Neural nets have been around for quite some time. Why are they working now?

Neural nets have been around for quite some time. They have become popular only in the last few years. How come?

Here's a slide from Geoffrey Hinton's talk that addresses this question:

Geoffrey Hinton quickly addresses the question in his 'talk':https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=IcOMKXAw5VA&feature=youtu.be&t=21m29s

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I recommend the whole talk
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=IcOMKXAw5VA&feature=youtu.be&t=21m29s

Watch the entire talk!
 

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