How the Fathom Neural Compute Stick figures into this is that the algorithmic computing power of the learning system can be optimized and output (using the Fathom software framework) into a binary that can run on the Fathom stick itself. In this way, any device that the Fathom is plugged into can have instant access to complete neural network because a version of that network is running locally on the Fathom and thus the device.
This reminds me of Physics co-processors. Anyone remember AGEIA? They were touting "physics cards" similar to video cards. Had they not been acquired by Nvidia, they would've been steamrolled by consumer GPUs / CPUs since they were essentially designing their own.
The $79 price point is attractive. I wonder how much power can be packed into such a small form factor? It's surprising that a lot of power isn't necessary for deep learning applications.
EDIT: Looks like the explanation is in a linked article: https://techcrunch.com/2016/04/28/plug-the-fathom-neural-com...
How the Fathom Neural Compute Stick figures into this is that the algorithmic computing power of the learning system can be optimized and output (using the Fathom software framework) into a binary that can run on the Fathom stick itself. In this way, any device that the Fathom is plugged into can have instant access to complete neural network because a version of that network is running locally on the Fathom and thus the device.
This reminds me of Physics co-processors. Anyone remember AGEIA? They were touting "physics cards" similar to video cards. Had they not been acquired by Nvidia, they would've been steamrolled by consumer GPUs / CPUs since they were essentially designing their own.
The $79 price point is attractive. I wonder how much power can be packed into such a small form factor? It's surprising that a lot of power isn't necessary for deep learning applications.