Collaborate Disseminate
Even if you wouldn’t describe yourself as a history buff, you’re likely familiar with the Enigma machine from World War II. This early electromechanical encryption device was used extensively by Nazi Germany to confound Allied attempts to eavesdrop on their communications, and the incredible effort put in by cryptologists such …read more
Alan Turing theorized a machine that could do infinite calculations from an infinite amount of data that computes based on a set of rules. It starts with an input, transforms the data and outputs an answer. Computation at its simplest. The Turing machine is considered a blueprint for modern computers and has also become a blueprint for builders to challenge themselves for decades.
Inspired by watching The Imitation Game, a historical drama loosely based on Alan Turing, [Richard J. Ridel] researched Alan Turing and decided to build a Turing machine of his own. During his research, he found most machines …read more
Though as with so many independent inventors the origins of computing can be said to have been arrived at through the work of many people, Alan Turing is certainly one of the foundational figures in computer science. His Turing machine was a thought-experiment computing device in which a program performs operations upon symbols printed on an infinite strip of tape, and can in theory calculate anything that any computer can.
In practice, we do not use Turing machines as our everyday computing platforms. A machine designed as an academic abstract exercise is not designed for efficiency. But that won’t stop …read more
Fans of vintage codebreaking machinery might be interested to hear that the only working reconstruction of a Turing-Welchman Bombe is likely to soon be on the move. The electromechanical device, a replica of those used on the Second World War Enigma codes, is housed at Bletchley Park, the former codebreaking center established before the outbreak of war to house British and Polish codebreakers.
Bletchley Park itself is now a tourist attraction. The news is that a display reorganization has caused the Turing Welchman Bombe Rebuild Trust that owns the Bombe to approach the neighboring National Museum Of Computing with a …read more
Your daily round-up of some of the other stories in the news Continue reading News in brief: Turing’s documents found; Uber steps back on tracking; feathered threat to police
To many, the Enigma machine is an enigma. But it’s really quite simple. The following is a step-by-step explanation of how it works, from the basics to the full machine.
Possibly the greatest dedicated cipher machine in human history the Enigma machine is a typewriter-sized machine, with keyboard included, that the Germans used to encrypt and decrypt messages during World War II. It’s also one of the machines that the Polish Cipher Bureau and those at Britain’s Bletchley Park figured out how to decipher, or break. Most recently the story of how it was broken was the topic of the …read more
Continue reading The Enigma Enigma: How The Enigma Machine Worked
Clara Labs, creator of the Clara AI assistant, is announcing a $7 million Series A this morning led by Basis Set Ventures. Slack Fund also joined in the round alongside existing investors Sequoia and First Round. The startup will be looking to further differentiate within the crowded field of email-centric personal assistants by building in features and integrations to address the needs of… Read More Continue reading Clara Labs nabs $7M Series A as it positions its AI assistant to meet the needs of enterprise teams
The recent movie “The Imitation Game” gave [Alan Turing] some well-deserved fame among non-computer types (although the historical accuracy of that movie is poor, at best; there have been several comparisons between the movie and reality). However, for people in the computer industry, Turing was famous for more than just helping to crack Enigma. His theoretical work on computing led to the Turing machine, which is still an important concept for reasoning about computers in a mathematical way. He also laid the foundation for the stored program computer that we take for granted today.
A Turing …read more
The halting problem strikes again. Continue reading Containing a Superintelligent AI Is Theoretically Impossible
