This Tech Can 'See' and Think as Well as Humans Do Harness artificial intelligence with this humble-looking gizmo.

It looks like an ordinary USB stick. But plug it into any device's USB port and it instantly makes your software smarter -- as if you plugged in another brain.

The Fathom Neural Compute Stick, made by the semiconductor company Movidius, powers "deep learning" -- the ability to see and analyze images, and learn from what it observes, much like a human. We're talking office security cameras that can distinguish a burglar from a janitor, or self-driving cars capable of finding legal, nonmetered parking. The business possibilities are endless.

Tech like this "will replace experts in fields where we simply needed a "pair of eyes' on the job," says Movidius CEO Remi El-Ouazzane. "We've built machines that can now detect and perceive visual data better than humans."