Scientists to Build 'Brain Box'
lee1 writes "Researchers at the University of Manchester are constructing
a 'brain box' using large numbers of microprocessors to model the way networks of neurons interact. They hope to learn how to engineer fail-safe electronics. Professor Steve Furber, of the university school of computer science, hopes that biology will teach them how to build computer systems. He said: 'Our brains keep working despite frequent failures of their component neurons, and this "fault-tolerant" characteristic is of great interest to engineers who wish to make computers more reliable. [...] Our aim is to use the computer to understand better how the brain works [...] and to see if biology can help us see how to build computer systems that continue functioning despite component failures.'"
Since when is this a new idea? I heard about people doing stuff like this years ago.
http://neuralnets.web.cern.ch/NeuralNets/nnwInHepH ard.html t ion3_5.html A M.html a re.html
http://www.particle.kth.se/~lindsey/elba2html/sec
http://www.cs.ucl.ac.uk/staff/D.Gorse/research/pR
http://www.kcl.ac.uk/neuronet/about/roadmap/hardw