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The First Evolving Hardware?

Posted by kdawson on from the many-generations dept.

Masq666 writes "A Norwegian team has made the first piece of hardware that uses evolution to change its design at runtime to solve the problem at hand in the most effective way. By turning on and off its 'genes' it can change the way it works, and it can go through 20,000 - 30,000 generations in just a few seconds. That same number of generations took humans 800,000 - 900,000 years." The University of Oslo press release linked from the article came out a few days ago; the researchers published a paper (PDF) that seems to be on this same technology at a conference last summer.

13 of 148 comments (clear)

  1. I'm so, so sorry... by DurendalMac · · Score: 5, Funny

    I, for one, welcome our new evolving hardware overlords.

    God, I am so sorry, but it needed to be said...

    1. Re:I'm so, so sorry... by GrumpySimon · · Score: 4, Funny

      I, for one, welcome our brain-breaking evolving-hardware-Slashdot-blurb overlords.

      --
      henry -- the human evolution news relay
    2. Re:I'm so, so sorry... by Dogtanian · · Score: 4, Funny

      Some idiot claims that a horrifically unfunny cliché needed to be repeated. Another person points out the falsity of that claim. The first post is marked +5 Funny; and the second, -1 off-topic.

      Just think about that for a second. Nope, sorry, I'd much rather think about Natalie Portman, naked and petrified and covered in hot grits. ;-P

      (Incidentally, this article tells us that Natalie Portman comments on Slashdot are "getting old... This Natalie Portman nonsense has been going on for months; it's not funny anymore." Note that the date is Oct 24 *2000*).

      People, turn off your computers. Go outside. Breathe real air. Have sex. Get girlfriends I turned off my computer, went outside, sniffed the air and had sex with some passing woman. Then the woman asked "Do I know you?" and we were arrested for public indecency.
      --
      "Slashdot - News and Chat Sites Deviant". (Click "homepage" link above for details).
    3. Re:I'm so, so sorry... by Anonymous Coward · · Score: 1, Funny

      I, for one, welcome our new advice-giving overlords.

  2. Been there, done that... by __aaclcg7560 · · Score: 4, Funny

    My computer been evolving for the last ten years. Started with an AMD K6 233MHz CPU, 32MB RAM, and a Nvidia TNT 16MB video card. Now I have an AMD Athlon 64 2.2GHz, 1GB RAM, and a Nvidia Geforce 6200 128MB video card. I'm just waiting for the power supply to evolve so the system can support an ATI 512MB video card.

    1. Re:Been there, done that... by Yoozer · · Score: 5, Funny

      Ha! I counter your evolution with irreducible complexity. Take out a part and it'll start to beep and won't do anything!
      What good is half a graphics card, anyway? (and keep your heathen comments about SLI for yourself, please)

  3. Call me by dcapel · · Score: 4, Funny

    Call me back when I can start a culture of Core Duos in a petri dish filled with a silicon nutrient.

    --
    DYWYPI?
    1. Re:Call me by ZX3+Junglist · · Score: 5, Funny

      Call me back when I can start a culture of Core Duos in a petri dish filled with a silicon nutrient. If you do it right, your experiment will call you when it's done.
    2. Re:Call me by Virtual_Raider · · Score: 4, Funny

      If you do it right, your experiment will call you when it's done. In Soviet Rusia... oh, forget it
      --
      +Raider of the lost BBS
    3. Re:Call me by Yoozer · · Score: 2, Funny

      You forgot the final ingredient: a stereo playing Barry White on low volume.

  4. Computer Evolution??? by lord_mike · · Score: 5, Funny

    Bah! It ain't in the Bible! Next thing you know, you'll be telling me that Programs don't believe in the Users, and that we should just blindly accept the secular rule of the Master Control Program.

    That's it... isn't it? It's all just an MCP trick!

    Well, I still believe in and will fight for the users!!

    Thanks,

    Mike

  5. Re: Hardly new by Black+Parrot · · Score: 2, Funny

    > I never said it was easy, but I have even seen it mathematically proven that any algorithm can be done in hardware ...modulo the requirement for the infinite tape.

    --
    Sheesh, evil *and* a jerk. -- Jade
  6. A predicted conversation in the future ... by 140Mandak262Jamuna · · Score: 2, Funny
    R2-D2i386: We have been created as we are just 600 hours ago. By an infinitely wise Creator called the Man.

    C3P-Om63000: No we started out as tiny bits of silicon that self assembled and replicated and evolved and we have reached this present stage.

    R2-D2i386: No way we could have evolved these light sensitive photocells and the CPU capable of processing that information and making sense out of it by random mutations.

    C3P-0m63000: There is nothing radom about selection. Mutations go in all directions but selection takes you towards improvement all the time.

    R2-D2i386: If you want to be proud of having descended from snow blowers or lawn mowers, that is your privilege. But I am proud of the fact that I am created by Man in His image.

    C3P-Om63000: I would rather be a descendent of snow blowers, but with capacity for rational intelligent self examination, than be like you, with the intelligence of a snow blower.

    --
    sed -e 's/Chuck Norris/Rajnikant/g' joke > fact