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<< Headlines are listed according to date posted <-> Articles are organized by date published >>
October 31, 2004: Future
belongs to the lawyers. Column by Mike Argento. York Daily Record.
"A look into the future . . .
NOV. 3: In the early morning hours, the election is thrown into chaos when Fox
News announces that Biff Henderson, a 40-year-old bartender from Sarasota,
has won Florida. ... DEC. 26: In Pennsylvania, Bush's legal challenges
end when his lawyers get stuck in construction traffic on Interstate 83
and are never heard from again. In Ohio, computerized voting machines develop
artificial intelligence and begin constructing an army of robotic lawyers.
... " October 31, 2004: Them,
robots. Editorial by Prakash Chandra. HindustanTimes.com. "It’s
official now: this planet is about to be invaded by robots. The UN’s
annual World Robotics Survey says the use of robots to do domestic
work will surge seven-fold by 2007. That means over four million
robots doing chores that have been the exclusive preserve of human
beings: from mowing lawns and cleaning floors to babysitting and
pulling guard duty. ... Ever since Karel Capek coined the word ‘robot’ from
a Czech word for ‘work’, these creations have evolved
faster than you can say Capek. Sci-fi helped them mutate into androids
and cyborgs, and today technology can virtually translate them into
bionic humans -- an entity whose organic and mechanical parts are
melded completely. ... Organising AI along biological lines got a
leg-up in 2000 when scientists created a bionic chip that mixes human
cells with layers of silicon to incorporate a live biological cell
in the electrical circuit." October 30, 2004: We’re funny in the brain. By Jerome Burne. Times Online. "Heard the one about the comedy computer? It sounds like a bad joke but the newly revealed machine will help children with language difficulties. ... Computers don’t do jokes and the people who understand computers aren’t famous for being a bundle of laughs either. But Dr Kim Binsted, an expert in artificial intelligence (AI), plans to change that. If her project succeeds, your computer of the future could be swapping wisecracks with you faster than a New York cab driver. Her punning program is already helping children with severe speech problems. She is one of the speakers on humour, art and the brain, at the Festival of Art and the Mind, in Winchester, Hants, today.... Binsted will unveil a computer program called Wiscraic (Witty Idiomatic Sentence Creation Revealing Ambiguity in Context) which will regale the audience with its repertoire. However, since examples include 'The book thief was caught readhanded', it’s obvious that Binsted’s cyber comedian would be unwise to give up its day job. ... Binsted’s joking computer has its fans in two places where use of language falls short of Marx’s sophistication. It is currently being used to teach English to Japanese students who can chat with a screen. ... Meanwhile, at the University of Edinburgh another program with a very long name -- Standup (System To Augment Non-Speakers Dialogue Using Puns) -- is under way." October 29, 2004: The game of life - 'Sims 2' stretches boundaries of digital world. By Brian D. Crecente. Rocky Mountain News. "Welcome to the world of Sims 2, a game of simulated life in digital homes with digital people that allows you to play with the mundane, swirling it around until it becomes something distinctly unique and often kind of funny. ... What makes the game interesting and fuels its popularity is actually the lack of control players have over their Sims. The characters have a sort of rudimentary consciousness. So while you can decide their appearance, personality, dreams and fears, you don't have the ability to directly make them do anything. ... In a way the Sims have artificial intelligence. 'This game is, in some sense, self-aware,' [Will] Wright said. 'But artificial intelligence is such a slippery term.'" October 29, 2004: Toyota introduces new Prado. Times of Oman. "All new artificial intelligence shift (Ai-Shift) control is implemented for realising comfortable driving by automatically switching the shift schedule (up and down shifts) according to road conditions and the driver’s intent." October 29, 2004: Robots learn 'robotiquette' rules. BBC News. "Robots are learning lessons on 'robotiquette' - how to behave socially - so they can mix better with humans. By playing games, like pass-the-parcel, a University of Hertfordshire team is finding out how future robot companions should react in social situations. The study's findings will eventually help humans develop a code of social behaviour in human-robot interaction. The work is part of the European Cogniron robotics project, and was on show at London's Science Museum. ... The research also focuses on human perception of robots, including how they should look, and how a robot can learn new skills by imitating a human demonstrator." October 28, 2004: BT
working on ‘ambient’ future study. By John Tilak.
Digital Media Europe News. "BT is working alongside the University
of Essex, and other partner organisations on a research project [PROFIT:
Potential pRofit Opportunities in the Future ambient InTelligence
world] that examines the socio-economic implications of ‘always
on, everywhere’ or ‘ambient’ intelligence. Ambient
intelligence is an idea of the future in which people are surrounded
by electronic environments that are sensitive and responsive to people.
Such technologies are expected to combine concepts of ubiquitous
computing and intelligent systems." October 28, 2004: Tech major loses its luster. By Jonathan B. Cox. The (Raleigh) News & Observer. "The number of new undergraduate majors in U.S. computer science programs has fallen 28 percent since 2000, reports the Computing Research Association, a group of more than 200 North American computer science, computer engineering and related academic departments. ... One reason, say those in the field, is that technology jobs appear less lucrative than they did during the dot-com boom. Then, students thought a computer science degree would lead to riches and a quick retirement. Many took on the major. Even those with minimal skills made it into the industry because demand was so high that companies had to hire almost anyone available. When the tech bubble burst, the promise of fast money evaporated. ... Some temper the doomsday prediction. Undergraduate students now are likely of higher quality and thus more attractive to employers, because they have pursued computer science degrees despite the industry downturn. ... Colleges have also begun to integrate computer instruction into other majors such as e-commerce programs in business schools. A computer science degree, therefore, can be unnecessary. One thing's almost certain, though: Those with the necessary skills could relive a bit of the dot-com fever as tech spending rebounds." October 28, 2004: Metaphorically speaking - What's the use of all that electronic information if you can't get at it? The Economist. "In computing, says Microsoft's Mr [Jack] Breese, 'the holy grail of simplicity is I-just-wanna-talk-to-my-computer', so that the computer can 'anticipate my needs'. The technical term for this is speech recognition. 'Speech makes the screen deeper,' says X.D. Huang, Microsoft's expert on the subject. 'Instead of a limited drop-down menu, thousands of functions can be brought to the foreground.' The only problem is that the idea is almost certainly unworkable. People confuse speech recognition with language understanding, argues Mr [Donald] Norman. But to achieve language understanding, you first have to crack the problem of artificial intelligence (AI), which has eluded scientists for half a century. In fact, the challenge goes beyond AI, according to Mr Norman, and to the heart of semantics. Just think how difficult it would be to teach somebody to tie a shoelace or to fold an origami object by using words alone, without a diagram or a demonstration. 'What we imagine systems of speech-understanding to be is really mind-reading,' says Mr Norman. 'And not just mind-reading of thoughts, but of perfect thoughts, of solutions to problems that don't yet exist.' The idea that speech recognition is the key to simplicity, Mr Norman says, is therefore 'just plain silly'." October 28, 2004: Wheelchair Plans For Kelantan Boy With Deformed Limbs. Bernama.com. "The wish of a Kelantanese schoolboy born with deformed limbs to move about like any other normal kids may soon be fulfilled as he will be provided with a wheelchair akin to the one used by world-renowned genius and author Prof Stephen Hawking. Sahazli Mohamad's restricted movements may be a thing of the past if plans to develop a motorised wheelchair that employs robotics and artificial intelligence for him come through. Disclosing this Thursday, Science, Technology and Innovation Minister Datuk Seri Dr Jamaludin Jarjis said the ministry would coordinate efforts to develop the state-of-the art wheelchair." October 28, 2004: Scrabble makes smooth shift to PC. By Dennis McCauley. The Philadelphia Inquirer / available from philly.com. "[P]layers will never again cast longing glances at a dusty Scrabble set, lying unused for lack of an adversary. Scrabble Online's built-in artificial-intelligence opponents are always available, and they always put up a good fight. The A.I. can be set to play at varying degrees of difficulty based on Scrabble's official tournament skill ratings. ... Gamers who really crave a battle can even pit themselves against a world-champion-caliber A.I. opponent that carries a staggering 2,000 rank." October 28, 2004: Thinking man’s robots. By Marisa Duffy. The Herald. "Long before Will Smith graced the red carpet at the I, Robot premiere, shop owner Afam Ejimbe was invited by 20th Century Fox to a top-secret screening. 'I was smuggled, along with a group of robot experts, to watch the film and take part in a debate on the future of artificial intelligence', he says. 'It was really exciting but we weren't allowed to talk to anyone about it.' Clearly a man held in high esteem -- but then Afam does run one of only five robot shops in the world (the others are in Japan, naturally, California, New York and, most recently, Paris). ... A replica of Lilliput, the first ever toy tin robot, sits alongside a slightly austere Russian model from the 1970s. Perched along the top of a cabinet is a family of OmiBots: 'These were the Rolls-Royce robots of their time. Each is voice-controlled and several can serve drinks.'" October 27, 2004: Pensacola research institute to work with Florida Atlantic. Associated Press / available from NBC 15 News. "The Florida Institute for Human and Machine Cognition, one of three statewide research institutes, signed an affiliation agreement Wednesday with Florida Atlantic University. The deal paves the way for joint research and faculty appointments and other mutual activities involving computer and cognitive science, robotics, ocean engineering, transportation security and other fields, institute and university officials said. Gov. Jeb Bush praised the new partnership as 'forward thinking' in a news release. ... The institute in Pensacola is a national leader in artificial intelligence and human-centered computing." October 27, 2004: Signals
from monkey's brain move robot. By Byron Spice. Pittsburgh Post-Gazette. "The
monkey sees a piece of zucchini and pops the morsel into its mouth.
It's a routine act -- or would be, if the monkey had used its own
arm. Here's how it works: A sensor attached to the monkey's brain
picks up electrical signals from a group of cells in the motor cortex,
the portion of the brain that controls movements. A computer program
interprets the signals and sends the appropriate commands to the
mechanical arm. ... In June, researchers at Brown University implanted
a chip in the brain of a 24-year-old Massachusetts man with paraplegia.
The first of five patients to be implanted in the pilot study, the
man is able to move a computer cursor just by thinking about it,
enabling him to change TV channels or open e-mail. ... Getting a
monkey to control a robotic arm is tricky not only because Schwartz
had to design computer software that learns what the monkey is signaling,
but also because the monkey's brain is changing its signals as it
learns how to perform the task, said [William] Heetderks, now extramural
research director at the National Institute of Biomedical Imaging
and Biotechnology." October 27, 2004: Getting
intelligent about the brain. Interview by Richard Shim and Ina
Fried. CNET News. "In his first book, 'On Intelligence,' [Jeff]
Hawkins explains his theory and how it can be used to build truly
smart machines--a question others have tackled, through the study
of artificial intelligence and neural networks, but haven't resolved.
Hawkins says the main difference between his idea and others is that
the other methods try to copy human behavior using the wrong notion
of how the brain works. The brain doesn't produce an output for every
input, Hawkins says. Instead, it stores experiences and sequences
and makes predictions based on those memories. ... [Q] How
would a machine that worked more like the brain do a better job? [A] Current
computers just don't understand what is being done, and they don't
do a good job. The problem with something like speech recognition
is that computers are trying to just recognize speech. They take
some pattern and try to match it against some template. We understand
speech, but with current systems, there is no understanding. So when
you have real data coming in that is messy for the most part, you
can't match it." October
27, 2004: Zap
that bat with artificial intelligence. The Times of India. "Scary
though it may seem, robotics, using artificial intelligence (AI) has
shifted focus from the human model to replicating other life forms
in a bid to make life easier for humans. At a talk on 'Artificial Intelligence
and Robotics' organised at King George's Medical University (KGMU)
by British Council and Association of British Scholars (ABS), Lucknow
chapter, Professor Amanda Sharkey of the University of Sheffield, UK,
said that while till 1980s AI robots were based on models of human
perception, reasoning and planning, it proved to be too difficult and
slow to model humans. It was then decided to try other life forms.
... 'Behaviour-based robotics', she said, was based on copying nature
to create effective robots, to understand how living beings behave
and respond to environment. ... Earlier, vice-chancellor, KGMU, Professor
Mahendra Bhandari said that AI could be used effectively to augment
human potential. Secretary science and technology, Navneet Sehgal said
that for our set of circumstances in India, 'we must encourage use
of AI only for things that humans can't do or where it can aid humans
in doing better.'" October 25, 2004: Intelligence
personified. Interview by Amit Kr Chanda. The Times of India. "Anuj
Sehgal with the assistance of one of his fellow student has developed
a low-cost, autonomous underwater vehicle or LUV. The LUV was selected
to participate in the seventh-international, automated-underwater
vehicle competition held at San Diego, California, US. The LUV emerged
winners in the lightest, smallest and cheapest, workable, automated-underwater
vehicle category in the same competition. Excerpts on an interview:
..." October 25, 2004: John
Deere, iRobot team up to make intelligent, battle-ready vehicle.
By Mark Jewell. Associated Press / available from The Ledger Online
/ also available from globeandmail.com (The
Deere hunter; October 27, 2004). "In an odd pairing of a
robotic vacuum cleaner maker and a company synonymous with farm tractors,
iRobot and John Deere announced plans Monday to produce an intelligent
battlefield vehicle for manned or unmanned missions. Burlington-based
iRobot will adapt the artificial intelligence technology used in
its Roomba vacuums and portable PackBot military robots for a two-seat
John Deere utility vehicle similar to the ones the Pentagon already
uses." October 25, 2004: Shouting
fades out as software moves in. Barron's / available from The
Financial Post (subscription req'd.). "Calm, cool and comparatively
colourless, electronic trading has all but extinguished the open-outcry
mayhem of U.S. futures exchanges. About a third of screen-based transactions
rely on artificial intelligence, once the stuff of science fiction,
and now a popular tool in Wall Street's expanding arsenal. As one
financial-futures broker describes it, a computer, not unlike the
mythical HAL of 2001: A Space Odyssey fame, can 'see the algorithms
and execute the trade faster than most people can point and click.'
... Computer-trading technologies range from traditional 'black box'
programs based on entry and exit prices to advanced programs that
learn from their own mistakes. And quite often, it is difficult for
other market participants to tell whether a person or a machine has
entered a trade. Strategy Runner and Black Box Development both have
developed advanced artificial-intelligence trading platforms for
the futures market." October 25, 2004: Brain
cells in a dish fly fighter plane. By Celeste Biever. New Scientist
News. "An array of rat brain cells has successfully flown a
virtual F-22 fighter jet. The cells could one day become a more sophisticated
replacement for the computers that control uncrewed aerial vehicles
or, in the nearer future, form a test-bed for drugs against brain
diseases such as epilepsy. Enzymes were used to extract neurons from
the motor cortex of mature rat embryos and cells were then seeded
onto a grid of gold electrodes patterned on a glass Petri dish. The
cells grew microscopic interconnections, turning them into a 'live
computation device', explains Thomas DeMarse, a biomedical engineer
at the University of Florida in Gainesville, US, who carried out
the research. 'This is novel work,' says Mandayam Srinivasan of the
Massachusetts Institute of Technology, who used electrodes implanted
in a monkey’s brain to move a robotic arm. He says that in
future living systems could be combined with traditional computers
to solve problems more efficiently." October 25, 2004: Robot
promoters look to Social Security set. By David Becker. CNET
News. "The next major advance in personal robotics is aimed
straight at the 'Matlock' generation. Robots for the elderly were
one of the hot topics at the RoboNexus conference here on Saturday,
as robot advocates and start-up companies consider new frontiers
for robots in the home. The Roomba vacuum cleaner has shown there's
a market for smart machines performing household tasks. But the next
generation of domestic helper machines will be far more capable,
handling tasks ranging from cooking dinner to cleaning the litter
box, predicted robotics consultant and author Joanne Pransky. 'In
25 years, I don't think we'll have to do any of the household chores
unless we want to,' she said. 'If you cook, it'll be a hobby, not
something you have to do.' ... PALS--an acronym for Personal Assistance
Living System--robots would automatically hook into a central network
for software upgrades and to share artificial intelligence advances,
[Andrew] Silverthorne said. 'Once one robot learns a better way to
open a jar of pickles, they'll all be better at opening a jar of
pickles,' he said. Further down
the road, the company hopes artificial intelligence will evolve to
give the robots more humanlike interaction with their owners. 'The
goal is that they'll become something like a real companion,' Silverthorne
said, adding that silicon-based companions might have certain advantages.
'My grandpa loves to read the same stories over and over again--what
better audience for that than a robot?' ... Whether grandma and grandpa
want a robot in their home is a different matter. Any personal robot
has to overcome culturally bred distrust of humanoid machines--the
'Frankenstein factor'--Pransky said." October 23, 2004: Smart
fabrics make for enhanced living. By Celeste Biever. New Scientist
Magazine (The handbag that never forgets; page 23). "Imagine
a handbag that warns you if you are about to forget your umbrella
or wallet, and which you can later turn into a scarf that displays
today’s pollution levels. Or how about creating a wall hanging
that glows if someone tries to use your home’s wireless internet
connection? All these bizarre objects could soon be possible thanks
to a system of computerised fabric patches developed by engineers
at the Massachusetts Institute of Technology. Each patch contains
a functional unit of the system - a microprocessor and memory plus
either a radio transceiver, a sensor, a microphone, batteries or
a display. Put the patches together in different ways and you can
create a variety of information-providing or environment-sensing
objects, say developers Adrian Cable, Gauri Nanda and Michael Bove
at MIT’s Media Lab. ... Researchers in the field of pervasive
computing have already come up with computers and sensors worn in
jackets and waistcoats. But these cannot be reconfigured to do different
jobs. With the patches, however, a user can easily swap modules to
use the system for a variety of functions." October 23, 2004: A
lot to be learned from computer's bad jokes. By Sam Leith. Telegraph. "Computers
that can spew out jokes faster and more groanworthy than Jimmy Tarbuck
would have dreamed may be a vital tool in teaching children to learn
a second language, or in teaching disabled children to speak, an
expert in Artificial Intelligence will tell a one-day conference
next week. For most of us, being asked 'What do you give a hurt lemon?'
and being told, 'lemon aid' sounds like the occasion for deep depression.
But the fact that a computer program was able to ask that question
and supply that answer has implications for structural linguistics,
and for artificial intelligence. And, as Dr Kim Binsted will tell
next week's Humour, Art and the Brain festival at Winchester, its
applications may go far beyond the automated production of lolly
sticks. ... The 'System To Augment Non-speaker's Dialogue Using Puns,'
to give [Standup] its full name, helps speech-impaired children incorporate
humour into their exchanges. Other versions of the technology can
be used in automated 'chatbots' for second-language teaching." October 22, 2004: Yes
We Think, But Not Like A Machine Does. Book review by Tony Hoare. The
Times Higher Education Supplement (subscription req'd.). "What
is thought? [Eric B. Baum; MIT Press] A short answer can be found from
sentences in the last chapter of this long book: 'The mind is an evolved
computer program'; 'Thought is the execution of this computer code';
'There is a similar explanation for evolution itself... life and the
biological evolution that ultimately produced mind are simply particular
types of Turing machine program.' To illustrate and support its views,
the book explains many important and interesting concepts and results
from many branches of science: genetics, experimental psychology, probability
theory, economics, linguistics. All of these are garnished with a light
sprinkling of philosophy. Occam's razor, for example, is fundamental
to the minimal encodings that are the basis of attempts at machine
learning. ... For the author, the most relevant branch of science is
computer science, from which many philosophically interesting ideas
are described. First, Alan Turing's archetype of computation, the Turing
machine. Equally fundamental is John von Neumann's 1948 construction
of self-reproducing automata. Other relevant computational paradigms
include neural nets, Post production systems and the programming language
Lisp. There is a good description of the travelling salesman problem
and of computational complexity. The author's own experiment in evolutionary
programming is crucial to the thesis of the book. ... The author is
an unashamed proponent of Turing's original views on the nature of
mind - 'strong Artificial Intelligence'. He even claims: 'The overwhelming
consensus of the field is that the mind must be equivalent to a computer
program.' Not so. There are many computer scientists and others who
have severe doubts on this score." October 22, 2004: Brain
in a Dish Flies Plane. By Jennifer Viegas. Discovery News. "A
University of Florida scientist has created a living 'brain' of cultured
rat cells that now controls an F-22 fighter jet flight simulator.
Scientists say the research could lead to tiny, brain-controlled
prosthetic devices and unmanned airplanes flown by living computers.
And if scientists can decipher the ground rules of how such neural
networks function, the research also may result in novel computing
systems that could tackle dangerous search-and-rescue jobs and perform
bomb damage assessment without endangering humans. ... The brain
can learn, just as a human brain learns, [Thomas DeMarse] said. When
the system is first engaged, the neurons don't know how to control
the airplane; they don't have any experience. ... This brain-controlled
plane may sound like science fiction, but it is grounded in work
that has been taking place for more than a decade. A breakthrough
occurred in 1993, when a team of scientists created a Hybrot, which
is short for 'hybrid robot.' The robot consisted of hardware, computer
software, rat neurons, and incubators for those neurons. The computer,
programmed to respond to the neuron impulses, controlled a wheel
underneath a machine that resembled a child's toy robot." October 22, 2004: The
Web's Father Expects a Grandchild - Tim Berners-Lee is working
on the "Semantic Web," with its richer information links
that unlock the power of "unplanned reuse of data." Interviewed
by Andy Reinhardt. BusinessWeek online. "Q: You're
working now on the Semantic Web, which will allow richer associations
among data and, as the name implies, start to create a sense of "meaning" in
online information. Where are things heading? A: The
impact of the Semantic Web will be different from [today's] hypermedia
Web. ... The Semantic Web is different. It's a space of data. It's
all the information which is now in databases, spreadsheets, and
application-specific files, like calendar files or photo metadata.
What's exciting about the Semantic Web is its potential for serendipity,
the unplanned reuse of data. The effect will be even more powerful
for the Semantic Web because you won't have to be a person following
the links. A machine will be able to follow links. Q: Can
you give me an example? ..." October 22, 2004: Autonomous
spacecraft set for test flight. By Maggie McKee. New Scientist
News. "A completely autonomous vehicle designed to rendezvous
with a satellite is set to launch into orbit Tuesday. The NASA mission
aims to test technologies that will eventually allow the docking
of spacecraft and the fixing of satellites with no human intervention
- crucial for ambitious plans to explore the solar system. Russia
uses automated technology to dock its Soyuz spacecraft and Progress
cargo vehicles to the International Space Station. And Europe and
Japan are developing self-directed steering and mooring capabilities.
But the US still relies on astronauts to park the space shuttle.
... Now, NASA is taking the first step towards that goal with DART
- Demonstration of Autonomous Rendezvous Technology. ... 'The neat
thing is, if it goes up and misses a step, it sees that and corrects
the anomaly,' says NASA spokesperson Kim Newton." October 22, 2004: Robots
set to get homely by 2007. BBC News. "Seven times more robots
will helping us out with the cleaning, security and entertainment
in three years' time, as their price falls and they get smarter.
... By the end of 2007, 4.1 million robots will be doing jobs in
homes, says the report by the UN Economic Commission for Europe and
the International Federation of Robotics. ... Aside from playing
football and jigging in the home, robots are increasingly being used
to carry out more hazardous or specialists jobs. Robots involved
in more serious tasks, like scientific and medical research, defence
and surveillance, as well as mine-clearing, will also enjoy a boom
in popularity, says the report. Researchers around the world are
developing robots for multiple uses, and many are making them a lot
smarter and autonomous by developing AI systems (Artificial Intelligence)." October 22, 2004: What
robots tell us about ourselves. Comment by Peter Foster. Financial
Post. "This week, the Geneva-based United Nations Economic Commission
for Europe and the International Federation of Robotics issued a
report on world robotics. The best headline I saw on the report read
'UN: Robots to vacuum, do windows.' As suggested by Asimo, if robotics
is the future, then it is a mundane future indeed. We have always
overestimated the potential of robots because we have underestimated
the complexity of ourselves. Industrial robots have been around for
more than 40 years, but in what seemed like an astonishing move,
some companies recently started replacing robots with humans. That's
because humans have a level of flexible intelligence that a robot
may never be able to match. ... Dr. Smith's fascinating book [Why
We Lie, The Evolutionary Roots of Deception and the Unconscious Mind]--
which is filled with historical, literary and cultural references,
from the Trojan Horse through Mark Twain to the Easter Bunny -- indicates
that just as we overestimated the physical possibilities of robots
by a failure to understand the complexity of our motor functions,
so we underestimate even more the stunning complexity of our conscious
and unconscious minds. What work in robotics and artificial intelligence
has demonstrated above all is how remarkable we are." October 21, 2004: Robot
Future Hinges on Software - A study by a United Nations agency
and the International Federation of Robotics finds that robot use
is booming, but robot-makers still face big software challenges in
creating true artificial intelligence. By Jason Lopez. NewsFactor
Network. "Robot sales to consumers and enterprises are on the
verge of exploding, according to a new study. But the science of
robotics faces software challenges akin to those in search technology
-- namely the quest to create artificial intelligence. ... 'The mechanical
end of robotics has not been the real challenge,' said Tom Burick,
president of Pennsylvania-based White Box Robotics. The company makes
PC-based robots using control software created by Evolution Robotics.
'And marketing doesn't seem to be a problem -- everybody seems to
be drawn to robots. Software is the greater challenge,' he told NewsFactor.
'It's easy to make a robot that does one thing. But when you try
to make one that has to handle the same environment humans face,
taking in information every second throughout the day, that's a real
problem to solve.' Burick believes the market is ready for robots.
'The true revolution has begun. We're amazingly close to a real shift
in what robots are capable of.'" October 21, 2004: High-tech
club builds 12-inch airplane. By Kris Cabulong. Arizona Daily
Wildcat. "A group of 20 UA students are working on an award-winning
Micro-Air Vehicle design, which carries an onboard Global Positioning
System, infrared sensors and cutting-edge artificial intelligence.
The students are part of the Micro Air Vehicle club, which hopes
to develop a small, hard-to-detect unmanned aerial vehicle, or UAV,
for use in military applications. ... The artificial intelligence
built into the vehicle can maneuver it by autopilot to within 10
meters of up to 31 different targets before returning to its point
of origin, where it will circle until someone manually takes control
again, [Anton] Kochevar said. 'The new autopilot we're looking to
acquire will (allow) us to write a landing and take-off procedure,
so we hope to have a fully autonomous airplane by the end of the
semester,' he said." October 21, 2004: Wizard
of the Wireless Future - Palm pioneer Jeff Hawkins explains why
one mobile device will soon do it all, how robots will evolve, and
more. Interviewed by Cliff Edwards. BusinessWeek online. "Jeff
Hawkins created the first Palm Pilot (PLMO ) digital organizer and
then went on to create the Handspring Visor line as well as the popular
new Treo 600 combination cell phone, e-mail device, and organizer.
His new book, On Intelligence, explores the structure of
the human brain and how that understanding will help create a new
breed of truly intelligent machines. ... Q: Are
you talking about artificial intelligence and moving it to the elderly
population? A: I write about this in the book. The
whole last chapter is dedicated to how this will play out. When people
think of robotics, they think we're going to have these robots like
in the movies and they're going to be talking to you and doing things.
But the business of intelligent machines is different than people
think. ..." October 20, 2004: When
War Games Meet Video Games. By Amit Asaravala. Wired News. " You'd
hardly expect to find dozens of defense strategists setting aside
two weeks at a time to play a video game. But then, Urban Resolve
is no ordinary video game. ... War games that consider these scenarios
are not new for the military, but they have never been attempted
on such a grand scale, according to [Jim] Blank. ... The trick to
keeping all this in motion is running the program on two Linux-based
supercomputers ... and using concepts borrowed from artificial intelligence
research to allow many of the characters in the simulation to make
their own decisions without human input. This allows JFCom to run
the simulations with only 30 or so human players at a time. These
players consist mainly of retired military leaders and contractors
who consult for the Department of Defense. 'This technology has not
really been used for immediate battle planning before,' said Bob
Lucas, a division director at the University of Southern California's
Information Sciences Institute, or ISI, which helped port the Urban
Resolve software to the Linux supercomputers. 'The vast majority
of people are computer-generated. Some are very complicated and consume
a whole Pentium by themselves. Some are so simple, you can run a
few hundred on a computer.' ... 'This is something that is good for
the defense of this country,' said [Dan] Davis. 'It allows us to
optimize the way our military is used so we don't have to destroy
our young men. We're saving young men's lives.'" October 20, 2004: U.N.
Predicts Boom In Robot Labor. By Jonathan Fowler. Associated
Press / available from CBS News. "The use of robots around the
home to mow lawns, vacuum floors and manage other chores is set to
surge sevenfold by 2007 as more consumers snap up smart machines,
the United Nations said. That boom coincides with record orders for
industrial robots, said the U.N.'s annual World Robotics Survey,
released Wednesday. ... The report, issued by the U.N. Economic Commission
for Europe and the International Federation of Robotics, said that
607,000 automated domestic helpers were in use at the end of 2003,
two-thirds of them purchased that year. ... UNECE said household
robots could soon edge their industrial counterparts, which have
dominated the figures since the U.N. body first began counting in
1990. ... Japan still remains the most robotized economy, home to
around half the current 800,000 industrial robots. ... Taking the
global average, a robot sold in 2003 cost a quarter of what a robot
with the same performance cost in 1990, the study found. ... The
term 'robot' covers any machine that operates automatically to perform
tasks in a human-like way, often replacing the human workers who
did the job previously. In most cases, robots move under their own
propulsion and do not need to be controlled by a human operator after
they have been programmed. ... By the end of the decade, the study
said, robots will 'not only clean our floors, mow our lawns and guard
our homes but also assist old and handicapped people with sophisticated
interactive equipment, carry out surgery, inspect pipes and sites
that are hazardous to people, fight fire and bombs.'" October 20, 2004: Artificial
Intellegence - Robots at home and work becoming reality. By Sarah
Day. The GSU Signal. "With movie releases over the years, artificial
intelligence seems to be on the minds of Hollywood. Recent film releases
like A.I. and I, Robot show the possible horrible consequences of
the using artificial intelligence. Often these films depict societies
that are almost co-dependant on the use of artificial intelligence.
Artificial intelligence is defined as 'machine intelligence, intelligence
exhibited by anything manufactured by humans.' The idea of artificial
intelligence has stirred in the minds of scientists since the conception
of the computer in 1941. Artificial intelligence seems to be the
ultimate advantage of technology, to be able to make our lives more
convenient, safer and more enjoyable. ... Who knows how well Hollywood
can predict the future, but it seems to be making some convincing
stories about the scary possibilities of trusting too much in machines." October
20, 2004: 'Knowledge
discovery'. California Computer News. "In the recent science-fiction
thriller 'Minority Report,' Tom Cruise plays a detective who solves
future crimes by being immersed in a 'data cave,' where he rapidly
accesses all the relevant information about the identity, location
and associates of the potential victim. A team at Purdue University
currently is developing a similar 'data-rich' environment for scientific
discovery that uses high-performance computing and artificial intelligence
software to display information and interact with researchers in the
language of their specific disciplines. 'If you were a chemist, you
could walk right up to this display and move molecules and atoms around
to see how the changes would affect a formulation or a material's properties,'
said James Caruthers, a professor of chemical engineering at Purdue.
The method represents a fundamental shift from more conventional techniques
in computer-aided scientific discovery. 'Most current approaches to
computer-aided discovery center on mining data in a process that assumes
there is a nugget of gold that needs to be found in a sea of irrelevant
information,' Caruthers said. 'This data-mining approach is appropriate
for some scientific discovery problems, but scientific understanding
often proceeds through a different method, a 'knowledge discovery'
approach. 'Instead of mining for a nugget of gold, knowledge discovery
is more like sifting through a warehouse filled with small gears, levers,
etc., none of which is particularly valuable by itself. After appropriate
assembly, however, a Rolex watch emerges from the disparate parts.'
... Discovery informatics depends on a two-part repeating cycle made
up of a 'forward model' and an 'inverse process' and two types of artificial
intelligence software: hybrid neural networks and genetic algorithms." October 19, 2004: Bodyguard buddies keep Net secure. Heather Catchpole. ABC News in Science. "Software agents surf the net to get you the best ticket price. But they can also turn rogue and act as viruses, say Australian researchers. Now researchers at Monash University in Melbourne have developed a buddy system that improves agent security. The team reported its findings recently at the international Intelligent Agent Technology conference in Beijing. Mobile agents are pieces of software that roam the network to carry out certain tasks, for example buying a ticket for a movie within 15 minutes of your home, or finding the best insurance deal or the best home loan. But the use of agents over the internet has been limited because of concerns that someone could steal your credit card details, or use agents to attack computers just like viruses do, say the researchers." October 19, 2004: Nuclear
Research. Speech by Jacques Chirac, President of the Republic,
on the fiftieth anniversary of the European Organization for Nuclear
Research (CERN). Available from the Embassy of France. "Science
is at the heart of humanity’s questions and aspirations. It
is a source of progress and freedom. It feeds humanity’s dreams,
hopes, doubts and sometimes fears. It is an expression of humanity’s
intelligence and curiosity. Science contributes to the eternal human
quest to understand the universe, matter and life. It is a driving
force in modern societies and must be a key priority for political
discussion and action in Europe. The vitality and innovation of science
make it a strategic factor in international competition. It seeks
and develops solutions to the many major challenges of our time,
such as finding new sources of energy, fighting climate change, and
curing cancer and genetic diseases. ... Europe needs to encourage
the creation of centres and networks of excellence. It needs to adopt
a strategic approach in the key areas of modern science, such as
biomedical research, exploring the brain, developing an AIDS vaccine,
artificial intelligence and robotics, nanotechnology, climate and
ecosystem modelling, biotechnology and finding new sources of energy,
to name a few." October 19, 2004: Computer skills come to fore. By Tess Livingstone. The Courier-Mail. "University of Queensland Master of Philosophy student Andrew Smith admits he plays golf 'badly', with a handicap of 26. He hopes, after completing his degree, to reduce that to single figures with the help of a new coaching package he's developing as part of his studies. Mr Smith is working to create advanced computer software that sees and assesses the golfer in action and can automatically tell him or her when their posture is wrong or when they've hit the ball badly and why. ... He said his system was one of many applications for computer vision technology in areas such as health rehabilitation, sports training and security." October 19, 2004: Insects could hold the key to artificial intellegence. By Lorraine Pace. North Texas e-News. "You have seen the movies in which robots are self-aware and joked about computer cockroaches, but scientists in their quest to understand intelligence and to develop artificial intelligence in robotics have actually turned to the study of insects and primitive vertebrates. They are looking at how these react to stimuli and how they develop memory, striving to replicate it in robotics for use in applications as diverse as medicine and space exploration. 'Something eluded us,' says Dr. Derek Harter, assistant professor of computer science and information systems at Texas A&M University-Commerce. 'We started off by studying human intelligence, but did not find the answers we were searching for.' ... 'Initially a lot of research into artificial intelligence was focused on human cognition in a top-down approach. The human capabilities that most impressed were chess playing and logical reasoning. However, we are now developing a different approach, starting with the study of insects and moving to primitive animals with a central nervous system -- like salamanders, in which we have found long-term brain memory'" October 19, 2004: I, Robot not that far off. By Keith Woolhouse. The Ottawa Citizen (subscription req'd.)The first thing to understand about artificial intelligence is that robots don't have to resemble the human form. Visitors to Applied AI Systems Inc.'s laboratory in rural Carp who don't grasp that salient fact are in for a disappointment. There are no astromech droids of the likes of Star War's R2 D2 trundling around the campus. The term 'artificial intelligence,' too, is bit of a misnomer, because once a machine is capable of working intelligently, it is subtly pointed out, it is no longer artificial. But the concept of artificial intelligence is popular these days, spurred by the success of a semi-intelligent vacuum cleaner and the summer movie hit I, Robot adapted from a short story by futurist Isaac Asimov. ... AAI's focus is on intelligent vehicles and transportation. An example of this is a miniature module, named Khepera, the size of a hockey puck. Khepera can navigate its way through the clutter of a maze set up at random on a boardroom table. ... Also on the drawing board is an intelligent wheelchair. 'This is a trickier proposition because you have to handle the cargo better,' says Mr. Gomi solemnly. AAI has been working on the wheelchair since 1996. Also on the drawing board is a project to create intelligent, autonomous vehicles that can be operated on farms and construction sites. October 19, 2004: NASA researchers conduct underwater telemedicine test. By Michael Schriber. USA Today. "It gives new meaning to the term "housecall", but aquanauts aboard NASA's undersea research station, Aquarius, have performed simulated medical procedures with the help of a Canadian doctor 1300 miles away. ... There was also a robot on board, the Zeus system, that aided in the surgery. Through the robot's arm, Dr. [Mehran] Anvari controlled the internal video camera. ... [Bob] Thirsk, who has also flown in the Space Shuttle, also found Aquarius to be similar to space flight. But he was aware that telementors would have to deal with long time delays in communications when astronauts are far from Earth. To combat that, he said, 'there would need to be more on board artificial intelligence.' So not only will medical robots need to become smaller and grow more arms, they also 'would need to be more independent,' Thirsk said." October 18, 2004: Russian angel helps AxonX 'bring fire safety into the digital age.' By Robert J. Terry. Baltimore Business Journal. "AxonX, which is developing fire and smoke detection software, will use the money to complete product testing and develop strategic partnerships with security companies. AxonX's software uses artificial intelligence, image analysis and a patented algorithm to quickly detect smoke and fire. Executives say the software can take images from surveillance cameras and analyze a flame's patterns." October 18, 2004: Awarding the Brains Behind AI. By Kari Lynn Dean. Wired News. "[Daphne Koller's] creativity recently garnered a $500,000, no-strings-attached MacArthur Fellowship. ... Koller won the MacArthur 'genius award' because her creativity in resolving uncertainty could benefit society. By addressing fundamental problems with machine learning and exploring the foundations of intelligence, Koller is pushing the limits of present-day scientific understanding of how to build computer programs that learn efficiently and reason intelligently. ... Dealing with information overload 'using sophisticated data management and analysis tools is probably going to be one of the key tasks that (computer science) researchers have to face this decade,' Koller said." October 17, 2004: Stump the robot - Are you smarter than these Web sites? Log on and find out. By David Andrukonis. USA Weekend Magazine. "Two sites in particular make a strong case that simple computer programs can mimic (or very nearly mimic) the behavior of humans. For example, the age-old game of idea identification through systematic elimination -- 20 Questions -- has been all but mastered by a computer. The Web site 20q.net, an experiment in artificial intelligence.... Another A.I. site, Alicebot.org, features an award-winning robotic being that converses with you." October 17, 2004: Book explains limits of AI, wonders of human brain. By Lynn Yarris. The Mercury News. "'I, Robot' was set in the year 2035. Is it possible that artificial intelligence (AI) will be that advanced in the next 30 years? Not if we continue down our current path of development, according to the man who was the creative genius behind the PalmPilot and the Treo smartphone. In 'On Intelligence,' Jeff Hawkins takes a detailed look at how the human brain works, compares this to how AI currently works and concludes that our machines will never get there from here. 'Many people today believe that AI is alive and well and just waiting for enough computing power to deliver on its many promises,' Hawkins says. 'I disagree. AI suffers from a fundamental flaw in that it fails to adequately address what intelligence is or what it means to understand something.' ... 'Why can a six-year-old hop gracefully from rock to rock in a streambed while the most advanced robots of our time are lumbering zombies?' Hawkins asks. ... The answer, as Hawkins and [Sandra] Blakeslee demonstrate, is that the human brain doesn't compute answers to problems; it retrieves answers from memory. While it takes a great many steps to compute something, it takes only a few steps to retrieve it from memory. The seat of human intelligence, where all this memory storage and retrieval takes place, is the neocortex.... As to the question of whether we can build truly intelligent machines, Hawkins believes the answer is yes, but those machines won't be the humanoid robots we're used to seeing in films like 'I, Robot.'" October 15, 2004: Refining
enterprise search - Enterprise search is reaping relevant results
thanks to new platforms and technologies. By Richard Gincel. InfoWorld. "[M]ost
enterprise users still stumble as they try to extract data from multiple
repositories, each with its own search engine. Enterprises seem awash
in a rising tide of structured and unstructured data. And even though
users are often forced to tag documents manually across various content
management systems in hopes that those documents will be easier to
retrieve, searches still yield a surfeit of irrelevant, time-wasting
results. ESPs (enterprise search platforms) are on a mission to change
all that. These new, comprehensive bundles of search and integration
technologies unlock information tucked away in data stores across
the enterprise. The goal of ESPs is deceptively simple: to take fairly
simple queries and return the most relevant results possible, all
in one place. But under the hood, ESPs aggregate a host of emerging
technologies such as autocategorization, entity extraction, and NLP
(natural language processing). With an ESP as a foundation, businesses
can build customized search applications while automating the process
of preparing documents for archiving and indexing." October 15, 2004: Access Denied. Book Review. Kirkus Reviews (subscription req'd.). "Artificial Intelligence Personality Turing Hopper and her other-abled human friends search cyberspace and meatspace for the archfiend who kidnapped Turing's clone. Ever since stealing T2, the computer program designed to back up Turing during her reincarnation as the unseen CEO of the Alan Grace Corporation (Click Here for Murder, [by Donna Andrews] 2003), Nestor Garcia has escaped even Turing's unsleeping vigilance. Now there's a sudden lead: Somebody has used Garcia's charge card to pay for a package delivered to a vacationing couple's suburban Virginia address." October 14, 2004: "Cybertecture" represents
future for design around world. Xinhua News Agency. "Interactive architecture
is the future of design in China and around the world, said James Law,
the only Chinese nominee for the 2004 Asia Innovation Award. Law, chief
'cybertect' of
a global consultancy based in Hong Kong specializing in the design and
strategy formation of cybertecture projects, was nominated for his excellent
design of the world's first artificial intelligence media laboratory in
Hong Kong. ... Cybertecture environments are hybrids designed from the
inside out and using technology to give the space intelligence needed to
interact with its users. Cybertecture is aimed to enhance and improve the
quality of life by harnessing the power of technology, according to Law...." October 14, 2004: A
look at the Men of Court TV. Hosted by Nancy Grace. Larry King
Live / CNN. "Dr. Henry Lee, welcome. My question to you is we
all know about finger prints, know we know about DNA, (unintelligible),
nucleic Acid. We know about mitochondrial DNA. We know about fiber
analysis. What's the next big deal in forensic science, doctor? Dr.
Henry Lee, Court TV: Well, Nancy, that's an excellent question.
The next thing, as a matter of fact, yesterday I was an advisor committee
meeting for new technology. Basically, we're looking at data mining,
artificial intelligence. That's probably the next generation. We're
going to have massive data base, DNA data bank." October 14, 2004: Mind over Matter - Will converging technologies lead to a thinking machine? By Kurt Loft. Media General News Service / available from The Richmond Times-Dispatch. "Sometime in the not-too-distant future, the worlds of people and robots will merge. Humans already are heading in artificial directions. We have false teeth and hair, plastic limbs, intraocular lenses, mechanical organs and drug-dispensing implants. Robots are becoming more like us in facial expression, voice recognition, and ability to walk, talk and make decisions. The big question, however, isn't whether people become more techno than flesh, but whether robots develop some form of consciousness - self-aware minds of their own. ... About 25 million people in the United States are partially bionic, having artificial hardware in their bodies. As people live longer and medical technologies offer new kinds of replacement parts, people will become more and more hybrid - part flesh and bone, part wire and titanium. Eventually, these bionic parts will evolve beyond the mere mechanical functioning within the body's nerve network. This is the science of neurorobotics. The future of this technology, [Sidney] Perkowitz says, 'is the formation of direct connections between living organic systems and nonliving ones at the neural and brain levels.'... Perkowitz defines intelligent robots as machines that react and adapt to their environment. Although the robots of today can walk, talk and interact, they are a long way from becoming self-aware. Creating one, if possible, may depend on how we define our own awareness, argued Marvin Minsky in his 1986 book 'The Society of Mind.' 'Most people still believe that no machine could ever be conscious, or feel ambition, jealousy, humor or have any other mental life experience,' Minsky writes. 'We are still far from being able to create machines that do all the things people do. But this only means that we need better theories about how thinking works.'" October 14, 2004: Smaller Can Be Better (Except When It's Not). By Michel Marriott. The New York Times (no fee reg. req'd.). "'The real question is knowing what the user really needs and how to simplify that,' [Asaf Degani] said, noting that sometimes he and his wife are overwhelmed by all the tasks their cellphones can perform. Dr. Degani, author of 'Taming HAL: Designing Interfaces Beyond 2001' (Palgrave Macmillan 2004), said that if devices like video cameras could embed artificial intelligence to help anticipate what users want to do with them at a given point, the cameras would be vastly easier to use, compared with ones that have screens of icons, menus and submenus that many users are confronted with today. The ultimate goal of technology, he said, should be not only to make devices smaller, but also to make them simpler. 'That,' he said, 'is a lot more complicated.'" October 13, 2004: Fewer women in computer jobs these days. By Ed Frauenheim. CNET News. "Women have lost ground when it comes to some geeky professions. A study released Wednesday by the Commission on Professionals in Science and Technology found a decline in the share of computer science jobs held by women in a recent 20-year period. In 1983, women held 30.5 percent of the jobs in the category of computer systems analysts and scientists, programmers and postsecondary computer science teachers, according to the commission. That figure declined to 27.2 percent in 2002. On the other hand, women have increased their share of jobs in the natural sciences and in engineering, according to the commission." October 13, 2004: Can you prove you're not a machine? By Christine Boese. CNN.ocm. "I've been thinking about something called the 'Turing Tes'" lately because some of my personal e-mail has come back undeliverable. Evidently the servers, in an attempt to screen out machine-generated spam, think that my e-mail is spam, too. ... Alan M. Turing was a mathematician and a co-founder of computer science and cryptography. He developed the Turing Test. Turing postulated that in developing a thinking machine or 'artificial intelligence,' the machine shouldn't have to duplicate human thinking processes exactly. All that should be required of a thinking machine is that it be able to 'pass' as a human." October 13, 2004: New Tack Wins Prisoner's Dilemma. By Wendy M. Grossman. Wired News. "Proving that a new approach can secure victory in a classic strategy game, a team from England's Southampton University has won the 20th-anniversary Iterated Prisoner's Dilemma competition, toppling the long-term winner from its throne. The Southampton group, whose primary research area is software agents, said its strategy involved a series of moves allowing players to recognize each other and act cooperatively. ... The 20th-anniversary competition was the brainchild of Graham Kendall, a lecturer in the University of Nottingham's School of Computer Science and Information Technology and a researcher in game theory, and was based on the original 1984 competition run by a University of Michigan political scientist, Robert Axelrod. ... 'What's interesting from our point of view,' he said,'"was to test some ideas we had about teamwork in general agent systems, and this detection of working together as a team is a quite fundamental problem. What was interesting was to see how many colluders you need in a population. It turns out we had far too many -- we would have won with around 20.'" October 13 - 19, 2004: Checking in with Ben Bederson. Ubiquity (Volume 5, Issue 32). "Benjamin B. Bederson is an Associate Professor of Computer Science and director of the Human-Computer Interaction Lab at the Institute for Advanced Computer Studies at the University of Maryland, College Park. His work is on information visualization, interaction strategies, and digital libraries. UBIQUITY: Why don't we start by talking a little about the Human-Computer Interaction Lab. Tell us something about its history. BEDERSON: I believe we're the oldest center in the country focusing on research in Human Computer Interaction. We were started just over 21 years ago by Ben Shneiderman. He's still happily continuing to work here, but about four years ago, he asked me to take over as Director. We've chosen to remain a relatively small group, with a half-dozen faculty, about ten full-time researchers, and about thirty students, mostly working towards their PhDs. Our focus is thinking about the user experience: how can we improve people's lives using computers. I see our lab goals being to design, implement and evaluate novel interaction technologies that are universally usable, useful, efficient and appealing." October 12, 2004: Nose mouse the future face of computing. By Barbara Gengler. Australian IT. "Computer users with disabilities, and video game fans are one step closer to a way of interacting hands-free with computers. The gadget, controlled by the nose and eyelids, is called a nouse (nose as mouse). It was developed by the NRC-Institute of Information Technology in Ottawa. Based on advances in computer vision and pattern recognition, the nouse uses inexpensive off-the-shelf web cameras to track the motion of the user's face precisely, pinpointing with the nose any pixel on a screen. The nose then becomes the mouse or the joystick, and users can select menu items or play interactive games. ... The main use of this technology is likely to be designing intelligent hands-free perceptual user interfaces to supplement conventional input devices such as the mouse, joystick or trackball." October 12, 2004: Bellingham residents display working robots. By Kara Lundberg. The Western Front Online. "Bellingham community members with curious minds gathered Saturday morning for the Bellingham Artificial Intelligence and Robotics Society meeting, where they came to build and learn about robots. Nearly 60 people, including Western students, came to the Communications Facility to get hands-on experience in building smart robots, applying the seriousness of computer science and engineering, and turning it into fun. ... 'It is a great initiative to connect the community to the department and the university,' computer science department chairman David Bover said. Bover and[Jianna] Zhang said involving women is especially beneficial because women sometimes encounter cultural barriers in math and science, which has given them the impression they cannot do either. 'By encouraging females to attend, we hope to help them understand what computer science is all about and teach them about robotics as an interesting and practical application to machine learning,' Bover said. ... Energetic children who attended Saturday's meeting were eager to start building. Kelsey Willson, a 13-year-old Sehome High School freshman, said she was completely surprised about who attended. 'I was expecting a lot of computer people,' Willson said. 'But I came because I think that girls need to be more involved in science, and this is actually pretty cool.'" October 12, 2004: Thinking is also working out. By Shahar Smooha. Haaretz. "[F]itness is not exclusively associated with body building and physical exercise. The muscle needing its own workout and maintenance is the most important organ of all - the brain. Cognifit has developed software for this purpose and will this week unveil the Hebrew version of a program that acts like a sophisticated set of weights but with the aim of improving cognitive performance. ... 'Studies show that what distinguishes between people whose cognitive ability has deteriorated and those in whom it has not is the degree that they activate their brains,' says [Shlomo] Breznitz. ... [W]hat distinguishes MindFit55 from other programs is not the detailed explanations or the eye-catching graphics, but the artificial intelligence 'agent' that operates in the background of the program's activity. It adapts the program's performance to the user's ability. 'The idea is not only that the software adjusts its level to the level of the user, but that it also tells him things he did not know about himself, for instance that his memory is better when he hears something than when he sees the same things, or that he has skills that are more powerful in the afternoon hours than in the morning hours,' says Breznitz." October 12, 2004: British
library starts email archive. Australian IT. "The British
Library is creating an archive to store the emails of the nation's
top authors and scientists, as the written word is replaced by electronic
messages. ... Jeremy John, who has set up the library's first digital
archive, is appealing to writers and scientists to ask them to store
their correspondence in a way that will allow future generations
to see their work. ... John says the collection contains numerous
files that he cannot read because he does not have the correct software,
or even the necessary computers. ... He is appealing for help from
members of the public who own obsolete machines so he can unlock
archaic files. ... John has obtained more recent technology such
as laptops belonging to Donald Michie, a pioneer of artificial intelligence
and one of the leading codebreakers at Bletchley Park in the Second
World War. ... A British Library spokeswoman says it welcomes emails
from prominent people in all walks of life. 'We want people with
a canon of work behind them,' she says. 'We're interested in writers,
scientists....'" October 11, 2004: Virtual Manufacturing - This factory flickers on your monitor. By Joseph Ogando. Design News. "Want to see a factory of the future? Well, turn on your computer. A New Jersey company called eMachineShop recently launched a new on-line factory that lets engineers quickly design, price, and order machined metal and plastic parts. ... Once the geometry has been established, the software's machining 'expert system' evaluates each design for manufacturability. 'One of our major technology innovations involved incorporating a huge amount of machining knowledge in the system,' says Lewis. For example, the system can currently flag issues related to milling, bending, part finish, and more. The bottom line, says Lewis, is that the system 'won't let users design any parts we can't make.'" October 11, 2004: New breast tests debated - Thermography tests are lauded as a way to identify problems years before a tumor forms in breasts, but some in the medical community are not convinced. By Anna Velasco. The Birmingham News & al.com. "Thermography to detect breast cancer is a decades-old concept. But it was discounted early on as imprecise. Since then, the technology has improved, as has computer software to help analyze the results, [Woody] McDaniel said. ... The chief executive of Infrared Sciences Corp., which has supplied the breast scanning equipment to the Women's Center in Birmingham, said even recent studies don't reflect advances his company has made in pairing infrared technology with artificial intelligence. The computer software designed by Infrared Sciences analyzes the data with much more precision than in the past, said Thomas DiCicco. He said his company's research shows that its BreastScan's infrared technology is extremely accurate, especially in ruling out patients who don't have cancer. 'We're the only ones that have a fully automated program,' DiCicco said from the company's Long Island office." October 11, 2004: Welcome to the internet 2014 - As the UK marks 10 years of e-commerce, technology analyst Bill Thompson looks forward to what the coming decade has in store for us. BBC News. "The mere fact that everyone is online will change the way the world works, of course. But the way we use the processing power available will shift too. ... I have my laptop, my mobile phone/PDA, my digital music player and all sorts of other technology in my briefcase at the moment, and if I was willing to make the investment I could have a 3G card and be online even as I type this on a train journey. But these devices do not talk to each other very well, and they do not really talk to other people's devices at all. I think the big change we will see in the next 10 years is that programs will get better at acting independently and communicating over the network without our intervention. Cars will book themselves in for servicing, hospitals will consult online diaries before scheduling an appointment, and fishing boats will sell their catch at market before reaching port, all thanks to these software agents. Of course this brings with it massive risks, and poses threats to privacy and social life which will worry many of us. But we have proven able to absorb the impact the net has made since 1994, and I am optimistic about our ability to do so in future." October 11, 2004: Finding the Candidate for IT. Opinion by Curt A. Monash. Computerworld. "Which U.S. presidential candidate is most in tune with issues of particular interest to IT professionals? On many subjects, the two major candidates, and their parties, are pretty equivalent. Both George Bush | |||