cars

Michigan State University’s Norbert Miller has developed a prototype of an engine that uses a shock wave to power it. No kidding. Miller even presented this prototype at meeting at the U.S. Department of Energy meeting.

If implemented, shock wave powered vehicles could eventually make fossil fuels obsolete and could also eliminate air pollution.

Watson, the Super Computer

Watson is the name of the super computer that felled those Jeopardy! contestants earlier this year. But facing off against the brightest contestants in a quiz show is not the reason Watson was created, of course. Josh Dannan has been following the development of Watson, and what he’s found has been amazing.

IBM created Watson using advanced artificial intelligence. Why did they choose Jeopardy! to put Watson to the test? Jeopardy!, you see, is a litmus test for artificial intelligence. This quiz show relies not just on answers to standard questions, but its questions (or rather, its answers) are very subtle. This required that Watson have a huge database of information plus the ability to determine what is really being asked in each answer.

This subtle form of intelligence was once the province of humans, but Watson proved he could do it.

Josh Dannan was amazed when he watched Watson beat those Jeopardy! contestants, and he knows that this bodes well for future technologies. He predicts that this form of artificial intelligence will considerably up the stakes in the latest technology trends. For his part, Josh Dannan couldn’t be more excited.