Do you see what I see?

Less than a week after coming online, the world’s fastest supercomputer has made a new milestone – simulating the human visual cortex – how we see.

“Roadrunner ushers in a new era for science at Los Alamos National Laboratory,” said Terry Wallace, associate director for Science, Technology and Engineering at Los Alamos. “Just a week after formal introduction of the machine to the world, we are already doing computational tasks that existed only in the realm of imagination a year ago.”

Based on the results of PetaVision’s inaugural trials, Los Alamos researchers believe they can study in real time the entire human visual cortex—arguably a human being’s most important sensory apparatus.

The ability to achieve human levels of cognitive performance on a digital computer could lead to important insights and revolutionary technological applications. Such applications include “smart” cameras that can recognize danger or an autopilot system for automobiles that could take over for incapacitated drivers in complex situations such as navigating dense urban traffic.

http://www.lanl.gov/news/index.php/fuseaction/home.story/story_id/13602