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April 30, 2002: UK
government launches artificial intelligence drive. By Graeme Wearden.
ZDNet UK. "Research project will bring academics and businessmen
together to tell the government how it can help Britain develop computers
that can think. ... The government said on Tuesday that the pilot project
would examine how work on artificial intelligence could benefit from our
knowledge of neuroscience -- the study of the human nervous system and
the brain, which examines the biological basis of consciousness, perception,
memory, and learning. 'Current computing technology is rapidly improving
and computers will at some point in the future have the capacity to make
decisions and have speech recognition. Soon computers, refrigerators and
cars will be able to respond to even our most natural and colloquial speech,'
said a government statement." April 30, 2002: Silicon
super-agents. By Barbara Gengler. Australian IT. "Autonomous
software agents are rapidly moving from the development stage to providing
industrial-strength help in everyday environments. Gartner forecasts that
enterprise automation, which includes autonomous software agents and artificial
intelligence software, will account for almost 50 per cent of total IT
spending in 10 years. By 2010, it will be worth $US250 billion ($463 billion).
This new breed of technology uses small software programs built with artificial
intelligence to make independent decisions, such as automatically searching
for and purchasing products on the web." April 30, 2002: Classic
case. By Jeffrey M. Anderson. The San Francisco Examiner. "In
contrast to the disposable junk that will be filling multiplexes for the
next few months, a handful of new DVDs remind us of what a classic film
really is -- a film that stands the test of time and holds up to multiple
viewings. ... 'A.I. Artificial Intelligence' Nearly every Steven Spielberg
film is overrated as soon as it's released, so it's hugely refreshing
to finally get one that's underrated. We're allowed to spend more alone
time with it -- time to get to know it away from all the false hype. Spielberg
adapted this story of a boy robot who learns to love from his friend and
mentor Stanley Kubrick, and the result is like a combination of the two
filmmaking giants. I was disappointed by the movie's ending when I first
saw it, but after a subsequent viewing I'm having second thoughts." April 29, 2002: From
hero to zero. By Scott Kirsner. Boston Globe Online. "The script
is still being revised, but the odds are good that ABC's 'Wide World of
Disney' will air a made-for-TV movie this year or in 2003 about FIRST,
the New Hampshire-based high school robotics competition founded by inventor
Dean Kamen. ... The plot of the film focuses on a burnt-out teacher at
an inner city school in California, played by Noah Wylie of 'ER'' Wylie's
character helps organize a team of students who are building a robot to
enter the FIRST competition." April 29, 2002: Spyware,
cookies pose threat to Internet privacy. By Greg Bonnell. Canadian
Press / available from Canada.com. "'Vx2's software also uses artificial
intelligence to discern and collect name and address information from
online forms that you fill out.' That sounds like spying. Yet Vx2's use
of your personal information is plainly laid out in the privacy statement
that users agree to when downloading the free software Vx2 rode in on." April 26, 2002: Humans
and their Machines. NPR Science Friday. "Researchers at the MIT
Artificial Intelligence Lab are working to create robots as intelligent
and sociable as humans. At the same time, medical advances are making
humans more robot-like, with mechanical hearts and working artificial
limbs. In this hour, we'll talk with the participants of the First Utah
Symposium in Science and Literature about the relationship between humans
and machines - and just what it means to be human." Listen
to Ira Flatow, anchor of Talk Of The Nation: Science Friday, interview
Rodney Brooks, Anne Foerst, and Richard Powers. April 26, 2002: The
Next Generation - Biotechnology May Make Superhero Fantasy a Reality.
By Joel Garreau. Washington Post. "You can also find disagreement
about whether the biological revolution or the computer revolution first
will lead us to becoming trans-humans. This weekend in Silicon Valley,
Kurzweil is scheduled to debate Gregory Stock, author of 'Redesigning
Humans: Our Inevitable Genetic Future,' and director of the UCLA Program
on Medicine, Technology and Society. Stock foresees 'widespread reworking
of human biology via genetic engineering -- neither governments nor religious
groups will be able to stop this' in the next few decades, says Christine
Petersen, president of the Foresight Institute running the program. 'Greg
sees computer technology as increasingly intelligent, but by and large
not integrated with the human body.' 'Kurzweil agrees with Stock that
the biogenetic changes he foresees will take place, but believes that
we will also see profound integration of our biological systems with nonbiological
intelligence,' enabling routine integration of machines and the brain
by 2030. By 2040, the nonbiological portion will be far more powerful
than the biological portion: We will have become cyborgs, Kurzweil argues." April 25, 2002: NUS
duo honoured for defence research - One discovers a technique to deal
with bio-terror threats; the other is working on robot-operated planes
and submarines. By Chang Ai-Lien. The Straits Times. "Meanwhile,
Prof Ge, 39, who is from the engineering faculty, is working on complex
artificial-intelligence systems that would provide guidelines for operating
planes and sub marines which do not need human pilots. Part of his work
involves giving robots a complete sensory system. 'Many people are working
on one particular area, such as robotic sight. They have forgotten about
the big picture, including other senses like hearing,' he said." April 25, 2002: Robots
train for World Cup. BBC. "Running concurrently with the human
World Cup, automatons will play in Japan in June in the annual Robocup
tournament. The event is officially described as 'the robot world cup
soccer tournament'. ... Now in its sixth year, Robocup aims to bring scientists
together to examine the standards and problems arising in artificial intelligence
and robotic research." April 24, 2002: Think
They'll Start Spelling It Supply 'ChAIn'? By David M. Ewalt. InformationWeek.
"Software makers are rushing to imbue supply-chain-management tools
with artificial intelligence. ... Supply-chain-management programs are
structured sort of like flow charts, following a make-and-sell model of
supply and demand. Software that IBM Labs is building works more like
bees in a hive, with lots of autonomous agents going out into the world
collecting data. The result, says Grace Lin, a senior manager at IBM's
T.J. Watson Research Center, is a system that can more easily consider
new sources of information." April 24, 2002: New
'Smart' Galleries, Wireless and Web-Friendly. By Karen Jones. The
New York Times (no-fee reg. req'd). "Even those who are enthusiastic
about change are wary of going too far in trying to develop new technologies
themselves. 'Museums are not in the hardware business, we're not in the
software business -- we're in the content-development business,' said
Maxwell L. Anderson, the director of the Whitney Museum of American Art.
While Mr. Anderson is interested in exotic possibilities that range from
audio guides with sufficient artificial intelligence to answer questions
from visitors to 3-D-style glasses for reading invisible text on walls,
the bottom line is reliability." April 23, 2002: Robots
bring dubious cheer to the lonely elderly. By Graeme Kerr. Asahi Shimbun.
"The 80-cm tall robots do everything from bidding a cheery 'good
morning' to checking response times to maths riddles to keep old people
alert. Initial feedback is positive, with 60 percent of elderly users
saying they prefer the robot's voice to a human one. 'They are a good
substitute for grandchildren, many of whom live far away,' says Kuniichi
Ozawa, director of the Sincere Kourien nursing home. 'They've definitely
helped cheer up the atmosphere.' Unlikely though it seems, there is growing
evidence that robots-like pets have a therapeutic effect on old folk.
... While sales of pet robots are still small, the Japan Robot Association
predicts that the market will grow to 1.5 trillion yen in 2010 and 4 trillion
yen in 2025. And with the number of people aged 65 or over in Japan set
to rise from 22 million to 30 million by 2005, or a quarter of the population,
firms like Matsushita, Mitsubishi Heavy Industries Ltd. and Secom Co.
are feverishly working on robotic aids to care for the graying population." April 23, 2002: Walk
This Way. By David Cameron. Technology Review. "Whether you do
the moonwalk or the cakewalk, new technologies may soon ID you by how
you strut. ... One approach is to create a 'movement signature' for each
person. Researchers at Carnegie Mellon University's Robotics Institute
begin by filming individuals walking and running on a treadmill. ... Software
tools remove any background footage, leaving a series of silhouettes of
each subject, which are then stored as digital images. ... A team at Georgia
Tech, led by computational-vision researcher Aaron Bobick, uses a method
called structural analysis to measure properties like a person's stride
length and leg spread. ... Although DARPA's interest is primarily in potential
military and security applications, researchers envision a broad range
of uses. CMU's Collins imagines integrating gait recognition into department
stores or supermarkets, not for security but for marketing." April 22, 2002: Call
for database to monitor gambling. By Amanda Wells. Stuff (New Zealand).
"Gamblers could monitor their betting and the Government could get
a better handle on the gambling spend with more intelligent, centralised
computer systems, says a betting technology specialist. ... Traditional
gambling will become less and less appealing to the generation raised
on PCs and PlayStations, he says, and any monitoring will have to cope
with gambling that incorporates the addictive aspects of these technologies.
Computer games have become so engaging that players already immerse themselves
in virtual worlds for hours on end, with some offering interactive play
against others round the world over the Internet. ... The prototype incorporates
a digital camera, which will be configured with face recognition technology,
so that players cannot go to another machine or set up another identity
in order to exceed their limit." April 22, 2002: Developing
Short And Long Term Antiterrorist Approach. UniSci. "While terrorism's
threat may never be ultimately eliminated, [Gerry] Yonas and ACG member
John Whitley's concept is to see the problem reduced technically and emotionally
to the routine preventive measures currently employed to deal with fire.
... A way to minimize damage from future terrorist attacks is to create
a smarter, more durable infrastructure. Damage-resistant systems provide
better static defense, along with 'aware, intelligent' systems that mitigate
damage, help rescue personnel, and restore services. ... Software tools
for pattern recognition would identify and track suspicious behavior.
The work would complement attempts at the Defense Advanced Research Projects
Agency to work with neurosciences to develop models of learning, and the
Defense Threat Reduction Agency's exploration with Hollywood and the Artificial
Intelligence community for creative, highly computerized scenarios to
address similar goals as DICTUM." FYI -> April 22, 2002: Agreement on Computer Recycling. By Jennifer Lee. The New York Times (no-fee reg. req'd). "Responding to a growing problem of waste computer equipment, manufacturers and local governments have agreed in principle to set up a nationwide recycling program. ... 'The message to the consumer when they are buying the product is that responsibility of it is not only in the use, but also in the after-use,' said Scott Cassel, the director of the Product Stewardship Institute, which is taking part in the recycling discussions. Disposal of obsolete computers has become an increasing financial and logistical headache for local governments over the last several years. The toxic materials and the intricate designs make environmentally sound disposal expensive." April 22, 2002: Fancy
an electronic helper through life? By Maggie Shiels. BBC. "Inside
a nondescript squat brick building that is home to Sprint's Advanced Technology
Lab, a team of engineers, scientists and technologists is busy devising
what it hopes might become the virtual future. And at the centre of operations
is something called an 'e-assistant'. The company bills the invention
as 'an intelligent agent that acts as a virtual personal assistant to
help you sort through the junk mail of life'. ... 'In the morning you'd
like to have something that as an entity will fetch your e-mail, tell
you about your appointments and remind you of the files to bring to work,
recognise what the weather is going to be like and say, 'Hey! - it's going
to rain today. Bring the umbrella.' ... In reality, the e-assistant is
an amalgam of various existing technologies ranging from voice recognition
to face recognition." April 21, 2002: How
to Get There? It Counts the Ways. By Sarah Milstein. The New York
Times (no-fee reg. req'd). "The founder of ITA, Jeremy Wertheimer,
said that the company began as what he half-jokingly called a 'thesis
avoidance project.' Mr. Wertheimer, 40, was a graduate student in artificial
intelligence at M.I.T. in the early 1990's when he became interested in
air-fare searching -- a classic computer science problem. ... Intrigued
by how computers could wade through so much information to search for
the cheapest fares quickly, he developed a demonstration program using
Lisp, an artificial intelligence language that allows enormous quantities
of data to be manipulated on a desktop computer. That program became the
basis for ITA, which Mr. Wertheimer founded with friends in 1996." April 21, 2002: Carry
on, Nurse Robot - Review of a Radio Program. The Observer. "Why
did the jellybean go to school? Because she wanted to become a Smartie.
No, I don't think it's very funny either but it isn't my joke. It came
from Pearl, a nurse at an old peoples' home, whose job, along with reminding
the residents to take their medicine and guiding them to the doctor's
rooms for appointments, is to put newcomers at their ease. Telling them
jokes, even feeble jellybean jokes, breaks the ice. That, at any rate,
is what the people who programmed Pearl for the job reckoned and here
I should tell you that Pearl is not just a nurse, she's a nursebot, ie
a robot designed to work with people. Humanoids, as they are also called,
we learnt on Discovery: Robots are a new generation of robots which
will, in time, be able to interpret our moods, recognise our tone and
react accordingly, unlike the three-quarters of a million purely mechanical
robots working in the car industry." April 21, 2002: Robot
cameras 'will predict crimes before they happen.' By Andrew Johnson.
Independent News. "Computers and CCTV cameras could be used to predict
and prevent crime before it happens. Scientists at Kingston University
in London have developed software able to anticipate if someone is about
to mug an old lady or plant a bomb at an airport. It works by examining
images coming in from close circuit television cameras (CCTV) and comparing
them to behaviour patterns that have already programmed into its memory.
The software, called Cromatica, can then mathematically work out what
is likely to happen next. And if it is likely to be a crime it can send
a warning signal to a security guard or police officer. 'Our technology
excels at carrying out the boring, repetitive tasks and highlighting potential
situations that could otherwise go unnoticed,'[Dr Sergio Velastin] added." April 20, 2002: Review
by Paul Marks of Douglas Mulhall's book, Our Molecular Future: How nanotechnology,
robotics, genetics, and artificial intelligence will transform our world.
New Scientist. "But plenty of others worry where research into genetics,
robotics, artificial intelligence and nanotechnology, known as the GRAIN
technologies, is leading us? Will nanomachines undertaking tasks such
as scrubbing the plaque from our arteries one day evolve into forms that
threaten us? Will learning machines assume control of our computing constructs,
like the Internet? April 20, 2002: Talking
tech makes life easier. By Jane Wakefield. BBC. "Speech will
increasingly play an important part in people's relationship with technology,
and ultimately we may even talk to the web. This was the view of delegates
who gathered in London for the annual speech technology conference Voice
World. ... 'A happy medium between automation and a real person is speech
recognition', said Stuart Patterson, CEO of SpeechWorks, a company specialising
in such software. A human sounding voice takes your call and can respond
to your spoken enquiry. Speech technology known as Natural Language ASR
means that computers respond to the meaning of sentences rather than just
specific words. This gives it more of a 'brain' and makes it able to anticipate
callers' questions, which in turn saves time and is less frustrating for
callers." April 20, 2002: 2 Book Reviews from The Guardian.
1) "Turk's
gambit - Simon Singh discovers a chess wizard that mimicked artificial
intelligence in The Mechanical Turk by Tom Standage. ... Now we have The
Mechanical Turk, the story of the 18th-century automaton that convinced
everyone that a machine could play world-class chess, a feat that was
only truly achieved in the last decade. Standage reveals how our ancestors
reacted to this first apparent example of artificial intelligence."
and 2) "Robot
wars - Dylan Evans glimpses technotopia in Robot: The Future of Flesh
and Machines by Rodney A. Brooks. ... It may appear rather precocious
for a field of study that is less than 50 years old to pride itself on
having a 'classical' form and 'non-classical' variants. Yet this is how
those at the cutting edge of artificial intelligence (AI) describe the
theoretical diversity that currently characterises their discipline." April 20, 2002: N.Korea
Unveils Software Industry. By Joe McDonald. Associated Press / available
from Miami.com / also
available from The Age (April 22, 2002). "'The great general
Kim Jong Il is devoted constantly' to information technology, Kim Ho,
an official of North Korea's Academy of Sciences, said at a news conference.
... The isolated North makes an unusual player in the freewheeling world
of software and the borderless Internet. ... The officials said the North
hopes to branch out into software for e-commerce, biotechnology and artificial
intelligence." April 19, 2002:
Crunching for Dollars - A.I. takes aim at Wall Street. By Joe Ashbrook
Nickell. Technology Review. "In June, a computer its creators call
the most powerful ever built for commercial use (and the fifth most powerful
in the world) will go online in Los Angeles. The machine, as yet unnamed,
will be dedicated to one goal: beating Wall Street. ... Enter artificial
intelligence. Many software firms, including Ward Systems, offer PC-based
AI software for individual and institutional investors. The software incorporates
a combination of artificial intelligence technologies, including fuzzy
logic, neural networks and genetic algorithm optimization to help predict
the performance of an investment." April 18, 2002: Giving
Computer Voices a 'Human Touch' - Companies Deliver Personalization
with Friendly, Helpful Machines. From David Kestenbaum for
NPR's All Things Considered. "Only a few years ago, customers had
to push buttons to interact with computerized phone systems, and speech
recognition only worked if you spoke the Queen's English into a high quality
microphone. But voice recognition software has become more clever, as
have designers. The conversations are carefully choreographed so the computer
only has to understand a handful of statements." Listen to the audio
report - and be sure to sample some of the demos. April 18, 2002: Microsoft
pictures the future. By Mark Ward. BBC. "Microsoft is working
on ways to make digital images as easy to change and improve as text.
Scientists at the software giant's Cambridge research lab in the UK are
developing tools that automate many of the complex tasks needed to enhance
or edit amateur digital photos or images. The tools can automatically
trace outlines, seamlessly cover marks or blemishes, and fill in backgrounds
when pieces of an image are removed. The researchers are also working
on similar tools that automate the editing of video clips." April 18, 2002: Such
a Comfort to Grandma, and He Runs on Double-A's. By Anne Eisenberg.
The New York Times (no-fee reg. req'd). "When Tony, the don of television's
Soprano family, put his increasingly forgetful mother in a retirement
home, she was so angry that she tried to have him whacked. Maybe he should
have considered a robot to keep her company in her own house. ... In a
collaborative project between Purdue University and the University of
Washington supported by the National Science Foundation, researchers are
investigating the psychological effects of robotic dogs on the lives of
the elderly. ... Other research sponsored by the National Science Foundation
is directed toward testing prototypes of humanoid robots that may one
day help the elderly in their homes, reminding them of necessary tasks
or playing a card game with them." April 18, 2002: High
Schools Vie to Build a Robotic Champ. By Scott Kirsner. The New York
Times (no-fee reg. req'd). "Both First [For Inspiration and Recognition
of Science and Technology] and BattleBots IQ, the high school and middle
school tournament based on the television show, promote robot-building
as an educational and enriching team-building experience. But while First's
founders design games that require robots to perform tasks like scooping
up balls and pushing wheeled bins, the goal in BattleBots is to pound
one's opponent into inoperability. 'It's what kids want to do,' said Trey
Roski, a co-founder of BattleBots. 'They want to fight. It's instinctual.'
For Dr. Flowers, that premise is troubling. 'Philosophically, I worry
about celebrating killing the other thing,' he said. He coined the term
'gracious professionalism' to inculcate in First participants a sense
of the importance not just of winning but of helping other teams along
the way too. The two robotic-battle organizers seem to be girding for
a rumble of their own for the loyalty of high school students and teachers,
as BattleBots IQ outlines plans to grow from 17 schools in its inaugural
season to 50 next year and wraps up a deal with the WB Network to create
a television show featuring the students' robots." April 17, 2002: No
Medium Beats Magazines for Consumer Convenience. Korea Times. "Life
isn't all about political and social change. Life is, after all, sometimes
just about living. Like living with machines that are smarter than we
are. Clearly, when the history of the last two decades is written, technological
change will have more than its share of headlines. Magazines dominate
those stories, too. In country after country, who introduced readers to
the computer revolution...rated the performance of new equipment...created
communities of users to help with problem-solving...and then went on to
do the same for generations of software and now the Internet? Magazines,
that's who." - From the "keynote speech by Richard Smith, chairman/editor-in-chief
of Newsweek Magazine, for the Asia-Pacific Magazine Media Regional Conference
underway at COEX Inter-Continental Hotel in southern Seoul." April 17, 2002: Mohammed
approves by-laws. Gulf News Online. "General Sheikh Mohammed
bin Rashid Al Maktoum, Crown Prince of Dubai, UAE Minister of Defence
and Head of Dubai Police and Public Security, yesterday approved by-laws
and organisational structure of the Dubai Decision Support Centre (DDSC).
... Following is the text of Sheikh Mohammed's decision approving by-laws
of the DDSC: We, Mohammed bin Rashid Al Maktoum, Dubai Crown Prince and
Head of Dubai Police and Public Security, aiming to set into motion the
mechanism of decision making, rationalise decisions, support decision
makers in various sectors particularly under uncertainty and risk and
to make greater outcome of decisions, decides as follows: ... Article
(4) The main tasks of the DDSC shall be as follows: ... 12: Establishing
quantity programme bases and artificial intelligence methods to enhance
ability to take decisions under different uncertainty levels." April 16, 2002: The
Phraselator Translation System Put to the Test in Afghanistan. By
Rob Terry. Washington Post. "The device is the Phraselator, a hand-held
computer that translates more than 1,000 spoken English phrases into other
languages. ... the wireless device is being used by peacekeeping troops
in Afghanistan to communicate in Arabic, Urdu, Pashto and Dari. The Sept.
11 terrorist attacks placed new urgency in going from crude prototype
to fully functioning PDA. That meant working through four prototypes to
smooth out the audio system and its power source -- it runs on rechargeable
or AA batteries -- and input a versatile library of phrases like 'Hello,
may I help you' and 'Stop or I'll shoot,' played in sound files of native
speakers." April 16, 2002: Machines
Are Filling In for Troops. By James Dao and Andrew C. Revkin. The
New York Times (no-fee reg. req'd). "But the Pentagon, energized
by successes in Afghanistan, is moving ever closer to draining the human
drama from the battlefield and replacing it with a ballet of machines.
Rapid advances in technology have brought an array of sensors, vehicles
and weapons that can be operated by remote control or are totally autonomous.
Within a decade, those machines will be able to perform many of the most
dangerous, strenuous or boring tasks now assigned to people, military
planners say, paving the way for a fundamental change in warfare." April 16, 2001: Robotic-milking
proves popular with the cows. By Leigh Roberts. The Western Mail /
available from icWales. "Cow access to the robots is computer-controlled.
Cows wear a collar that identifies them to the robot and they can go to
the robot for milking when they feel like it. But if they make too many
visits, they are simply let out of the robot without being fed or milked.
... The robot picks up an astonishing amount of information. It checks
temperature, for mastitis, blood in the milk, the cow's weight and activity
level, which could indicate bulling or sickness for instance. An alarm
contacts the operator to alert to any serious problems, such as a cow
that hasn't paid a visit to be milked for a while. A print-out of information
three times a day highlights any deviations from the norm which can be
quickly picked up and acted upon." April 15, 2002: In
Search of Blessed Bots. By C. Brian Smith. Library Journal netConnect
(Spring 2002). "Call it the case of bots to the rescue. Despite their
cute name, they could soon be a powerful addition to the librarians' and
information professionals' toolkit. Eric Lease Morgan, head of the new
Digital Access and Information Architecture Department at Notre Dame University
Libraries and founder of Infomotions, Inc., defines a bot as 'a computer
application mimicking or embodying elements of human intellect.' Also
known as intelligent agents, bots are computer programs that act independently
and autonomously -- but on behalf -- of another. ... With bots, librarians
and information professionals are poised to step into the brave new world
of artificial intelligence (AI). Though still largely in the experimental
stages of use in libraries, bots promise time savings in our current work
and the help needed to expand our roles." April 15, 2002: Awareness
- Mystery of the Mind. By Mark K. Anderson. Wired News. "In the
quest to make a brainpower computer, perhaps the biggest mysteries remains
the most nebulous: Where does awareness come from? Can it be simulated?
What does awareness by itself look like? ... [Randolph] Blake said that
binocular rivalry is a useful tool for probing some of the rudiments of
awareness, but the 'knife is not sharp enough' to slice into the root
cause of awareness. To that end, he cited the early 20th century psychologist
William James. 'We know what consciousness is,' James famously wrote,
'as long as no one asks us to define it.'" April 14, 2002: 'Flesh
and Machines.: The Future of Robotics. A book review by Dick Teresi.
The New York Times (no-fee reg. req'd). "[Rodney A.] Brooks doesn't
paint a bright line between conscious and unconscious, but implies a continuum
of conscious behavior from nuts and bolts to humans, just as we infer
increasing consciousness from lobsters (O.K. to throw in boiling water)
to dogs (non-boilable companions) to chimps (almost human). When the chess-playing
computer Deep Blue beat Garry Kasparov, he said it played as if it 'had
a plan.' But Deep Blue was qualitatively no different from chess computers
of the 1960's; it was just much faster. Brooks predicts that we will soon
see an explosion of humanoid robots (first, probably, as house servants)
and that we will award them human rights." April 14, 2002: Big
Brains Rule Trading Floor. By Elizabeth Lazarowitz. Reuters / also
available from The New York Times (no-fee reg. req'd). "Since
the flashing screens and blinking lights of computers made their debut
on trading floors, pundits and the press have been predicting traders
would become extinct, replaced by machines that coldly and anonymously
match buyers and sellers. While that scenario has not come to pass just
yet, the era of the stereotypical Wall Street trader -- both celebrated
and vilified in movies and popular culture as sharp-elbowed symbols of
the American dream -- may be drawing to a close. Mathisson's team -- like
a growing number of tech-savvy traders -- create programs to make the
computer a tool for making small-scale pricing decisions, the task traditionally
performed by traders." April 12, 2002: A
Ballgame with a Difference. By Thorsten Karg. DW-World. "Today,
you could see soccer robots as a way for geeks and freaks to enjoy a high-tech
form of sports. But robotic soccer is more than that. The people developing
soccer robots are actually solving a number of complex technical problems
which can have an impact far beyond 'the game'. To get the soccer robots
to function, they have to combine the latest findings from research into
artificial intelligence and robotics. During the game, the developers
and controllers have to analyse fuzzy and constantly changing sensor data
in real time, predict game situations and produce control commands quickly.
In addition, the robots have to be able to communicate with each other
so that they can co-ordinate their game." April 11, 2002: Can
Technology Foil Hijackers? By Matthew L. Wald. The New York Times
(no-fee reg. req'd). "Another idea examined since Sept. 11 is the
remote control of hijacked airplanes. Such control has advanced sharply
in recent years for military planes and has proved its worth in Afghanistan.
The newest systems are designed to let a single operator run four drones
at once, because the drones are given a preprogrammed mission and endowed
with some artificial intelligence that lets them make some decisions on
their own." April 11, 2002:
Money Talks -- and So Should ATMs. Assistive Technology column by
Suzanne Robitaille. Business Week. "Banks have been slow to make
their machines audio-enabled for the visually impaired. They're being
pound-foolish ... Even though ATM keypads feature Braille, that's not
enough, disability advocates argue, since only one-fifth of the nation's
1.1 million legally blind can read Braille. 'If you can't follow the screen,
Braille is useless,' Dyson says. A few big banks like Fleet and Bank of
America have installed some talking ATMs over the years in select states,
but 'there's a long, long way to go before the blind can walk up to any
ATM and take for granted that it will talk to us,' says Curtis Chong,
technology director at the National Federation of the Blind (NFB). ...
Current ATM talk technology does have some shortcomings. Most ATMs don't
use text-based software, so all the information has to be prerecorded
for each screen in what's called a .wav file, which works by digitizing
recordings of real human voices. ... Banks are more likely to embrace
text-to-speech technology, the ABA's Feddis says. Text-to-speech 'reads'
any string of text. It doesn't have to be prerecorded, and it runs on
common platforms such as Windows 2000." April 11, 2002: CTO
Forum - Will artificial intelligence surpass the human variety? By
Paul Krill. InfoWorld. "Among other things, the competition between
human and artificial intelligence was pondered during a panel session
at CTO Forum on Wednesday. ... 'The question of surpassing human intelligence
is a very tortured one because you have to [realize] what that means,'
said panelist William Mark, vice president of information and computing
sciences at SRI International. ... Panelist Henry McDonald, director of
the NASA Ames Research Center, cited artificial intelligence, which he
said is in the same long-term development process as the Internet. McDonald
stressed that funding issues are critical to the development of new technologies.
The government used to fund two-thirds of development and one-third came
from private industry, he said. 'Today, only one-third comes from government
and two-thirds comes from industry, and industry is a short-term commitment,'
McDonald said." April 11, 2002: Firm
aims to 'computerize' common sense. Computerworld / available from
CNN.com/Sci-Tech. "Austin, Texas-based Cycorp claims to be 'the leading
supplier of formalized common sense.' CEO and founder Doug Lenat has labored
17 years to codify facts such as 'Once people die, they stop buying things.'
He uses a form of symbolic logic called 'predicate calculus' to classify
and show the properties of information in a standard way. ... Is Cyc
like the human genome project, where eventually you will be done, or will
it grow forever? I refer to it as the human 'memome' project. A typical
person knows about 100 million things about the world. I see us crossing
that point in five years. It's difficult to predict the course thereafter." April 11, 2002: RoboCup
Dreams Of Martian Games. By Hans-Arthur Marsiske. SpaceDaily. "This
year's RoboCup season has been opened a few weeks ago with the Japan Spring
Competitions that will be followed by the German Open the coming weekend,
April 11-14. These local competitions are very important tests in the
preparation for the world championship, June 19-25 in Fukuoka, Japan,
and Busan, South Korea. ... The games will be different this year, though,
since the playing field has changed. There will be no more cushions on
the sides. ... Another innovation that will be shown at RoboCup German
Open is a table-soccer game which on one side is controlled by a computer.
For the first time, this 'Kickerroboter' gives the opportunity for a direct
confrontation between human and robot. ... But the real highlight of this
year's RoboCup tournaments will be the introduction of the humanoid league
at the world championship in Japan." April 10, 2002: Mocaps'
grab all the right moves. By Mike Snider. USA Today. "Motion-capture
technology -- computer-aided animation based on the recorded movements
of real people -- has been a staple of the video game world for years.
But the techniques have gotten so sophisticated and the computational
power has increased so dramatically that motion capture now also stars
in some of the biggest movies of the year. ... The vast Mordor battle
scene in Fellowship of the Ring had 45,000 combatants. The Weta team developed
a program called Massive that allowed each individual motion-capture character
in the scene to have its own artificial intelligence. 'They are programmed
to find the enemy and attack or defend themselves,' Osborne says. '(The
program) had the ability to randomize motions so that not all the soldiers
are doing the same thing. They look like a real army.'" April 9, 2002: 'Spot'
Goes High-Tech -- Researchers Try Robotic Pets as Companions for the
Elderly. By Jackie Judd. ABC News. "The robotic dogs were brought
to Rosewalk by researchers at Indiana's Purdue University as part of a
pilot project to determine whether robots can make people happier. ...
Before Aibo could work his magic, the Rosewalk residents had to make the
mental leap to treat the robot like a real dog. That didn't seem to take
long. When Aibo first was brought into Rosewalk, the residents seemed
skeptical and resistant. But in a few minutes, Aibo was being talked to
and touched as if it were real. ... Ronald Arkin, director of the Robot
Mobile Laboratory at the Georgia Institute of Technology and one of Aibo's
designers, explained the how those feelings of attachment get triggered.
'The key in bonding with these kinds of systems, it's important to exhibit
novelty over the long term,' he said. 'And so we allow them to change
their behavior, not just immediately, but over a period of weeks, months
and potentially years.'... The very concept of robots that seduce people
into thinking they are real is just too much for sociologist Sherry Turkle,
director of the Initiative on Technology and Self at the Massachusetts
Institute of Technology." April 8, 2002: ARTificial
Intelligence. AbsoluteArts. "Tacoma Art Museum (TAM) presents
ARTificial Intelligence, an exhibition of toy and model robots, pulp-fiction
space adventure novel covers, and other robot memorabilia from local toy
collectors. ... These conflicting images and ideals -- robot as protector
versus robot as servant --set the stage for TAM's exhibition, which explores
interpretations of the robot in literature, film and pop culture." April 8, 2002: Tech
leaders plot rebound strategies. Innovation round table: Forgetting
rocky past a theme at Ottawa conference. By Jill Vardy. Financial Post.
"Ottawa's seventh Innovation Round Table, which starts today, will
give beleaguered technology executives a chance to strategize on the future
for high tech in Ottawa and a break from thinking about the industry's
misfortunes. This year's innovation conference will attract more than
200 community and business leaders from the high-tech, education and public
sectors. Discussions will focus on emerging technology clusters -- including
genomics, artificial intelligence, nanotechnology, bio-informatics, fabless
semiconductor and photonics -- that stand the best chance of contributing
to Ottawa's economic growth." April 4, 2002: Talking
washing machine hits India. BBC. "Electrolux will launch a talking
washing machine, known as the Washy Talky, in India later this month.
The top-loader speaks in a soft, Indian middle-class female accent and
uses 90 different phrases in Hindi and English, gently giving instructions
like 'drop the detergent, close the lid and relax'. ... The washer does
more than just talk. It can also make decisions. Using a type of artificial
intelligence called 'fuzzy logic', the machine senses the load weight
and chooses the optimum programme." April 4, 2002: Prof:
Make computers smarter - Princeton Professor John Hopfield spoke about
his research on artificial intelligence. By Sruthi Vangala. Daily Pennsylvanian.
"John Hopfield wants computers to act more like humans. Tuesday,
a full house gathered in Heilmeier Hall to hear the Princeton University
Molecular Biology professor speak about his award winning research in
neurobiology. Hopfield explained that while the computer can perform a
number of computational tasks, it cannot perform the simple function of
recognition, a task that a pigeon is capable of --with a brain the size
of a walnut. Hopfield said that by applying knowledge about the workings
of the brain to the internal structure of the computer, this type of logical
reasoning and recognition may soon be possible. His work bridges the fields
of neurobiology, electrical engineering and the physical sciences. ...
Hopfield pointed out that the human brain sees objects by recognizing
things that move together. By applying this same rationale to computers,
machine vision is certainly within reach. He extended this manner of reasoning
to linguistics, as well. Hopfield said he believes that the associations
that a brain makes with sounds that it hears can be imitated within the
inner workings of the computer itself." April 4, 2002: Trade
Secrets of the 6-Legged Set. By Chee Pearlman. The New York Times
(no-fee reg. req'd). "Don't pity Prof. Robert J. Full, a biologist
who spends most days handling giant cockroaches, finger-biting geckos
and poisonous centipedes. ... These creatures are a source of wisdom in
his designs for robots like Mecho-gecko, the all-terrain Hummer of mechanical
movers, or RHex, a cockroach-inspired robot built at the University of
Michigan and McGill University, which can climb through rubble and up
stairs and can even swim. Professor Full expects that such robots, equipped
with sensors, will someday be deployed to search out people trapped in
buildings by earthquakes or other disasters." The article also includes
a question and answer session with the Professor which begins with the
question: "As a biologist, how do you contribute to the design of
robots?" April 3, 2002: Robots
Make the Rounds To Ease Hospitals' Costs - VA Experience May Herald
New Uses for 'Droids.' By Susan Okie. Washington Post. "Stationary
robots and those that roll along tracks or wires are used in many industries,
but independently mobile robots that interact with human co-workers or
the general public are still relatively uncommon. Yet 'service robots,'
designed to perform mundane jobs such as delivering drugs, food trays
and laboratory specimens, are increasingly being employed in hospitals,
which must operate 24 hours a day and face severe labor shortages and
high costs for personnel. ... 'Oh, the robot. I'm so used to him now,'
said James Tulsky, a doctor on the hospital staff. 'We all treat him like
a co-worker, like somebody with a personality. He talks to you, he walks
around you.'" April 3, 2002: Cliff-top
chaos with a twist - The world premiere of 'Auf den Mamorklippen'
sees opera reinvented as postmodern multimedia circus. By Shirley Apthorp.
Financial Times. "Auf den Mamorklippen, according to La Fura dels
Baus, is not just a piece about two pacifist philosophers and a brutal
despot. It's also a reflection on time and space, a digital opera which
comments on perpetual motion, an expression of a new kind of symbolism
about robots and video games, and a post-September 11 moral warning about
gene manipulation and artificial intelligence. That's an awful lot to
pack into a 90-minute opera." April 2, 2002: Japanese
researchers labour to spawn robot industry. By Masayuki Kitano. Reuters
/ available from Yahoo India Technology. "By the end of the decade,
the people who disarm bombs and search for survivors after a disaster
may no longer need to put their lives on the line -- a machine, possibly
made in Japan, will do the dangerous stuff. That is one goal of the Japanese
government's five billion yen ($37.7 million) Humanoid Robotics Project
(HRP), which aims to market within a few years robots that can operate
power shovels, assist construction workers and care for the elderly. ...
The Japan Robot Association, an industry body, estimates that the robot
industry could grow to 3.0 trillion yen ($22.61 billion) by 2010. The
figure has hovered around 500 billion yen for the past few years." April 1, 2002: Sony
Unveils New Robot. By Christine Elliot. Voice of America. "Sony
Corporation has unveiled a human-like robot with a larger vocabulary than
most people. Companies and researchers across the globe are creating new
robots for both work and play. ... Rodney Brooks is the Artificial Intelligence
Director at the Massachusetts Institute of Technology. His company, irobot
corporation, has developed what it calls 'remote presence' robots. They
allow their owners to control them from anywhere in the world by using
the Internet. He calls this 'robottling.' 'Just the other day someone
out in an oil field in northern Europe robottled into a robot in Louisiana
to a warehouse and checked out what supplies of spare parts were available,
and supervised the loading of exactly the right spare parts that they
wanted in the remote site so that they didn't get the wrong parts delivered
when the plane finally got out to where they were,' he said." April 1, 2002: On
a Futurists' Forum, Money Backs Up Predictions. By Andrew Zipern.
The New York Times (no-fee reg. req'd). "The Long Bets Foundation,
a nonprofit group founded by two longtime Silicon Valley gadflies, Stewart
Brand and Kevin Kelly, started an online forum last week for those willing
to put their money, and reputations, behind their speculation. ... Ray
Kurzweil, an artificial intelligence expert, bet Mitchell D. Kapor, the
founder of Lotus Development, that by 2029 'a computer -- or 'machine
intelligence' ' will pass the Turing test, which states that artificial
intelligence will be proved when a machine's conversation can be mistaken
for a person's. Each man wagered $10,000 of his own money." April 2002: Data
to the Rescue Innovation. By Kevin Hogan. Technology Review. "'If
you begin to look at current crisis management infrastructures, they're
messy. It's helter-skelter,' says James Llinas, director of the [State
University of New York at Buffalo's] Center for Multisource Information
Fusion. ... Currently, an official trying to ascertain road damage in
the aftermath of an earthquake might have to keep one eye on the TV news
while listening to both radio traffic reports and the police scanner.
Since most of these data are available in digital form, the software could
take them all in, process them and present a report outlining the best
evacuation routes." April 1, 2002: Game-Design
Courses Gain Favor. By Claudia H. Deutsch. The New York Times (no-fee
reg. req'd). "'Games are interactive.' They are also a hot growth
area. The Rochester Institute, whose department of information technology
just started the first master's program in computer game design, estimates
that the $20 billion computer game industry will grow to a $100 billion-a-year
business within a decade. ... Students, recruiters and other game executives
say that entry-level game designers rarely get more than $45,000, and
experienced designers rarely earn more than $120,000. ... What keeps the
students motivated, though, is their love of games, combined with the
intellectual challenge of game design. Animated movies have fixed plots,
but with a game, each image is predicated on the player's previous move,
so the game must be programmed with a form of artificial intelligence." April 1, 2002: Computer,
Heal Thyself. By Karyl Scott. Information Week. "Too bad computers
aren't more like people. When we work harder, our hearts beat faster.
When we're hot, we sweat. But in the 54 years since British mathematician
Alan Turing introduced the notion of artificial intelligence, computer
scientists haven't delivered anything close to a self-aware and self-healing
computer. That may change soon enough. Researchers in business and government
labs are building systems that will challenge what it means to be an IT
worker by automating many of the monitoring and maintenance tasks done
today by hand. ... The motivating factor behind it all: to wage war on
complexity. The interlocking pieces of software that make up business
computer networks will soon be beyond the comprehension of most IT workers.
Plus, these complex systems tend to be fragile, breaking down when even
minor changes are made. ... The ultimate goal of adaptive computing isn't
just to have smart, self-healing systems, but to have smart business processes.
That's the prize researchers at Sun are aiming for with a product-forecasting
system that constantly monitors its own performance and tests assumptions
about business execution." April 2002: Seeing
Around Corners. By Jonathan Rauch. The Atlantic. "At Santa Fe
just then a big subject was artificial life, often called A-life. 'All
of the work was about coral reefs, ecology, growing things that look like
trees, growing things that look like flocks of birds, schools of fish,
coral, and so on,' [Joshua] Epstein told me. 'And I thought, jeez, why
don't we try to use these techniques to grow societies?' Fired up, he
returned to Brookings and discussed the idea with Axtell. There followed
the inevitable napkin moment...." April 2002: Augmented
Reality - A New Way of Seeing. By Steven K. Feiner. Scientific American.
"Computer scientists are developing systems that can enhance and
enrich a user's view of the world. ... One technique for combating such
errors is to equip AR systems with software that makes short-term predictions
about the user's future motions by extrapolating from previous movements.
And in the long run, hybrid trackers that include computer vision technologies
may be able to trigger appropriate graphics overlays when the devices
recognize certain objects in the user's view.
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