Year 2002 Archive of AI in the news articles
 -- September --
(a subtopic of AI in the news)


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SEPTEMBER:

 

SEPTEMBER 2002

September 30, 2002: Sensing danger - Artificial eyes, ears, and noses for stronger, safer troops. By Kenneth Terrell. US News & World Report. "He can see past hills and into caves. He can smell the deadly land mines buried nearby. He can hear a fallen comrade breathing on the other side of a wall. Move over, Superman; here comes GI Joe. New technologies could boost ordinary soldiers' ability to sense what awaits them around the next corner without putting themselves in danger. ... The nose doesn't have a specific receptor for the smell of roses; instead it detects a particular mixture of sweet, sour, and floral, which the brain recognizes as a rose. Similarly, the Tufts artificial nose has 16 fluorescent sensor strips, each sensitive to a different range of molecules, and a computer that interprets their response pattern to determine whether or not they have sniffed a mine. While this method can be better at filtering out false alarms than the Fido approach, it may not be quite as sensitive to explosives-related chemicals."
>>> Artificial Noses, Vision, Military, Applications, Hazards & Disasters
-> back to headlines

September 30, 2002: Robots take over cinema. Edinburgh Evening News. "A city cinema will be hosting a special event exploring the subject of artificial intelligence in the movies next month. ... Experts from Edinburgh University will lead a discussion on [The Terminator] about a deadly robot as well as other futuristic classics like Total Recall, Blade Runner and The Matrix"
>>> SciFi
-> back to headlines

September 30, 2002: Toddling toward high tech - New generation of toys will help next generation of kids' development. By L.A. Lorek. San Antonio Express-News / available from The Beacon Journal. "Today's cutting-edge technology toys for toddlers are blurring the boundaries between the living and the mechanical. ... These are among a new batch of high-tech teaching toys designed for preschoolers. In creating them, toymakers have pushed the limits of artificial intelligence, speech synthesis, wireless communications and networked virtual reality. Experts say the attention spans of young children may be too limited to play with the toys for more than a few minutes at a time. Books, dolls and blocks still should be a part of any child's playtime. ... Little evidence exists to show that technology toys cause any harm to infants and toddlers. Still, some researchers and parents worry that the interactive toys might disrupt imaginative play and de-emphasize human interactions that contribute to social learning. [Stevanne] Auerbach disagrees. 'Kids will get shortchanged if they don't have some of these tools and learn these skills before kindergarten,' Auerbach said. 'I would hope these toys will open up the door to more learning.' ... Smarty's Workshop, a new $60 robot that came out in August and helps children learn how to saw, hammer and work on projects, was a favorite among the 3-year-olds. The robot actually sits at a workbench filled with activities and an LCD screen built into his chest shows children what to do while Smarty talks them through it. He provides encouragement and ste--by-step instructions."
>>> Education, Intelligent Tutoring Systems, Applications
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September 30, 2002: Digital Artworks That Play Against Expectations. By Matthew Mirapaul. The New York Times (no-fee reg. req'd). "Ada1852 is a digital docent. She conducts tours of the online-art site Rhizome.org by replying to questions that are typed and transmitted over the Internet. Through these exchanges, she can respond to a visitor's interests and suggest viewings of specific Internet-based artworks, and then supply links to the pieces. Like a human museum guide, Ada1852 occasionally departs from the scripted commentary to make oddly personal remarks. During a recent chat session, the virtual character was asked about a site and replied, 'Perhaps I am slipping into madness.' Ada1852 is the creation of Christopher Fahey, a New York artist who rewrote an existing artificial-intelligence program so that its bland, computer-generated conversations with people would seem less mechanical. 'I did not want to build a person whose primary function was to be a nonperson,' Mr. Fahey said. By giving Ada1852 a personality that verges on the disturbed, he is subverting many notions about artificial intelligence. Mr. Fahey's troubled tour guide is one of five online-art projects commissioned by Rhizome.org, a nonprofit organization in New York. (The new works were to be put online today at rhizome.org/commissions. Starting Wednesday , they also can be seen at the New Museum of Contemporary Art in SoHo.)"
>>> Art, Natural Language (including Chatterbots), Marketing & Customer Relations, Applications
-> back to headlines

September 29, 2002: The next revolution in household chores. Downtown Journal column by Monica Collins. Boston Herald. "Great minds from MIT's Artificial Intelligence Lab designed Roomba because they were aware of those 'Jetson' and 'Star Wars' stereotypes and wanted a more user-friendly robot. The robotics engineers believe if affordable robots are going to go mainstream, the creatures will have to do housework. ... When iRobot did focus-group testing in Chicago and the Boston area, groups of soccer moms and young parents were asked: 'Do you want a robot in your home to help with cleaning?' Initially, participants were appalled by the idea. 'They were envisioning a little android who would work the vacuum behind their backs,' [Helen] Greiner said. 'When we showed them (Roomba), they had an epiphany: 'Oh my gosh, that will save me time.' ' ... Although iRobot makes robots for the military (many were deployed to search caves in Afghanistan), the domestic market offers the greatest possibilities for growth. The biggest stumbling block to robotic success might be public perception, not the reality. Potential buyers must be convinced the bots are user-friendly. My dog must be convinced they don't bite."
>>> Robots, Applications, Interfaces, and see the other Roomba articles on this page
-> back to headlines

September 29, 2002: Credit Card Companies Turn To Artificial Intelligence. By Margaret Webb Pressler. The Washington Post / available from the Tampa Tribune. "With billions of dollars at stake, and more clever crooks, credit card companies have become very smart about protecting themselves with astonishingly sophisticated network computers and software programs. 'We're at a level whereby we can understand with artificial intelligence ... the potentially fraudulent transactions,' said Raf Sorrentino, vice president of risk management for First Data Corp., one of the biggest providers of credit card processing and payment services. Credit card fraud costs the industry about a billion dollars a year, or 7 cents out of every $100 spent on plastic. But that is down significantly from its peak about a decade ago, Sorrentino says, in large part because of powerful technology that can recognize unusual spending patterns."
>>> Fraud Detection & Prevention, Industry Statistics, Banking & Finance, Applications, Machine Learning
-> back to headlines

September 29, 2002: The silicon defence ... it might be mankind's last chance to assert superiority over artificial intelligence. By Nigel Farndale. The Sunday Telegraph. "T here are more possible chess games than there are atoms in the universe, it is said. In this realm of the infinite, then, it might be assumed that artificial intelligence would have a big advantage over grey matter, especially as computers are able to calculate millions of moves a second, and grandmasters are able to look only three or four moves ahead. But what grandmasters lack in calculating speed they make up for in instinct based on experience. Computers might be able to come up with moves more quickly but they cannot 'understand' chess in the way that humans can. Kramnik, therefore, will try and find positions where 'feel' becomes all important. ... 'Chess is 30 to 40 per cent psychology,' according to Judit Polgar, the world's strongest female chess player. 'You don't have this when you play a computer. You can't confuse it.'"
>>> Chess, Games & Puzzles, also see related articles on this page
-> back to headlines

September 28, 2002: Junior high-tech. By Aviv Lavie. Ha`aretz. "The world's computer chess champion, an Israeli program called Junior, is ready to face off against its flesh-and-blood counterpart. Junior's creators, Shai Bushinsky and Amir Ban, have endowed it with a facsimile of human intuition and believe that victory is definitely within reach. ... The world followed the encounters between man and supercomputer with bated breath - Kasparov was victorious at their first meeting in 1996, and then defeated a year later by an improved version of the program, dubbed Deeper Blue. Since then, the world of chess programming has undergone a major revolution. The balance has shifted from supercomputers like Deep Blue to home computers. 'People used to think that the computer's quality as a player was directly related to its power of calculation,' says Ban, 'and they kept trying to give it more and more calculating power. Now we know that beyond a certain limit, what really counts is artificial intelligence - in other words, the quality of the moves and the computer's ability to analyze complex situations.' ... The program is capable of considering two million moves in one second, but its happy fathers believe that the key to its success lies elsewhere. ... Over the years, the way that artificial intelligence is manifested in chess has been the topic of numerous scholarly articles. In 1958, the first program that could play according to all the rules of chess appeared."
>>> Chess, History, Games & Puzzles, AI Overview
-> back to headlines

September 28, 2002: Radio Interview - Joe Budelli of ABBYY USA. Let's Talk Computers(R). "ABBYY develops software in the field of artificial intelligence, document recognition and applied linguistics."
>>> Image Understanding, Applications, Discourse Analysis
-> back to headlines

September 27, 2002: Science fiction becomes fact. icCoventry. "Science Fiction fantasy will be brought to life at this month's TechStyle event with demonstrations of the latest in cybernetics and artificial intelligence. ... Professor Kevin Warwick, who is at the forefront of cutting-edge research into cybernetics, will be at TechStyle, a brand new free event for the city, which merges fashion and technology. He will be demonstrating and talking about his collection of self-built robots, that learn about the world in the same way humans do, by making mistakes and learning not to repeat them. Each of the robots has a task to learn. One of the robots navigates its way around a space by remembering the location of objects it bumps into another is learning how to walk. Professor Warwick will also be talking about his own personal experiences as a 'cyborg' ...."
>>> SciFi, Robots, Machine Learning
-> back to headlines

September 26, 2002: Galileo's Ghost. This week's column by Annalee Newitz in Metroactive (SanFrancisco). "Bush's special cybersecurity adviser, Richard Clarke, has prepared a draft of the government's new cybersecurity proposal, which was released a couple of weeks ago for comment. ... Along with several recommendations that range from the sensible to the silly ... there are some deeply alarming 'national priorities' listed. One such priority is to keep close tabs on scientific developments in 'intelligent agents' and nanotechnology. Intelligent agents are programs that can carry out commands on their own to a very limited extent -- that is, you tell them to do something, and they go off and do it without any further input from you. They are mostly being developed for useful and innocuous artificial intelligence projects that do things like keep track of your schedule and find the bathroom for you in a building. Likewise, nanotech has literally thousands of peacetime uses in everything from materials engineering to medicine. Being singled out for negative attention by the government will have an obvious chilling effect on research in these potentially rich areas -- after all, who wants to give a grant to a project that the president believes will endanger our cybersecurity? ... When I look in the direction our culture seems to be going, I think a lot about Galileo, imprisoned by the Catholic Church in the early 17th century for refusing to categorically reject the idea that the Earth revolves around the sun."
>>> Agents, History, AI Overview
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September 26, 2002: Inventor foresees implanted sensors aiding brain functions. By Stephan Ohr. EE Times. "Kurzweil was enthusiastic about his own experiments with virtual reality and artificial intelligence. 'People say of AI, 'Nothing ever came of that,' yet it keeps spinning off new things,' he said. For example, British Airways has combined speech recognition and synthesis technology with virtual reality to create an interactive reservation system that allows a user to interact with a 'virtual personality' to build a travel itinerary. Via the Internet, Kurzweil demonstrated 'Ramona,' a woman's face that serves as an interactive interface to Kurzweil's Web site."
>>> Speech, Natural Language, Applications, Customer Relations, The AI Effect, Interfaces
-> back to headlines

September 26, 2002: Good luck, Kramnik - One of Canada's top chess masters has advice and sympathy for Vladimir Kramnik who next week will battle the world's strongest chess computer. By Deen Hergott. The Ottawa Citizen. "Today's chess world champion, Vladimir Kramnik, hopes next month to defend humanity's honour against the unceasing onslaught of artificial intelligence. In an eight-game match beginning Oct. 2, he will try to best an opponent named Deep Fritz, which claims to possess the most sophisticated chess-move search algorithm ever developed, running on eight top-speed Intel Pentium processors yoked together. Good luck, Kramnik. I believe from personal experience, as one of Canada's top chessplayers and a combatant against a high-level chess computer program, that Kramnik will need to be at the top of his game to best his silicon adversary. Like others before me, I fought the computer and the computer won. ... Yet, I still hold that computers still don't understand chess. ... There is no real thinking going on here, at least as we view the process. But at some point, the line between understanding and brute-force evaluation becomes too blurry to distinguish -- humanity is facing a genuinely monstrous challenge, and the beast gets stronger every year. ... Still, regardless of whether or note Kramnik prevails in Bahrain, the endeavour of computerized chessplaying should be regarded as a victory for humans. After all, we built the machines. More importantly, we should welcome the continuing evolution of chess machines as a profound opportunity to learn, not only about chess and computers, but also about ourselves.Ê"
>>> Chess, Games & Puzzles
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September 26, 2002: The joystick that roars - Where hardcore gamers point, computer makers follow. By Pauline Tam. The Ottawa Citizen. "To satisfy a generation of Jonathan Lims, PC makers push for bigger colour screens and faster processors. Software designers optimize their tools for gaming applications such as real-time networking, 3-D graphics, interactive interfaces, and artificial-intelligence systems. With each new release, these tools push the limits. ... The migration of academics to the video-game business isn't just confined to those interested in high-end visuals. The industry is also attracting the brightest minds in artificial intelligence -- another field influenced by video games."
>>> Video Games, Student Resources (including Careers in AI)
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September 26, 2002: Our friends electric - Your robot cleaner will be your best mate. By Peter Rojas. The Guardian. "It's the 21st century? Where are the robots? Long a staple of science fiction, robots have been working in manufacturing for decades but, save for a few luxury models, have made little impact in the home. That's all about to change, with the introduction last week of the first mass-market robot designed to help around the house - the Roomba Intelligent FloorVac, a home vacuum cleaner that doesn't cost much more than a regular vacuum cleaner. ... The Roomba marks the moment when robots finally enter our lives as useful tools. It's likely to prove as portentous as the introduction of the personal computer more than 20 years ago, and will affect our lives just as profoundly. As there has been little discussion about the impact on our emotional lives of surrounding ourselves with autonomous, intelligent robots, we are not prepared for what will happen when we open our homes to robots."
>>> Robots, Smart Houses, History, Ethical & Social Implications, also see other Roomba articles on this page
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September 18 - 25, 2002: Software agents ask for help. By Kimberly Patch. Technology Research News. "If you're good at something, people naturally ask your advice about it. Researchers from the University of Porto in Portugal are tapping this learning strategy by programming tiny bits of software, called agents, to ask other agents for help as the group figures out how to control the timing of traffic lights. ... The process showed that exchanging advice can, indeed, speed the rate of learning. The method could eventually be used to route traffic on the Internet, balance tasks among networked computers, and help robots cooperate, said [Luis] Nunes. ... One general advantage of the advice-exchanging approach is that agents using different strategies can work together, said Nunes. 'One of the major differences between this and other related work is that each agent is using different learning approaches,' he said. This eliminates the common quandary of whether to choose just one learning technique to deal with a problem, or taking the time to test several techniques separately to find the one that performs better, he said."
>>> Multi-Agent Systems, Agents, Web-Searching Agents, Transportation, Networks, Robots, Applications
-> back to headlines

September 25, 2002: Special system developed to diagnose nutritional disorders of black pepper. By Peter Sibon. Sarawak Tribune News. "The Sarawak Department of Agriculture has developed a special system for diagnosing nutritional disorders of black pepper. The tool was developed as an aid for agriculture extension workers to provide advisory services on crop health measures to pepper growers in Sarawak. 'Named 'XCRO-pepper', the system can assist users in diagnosing symptoms caused by 16 diseases, 13 pests and 10 nutritional disorders of black pepper,' revealed Fatimah Othman, Wong Ting Hung. Lily Eng, Paulus A. Det and Asmah Salowi in their working paper entitled, 'XCROP-Pepper: An Expert System for Diagnosing Diseases, Pests and Nutritional Disorders of Black Pepper... According to the paper, the expert system is a branch of artificial intelligence (AI), which is widely used as decision-making tools in a wide range of businesses including agriculture. 'This innovative information technology tool is an intelligent computer programme that makes extensive use of specialised knowledge to solve problems at the level of human experts,' it said, adding that the system was pioneered by Professor Edward Feigen-baum [sic] of Stanford University."
>>> Expert Systems, Agriculture, Applications
-> back to headlines

September 25, 2002: Artificially-intelligent hearing aid wins European Information Society Technology Award. A Press Release available from IDGNet New Zealand. "Adapto, a hearing aid that understands people with artificial intelligence that identifies and amplifies human speech over other sounds - has won a prestigious European Information Society Technology Prize."
>>> Applications, Speech, Assistive Technologies
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September 24, 2002: Google enters news arena. BBC. "The hugely popular search engine Google has launched a service that uses its search algorithms rather than human editors to select news reports."
>>> Information Retrieval, More News Sources, Resources
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September 23, 2002: Innovative Instruction Law school courses focus on the technology of law. By Bernard Hibbitts. The National Law Journal / available from law.com. "Debuting this year, Professor Kevin Ashley's 'Artificial Intelligence and the Law' combines a first-semester seminar with a second-semester practicum. The practicum provides a chance for law students to build something that works and helps them to think critically about the process of legal reasoning. Ideally, in the seminar, students have worked through a detailed example of some aspect of legal reasoning -- for instance, making an argument about whether one is an employee or an independent contractor. They have read the legal sources that bear on the issue. Now they can play with representing some of that knowledge in ways a computer can manipulate, for example, the statute that draws the distinction between employee and independent contractor, the legislative purposes for which it does so, the restatement provision that defines the concept of an employee and some precedents in which courts interpret and apply these rules."
>>> Law, Reasoning, Applications
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September 23, 2002: Maid To Order - A little robot called Roomba vacuums your house while you lounge by the pool. Is this the beginning of the end? By Lev Grossman. TIME Magazine. "[M]eet Roomba, a new housecleaning robot spawned by the Massachusetts Institute of Technology's Artificial Intelligence Lab and built by a Somerville, Mass., company called iRobot. Roomba's function is a humble one: it's designed to vacuum your living room while you're otherwise engaged. But Roomba also represents a technological watershed: it's the first robot ever built that is designed to live in your home, serve a useful purpose and be priced for the mass market -- at $199, it costs about the same as a mid-range vacuum cleaner. Roomba isn't quite Rosey the Robot, but it just might be Rosey's great-great-grandparent."
>>> Robots, Smart Houses, History, also see other Roomba articles on this page
-> back to headlines

September 23, 2002: Human-Free Kick - At Robocup 2002, humanoids battle it out in soccer. By Dennis Normile. Scientific American Explore. "'The goal of RoboCup is to develop a team of robots that can beat the human World Cup champions by 2050,' says Hiroaki Kitano, a Sony artificial-intelligence specialist who is also president of the RoboCup Federation. The notion of robots taking on Brazil would be laughable if roboticists around the world were not so enthusiastically answering the call. Kitano and his collaborators started RoboCup in 1997 with hopes that a grand challenge would spur advances in robotics and artificial intelligence. The first year only a couple dozen groups competed with wheeled robots and simulations... This year there were almost 200 teams. ... More significantly, humanoid robots took to the RoboCup pitch for the first time. ... The wheeled robots, which don't have to fritter precious computational power on balancing, can react in real time to moving balls. For pure efficiency, there would seem to be little reason to walk. So why bother with legs? That has been a perennial robotics question. 'In the early 1980s there was a big debate in the U.S. over whether robots should look like humans or not,' explains Christopher G. Atkeson, a roboticist at Carnegie Mellon University. ... In Japan, opting for legs or wheels has long depended simply on the application."
>>> Robots, Interfaces, Applications, Student Resources ( including Competitions)
-> back to headlines

September 23, 2002: Company Makes Robot Vacuum Cleaner. By Larry Blasko. Associated Press / available from The Herald-Sun. "She's named Roomba, and is manufactured by iRobot Corporation, just outside of Boston in Somerville, Mass. Like any case of infatuation, this one makes you throw out objectivity, but it's safe to say she's unlike any vacuum cleaner I've ever met. For one thing, Roomba is a robot with smarts, billed by her manufacturer as a 'Intelligent FloorVac.' ... Roomba is able to move effortlessly from bare floor to throw rug and back to floor or onto carpeting. If she gets stuck when confronting a throw rug head on, she's smart enough to switch to an angular approach. ... Those who, for any physical reason, find it hard to handle a standard vacuum cleaner should check it out, as well as those of us who will vacuum the floors every five weeks, whether they need it or not. All kidding aside, this is an affordable application of artificial intelligence to an everyday task, and just another addition to the wonders that were pure science fiction not too long ago."
>>> Applications, Assistive Technologies, Robots, Smart Houses
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September 23, 2002: Revolutionising the computer and the world. NZ Zoom. "The East Bay's three national laboratories hope to create a new generation of computers that would turn today's machines into the electronic equivalent of the horse and buggy. An industry-government consortium that includes Lawrence Livermore National Laboratory, Sandia National Laboratories and Lawrence Berkeley Laboratory has developed a technology that would use light invisible to the human eye to create computer chips potentially dozens of times faster than the fastest chips that now exist. The advanced computers based on the labs' technologies could revolutionise the way we live. ... Hand-held computers and telephones could be turned into language translators. ... A case study by the Harvard Business School outlined a variety of potential uses for these ultra-fast computer technologies: Using the universal translator technology, people in the United States could speak to somebody in Japan, and the person in Japan could hear the conversation in their native language. The return conversation could be heard in English. All of this could occur in real-time. ... Tiny computerised devices would be able to use an advanced form of artificial intelligence to enable them to learn as they operate. Home security systems would be so advanced that they would be operated through facial recognition rather than being operated through keypads."
>>> Applications, Machine Translation, Image Undestanding (including Biometrics), Machine Learning
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September 23, 2002: Six hopefuls in the running for tech funding. By Tom Pullar-Strecker. New Zealand Infotech. "Six consortia are bidding for up to $17.5 million in funding for information technology research from the Foundation for Research Science and Technology. ... OrderWare chief executive Peter Garden says the 23-strong software firm would use the funding to develop enterprise application integration (EAI) software which uses artificial intelligence (AI) and rules engines to make businesses less dependent on specialist IT skills when they merge computer systems. 'The opportunity we see in the marketplace is to reduce the stranglehold technical people have over those projects.'"
>>> Networks
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September 23, 2002: Transportation Secretary calls for more mass transit security. Associated Press / available from the Reno Gazette-Journal. "Other high-tech systems that track buses and trains are being revamped with artificial intelligence to spot suspicious activity. Mineta praised such technology during a tour of the expo. But the head of the Federal Transit Administration, Jenna L. Dorn, said such high-tech toys can distract transit planners from security fundamentals such as personnel training. 'There is no silver bullet,' she said."
>>> Law Enforcement, Shipping & Transportation, Applications, also see the next article
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September 23, 2002: Public Transportation Leaders In LV Look To Future. KVBC Local News. "Leaders of more than 300 transit groups are meeting today in Las Vegas to discuss the latest in public transportation advances. ... Hot technology includes onboard global positioning satellite systems, artificial intelligence security systems, and solar-powered bus stops."
>>> Law Enforcement, Shipping & Transportation, Applications, also see the preceding article
-> back to headlines

September 23, 2002 (issue date): Next Frontiers > Careers & Technology > Hot Tech Careers > A Solution to Flight Risk: The military gives a starring role to unmanned aircraft. By Kevin Peraino. Newsweek.MSNBC. "It's hard to imagine that there are hot jobs in aerospace and aviation, considering the financial woes of the airlines. But research on all types of unmanned aerial vehicles (UAVs) - from reconnaissance drones that fly at 65,000 feet to low-flying, fully armed fighters - is one of the industry's bright spots. Consulting firm Frost &Sullivan estimates that the U.S. military market for UAVs will reach almost $1 billion by 2007, up 25 percent from today. Boosters say drones could also be used for homeland security, guarding oil and natural-gas pipelines, for example. [Dennis] Gvillo's project made its first test flight in May. The 26-foot tailless craft will be programmed to perform its mission autonomously."
>>> Autonomous Vehicles, Industry Statistics, Careers in AI, Military, Applications, Robots
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September 23, 2002 (issue date): Next Frontiers > Careers & Technology > Hot Tech Careers > Gray Market For Gadgets: Technologies to help the elderly live on their own. By Joan Raymond. Newsweek.MSNBC. "But considering that every seven seconds another of the nation's 75 million baby boomers turns 50, there's clearly gold in helping the old. So developing tech solutions that enhance independence and keep people in their homes longer may be the hottest software gig of the next decade. [Don] Patterson's applications and others like it use artificial intelligence to enable devices to make decisions on their own. At Carnegie Mellon, AI researchers are working on a four-foot 'nursebot' named Pearl. ... At the Georgia Institute of Technology, researchers have a 5,000-square-foot Aware Home decked out with the latest AI gizmos that recognize and then interpret activity in a house."
>>> Assistive Technologies, Smart Rooms, Applications, Careers in AI
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September 23, 2002 (issue date): Next Frontiers > Careers & Technology > Hot Tech Careers > Surviving a Dot-Bomb - My first dot-com flamed out. But I still like the start-up game By Randy Fish. Newsweek.MSNBC. "My dot-com saga started in a Stanford dorm room in 1997. I was a 19-year-old sophomore when three of my fellow classmates started Getfit.com, which was basically an online personal trainer. The Web site took people's physical measurements, their health goals and the workout equipment they owned or had access to, and, using a customized artificial-intelligence engine, produced a personalized fitness plan."
>>> Careers in AI, Software Development
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September 22, 2002: 'Danger, Will Robinson! Dust Bunnies!' By Wayne Rash. The Washington Post (Page H07). "Home robots that do actual work have been dreams for decades, while the few actual robots to be sold for use in homes have been simply toys -- fun, but not much help. But the Roomba, from Somerville, Mass.-based iRobot Corp. (www.irobot.com), actually works. This flat, round device is no R2-D2; it does only one job, sweeping and vacuuming floors unattended. But it does that job effectively and without requiring any special training -- and it costs just $200. The Roomba's parent company comes with good credentials: Those robots you saw on television searching for survivors in the ruins of the World Trade Center were made by iRobot. The Roomba is derived from models the company built to clear minefields; it uses their search algorithms to find dust bunnies instead of explosives."
>>> Robots, Applications, Hazards & Disasters, Military, Smart Houses, also see the other Roomba articles on this page
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September 22, 2002: Check This - Questions for Gary Kasparov. By Wm. Ferguson. The New York Times (no-fee reg. req'd). "This fall, you begin your first match against a computer since you lost to I.B.M.'s Deep Blue in 1997. Will your approach to Deep Junior be different from five years ago? Yes, of course. Hopefully I will play better. Deep Blue was brute force of calculation, a hundred times faster than today's computers. But the chess knowledge of Deep Blue was quite primitive. Today we're facing computers that have accumulated immense knowledge of the game of chess. To some extent, you may say that Deep Junior is a Kasparov in computer chess. Very, very aggressive."
>>> Chess, Games & Puzzles, History
-> back to headlines

September 21, 2002: India has potential to be major e-learning player. By Frederick Noronha. HindustanTimes. "M. Sasikumar, senior research scientist in-charge of Artificial Intelligence and Educational Technology Units at the NCST [National Centre for Software Technology], said online learning in India is 'at the edge of a precipice -- immense opportunities, but tonnes of untapped potential'. The NCST conference will focus on learning environments, Web-based teaching methodology, learner support, instruction delivery, learner modelling, faculty development for online learning, virtual universities, course-ware engineering and other related issues, say organisers at the NCST."
>>> Education
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September 19, 2002: Computers that run themselves. The Economist Technology Quarterly. "Computing: For decades, scientists have concentrated on making computers more powerful. Now they want to build systems that are smart enough to look after themselves ... In IBM's view, an autonomic computer systemÑ -- itself a collection of more or less self-regulating systems -- needs to possess many of the characteristics of the human body. For instance, it must have an identity; be able to adapt to a changing environment; be capable of healing itself; and have an immune system. In computer terms, this means that an autonomic system has to know its own resources, and be able to reconfigure itself, to call up redundant elements in case of a malfunction and to destroy computer viruses automatically. ... OceanStore is part of Dr [John] Kubiatowicz's research into what he calls 'introspective computing'. As the name implies, it is about enabling computer systems so that they can continuously monitor their own inner workings, analysing those data and optimising themselves so that they become less crash-prone. This raises the interesting possibility that a machine might have to 'sleep' and even 'dream' regularly to become truly autonomic. ... Yet something rather like autonomic computing will surely exist one day, if only because the complexity of computing will, in the not too distant future, outgrow humanity's ability to manage it. This raises the question of how autonomic do users want their computers to become? The case of HAL 9000, the computer in the movie '2001: A Space Odyssey' which could be stopped only by pulling the plug, suggests that there ought to be some limits."
>>> Networks, Interfaces, Applications
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September 19, 2002: The clockwork computer. The Economist. "The ship's cargo of luxury goods also included jewellery, pottery, fine furniture, wine and bronzes dating back to the first century BC. But the most important finds proved to be a few green, corroded lumps -- the last remnants of an elaborate mechanical device. The Antikythera mechanism, as it is now known, was originally housed in a wooden box about the size of a shoebox, with dials on the outside and a complex assembly of bronze gear wheels within... The origins of much modern technology, from railway engines to robots, can be traced back to the elaborate mechanical toys, or automata, that flourished in the 18th century. Those toys, in turn, grew out of the craft of clockmaking. And that craft, like so many other aspects of the modern world, seems to have roots that can be traced right back to ancient Greece."
>>> Robots, History
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September 19, 2002: Who's afraid of the new science? Review of "The Blank Slate: The Modern Denial of Human Nature." The Economist. "Steven Pinker's provocative new book is full of catchy examples like this that he uses to highlight two radically different ways of conceptualising and explaining our behaviour: one with an eye to culture, learning and the social sciences, the other with an eye to nature, genetic inheritance and experiment. He makes no bones about where he stands. Social science and its popularisers have, he thinks, systematically ignored or derided recent strides by neuroscience, artificial intelligence, behavioural genetics and evolutionary psychology. ... At this point, it would have been neater for a two-camps approach if hard science, as Mr Pinker calls it, were united against the rogues and cretins of cultural relativism in rejecting the blank slate. But, ever honest, he admits that the blank slate still has defenders among tough-minded and experimental researchers: in artificial intelligence, 'connectionists' who think brains work like neural networks simulated on computers 'learning' from statistical patterns with only weak constraints on their inner structure (the near-blank slate) ..."
>>> Cognitive Science, Neural Networks, Machine Learning
-> back to headlines

September 19, 2002: Three Tales. By Tom Service. The Guardian. "Steve Reich's Three Tales is his latest multimedia collaboration with his wife, the artist Beryl Korot. Each of the three sequences, for live instrumentalists, singers, and video projection, is a parable of man's Faustian pact with technology. The first dramatises the explosion of the Hindenburg zeppelin, the second is based on American atomic experiments on Bikini atoll, and the final tale muses on the ethics of cloning and artificial intelligence. ... The final, chilling image is of a young research student talking to a grotesque robot, made up with false hair and eyelashes to look like a metallic, skeletal Barbie. Without patronising, Three Tales offers a timely dramatisation of our vexed relationship with science."
>>> Ethical & Social Implications, Robots
-> back to headlines

September 19, 2002: Happy Birthday, Smiley Face :-)  By Dan Majors. Pittsburgh Post-Gazette. "Twenty years ago today -- at 11:44 a.m. -- Scott E. Fahlman, a professor at Carnegie Mellon University, sat down at his computer and dashed off a posting in an online bulletin board. I propose the following character sequence for joke markers: :-) Read it sideways. ... Today, Fahlman, now in his early 50s, is on leave from his research position in CMU's Department of Computer Science, working as a member of IBM's research staff. But he still lives in Pittsburgh and spends a lot of time on the CMU campus, where he pursues his interest in artificial intelligence and its applications. Part of his focus is developing 'common sense' knowledge in computer systems. As an e-mail from a spokeswoman at IBM said, 'Today's computers are very good at solving specialized technical problems, but they can't begin to match the common sense of a 5-year-old. The ultimate goal of his research is to fix that.'"
>>> History, Commonsense, also see the next article
-> back to headlines

September 19, 2002: Reason to :-) Online Smiley Face Turns 20. By Andy Sullivan. Reuters / available from ABC News. "It was 20 years ago today that Scott Fahlman taught the Net how to smile. The IBM researcher has devoted his professional life to artificial intelligence, the practice of teaching computers how to think like humans. Fahlman is known for his work with neural networks - a computer technique designed to mimic the human brain - and helping develop Common Lisp, a computer language that uses symbols instead of numbers, but the bearded scientist is perhaps best known for a flash of inspiration that helped to define Internet culture, in all of its ungrammatical glory. On Sept. 19, 1982, Fahlman typed :-) in an online message. The 'smiley face' has since become a staple of online communication ... But Fahlman has never seen a dime from his creation. 'If it cost people a nickel to use it, nobody would have used it. This is my little gift to the world, for better or worse,' he said."
>>> History, Neural Networks, Systems & Languages, and for another story about this emoticon, see above
-> back to headlines

September 19, 2002: Engineering prof's GRACE wows audience. By Krisna Duong-Ly. The Phoenix (Swarthmore College). "During the past year, Bruce Maxwell, assistant professor of engineering at the college, has been involved in designing the robot known as GRACE (Graduate Robot Attending a Conference). At the end of July, GRACE was entered in the 2002 American Association of Artificial Intelligence (AAAI) Robot Challenge at the National Conference on Artificial Intelligence in Edmonton, Alberta, Canada, and received the Ben Wegbreit Award for Integration of AI Technologies. The objective for the robot challenge was to design a robot that could attend the National Conference on Artificial Intelligence. While no one has succeeded yet, GRACE did make considerable progress toward accomplishing this goal."
>>> Robots, Vision, Speech
-> back to headlines

September 18, 2002: AI Center brings hi-tech degrees to University [of Georgia]. By Steve Saussy. Red and Black. "A.I. Center students do classroom work unlike most. They create programs that enable computers to play video games -- such as Age of Kings, a strategy game -- by themselves. They also work in a special gaming program called V. World, designed to model and develop artificial intelligence programs. ... And while the A.I. Center receives much attention for its gaming programs, its students also tackle more serious projects. 'We're a unique program,' said Donald Nute, director of the center and a professor in the philosophy department. 'I'm not aware of another place in the United States where you can get a master's degree in artificial intelligence.' The center offers not only the master's degree, but also a bachelor's in cognitive science. Nute said most universities only have A.I. programs at the doctorate level. Master's work in A.I. at such universities must be done as a specialization within an electrical engineering or computer science master's. ... 'Most people don't realize there is lots of artificial intelligence in, for example, Microsoft Windows,' [Michael] Covington said. Many people only think of robots when artificial intelligence is brought up, he said, but most of the current software available today use artificial intelligence."
>>> Student Resources (including Academic Departments and Careers in AI), Games & Puzzles, Video Games, The AI Effect, Agriculture
-> back to headlines

September 18, 2002: Survey finds upstate pessimistic on economy. Barbara Pinckney. The Business Review. "The first Sawchuk Brown Associates Upstate Report indicates that residents of upstate New York are still a bit pessimistic about the economy, but see possible solutions in high technology and the health/medical fields. ... When asked what industries the state should concentrate on attracting to upstate, 26 percent of respondents said biotechnology or medical research, 12 percent said health care/medical and 12 percent said computers/artificial intelligence/robotics."
>>> AI Overview, Industry Statistics
-> back to headlines

September 18, 2002: Consumers gain voice power. BBC. "Voice-enabled software will be worth $452m by 2004 according to research firm Datamonitor. One company, Nuance, has developed software that creates the vocal equivalent of a fingerprint. ... The result is software that can instantly recognise your speech, even if you have a cold or have lost your voice."
>>> Biometrics, Speech, Industry Statistics
-> back to headlines

September 18, 2002: Somerville firm thinks robot will really clean up. By Hiawatha Bray. The Boston Globe. "Somerville-based iRobot Corp. has sent its robots into the caves of Afghanistan and across the sands of Egypt. Now comes the hard part - getting past the front door of the American home. ... [Colin] Angle is hoping that the company's latest product, Roomba, an automated floor cleaner, may fit that bill. Roomba is a six-pound battery-powered disk with just enough intelligence to scour the dust and dirt from carpets and bare floors. A user can turn it on and leave, according to the company, and Roomba will find its way around the room using a combination of infrared sensors and sophisticated navigation software embedded in its tiny brain."
>>> Robots, Applications, Hazards & Disasters, Military
-> back to headlines

September 18, 2002: Encouraging innovation by ending isolation. By Louise Story. The Boston Globe. "Architect Frank Gehry is understated when discussing his new MIT building project. It's just a building, he said, nothing 'fussy'' It'll have communal spaces and private offices set up in 'villages'' a design that will encourage the university's famously reclusive researchers to talk to one another. ... Still, MIT officials hope Gehry's design of the Ray and Maria Stata Center for Computer, Information, and Intelligence Sciences will bring together an often fractured community of scientists, researchers, and aspiring students to casually brainstorm and ultimately create more interdisciplinary projects that keep MIT prominently on the innovation map. ... MIT's computer science and artificial intelligence laboratories have been housed in the off-campus Technology Square since the early 1960s. Technology Square is an 'oppressive' center, where people haven't opened the windows for years, said Patti Richards, an MIT spokeswoman. Some people working there have never gotten to know others in the building."
>>> AI Overview, Academic Departments, also see the following article
-> back to headlines

September 18, 2002: AI Lab, LCS to Merge After Stata Center Completed. By Kevin R. Lang. The Tech (MIT), Volume 122, Number 40. "The Laboratory for Computer Science and the Artificial Intelligence Laboratory, separate since 1970, plan to merge after they move into the new Stata Center in 2004."
>>> AI Overview, Academic Departments, also see the previous article
-> back to headlines

September 17, 2002: IBM gives handhelds multilingual voice. By Ben Charny. CNET News. "Big Blue on Wednesday will start selling its ViaVoice Translator, software for PDAs (personal digital assistants) that use Microsoft's Pocket PC operating system. IBM's software will translate English to and from German, French, Italian and Spanish. The ViaVoice Translator is part of a new push by IBM, Hewlett-Packard and several small start-ups to give handhelds a voice. For example, a PDA that HP is developing will take photos, scan them for foreign text and translate the text into any number of languages. And the Phraselator talking PDA uses speech-recognition software to translate military commands for U.S. troops in Afghanistan. The device is built by Marine Acoustics and sold by VoxTec, both of Middletown, R.I."
>>> Machine Translation, Speech, Military
-> back to headlines

September 17, 2002: Kasparov vs Deep Junior postponed. Kasparov Chess Press Release. "FIDE President Kirsan Ilyumzhinov announced on Monday that the human-machine chess match between world number one Garry Kasparov and world computer champion Deep Junior had been postponed until December 1, 2002."
>>> Chess, Games & Puzzles
-> back to headlines

September 17, 2002: Computers upset the workplace. By Dominic Arkwright. BBC Radio 4. "At the dawn of the computer age, we were told the machines would revolutionise our lives. They would steal our jobs, said the pessimists. They would give us unending leisure time, said the optimists. ... The point is, unnervingly, that computers and robots are better than humans in many and various ways. ... '[A]ny given technology is useless on its own. So with electricity, it took 50, 75, 100 years for people to develop the roads, to rebuild the factories near to the electricity plants,' [James Crabtree] argued. 'For computers that's true too. So people who assume that it ought to have happened yesterday, they just need to wait a little bit, it will happen.' 'It took electricity 100 years before you saw noticeable increases that you could actually say were down to that,' said Mr Crabtree."
>>> AI Overview, History
-> back to headlines

September 2002: The Sterile Airport - Airport Security for the 9/11 Age. By Dan Tynan. Popular Science. "The Guts of the System - Technology & terminology in the secure airport. ... Biometrics: The science of measuring characteristics unique to each individual (such as fingerprints, facial appearance, voice patterns, striations on the iris, or the arrangement of veins on the retinal wall of the eye), converting them into digital form, and analyzing them. ... Database A collection of digitized information, such as names, numbers, pictures, or text, that can be searched for specific groups of data, such as birth city and date. ... Facial Recognition: A biometric that identifies an individual based on a digitized image of that person's face."
>>> Image Understanding (including Biometrics), Information Retrieval & Extraction, Data Mining, Law Enforcement
-> back to headlines

September 16, 2002: Make Room for Bioinformatics - Fairfax County officials hope a new incubator will help spawn a thriving bioinformatics industry in Northern Virginia. By Joseph C. Anselmo. Washington Techway Magazine / available from The Washington Post TechNews. "[I]f Fairfax County economic development officials succeed, Springfield will one day be better known as a leading center of bioinformatics, the maturing field that applies information technology to speed up drug discovery and other biotech research. ... The second tenant, Digital Reasoning Systems, is a 10-employee company in Tysons Corner, Alabama and Tennessee. It initially developed artificial intelligence software for defense and intelligence agencies that analyzes massive quantities of digital data and identifies patterns or trends. The software also observes and pools the reasoning abilities of individual analysts. Founder Tim Estes says Digital Reasoning plans to use the BioAccelerator for Physerve, a venture that seeks to use the software for medical purposes."
>>> Bioinformatics, Applications, Medicine
-> back to headlines

September 16, 2002: MIT hotel lobbies its brand with (what else?) robots. By Jill Lerner. Boston Business Journal. "Central Square's MIT Museum has loaned two semi-permanent guests to The Hotel @ MIT -- robots Herbert and Attila-II. The robots were designed and built by the Artificial Intelligence Laboratory at the Massachusetts Institute of Technology, and will be displayed in the namesake hotel's lobby to help enhance its branded image. ... The robots, for which the hotel has taken out special insurance, will be on display indefinitely, but will not help out with room service, [Lynn] Ericksen added."
>>> Robots
-> back to headlines

September 16, 2002: Disney star joins CMU's new entertainment technology center. By Byron Spice. Pittsburgh Post-Gazette. "He's worked as a professional juggler, a magician's apprentice and a stand-up comedian. He's designed amusement park attractions. He even married a clown. So why would Jesse Schell leave the bright lights of the entertainment world to work on real-time interactive stimulation at Carnegie Mellon University? ... By jumping from Walt Disney Imagineering, Disney's research and development lab in Los Angeles, to CMU's Entertainment Technology Center, the 32-year-old computer scientist isn't changing careers so much as he is locale. Real-time interactive stimulation, after all, is just a euphemism for games -- video games. ... Last year, U.S. consumers spent $9.4 billion on game software and devices -- more than was spent on movie tickets. Worldwide, the market for videogames totals $28 billion. ... [A]s he pursued a degree in computer science at Rensselaer Polytechnic Institute, he found that his studies on artificial intelligence drew him into storytelling projects."
>>> Video Games, Drama & Story Authoring, Industry Statistics, Careers in AI, Software Development
-> back to headlines

September 16, 2002: Hollywood goes to war. By Peter Huck. The Age. "... the Institute for Creative Technology, affiliated with the University of Southern California. Set up in 1999 with a $US50 million ($A92 million) budget provided by the US Army, it seeks to create advanced training simulators that will help the army shift from a Cold War mentality into a more flexible force, able to respond within 96 hours to complex missions - from civil wars to natural disasters. ... Using tools such as a virtual-reality theatre with a 150-degree screen, a monster SGI computer, and a 10.2 Dolby sound system, the institute seeks to create interactive games that reflect conceivable, 21st-century military challenges. It is at the forefront of work on artificial intelligence, and expects to create a virtual human, able to talk, express emotions and display body language, within five years."
>>> Military, Video Games
-> back to headlines

September 16, 2002: Wanted - More potent antiviruses. By Tao Ai Lei. Asia Computer Weekly. "Virus threats are getting more sophisticated. Soon after companies are cleared of a bug, new and often more insidious ones appear, to clog e-mail servers, infect networks, even wiping out data. Today, virus and worm attacks remain the most prevalent security breach, according to an InformationWeek 2002 Global Information Security Survey. ... The key antivirus technologies available today are rule-based, content-based, heuristics or artificial intelligence, said Isaac Lim, country manager, Singapore, Trend Micro. 'I believe that heuristic scanning is a highly under-used and hugely important weapon in the fight against the virus writers. Heuristic scanners rely on being ahead of the game, on being constantly updated, and learning how to interpret evolving e-mail characteristics,' said [Nick] Hawkins."
>>> Networks, Machine Learning, Applications
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September 15, 2002: Experts Differ on Computer Training for Tots. By Chris Cobbs. The Orlando Sentinel (September 12, 2002) / available from The Southern Illinoisan. "However, there's a lively debate among early childhood education experts on the merits of plugging 3-year-olds into PCs when they're barely potty trained. In a sense, we're all the progeny of Bill Gates these days. It's rare to find a youngster who hasn't perched on a parent's lap in front of a colorful screen, or experimented with a playmate's Gameboy or Nintendo. The larger issue, experts say, is whether the mind of a kindergarten pupil is more stimulated by artificial intelligence or a caring teacher."
>>> Education, Cognitive Science, Intelligent Tutoring Systems, Video Games
-> back to headlines

September 14, 2002: Sony offers glimpse of the future. BBC. "Among the gadgets are a digital television set that learns its owner's tastes, digital audio players the size of key rings and computers that can give you advice."
>>> Machine Learning, Applications, Interfaces
-> back to headlines

September 13, 2002: Man, Machine - Can't We Get Along? By Daith' î hAnluain. Wired News. Some owners of Aibo, Sony's digital dog, actually believe their 'pet' is unhappy with them, just by the noises it makes or the way its eyes change color. And tech lore is full of stories about the ways people have abused computers that act up. The interplay between machines and human intellectual and emotional intelligence is the theme of an unusual exhibition showing this month at Dublin's 5th Gallery. ... 'This is about how technology is taking over from religion in a way,' says Paul Murnaghan, curator of the gallery, located at the Guinness Storehouse."
>>> Exhibits, Ethical & Social Implications, Art
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September 13, 2002: 'Artificial Intelligence,' by A.I. (music review). By Chuck Campbell. Knoxville News-Sentinel. "The blending of rock and electronic music typically yields either rock albums with traces of electronica or electronica albums with traces of rock. A.I. is that rare band that nails an evenly mixed 'rocktronic' sound on 'Artificial Intelligence.' Keyboardist and synth bass player Pablo Manzarek (son of The Doors' keyboardist Ray Manzarek) creates rhythms that are both otherworldly and organic, while Zack Young combines acoustic and electronic drums and percussion for beats that are both futuristic and primitive."
>>> Saying that "Artificial Intelligence is a big hit," now has a new meaning !!!
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September 12, 2002: Disk-covery ~ War and Peace. By Judy Siegel-Itzkovich. Jerusalem Post. "War is hell... But recreating World War II battles virtually - with you sitting in the Jewish State and playing on the side of the good-guy Allies fighting against the bad-guy Nazis six decades after it actually took place - is an exciting and fulfilling mission. Electronic Arts, probably best known for software that enables you to play NBA basketball, FIFA soccer and other major-league sports, has produced a breathtaking war game that demands dozens or even hundreds of hours to complete all your missions. But the time will fly by quickly, as the program's artificial intelligence and real-life graphics give you a feeling of participating in the battles and intrigues shooting a variety of weapons and using your human intelligence to overcome the enemy."
>>> Video Games
-> back to headlines

September 12, 2002: Form SB-2 Registration Statement filed with the Securities and Exchange Commission by One Voice Technologies, Inc. Provided by FreeEDGAR. PROSPECTUS SUMMARY: (excerpt) "Our initial product is the first in our line of intelligent voice interactive solutions. Our software is based on artificial intelligence that allows people to talk with their computers and wireless devices through everyday common speech. Our artificial intelligence technology is so advanced that it understands not only simple phrases but advanced linguistic concepts such as topic, subject and synonym relationships. By asking the user relevant questions, our software system can help clarify and learn from the user's requests."
>>> Natural Language Processing, Speech, Interfaces, Applications
-> back to headlines

September 12, 2002: 'Personal robots' get ready to walk on the human side. By Yoshiko Hara. EE Times. "Robotics technology is migrating from the manufacturing floor to the living room. Human-friendly personal robots are about to move in with us and are poised to create a brand new industry. ... Biped walking, once considered the most difficult of robotic technologies, has developed by leaps and bounds. The first humanoid league, RoboCup-2002, drew a total of 12 teams from eight countries.. There, some robots could compete in walking speed, and in kicking and defending a soccer ball. ... 'We are opening a new industry,' said Sony's Doi. 'Robots are at the equivalent of the pre-Cambrian era in biology,' he said. Just as the Cambrian era spawned diverse creatures, 'a Cambrian explosion will take place in robotics,' Doi said. 'Japan will be the first society where robots and humans live together. In this sense, Japan will function as a test bed and it's Japan's mission to tell the world what happens when robots encounter humans,' said Minoru Asada, a professor at Osaka University and the next president of the RoboCup Federation."
>>> Robots, Ethical & Social Implications, Applications, Image Understanding, Natural Language, Interfaces, also see the next article
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September 12, 2002: Robotics industry will walk the talk. By Hiroaki Kitano. EE Times. "The humanoid robot will capture only 10 to15 percent of the robot market. Instead there will be diverse shapes; wheel-based, snake-like, six-legged, manipulators, things like that. Just as in biology, there will be diversity in robots. Humanoid robotic shapes are exciting, certainly, but not necessarily superior to others. ... The potential for a robotics industry is very big. But I'd like to stress that it is the 'robot technology' industry, or RT, industry. Just as the IT industry is not limited to PCs, the RT industry would encompass all robotics related technologies. ... For next-generation robotics we need faster processors ... innovation in material science ... Third, AI and perception research is getting better, but still we need advances in learning adaptation. Manufactured robots have to adapt to the environment by learning. And, they have to be able to operate based on built-in overall instruction with details filled in over time."
>>> Robots, Industry Statistics, Machine Learning, also see the previous article
-> back to headlines

September 12-18, 2002: Tooling and Hacking. By Annalee Newitz. Metro (Silicon Valley). "As the tour progressed, we had become intimate with the computers we observed. This was a result not of our growing familiarity with them, but of changes in the physical forms of the machines we met. We could talk to the Intelligent Room; we could wear the MIThril vest. The MIThril vest turned hacking into something like a bodily violation. It wasn't like breaking into some remote server farm."
>>> Smart Rooms, Interfaces
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September 2002: Integrating New Data Sources. By David St.Clair. Health Management Technology. "Artificial intelligence (AI) tools, such as logic engines and neural networks, once restricted to mega computers at universities, can now be incorporated in DM programs used by regional health plans. AI tools enable disease management programs to look at co-morbidities, services and medications to differentiate the more severe diabetic patient from the less complicated."
>>> Data Mining, Public Health & Welfare, Medicine
-> back to headlines

September 11, 2002: Help Test an 'Adaptive' Search Engine. By Chris Sherman. SearchDay. "An experimental science and medicine search engine needs your help with its ambitious goal of automatically improving search results by observing user behavior. Phibot is a research project of the University of Mainz and the German Institute of Artificial Intelligence. The system uses some nifty technology that literally helps the engine automatically learn the difference between 'good' and 'bad' results, over time."
>>> Information Retrieval, Agents, Machine Learning
-> back to headlines

September 10, 2002: Words to the wise on the Web. By Jonathan Skillings. CNET. "CNET News.com caught up with [Geoffrey] Nunberg ["professor of linguistics at Stanford University -- and until last year, a principal scientist at Xerox's legendary Palo Alto Research Center"] recently to talk about how machines struggle to make sense of the way people write and speak, and how the Internet has people writing more now than ever before."
>>> Natural Language, Machine Translation, Interviews
-> back to headlines

September 10, 2002: Consultation on the Science and Technology Challenges of the Future. Press Release from the Department of Trade and Industry (UK). "A number of top scientists from a range of disciplines met with the Government's Chief Scientific Adviser, Professor David King to draw up a list of 12 potential subject areas for study. Each topic is considered a possible subject area for Foresight to investigate. From these 12 topics and any other ideas that people suggest, a number will be chosen to add to the two (flood and coastal defence, and cognitive systems) already being studied. The subject areas identified were: ... - intelligent infrastructure systems - self-regulating intelligent systems and networks...."
>>> Networks, AI Overview
-> back to headlines

September 9, 2002: Big Brother watches you drive. By Christian Mahne. BBC. "Imagine being watched from the moment you get behind the wheel. Every glance is tracked and every blink monitored, with your car warning you before you are going to have an accident. This is now possible thanks to a system that studies the human face to detect fatigue or distraction and then alerts the driver. ... FaceLab has been developed Seeing Machines, an international team of 20 scientists based at Australian National University in Canberra. They are experts in human-computer interactivity, face recognition for short. ... FaceLab's creator Alex Zelinsky sees a future where cyber cars make can make the call about whether or not to let their drivers out onto the road."
>>> Image Understanding, Interfaces, Applications
-> back to headlines

September 9, 2002: Australian universities in an unholy mess. (Opinion) By Allan Patience. The Canberra Times. "To achieve a globalising tertiary education system means comprehensively redesigning tertiary education. All tertiary students should initially spend the equivalent of at least two years in broad-based liberal-arts and science programs as well as an internship in workplaces and/or overseas (maybe in something like an Australian peace corps). The education programs would introduce students to world cultures and how they relate to each other, comparative knowledge systems (including artificial intelligence systems and basic computing), the history and philosophy of science and technology, human rights and gender studies, comparative arts and literatures, basic sciences and numeracy, and environmental studies."
>>> AI Courses & Academic Departments
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September 9, 2002: America has moved into a security-conscious era. By Muriel Dobbin. Scripps Howard News Service / available from the Knoxville News-Sentinel. "Since terrorists struck New York and Washington last year, America has moved into a security-conscious era of biometrics, gamma ray imaging systems, radiation detectors, isotope identifiers and 'bomb-bots' - remote-control robots that can disable explosives. Advancing technology has allied human and artificial intelligence, especially in situations like airports, where security experts cautioned that passenger and baggage screening needed a combination of people and efficient machines. 'Machines don't get tired, but they need a human to make sure they're working,' said Douglas Harris, a security specialist who is chairman of Anacapa Sciences in Santa Barbara, Calif., a company specializing in analytical technology. The need for new programs and technology in response to the terrorism threat was emphasized in President Bush's strategy for homeland security, which called for about $11 billion for resources to fight bioterrorism, including increasing security at borders and airports. The White House Office of Homeland Security ... is also supporting the development of biometric technology that recognizes individuals by fingerprints or the iris pattern of the eye, which was hailed by Bush as showing 'great promise' as a security device."
>>> Law Enforcement, Image Understanding (including Biometrics), Pattern Recognition, Vision, Hazards & Disasters, Robots, Ethical & Social Implications, Applications
-> back to headlines

September 9, 2002: Surveillance Society - Don't look now, but you may find you're being watched. By Benny Evangelista. San Francisco Chronicle. "These days, if you feel like somebody's watching you, you might be right. One year after the Sept. 11 attacks, security experts and privacy advocates say there has been a surge in the number of video cameras installed around the country. The electronic eyes keep an unwavering gaze on everything from the Golden Gate Bridge to the Washington Monument. And biometric facial recognition technology is being tested with video surveillance systems in a handful of places such as the Fresno airport and the resort area of Virginia Beach, Va. ... The terrorist attacks have led to a 'rapidly expanding use' of closed- circuit video cameras and related technology, according to a March 2002 report by the research bureau of the California State Library. And studies show that a majority of people support the expanded use of video surveillance of public areas and of facial recognition technology to pick out suspected terrorists, said Marcus Nieto, the report's co-author."
>>> Law Enforcement, Image Understanding (including Biometrics), Vision, Ethical & Social Implications
-> back to headlines

September 9, 2002: Computer games start thinking. By Mark Ward. BBC. "Michael de Plater, creative director at Creative Assembly which made Medieval, said Sun Tzu's classic work The Art of War was a great guide for the writers of the AI. The original Art of War is thought to have been written around 500 BC when Chinese states were perennially in conflict. Sun Tzu himself is thought to be a military strategist and general who served the state of Wu. 'He wrote large sections of it as concrete rules,' said Mr de Plater. 'We have built these straight into the AI.' ... In play-testing Mr de Plater said the AI has surprised them all by staging ambushes, false retreats and using other complex tactics. ... This work looks frivolous but it could be profoundly important. Wittgenstein thought that human society, knowledge and language was hollow, little more than a tentative agreement that we all accept. ... It could also mean that AI in computer games could help us realise that the world has no meaning except that which we choose to impose on it. We may be nothing but the imagination of ourselves. Suddenly computer games are looking very serious indeed."
>>> Video Games, Philosophy
-> back to headlines

September 9, 2002: Hidden In Nature. The New York Times (no-fee reg. req'd). "What if we could actually harness nature's secrets to create remarkable new inventions - insect based robots, armies of artificial ants? Scientists are just beginning to reap the benefits of using nature's way to solve problems. ... Studying how animals move can teach how to build better machines, but studying how animals behave can teach us a whole new way to think. Doctor Eric Bonabeau is one of the proponents of a new branch of science called swarm intelligence. A flock of birds, a swarm of bees; it looks like they're following a complex plan. But research into how swarms and flocks behave reveals that each ant or bee is actually following only a few simple rules of behavior, which when multiplied by thousands achieves astonishing feats. Dr. Alcherio Martinoli and his colleagues are simulating these behaviors in the lab to try to learn how to make groups of robots work together, just like ants."
>>> Nature of Intelligence, Robots, Cognitive Science, Artificial Life, Multi-Agent Systems
-> back to headlines

September 9, 2002: Metaphorically Speaking. Opinion by Gary H. Anthes. Computerworld. "An overreliance on biological metaphors has been the undoing of much of artificial intelligence, [Mitch Kapor] says. Indeed, we have used concepts from biology as computational metaphors ever since Aetna Insurance installed its first 'electronic brain' (an IBM 650) in 1954. Such metaphors can give the layman a shallow inkling of what's going on. But computer scientists and application developers would never rely on them to guide their work, would they? It turns out researchers are increasingly doing just that. Stephanie Forrest, a computer scientist at the University of New Mexico, is building systems that can detect hacker intrusions by imitating the human immune system. ... Today, software based on ant behavior is used for optimization applications such as factory scheduling, vehicle routing and telecommunications switching. Meanwhile, other researchers are developing systems based on 'evolutionary computing' to solve factory scheduling and optimization problems. ... These biology-inspired algorithms aren't just the stuff of Ph.D. dissertations. Researchers have really studied the immune system, ants, evolution and other biological phenomena and have invented useful new computational techniques based on them. If you are a creator of software, or even a user of it, you might do well to look to nontraditional sources, biological and otherwise, for inspiration."
>>> AI Overview, Cognitive Science, Nature of Intelligence, Turing Test, Networks, Machine Learning, Genetic Algorithms, Applications, and see a related article below
-> back to headlines

September 9, 2002: PCs and Speech - A Rocky Marriage: Dictation efforts faltered, but other applications have fans. By Faith Keenan. BusinessWeek. "Die-hard speech-recognition enthusiasts concede that the dictation market has been a bust, but still believe speech technology will take root. They're particularly excited about environments such as call centers, where consumers dangle on help lines and navigate maddening touch-tone menus. Already, in some locations, these have been replaced by friendly, human-sounding responders that seem to understand natural speech and can deliver on request everything from bank balances to weather forecasts and travel itineraries. Forget about dictation, says Ronald Croen, CEO of Nuance Communications (NUAN ) in Menlo Park, Calif., which sells core recognition software that others build into call-center applications. 'We've all realized there are more diverse opportunities on the communications and services side,' he says. Among the companies that have gone down this road are Yahoo! Inc. and Amtrak. At Yahoo, subscribers pay $4.95 a month to interact with a virtual responder named Jenni, who can help them find sports scores and weather reports. And Amtrak's perky attendant, Julie, serves up schedule, fare, and train-status information. ... Researcher Frost & Sullivan puts the call-center market for such voice programs at $114 million in 2001."
>>> Customer Relations, Natural Language, Speech, Industry Statistics, Applications
-> back to headlines

September 7, 2002: RGU'S Artificial Intelligence Conference Ends. The Press and Journal. "A major international computing conference drew to a close in Aberdeen yesterday. ... CBR [Case-Based Reasoning] is a type of artificial intelligence which allows computers to mimic problem-solving behaviour. It solves new problems by reusing solutions from previous similar problem-solving -not unlike the way we use our memory. The conference was hosted by The Robert Gordon University. ... The technology has already been put to good use in many wide-ranging applications, including sales support for e-commerce, scheduling maintenance for aircraft engines and predicting water in oil wells."
>>> Case-Based Reasoning, Applications, Conferences
-> back to headlines

September 7, 2002: A matter of disbelief. By Phillip Adams. The Australian. "I've been recruited for two debates at the University of Sydney. The first: Does God exist? The second: Is it possible for a 21st-century scientist to be a Christian? God knows why I'm participating, as I detest formal debates. ... Then there's the current crop of gods. Shirley Maclaine stands on beaches and yells 'I am God' to the waves. Other New Agers insist that God is inside me. Neo-pagans and ultra-ecologists see God in trees and rocks. Then there are the worshippers of information technology and artificial intelligence who concede that God didn't exist, doesn't exist - but is coming into existence thanks to the spread of electronic consciousness that, they believe, will ultimately pollinate the entire universe."
>>> Philosophy
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September 7, 2002: Feedback column. New Scientist (Vol. 175; pg. 108). "We mourn the cancellation of what was arguably to have been the highlight of the Pacific Rim conference on Artificial Intelligence in Tokyo last week. Still, if the organisers of the International Workshop on Belief Change can't change their minds, who can?
>>> Conferences, Belief Revision, Humor
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September 7, 2002: Under the spell of a machine - Whether machines have contributed to humanity or have they actually dehumanized people is a big question to which there can be no definite answer. By Noor Saleh. The Star (Jordan). "How we communicate, work, plan, entertain ourselves, and even select a mate have recently been transformed by computers. Entire sectors of labor have been replaced with artificial intelligence and advanced office machines entered the work place. Thousands of jobs have been lost to a computer chip. Man is no longer important, or to be fair, his importance is secondary. What is now important is the presence of that machine. Just think of what happens when electricity is cut off in a big company, shutting off all the machines, or just imagine the fear when a virus attacks the computers, deleting all data. ... Our minds are no longer functioning as in the past. We are under the spell of the machine, that invention that has succeeded in killing the presence of the human touch in everything we do."
>>> Ethical & Social Implications, AI Overview, Applications
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September 6, 2002: Web May Hold the Key to Achieving Artificial Intelligence. By Ariana Eunjung Cha. The Washington Post / also available from The International Herald Tribune (Artificial intelligence taps the global brain). "SmarterChild, a computer program, is part of a new species of 'chatterbots' that are renewing debate about the extent to which computers can achieve intelligence. The electronic personalities of this generation use the vast repository of information on the World Wide Web as their memory bank, not just some rigid database. ... The company that conceived SmarterChild, Active Buddy Inc., created the bot as a marketing tool that would engage people in conversation and then tell them about various products or services. Other companies have begun using these systems to help with customer service or Web searching. Eventually, however, some believe that technicians will be able to turn programs like SmarterChild into more intelligent systems. That is, the network will naturally begin to evolve into a sort of global brain, one made up of the constellation of the roughly 1 billion computers comprising the Internet."
>>> Natural Language (including Chatterbots), Web-Searching Agents, Machine Learning, Marketing & Customer Relations, Information Retrieval, Representation, Ontologies
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September 6, 2002: Internet pornography not a problem, say IT experts. By Tshering Gyeltshen. Kuensel (Bhutan). "According to online survey reports, there are over 230,000 pornographic websites on the internet with 200 - 300 new sites being included each day. In addition to this, computer hackers often hijack sites with respectable names and convert them to pornography sites - as has been the case with Kuensel.com. ... Filtering systems, such as BAIRSM, instantly recognizes and evaluates visual images as well as text. The BAIRSM Filtering System is reportedly the only software program that uses artificial intelligence to recognize and block pornography and other material considered 'objectionable'."
>>> Web-Searching Agents (including Filtering), Information Retrieval, Applications
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September 6, 2002: Robotics: Awakening an industry - Attacks created emphasis on defense. By Christopher Davis. Pittsburgh Business Times. "'Definitely, 9/11 has really given us reason to mobilize as a community,' said Ronnie Bryant, president of the Pittsburgh Regional Alliance, a 10-county economic development group that formed the Center for Defense Robotics and has orchestrated the region's Future Combat efforts. 'These activities are the results of responding to the tragedy.' ... The program focuses on developing new unmanned vehicles and weapons enhanced with artificial intelligence that will give the Army more lethal and tactical capabilities, often without endangering troops. 'I think the situation in Afghanistan really highlighted the need for unmanned vehicles,' Mr. Bryant said. With the federal government expected to spend $34 billion on Future Combat Systems, in addition to the billions that will be spent on homeland security measures, the market for defense-related robotics products is rapidly expanding, Mr. Bryant said."
>>> Military, Robots, Autonomous Vehicles, Hazards & Disasters
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September 6, 2002: Technological and engineering aspects of 9/11. NPR Talk of the Nation: Science Friday With Ira Flatow. "Joining me to talk about this is Glenn Zorpette. He's executive editor of the magazine IEEE Spectrum, put out by the Institute of Electrical and Electronics Engineers. ... Mr. Zorpette: There is a -- when The Washington Post did a report recently of the proposed 2003 budget, I noticed a $1 billion line item that they referred to, which was for the NSA to develop automated -- better automated methods using artificial intelligence and other high technologies to winnow out the useful, important, urgent information. As you can imagine, this is an absolutely staggering task. And the fact that, as I understand it, a billion dollars is even being discussed for this challenge just shows you the magnitude of it. For contrast, the entire annual budget of the NSA is only $4 billion a year -- only. ... There is a lot of work going on now, all over the world, in automatic translation." Click here to listen to the broadcast.
>>> Law Enforcement, Data Mining, Machine Translation, Information Retrieval & Extraction
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September 5, 2002: A Theory of Evolution, for Robots. By Lakshmi Sandhana. Wired News. "If you can't program a robot to fly, then program it so it will figure out how to fly without your help. Krister Wolff and Peter Nordin, two scientists at the Chalmers University of Technology in Sweden, have designed a winged robot capable of learning flight techniques. ... Scientists still do not fully understand the mechanics of insect flight, especially those aspects controlling balance and motion. As recently as a couple of years ago, what was known about the bumblebee indicated it should not be able to fly. And yet it does. An elegant way around the lack of understanding could be to just give up on understanding altogether and let the machines learn for themselves. Genetic programming is one way to approach this complex problem. Using this technique, Wolff and Nordin evaluated the instructions that were best at producing liftoff. Successful ones were paired up, and "offspring" sets of instructions were generated by swapping instructions randomly between successful pairs. These next-generation instructions were then sent to the robot and evaluated before breeding a new generation."
>>> Genetic Algorithms, Machine Learning
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September 5, 2002: PC network solves game. By Chrissie Davies. Financial Times. "Computer scientists in the Netherlands have solved an ancient strategy game, called awari, using a network of 144 personal computers and a problem-solving procedure, or algorithm. The game, played in many countries but especially in Africa and the West Indies, involves capturing opponents' stones or 'seeds'. ... This is a landmark achievement in artificial intelligence and follows Deep Blue's success in beating chess champion Gary Kasparov in 1997."
>>> Games & Puzzles, More Games & Puzzles, History
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September 5, 2002: Please Rise for 'The World Anthem.' By Susan Jones. CNSNews. "'The World Anthem' - described as a musical composite of the world's 193 national anthems - offers 'hope for a more peaceful world,' according to the Colorado-based think tank that helped create the song and now is trying to make it a hit. The MindShare Foundation of Fort Collins says the two-minute-long anthem -- created by a Denver music producer with help from an artificial intelligence computer -- 'reflects the combined voice of all nations.' It is 'based on the common notes and musical tendencies' of all nations' national anthems, according to the group's website. The anthem has been performed at various events around the world, and MindShare says it will be performed again in connection with a Sept. 11 observance in Hong Kong."
>>> Music
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September 4, 2002: Interview - Bill Joy. Interviewed by Simon London, Inside Track column. Financial Times. "FT: Three years ago you caused a stir with your article in Wired magaine warning of the threat to humanity posed by biotechnology and robotics. Have your views changed? BJ: No.... FT: What about artificial intelligence? There's a lot in the article about the potential threat posed by self-replicating machines.BJ: ..."
>>> Ethical & Social Implications, Interviews
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September 4, 2002: Air Security Focusing on Flier Screening - Complex Profiling Network Months Behind Schedule. By Robert O'Harrow Jr.. The Washington Post / also available from The Seattle Times (Preflight checks: New software profiles travelers in advance. September 7, 2002). "From the moment the Transportation Security Administration was formed, agency officials have been consumed by the idea of a vast network of supercomputers that would instantly probe every passenger's background for clues about violent designs. The agency has spent millions of dollars and innumerable hours studying how the secret profiling system known as CAPPS II could enable them to 'deter, prevent or capture terrorists' before they board an airplane, government documents show. In recent months, the agency hired four teams of technology companies that have honed their expertise in profiling for casinos, marketing companies and financial institutions. Their mission was to demonstrate how artificial intelligence and other powerful software can analyze passengers' travel reservations, housing information, family ties, identifying details in credit reports and other personal data to determine if they're 'rooted in the community' -- or have an unusual history that indicates a potential threat. Now transportation and intelligence officials believe that CAPPS II -- short for the second-generation Computer Assisted Passenger Prescreening System -- will form the core of a new framework in aviation security: a far more intense focus on people rather than baggage. They intend to extend its use to screen truckers, railroad conductors, subway workers and others whose transportation jobs involve the public trust."
>>> Machine Learning, Law Enforcement, Ethical & Social Implications, Fuzzy Logic, Neural Networks, Data Mining and Discovery, Applications
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September 4, 2002: AI helps gamers keep on playing. By Mark Ward. BBC. "Every computer game player knows that real life can intrude at the most inopportune moments. ... But Israeli game maker Majorem could have a solution to this problem, at least for players of its forthcoming Ballerium online game. The company has developed an artificial intelligence system that learns a gamer's style of play and can take over and play for them if they have to spend time away from the game." And when you're done reading the article, you can watch the related BBC World Service webcast.
>>> Video Games, Genetic Algorithms, Machine Learning
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September 3, 2002: UA joining in worldwide online 9-11 memorial event. By Blake Morlock. Tucson Citizen. "The University of Arizona will take part in a global online memorial of Sept. 11 on the anniversary of the terrorist attacks. ... The artistic performances will originate from Arizona State University's Institute for the Studies of the Arts. Information transmitted and gathered will be stored for use in a project that uses artificial intelligence to recall the attacks."

  • Also see the press release (August 26, 2002) from Arizona State University: "Memoria/Memoire will remain available on the web for at least a year. The information contained in this archive will then become part of the project's third phase, which is primarily about how we gain, lose and share memory. The third phase of Memoria/Memoire will be a physical, interactive and reactive installation that will open at UA on Sept. 11, 2003. It will compare the functions of human memory with the functions of Artificial Intelligence, or AI memory. Visitors who enter the space will be able to call up stories, images and video, or watch as the AI aspect of the installation does the same."
  • >>> Information Retrieval & Extraction
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September 3, 2002: Anti-terror efforts pinch privacy. By Declan McCullagh. CNET News. "In the year that has elapsed since the Sept. 11 terrorist attacks, the world's governments have moved to restrict privacy, boost surveillance and increase linking of databases, according to a survey released by a pair of advocacy groups on Tuesday. ... Four trends have become apparent, according to the report: the swift erosion of pro-privacy laws; greater data sharing among corporations, police and spy agencies; greater eavesdropping; and sharply increased interest in people-tracking technologies, such as face-recognition systems and national ID cards."
>>> Image Understanding (including Biometrics), Law Enforcement, Ethical & Social Implications
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September 2, 2002: Designs for easier steering through life. The Toronto Star. "Canada is a world leader in rehabilitative technology, and Geoff Fernie, director of Sunnybrook Hospital's Centre for Studies in Aging, is one of the reasons why. Judy Steed speaks with a designer on a mission. ... Fernie's team is also working on an artificial intelligence project for people with dementia, to prompt them to do simple tasks, such as go to the bathroom and wash their hands. 'A camera will watch what they're doing, and if they make a mistake -- if they just stand in front of the sink and forget what they're supposed to do -- a computer will cue a voice telling them to turn on the tap, pick up the soap, rinse their hands,' says Pam Holliday, a research associate. There's a huge, expanding market for the centre's products. But Fernie and his team are constantly scrounging for money. 'You want to produce a simple product that people need -- getting on and off toilets is a passion of mine,' Fernie says. 'But try writing a grant application for adjustable grab bars around the toilet. It's hard to get any interest -- until you put the word robot in front, and then the product flies.' He's got one: RoboNurse, a device that's driven by a nurse and functions as a sort of forklift for humans -- a description that troubles Fernie."
>>> Assistive Technologies, Applications
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September 2, 2002: The Robot Shopkeeper - New customer behavior technology from NCorp gives a personal touch to online shopping. By Thomas K. Grose. TIME Europe: Digital Europe Start-Up of the Week. "In today's world of online shopping, call centers and impersonal supermarkets, that human touch is missing. But technology developed by a former Cambridge University researcher could help introduce old fashioned personal care into online shopping. Mike Lynch, who has a doctorate in pattern recognition, began developing algorithms to help identify patterns more than a decade ago. ... The basic technology is a form of Artificial Intelligence that 'gives computers the ability to recognize patterns the way humans can,' explains Nick Bidmead, NCorp chief executive. ... When a person is buying a car, there are myriad features to consider: cost, mileage, styling, make, color, etc. And the importance of each factor differs greatly from buyer to buyer. Using Lynch's technology, a prospective customer can describe his or her dream car, and the software will return with a list of those models that most closely match the ideal."
>>> Pattern Recognition, Marketing, Customer Relations & E-Commerce, Machine Learning, Applications
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September 2, 2002: They Weren't Meant to Be Games. By Brad King. Wired News. "Design teams also continue to develop the artificial intelligence that controls everything from computer characters to subtle background color changes. Artificial intelligence is particularly important for sports games like John Madden Football 2003. It handles everything from complex player shifts to players blinking their eyes. This year's breakthrough allows players to squeeze past players on their own, something that has frustrated players in the past."
>>> Video Games, Drama
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September 2, 2002: Organic robot mimics sea life. BBC. "An organic robot designed to imitate primitive life forms has been created by scientists in the US. The Public Anemone is a robot set in a rock pool filled with greenish water which reacts to light and touch, much like an real sea anemone. The researchers at the Massachusetts Institute of technology in Boston see their robot as a way of exploring artificial life. They hope to gain insights into how to create robots that can behave and interact naturally with humans."
>>> Artificial Life, Robots
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September 2, 2002: Computer babbles like a baby. Daily Times (Pakistan). "The idea of a child android programmed to love, as in Steven Spielberg's film AI, may seem like pure science fiction. But this may become a reality sooner than we think, according to Jack Dunietz, a hi-tech entrepreneur and president of an Israeli-based company called Artificial Intelligence (Ai). His team of scientists have designed a computer program based on a set of behavioural algorithms that enable the computer to learn language the same way humans do, starting from scratch."
>>> Machine Learning, Cognitive Science
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September 1, 2002: Robots Revolution: The arrival of robots at General Motors Corp. in 1961 brought the promise of flexible automation. Today's advances in research offer robots the chance to reach their full industrial potential. By John Teresko. Industry Week. "About 800,000 robots populate global manufacturing with almost half working in Japan. About 121,000 industrial robots work in the U.S., says Donald A. Vincent, executive vice president, Robotic Industries Association, Ann Arbor, Mich. ... The new fundamental is intelligence-robotic technology converging with a wide variety of complementary technologies, says senior analyst Dick Slansky, ARC Advisory Group, Dedham, Mass. He cites machine vision, force sensing (touch), speech recognition and advanced mechanics. The result: exciting new levels of functionality for areas never before considered practical for robots, adds Slansky."
>>> Robots, Applications, History, Manufacturing, Industry Statistics, Vision
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September 1, 2002: Wanna Bet? By Amy Harmon. The New York Times (no-fee reg. req'd). "Designed to sharpen long-term thinking on issues of social or scientific significance, the nonprofit site (a spinoff of the Long Now Foundation, headed by veteran Silicon Valley pundits Stewart Brand and Kevin Kelly), solicits prophecy backed by currency. To divert gamblers and kibitzers from the mesmerizing press of the next five minutes, the minimum bet is $1,000 and the minimum period is two years. ... The biggest bet (so far) 'A computer or 'machine intelligence' will pass the Turing test by 2029.'"
>>> Turing Test, History, Overview, also see related articles from September, April and May
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