Computers

This month in Tech Briefs: Researchers from the National Institute of Standards and Technology have developed an optical switch that routes light from one computer chip to another in just 20 billionths of a second — faster than any other similar device.

Recent developments in machine vision have demonstrated remarkable improvements in the ability of computers to properly identify objects in a viewing field. Most of these advances rely on color-texture analyses that require target objects to possess one or more highly distinctive, local features that can be...

Data compression leverages redundant data to free up storage capacity, boost computing speeds, and provide other perks. In current computer systems, accessing main memory is very expensive compared to actual computation. Because of this, using data compression in the memory helps improve...