Posts Tagged: "deep learning"

Patenting Trends in Emerging Technologies: Blockchain Patents Grow from Three to 2,660 in Less than Five Years

Blockchain’s history begins in 1991, when Stuart Haber and W. Scott Stornetta published a paper describing a cryptographically secured chain of blocks. It took another 18 years before a developer who called himself Satoshi Nakamoto released a white paper that established the model for a blockchain and then, a year later, implemented the first blockchain as a public ledger for transactions using bitcoin. The engine that runs the bitcoin ledger that Nakamoto designed is called the blockchain; the original and largest blockchain is the one that still orchestrates bitcoin transactions today. Blockchain technology was separated from currency in 2014, and that advance opened the door for using blockchain for applications beyond currency. The standout example is the Ethereum blockchain system, which introduced computer programs in a blockchain format, representing financial instruments such as bonds. These became known as smart contracts.

Nick Brestoff

November 9, 2021

Deep Learning: Tracking the Growth of an Emerging Technology

In 2015, I spotted what I thought might be an emerging technology: deep learning. Because of my engineering education, I was able to go up the “deep learning” curve. The term “deep learning” is the current name for a “deep neural network,” which was previously called a “multi-layer neural network.” While our organic brains are filled with approximately 86 billion neurons, the “deep learning” quest was built on mathematics and Graphics Processing Units (GPUs). It seemed like a breakthrough. With enough examples of a category, could a deep learning model assess data that the model hadn’t seen previously, and then score, rank and report the “matches” to a user? In short order, I was persuaded that the answer was yes.

Nick Brestoff

September 30, 2021