Why are we seeing so many applications of neural networks now?
Actually neural networks were invented a long time ago, in 1943, when Warren McCulloch and Walter Pitts created a computational model for neural networks based on algorithms. Then the idea went through a long hibernation because the immense computational resources needed to build neural networks did not exist yet.
Recently, the idea has come back in a big way, thanks to advanced computational resources like graphical processing units (GPUs). They are chips that have been used for processing graphics in video games, but it turns out that they are excellent for crunching the data required to run neural networks too. That is why we now see the proliferation of neural networks.