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NOVEMBER 2004 November 30, 2004: The Guitarist Is Metal. No, Not Heavy Metal. By Michael Beckerman. The New York Times (no fee reg. req'd.). "'We weren't interested in making robots that played musical instruments,' said Mr. Singer, of Lemur (League of Electronic Musical Urban Robots), in the subsequent conversation. 'We wanted robots that were musical instruments.' GuitarBot will appear again tonight - thrilling the audience as four moving bridges zing up and down its four strings like in a racehorse game at a carnival - in a concert by Mr. Adamson at the Juilliard School. 'Robo Recital,' it is billed. 'No Human Performers.' This kind of 'posthuman' hype creates everything from shivers of delight (Robots, how neat!) to shivers of fear (What? They don't need us humans anymore?), which have been part of the response to robots since they first appeared in fiction at the beginning of the last century. ... GuitarBot claims its ancestor not in the golem - which, after all, has decidedly human characteristics - but in the ingenious automated machines of the last three centuries. In the mid-18th century, the Maillardet brothers created an astonishing writer-draftsman that could write poetry and do amazing drawings of ships and buildings. Around the same time, Jacques de Vaucanson created his famous defecating duck, which could eat, digest and all the rest. ... While audiences may be titillated by the prospect of seeing such devices and their descendants do 'human' things, Mr. Singer and Mr. [J. Brendan] Adamson have something else in mind. Mr. Adamson, in particular, is more concerned with technical issues and the ability of machines to do things that humans cannot accomplish." November 30, 2004: Searching Smarter, Not Harder. By John Gartner. Wired News. "Databases and search engines provide instantaneous access to endless information about anyone or anything, but the search results often include as many misses as hits. To generate more-relevant answers, organizations including the federal government are using topic maps to index their data. Topic maps are smart indices that improve search capabilities by categorizing terms based on their relationships with other things. For example, William Shakespeare is a topic that would be mapped to essays about him, his plays and his famous quotes. ... Computer automation and human intervention are used in building topic maps, according to Michel Biezunski, president of InfoLoom and a consultant on the IRS project. He said an artificial-intelligence application groups the data into a preliminary map that is then refined by people, he said. 'You need experts to build the relationships' between terms, according to Biezunski." November 29, 2004: Speedy computer chip for PlayStation near. By Michelle Kessler. USA Today. "The superfast computer chip expected to power Sony's next-generation PlayStation video game system and other cutting-edge consumer electronics will be ready next year, Sony, IBM and Toshiba said Monday. ... That's important, because video games are growing increasingly sophisticated. Future games will use artificial intelligence so characters can react to a player's moves, for example. 'Gamers are one of the last niches where you can never have enough performance,' says chip analyst Nathan Brookwood with semiconductor research firm Insight 64." November 29, 2004: Eye spy. e4engineering.com. "A team of engineers and psychologists at the University of Texas at Austin has received $1.2 million from the National Science Foundation to develop a visual search system capable of finding objects in cluttered environments. Dr. Alan C. Bovik, electrical engineering professor, and the project's other principal investigators, Drs. Larry Cormack, Bill Geisler and Eyal Seidemann, all psychology professors at The University of Texas at Austin, will research the methods used by humans to search for objects to understand the process used by the human eye. ... Bovik sees the results of his research having helpful applications in medical diagnostics. He says, for example, that most doctors miss about 10 percent of breast tumours appearing on a mammogram. However, a few physicians consistently identify the most elusive tumours. By documenting the methods used by these elite few, he hopes to create a machine to serve as a 'physician's assistant' which scans mammograms initially, then shows the result to the doctor as an additional cue." November 29, 2004: How scientists might soon be able to build a better brain. Book review by John Rooney. The Philadelphia Inquirer & philly.com. "Do humans possess the ability to build an artificial brain that is more intelligent than the brightest human? This is the challenge Jeff Hawkins throws out to current and aspiring scientists in On Intelligence. To some readers the idea will conjure up specters of black magic and evil scientists bent on controlling the world. Hawkins, however, is not writing science fiction. The man who created the Palm Pilot and the Treo smart phone has one foot planted firmly in neuroscience and the other in computer science as his mind imagines fascinating new ways of combing the two. Research in artificial intelligence (AI) and neural networks have already made remarkable advances. ... Hawkins holds that computer scientists have been focusing too much on the end product. Like B.F. Skinner, who held that psychologists should study stimuli and responses and ignore the cognitions that go on in the brain, scientists working in AI and neural networks have focused too much on inputs and outputs rather than the neurological system that connects them." November 29, 2004: Science lessons are anything but typical. By Chloe Mister. Legislative Gazette (NY). "Cheryl Isles’ science classroom looks typical, with cupboards full of beakers and flasks and desks lined up perfectly. However the work that goes on in her class is anything but typical. Along with her colleague, science teacher Caryl Kane, Isles serves as a teacher to students taking the science research in high school course at Cohoes High School. ... [S]ome have chosen their subjects for no other reason then they find them interesting. Matt Nolin has chosen artificial intelligence as a general subject and has narrowed it down to video games. 'I enjoy reading about intelligence. It is interesting to see how things act like humans,' Nolin said. ... The class is an elective that students may begin in their sophomore year. Daniel Wulff, professor of biological sciences at University at Albany and director of the science research in high schools program, thought of the program after learning that some students from certain high schools were faring better at the Upstate New York Junior Science and Humanities Symposium because they participated in scientific research in their schools. ... In the summer before their sophomore year, students are to read 10 general articles about their area of interest. They then transition to more difficult reading in science journals and by the spring they are ready to recruit a mentor. By their junior or senior year, students are ready to give their presentations." November 28, 2004: A Robot for the Masses. By Francisco Goldman. The New York Times Sunday Magazine (no fee reg. req'd.). "Mark Tilden, a robotic physicist formerly of Los Alamos National Laboratory and NASA, invented Robosapien, or at least the prototype, in an intense three-week effort in 2001. Tilden, who is in his 40's, described it as 'the first real mass-marketed humanoid robot.' I was told that it would be commercially available the summer of 2004 for $99. ... In his booming, grandiloquent voice, Tilden began a highly scientific-sounding explanation of why Robosapien's price was so low -- something to do with his pioneering work in analog robotics, which uses simple electronics parts and imitates the natural physics of nature rather than computer-driven digital mechanics. ... The word 'robot,' originally coined by Karel Capek in his futuristic play 'R.U.R.,' comes from the Czech word for forced labor. A robot must be able to perform tasks -- and Robosapien can, depending on your skill. You can make it pick up your socks, but for the ordinary user, it can take a long time. A plastic cup is far easier. ... There are philosophers of the future and experts on the subjects of robotics and artificial intelligence who are certain that on some far-off day the most pressing moral issue humans will face will be how to distinguish ourselves from lifelike machines. Maybe we will even have joined them, evolving into cyborgs, hybrid human-machines. Such speculations far outpace the current stage of robotics. The field, for all its advances, is still in its infancy. Some scientists have predicted that the real advances in robotics will not occur in university or government labs but in entertainment robots like Robosapien, conceived to appeal to consumers. In a remarkable scholarly book, 'The Secret Life of Puppets,' Victoria Nelson argues that our sense of the supernatural and yearning for immortality has been displaced from religion to such expressions of popular culture as superheroes, robots and cyborgs. We want robots that will perform chores for us, but want them for deeper, more mysterious reasons, too." November 26, 2004: Got Robot? Dairy Farmer Sees 'Milking Parlor' as Tourist Stop - Cows don't seem to mind the machines that Clark Hinsdale II says hike output, cut costs. By Elizabeth Mehren. Los Angeles Times (no fee reg. req'd.). "Although widely used in Europe, the mechanized milking systems are the first of their kind in New England, and one of several dozen scattered across North America. ... [Clark] Hinsdale said visitors who expected to see 'R2D2 running around the barn' would be disappointed when the dairy robot turned out to be a stationary unit made out of gleaming stainless steel. The Lely automatic milking system, from the Netherlands, looks clinical and has a cow-wash as part of the process. ... Vermont Secretary of Agriculture Steve Kerr called Hinsdale's robot-farm 'a cool thing' that introduced a new element to dairy farming, the dominant portion of the state's half-billion-dollar agricultural industry. ... 'These are smart, simple robots,' he said. 'And they are cool to watch.'" November 26, 2004: Man and machine - Part 1: the quest for mechanical man. By Dheera Sujan. Radio Netherlands. "In her book Edison's Eve: A Magical History of the Quest for Mechanical Life, Gaby Wood documents the long history of humanity's fascination with mechanical representations of itself. And she poses the question - what do we want from a machine that simulates us? 'Is it supposed to be as close as possible to a human being, or to improve on that, and become superhuman? In the quest for mechanical perfection, does perfection mean infallibility (as in the computer), or innocence (as in the child)?' These questions have been around since the Enlightenment and the dawn of the age of machines; now researchers in the field of Artificial Intelligence are returning to them as they gain renewed relevance. ... At what pointpoint does a humanoid machine achieve personhood? Dr [Anne] Foerst's search for an answer to this question has led her through a philosophical maze that has forced her to examine her own ideas on what it means to be alive. ... Fear has always been part of the fascination we have for the idea of reproducing ourselves mechanically. According to Dr Foerst, however, that won't happen if we take responsibility for our creation. After all, Dr Frankenstein didn't create a monster; the creature (never dignified with a name) only became a monster when he was rejected by his creator and the rest of mankind." You can listen to the broadcast via a link on the page. November 25, 2004: 'Swarm-bots' offer sniff of the future. Mini-robots with a sense of smell are on the march. By Emma Young. EducationGuardian.co.uk. "Ultimately, [Andy] Russell [of Monash University] wants to build swarms of mini-robots to go where no sniffer dog could survive. They could be sent into a chemical weapons dump to locate and patch holes in damaged canisters. They could even use scent trails to work together to build bases on Mars. 'There's lots of interest in swarms of robots that can organise themselves and operate without human assistance,' Russell says. This work does not require the creation of new forms of behaviour. Russell is using algorithms developed from studies of insects. Ants are a particular favourite. Marco Dorigo, director of the artificial intelligence research lab at the Université Libre de Bruxelles, leads a 'swarm-bots' project funded by the EU. As he says, ants are simple creatures that can perform complicated tasks without centralised control. Dorigo and his colleagues are using ant algorithms to help control 20 mini-robots. Working together, these robots can cooperate to complete tasks such as transporting an object too heavy for an individual." November 25, 2004: For veteran gamers who love sports and the car chase, these titles are paradise. By Darrin Hill. Detnews.com. "'Madden NFL 2005' offers an amped-up artificial intelligence (AI) both on offense and defense, along with great graphics, authentic stadiums, and a weekly radio show called 'Storyline Central' with host Tony Bruno that discusses activity within your team." November 24, 2004: Your Train Will Be Late, She Says Cheerily. By Ian Urbina. The New York Times (no fee reg. req'd.). "Julie is more than just an automated ticket agent. She offers a sympathetic ear and reassuring guidance. And during what is Amtrak's busiest time of year, she goes a long way in helping the railroad quell the impatient masses. With her spunky personality, Julie is also a trendsetter among a new breed of customer service software programs meant to be a kinder and gentler replacement to the touch-tone mazes that for years left callers aimlessly pressing 'one' for this or 'two' for that. 'Hi, this is Amtrak. I'm Julie,' she says in a perky tone . 'O.K., let's get started.' She is casual: 'You'll want a pen and paper handy.' ... Occasionally, she is even apologetic: 'I'm sorry, I didn't get that.' ... Many riders say that she sounds and acts so lifelike that they did not immediately realize that she was just a computer program. In handling roughly five million calls, or about a quarter of Amtrak's annual call volume Julie has saved the perennially strained railroad more than $13 million that it would have cost for humans to handle calls. Amtrak officials would not say how much Julie cost. ... Setting the right tone for computer personas can also be a challenge. Mercedes-Benz had to change the on-board software in some of its cars after male customers complained that they did not like taking driving directions from a female voice." November 24, 2004: Toward a More Human Robot - Carnegie Mellon's Takeo Kanade explains why making smarter systems requires better understanding about how people really act. Interview by Cliff Edwards. BusinessWeek Online. "Q: What's ripe for innovation? A: Certainly, I'd like to comment on my own area, that is robotics, artificial intelligence [AI], and the like. My own thinking today is that I think we should understand how humans act and use that [insight] to develop a better system that serves for human. You can call it AI. I'm more interested in, and I believe it's useful and enormously valuable to understand, how humans function, not necessarily how humans are made. ... Q: What are the hurdles that robotics and AI need to overcome? A: The hurdle is we do not know ourselves, how we are doing. In general, I call it an invisible robotics -- environmental robotics. The environment as a whole is a robot, not the human individual humanoid or arm or mobile robot. ... Q: Is there a problem in the U.S. of underfunding areas of research? A: I'm less familiar about that area. I'm mostly dealing with places like DARPA [the Defense Advanced Research Projects Agency]. My concern is that we may be reducing what I call playfulness. In research, a large part of it is based on results. We're too result-oriented. The hallmark of the U.S., and I came from Japan and was very impressed with the difference I found, was what I call this playfulness -- people willing to pay money for those things which appeared to be somewhat ridiculous ideas. ..." November 23, 2004: Bayesian networks made easy - Q&A with Zach Cox, Java coder and chief developer of BNET Builder. Interview by Rich Seeley. ADTmag.com. "ADT: What’s a Bayesian network? Cox: Not many people know about the technology. It’s an artificial intelligence technology and it’s very similar to expert systems, rule systems, if-then rules. But instead of working with true and false logic, like if-then rules, it works with probability theory. So, you basically say, if A is true, then the probability that B is true is X. So, instead of saying, if it’s cloudy outside, then it will rain, you can say things like, if it’s cloudy outside, then the probability of rain is 85%. ADT: How is this used? Cox: It has a lot of different applications. One of the earlier applications that drove a lot of the research was medical diagnosis. So, a doctor or medical researchers can build a Bayesian network that specifies how different diseases cause symptoms. That’s a big part of Bayesian networks from reasons and causes to effects. ... ADT: How about business uses? Cox: Another big application of Bayesian networks is in the financial industry for credit scoring." November 23, 2004: The human behind this year's hot robot - Robotic physicist Mark Tilden looks back, looks ahead. Interview by Alan Boyle. MSNBC. "Robosapien took its curmudgeonly place this year in a toy menagerie that also includes cyber-critters ranging from the occasionally annoying talking Furby pet to the gleaming, expensive Sony Aibo robotic dog. The humanoid robot stands out in part because there's a human behind the marketing campaign: Mark Tilden, the British-born 'robotics physicist' at Hong Kong-based Wow Wee. ... Are there things that you believe your former employers (NASA, DARPA, Los Alamos, etc.) could learn from this? Tilden: I'm hoping a few will try out their many Artificial Intelligence and Artificial Life science ideas using the Robosapien. Many colleagues complained there was always a shortage of inexpensive robot bodies to do experimentation with. The Robosapien is smart enough to use in an advanced robotics course as is, but with a little tweaking..." November 23, 2004: Now boarding on Track 1 with no need to run - With new cameras, NJ Transit track-announcement system leaves Ice Age. By Joe Malinconico. The Star-Ledger / available from NJ.com. "The companies that sold NJ Transit the new video monitoring equipment also offer 'artificial intelligence' components for security purposes. NJ Transit's system can accommodate software used, for example, to alert the railroad's control center if someone leaves a package unattended on a platform or parks a van in an unauthorized space at a station. For now, NJ Transit has purchased only the basic equipment, without the security components." November 23, 2004: Private sector urged to raise R&D funding. The Financial Express. "The private sector has to step up funding of research in areas that hold the key to tomorrow’s practical life, according to Dr K Kasturirangan, member of the Rajya Sabha and director of the National Institute of Advanced Studies. ... He said there are probably separate meets where experts from artificial intelligence and neural networks could give industrialists an idea of the potential of these techniques for their own industry. 'Applications for neural networks exist in industries like banking, in preventing fraud, in medical areas,' Dr Kasturirangan said." November 22, 2004: Some Housing Markets Still Red Hot. The Flip Side - CNNFN television broadcast hosted by Kathleen Hays, JJ Ramberg and Stephanie Elam (video and/or transcript available for purchase). "Hays: Homeownership continues to grow in the United States, but our next guest says a housing bubble is not going to occur. Even so, people are wondering. The market`s been kind of overheated in some places, prices going up or down. If you want to jump in, what`s the best mortgage to buy right now? Joining us from Dallas is Jim McMahan, mortgage lender with CTX Mortgage. ... McMahan: ... Now I`ll tell you, because I know the next question many times is, well, gosh, isn`t that alarming to take those high loan-to-value products? The market has changed because of FICO scoring, because of better artificial intelligence. The default rate nationally is still less than 1 percent, which is where lenders like to see it. ... I think that a question has to be asked that we ask all of our customers: what`s most important about this home loan to you. If there`s other debt in place, we`ve got to look at that. Again, FICO scoring today and the models we use, DU, Desktop Underwriters, some of the basically artificial intelligence underwriting models where you put it into a computer and it says yes or no, is certainly helping with that." November 22, 2004: Driven by logic. By Jessie Hui. Sourth China Morning Post (subscription req'd.) "Driven by the desire to use technology to help the needy, a group of secondary school students won a competition with their communication system that makes life a little easier for blind people. The Intelligence @ Society Contest, organised by Hong Kong Baptist University's (HKBU) Computer Science Department earlier this month, was divided into secondary school and university categories. It aimed to arouse students' interest in artificial intelligence and how the 'fuzzy logic' can be applied in our daily lives." November 22, 2004: Study Tracks African Americans in I.T. Programs. By Mike Martin. NewsFactor Network. "Tracking the educational enrollment of an ethnic group traditionally under-represented in information technology -- African Americans -- is the goal of a new National Science Foundation-sponsored study. ... 'In the 1990s, the number of African-Americans enrolling in and graduating from graduate and undergraduate I.T. programs rose significantly,' said Virginia Tech (VT) spokesperson Sookhan Ho. 'However, general enrollments in computer science have declined by almost 30 percent in the 2001-2004 period.' ... Guiding the researchers is a model they developed that describes how students select, persist in, and graduate from I.T. programs and make the transition to the I.T. workplace, including faculty jobs at colleges and universities." November 22, 2004: Computers as Authors? Literary Luddites Unite! Essay by Daniel Akst. The New York Times (no fee reg. req'd.). "This is not science fiction. With little fanfare and (so far) no appearances at Barnes & Noble, computers have started writing without us scribes. They are perfectly capable of nonfiction prose, and while the reputation of Henry James is not yet threatened, computers can even generate brief outbursts of fiction that are probably superior to what many humans could turn out - even those not in master of fine arts programs. Consider the beginning of a short story dealing with the theme of betrayal:.... That pregnant opening paragraph was written by a computer program known as Brutus.1 that was developed by Selmer Bringsjord, a computer scientist at Rensselaer Polytechnic Institute, and David A. Ferrucci, a researcher at I.B.M. ... Computers have been doing literary work for a while now - helping nab plagiarists, for instance - and there is even fiction-writing software for people to use, in one case complete 'with 2,363 narrative situations.' ... If we don't get much good fiction out of computers, we may at least gain some wholesome new perspective on the process of creating literature. The advent of storytelling computers suggests that thinking people and thinking machines confront many of the same problems in writing fiction, even if their solutions are different. ... The economist Herbert Simon, who reminded us of the futility of trying to consider every possible alternative in a world without end.... It was Simon's ideas - particularly his notion of 'satisficing' - that first got me interested in fiction-writing machines." November 22, 2004: Narrowing the search. Perspective by Raul Valdes-Perez. CNET News.com. "With the growth of online content and the improvement in the ranking of search results, the situation is now flipped: Any query turns up an overabundance of results, both relevant and irrelevant. Search engines struggle with the challenge of helping users deal with this information overload. Some search engines are placing their bets on personalization, which I contend is a dead end: Top talent will be expended on the problem with little to show for it in the end. True search personalization means that software will observe your Web surfing and other habits, and infer a profile of your true information tastes. Then your next search for, say, 'anthrax,' will turn up the rock band rather than the chemical. ... But if not search personalization, then what? Some companies are placing bets on a display of search results that goes beyond simple ranked lists. The idea is to analyze the search results, show users the variety of themes therein and let them explore their interests at that moment, which only they are in a position to recognize." November 22, 2004: Artificial intelligence in focus at Hobart conference. ABC News Online. "Ways of better predicting the future through the use of artificial intelligence are being discussed at a three-day conference in Hobart. One of the speakers, Cam Potter, says artificial intelligence is everywhere, with dish washers and washing machines some everyday examples. Mr Potter says the conference is examining some of the bigger projects that are being worked on. 'Biomedical-type areas, so trying to have artificial intelligence in very small chips which can be put throughout people's bodies,' he said. 'There are large systems used for military purposes, there are systems used for basically being able to better interact with the Internet.'" November 21, 2004: FAU invents space-age terror fighters- A joint research deal seeks solutions for combat and espionage as well as space exploration. By John Murawski. PalmBeachPost.com. "The soldier of the future could be commanded by electrodes and aided by a robotic pet designed with the aid of researchers at Florida Atlantic University. FAU is venturing into the futurist realm of electronic tongue sensors, robotic dogs and power-boosting exo-skeletons for use in espionage, combat and space exploration. ... FAU raised its profile in the field of artificial intelligence and cognitive science last month when it signed an agreement to do joint research with the Florida Institute for Human and Machine Cognition in Pensacola." November 21, 2004: More robots mean more tech jobs - Rather than supplant workers, robots create a support need By Victor Godinez. Dallas Morning News / available from The Beacon Journal & Ohio.com. "Robby the Robot and C-3PO may still be years away from reality, but robot vacuum cleaners, medical robots, surveillance robots, underwater robots and demolition robots are here now. And rather than replacing the human work force, robots are creating a booming job market for engineers, software developers and other technical professionals, experts say. American Honda Motor Co. is touring the country with the company's Asimo robot (http://asimo.honda.com), visiting schools to show off the two-legged 'bot to students and spread awareness of careers in the robotics industry. Asimo project leader Stephen Keeney said he hopes to make young students aware of how many different paths there are in the robotics profession. 'Our message that we're trying to get across to students is that to build something like a robot like Asimo, it takes many, many different sciences,' he said. 'It takes people who understand mechanical engineering, electrical engineering, computer scientists such as hardware and software developers, it includes people who understand mathematics,' said Keeney. 'And it includes professions that might not come immediately to mind, people like chemists and physiologists.'" November 21, 2004: Challenges and opportunities of technology for the 21st century. By Anthony Harrington. Scotland on Sunday & Scotsman.com. "The professional body for Call and Contact Centres in the UK, the CCA, is holding its 10th anniversary conference this week. ... There are several major technology challenges facing the sector. These include advances in interactive voice response (IVR) systems, which will automate the lower levels of call responses. ... There is a delicate balance to be struck between overloading the agent with irrelevant ‘screen pops’ and presenting just the piece of information that is called for at a particular point in the conversation. Advances here will be dependent on breakthroughs in context analysis, artificial intelligence and ‘intuitive’ pattern matching - and much of this work is still in the lab." November 20, 2004: A Different Kind of Laboratory Mouse. By Grant Buckle. DigitalJournal.com. "It is possible to find viable alternatives to tests on live animals and, thanks to technology, at least some of them can saved without abandoning important research. ... In silico testing is an example of how technology continues to successfully create beneficial methods because once a model has such data, it may be able to predict the likely effects of chemicals and drugs without testing on live animals. But tests using computer models are still relatively new, so they’re not yet sufficient for making final decisions about the safety of drugs or chemicals for human consumption. The good news, though, is that if pre-screening with computer models determines that a compound is likely to be dangerous, the developer can decide not to pursue it further, saving time and money. ... A handful of software packages exist for doing in silico testing. ... Lhasa Ltd., a spinoff of the chemistry department of the University of Leeds in England, developed Deductive Estimation of Risk from Existing Knowledge (DEREK) for Windows, a knowledge-base expert system that analyzes the structure of chemicals and predicts whether they will be toxic. ... Computer models are still not good enough to be used as the only means of testing new drugs and chemicals, but with the ballooning growth of technology, never say never. As artificial intelligence improves, and science sees a few more breakthroughs in the way the models are developed, it might not be that far off." November 20, 2004: Record Research Grant for USC. By Stuart Silverstein. Los Angeles Times (no fee reg. req'd.). "USC has received a five-year research grant for $100 million -- its biggest research deal ever -- from the Army to continue developing high-tech training technologies for U.S. troops. University officials, in announcing the grant Friday, said that it will expand upon a previous five-year, $45-million deal between the Army and USC's Institute for Creative Technologies. ... The institute's researchers are developing 'virtual reality' simulated environments and sophisticated games to mimic the kinds of complicated situations soldiers face in battle zones. ... The institute has a permanent staff of more than 80, but also draws on researchers from around the USC campus to work on such areas as artificial intelligence, computer graphics and sound." November 19, 2004: Cybernetics combines many disciplines - Obscure major brings together math, engineering and biology. By Jeyling Chou. Daily Bruin. "When fourth-year student John Vaszari tells people what his major is, questions about robots and artificial intelligence frequently follow. At interviews for medical school this fall, Vaszari has given the same well-rehearsed explanation to doctors and admissions boards when they ask the inevitable question about 'cybernetics.' An undergraduate interdepartmental program at UCLA since 1972, cybernetics is the study of control and communication processes in biological systems -- cell movement translated into the language of engineering, protein interactions described with math equations. And, yes, sometimes that means robots. More than ever, current scientific research is undertaken in an environment of interdisciplinary collaboration. Biochemists and geneticists have paired with engineers to compile the massive data from the Human Genome Project, for example." November 19, 2004: Robo Grand Prix attracts more than 100 robotic racing teams. By Dominique Loh. Channel NewsAsia. "More than 100 teams have gathered for the Robo Grand Prix at the Singapore Motorshow. ... A critical component for each team will be the software, the set of instructions that will tell the racer exactly what to do. And the instructions are downloaded into the racer just seconds before the race. A group of boys from the Marsiling Ring Secondary have a lot to live up to. ... The competition brings together many elements from the different scientific disciplines. Knowledge in robotics, artificial intelligence, computer engineering and programming may decide if you win or lose. Yong Fook Seng, teacher in charge of special projects at Temasek Polytechnic, said: 'We are getting lower and lower enrolment in engineering. Everyone is going for soft options. One of the things we decided to do was to bring technology down to the secondary schools so they get a feel of technology, see how it works and get an interest in engineering.'" November 18, 2004: Love for robots conjures dreams of helping others - UT research gives wheelchairs sensors to help the disabled. By Cindy Stowell. The Daily Texan. " While you walk to class, you're probably not thinking 'don't walk into that parked car.' Although that's a great concept, your eyes see the car, and your brain adjusts your path almost automatically, so that thought doesn't enter your consciousness. But as researchers working under UT computer sciences professor Benjamin Kuipers know when you're building a robotic wheelchair designed to get you to your next class, not hitting the parked car becomes an obsession. The wheelchair, named Vulcan after the physically disabled Roman god of fire and metal working, is an ongoing project, designed to assist people who have difficulty with fine motor skills, but still have perceptual and cognitive ability. ... Over the next three years, the goal is to get Vulcan to see more of its environment by building 3-D models of its surroundings using the optical binoculars. ... Other challenges include voice interface, path choices - when the final destination is known, but not the best way of getting there - dealing with non-stationary objects and following directions. UT graduate students are currently working on some of those topics." November 18, 2004: MIT Wants to Make Computing as Easy as Breathing. By Leslie Walker. The Washington Post (no fee reg. req'd.). "[Anant Agarwal] reprogrammable chip -- called RAW for 'raw architecture workstation' -- is one of many key pieces in MIT's $50 million Project Oxygen, which has involved more than 150 researchers and is in its fifth year. The lofty goal of the project, funded partly by the Defense Advanced Research Projects Agency, is to create a new computing environment, in which computer firepower would be ubiquitous and manipulating computers as easy for people as breathing. ... One ambitious premise of Oxygen is integrating many cutting-edge technologies into a single, behind-the-scenes system to let people move around freely while still retaining access to computing resources, such as printers and databases. Accomplishing that means speech-recognition software has to work with visual-recognition software as well as sensor networks that track people's movements. MIT's attempts to develop such a complex computing environment have led to unusual experiments, including creation of a cluster of 1,020 microphones powered by the RAW chip." November 18, 2004: Sex, lies and AI - A Hong Kong-based company's creation of a virtual girlfriend raises philosophical questions about the curious evolution of artificial intelligence. By Alex Lo. South China Morning Post (subscription req'd.). [This article can also be found in Artificial Life, Inc.'s news collection.] "The German-born polymath-philosopher, mathematician, computer scientist, author and businessman brooks no criticism of his cyber-girlfriend, who will be officially launched at the 3G World Congress and Exhibition at the Convention Centre today. By now, you have probably heard all about Vivienne, with whom you can have a cyber-affair, sans sex, in a hyper-real graphic environment on your 3G phone. 'I don't like it when people say, 'Oh it's just a dumb chatter bot. It doesn't really understand anything and will never pass the Turing test',' Mr [Eberhard] Schoneburg says. (The Turing test decrees a computer program must be considered intelligent if, after interacting with it over a period of time, you cannot tell if you are dealing with a computer or a human.) 'Artificial Intelligence has been criticised since day one,' Mr Schoneburg continues, "mostly because of incompetent public writers who have collected their AI knowledge from reading three books ... who have no clue what they are writing about, and from tonnes of bad science fiction, where AI-driven robots kill and eat people... it's just horrifying how dumb people can be. 'Why is it that reporters always have to find a negative edge? The V-Girl is 'not just a chat bot with high resolution graphics'. We have tried - within the boundaries of the current technical AI possibilities - to simulate life-like behaviour as much as possible. That's the edge - the chatting is just one small component of it.' ... Eliza, Parry and Racter are the precursors of so-called chat bots. ... There are also expert systems, some of which have chat-bot features, which can answer most questions you want to know in a specific field." November 18, 2004: Asia's largest mobile tech show kicks off in HK. By M. Shamsur Rahman. The Daily Star Web Edition. "With a view to promoting worldwide adoption and growth of 3G mobile phones, the ninth Annual 3G World Congress and Exhibition started in Hong Kong on Tuesday. ... The topics under discussion include development trends in China; ... and the role of artificial intelligence in revolutionising mobile phone design." November 18, 2004: Making space for big ideas. By Thornton McCamish. The Age. "When Space Shuttle Discovery blasted into space in August 1997, it carried on board the most advanced artificial intelligence system ever built. It was probably the closest thing we have yet come to HAL, the neurotic supercomputer from 2001: A Space Odyssey, and it was built by a Melbourne man called Michael Georgeff. Anyone fretting about Australia's brain drain can take comfort from Georgeff's example. A world leader in artificial intelligence, Georgeff has, by necessity, spent much of his working life overseas. But last year he came back to Melbourne to take up a job as a research professor at Monash University, despite his belief that Australia 'isn't even on the map in terms of information technology'. He's back because he loves living here. And also because he has a big idea: he wants to use artificial intelligence (AI) to revolutionise Australia's health industry. ... The computer he built was a prototype of what are now known as adaptive agents: computers that have set goals and a flexible approach to achieving them. 'The leap forward with agents,' Georgeff explains, 'is that once given a goal, an agent works out how to achieve those objectives without being told. Giving machines their head turns them from drones into managers.' ... Today's adaptive agents - even ones devoted to ordering tractor parts - behave in startlingly human ways. ... An adaptive agent has to be socialised so that it will only jump a queue, or break a promise, when it's absolutely necessary. And when it does, Georgeff says, it will need to feel guilty. 'And once machines start behaving in ways we can only describe as guilty, sad or happy, we're going to have to reconsider what we call self-consciousness.' ... Now, Georgeff wants to bring high-tech IT to Australia's health industry. ... Georgeff plans to build a kind of 'Health Web', an online resource to bring healthcare providers, agencies and patients into one giant online research clinic. ... 'An online system like this could help manage patients' care in an intelligent way,' Georgeff explains." November 17, 2004: New Vehicles Will Make Own Decisions Based on Commands - Engineers Designing Unmanned Aircraft That Can Make Own Decisions. Commentary by Lee Dye. ABC News. "The next war could be fought partly by unmanned aircraft that respond to spoken commands in plain English and then figure out on their own how to get the job done, even dodging enemy aircraft as they carry out their assignments. This isn't just robotics, in which someone has to be on hand to issue commands to an unmanned vehicle all along the way. This is autonomy at its best, with vehicles that can make decisions similar to the way a human pilot figures out how to accomplish a task and then carries it out. Engineers and scientists at several institutions and corporations are working on the project, chiefly under the sponsorship of the Defense Advanced Research Projects Agency. They have already demonstrated that the idea can work. ... The program builds on research that enables computers to receive and act upon verbal commands, a hot item these days. The Teragram Corp., a software company in Cambridge, Mass., is developing the speech software for the unmanned vehicle project. The researchers aren't interested in software that will accept simple commands like 'turn right' or 'turn left.' Instead, they want the aircraft to respond to broad commands, like go to a certain area and photograph a specific building. Then, it would be up to the unmanned vehicle to figure out how to do that. ... But how do you carry out those tasks? ... That's where the work of Tom Schouwenaars comes into play. He's working on his doctorate in aeronautics and astronautics at MIT, and he has developed something called a 'trajectory planner.' That's the software that translates the verbal command into a series of coded representations that the computer can understand." November 17/24, 2004: Software sorts out subjectivity. By Kimberly Patch. Technology Research News. "One of the fundamental challenges in getting computers to sort and analyze text is finding ways to automatically classify information. Applications like search engines that group similar documents do so using topic-based categories. Sentiment analysis techniques add another dimension by determining the author's attitude about a topic rather than just identifying a topic. Existing techniques tend to concentrate on finding words, phrases and patterns that indicate sentiment. This has proven difficult, however. ... Researchers from Cornell University have devised a way to improve sentiment classification that sidesteps having to deal with meaning by instead concentrating on context. Their method weeds out neutral sentences. ... The method could be used to automate the maintenance of review-aggregation sites, said [Lillian] Lee. 'A system could crawl on-line information sources and automatically extract ratings, even from documents like New York Times book reviews that don't include explicit scores,' she said. It could be used by search engines to sort or filter results by viewpoint to, for instance, help users distinguish between objective and biased Web sites, said Lee. It could also be used to track changes in attitudes toward a given topic by, for instance, analyzing press articles, she said." November 17, 2004: New horizons for robotics - European researchers have created the world's first multi-molecular shape-shifting robot, a development that could lead to new applications in areas such as medicine and space exploration. e4engineering.com. "On display at IST 2004 in The Hague and being showcased today in Tokyo, the HYDRA project's robots have broken new ground in robotics and artificial intelligence through a simple but highly effective design that allows the devices to configure themselves into almost any shape and perform a variety of functions. ... Over the last three years the Maersk Institute, together with LEGO, the University of Edinburgh and the University of Zurich, developed two types of spherical modules, the ATRON and the HYDRON that can operate autonomously, communicate with each other and be programmed to take on virtually any shape and behaviour. The HYDRON was developed for use in fluids while the ATRON, which is the module being presented widely this week, was created for terrestrial use. ... 'Fundamentally, however, this is a research project through which we have proven that shape-shifting robots can be created,' [Henrik Hautop] Lund says. 'Now it's a question of letting people know about it and seeing what new horizons it opens up.'" November 17, 2004: FedEx Institute turns one. By John Scruggs. The Daily Helmsman Online. "Major new developments marked the beginning of the first anniversary celebration of the FedEx Institute of Technology Tuesday. ... [Andy] Meyers also announced the affiliation of Michael Hawley, from the Media Laboratory at Massachusetts Institute of Technology, as director of special projects at F.I.T. ... U of M's state of the art building is home to researchers developing technologies that are cutting edge in the fields of artificial intelligence, intelligent systems and robotics. 'We build the best conversational systems in the world,' said Art Graesser, co-director of the Institute for Intelligent Systems. 'We're combining computer science with other mechanisms and using computers to model the mind.' ... 'There's going to be a land grab for markets in artificial intelligence,' [David] Hanson said as he stood beside Eva, the robotic face he developed. ... Hanson demonstrated Eva's ability to teach using AutoTutor programs." November 16, 2004: Video Games Grow Up. Radio broadcast of NPR's Talk of the Nation. Hosted by Joe Palca. "Video or electronic games have long stopped being just for kids. The average age of game players today is 29 according to the Entertainment Software Association. Another sign of the industry's coming of age is the amount of money it generates. The electronic game industry made $10 billion last year, compared to Hollywood's $9.5 billion. Guests: Chris Anderson, the editor-in-chief of Wired; John Singleton, director of the film Boyz n the Hood; Sherry Turkel, professor of social studies of Science and Technology at MIT. Has been studying computer culture and games for 20 years. Author Life on the Screen: Identity in the Age of the Internet." Excerpt: "Palca: ... I'm sure there's no simple answer -- but is there any way to judge whether these video games are good or bad for us? Professor Turkel: Well, I think the point is not that they're good or bad; I think that they're powerful and they're very different in their effects on different kinds of people. For example, if you're a loner and yet you don't want to be alone, games can offer you the illusion of companionship without the threat of intimacy. ... On the other hand, there are some people who start to play a game like The Sims or The Sims Online -- the game where you create a character and build a character and form a parallel life; it's a little bit like being a god, says my daughter -- and you get a chance to work through issues or to act out issues. Some kids construct families that are like their families and get a chance to do things differently in the new families they create. Some kids get a chance to take their greatest fear and live it out in the game. In other words, it's very constructive. So I think that what -- I think you raised the issue of parents and how to think about it; I think that with the game form as with all forms you have to know your kids, you have to know the game, you have to look carefully at the match and really say what's happening...." November 15, 2004: Technology expo celebrates robots. By Francine Brevetti. Oakland Tribune Online. "At NextFest, a recent expo of technology that has yet to reach the stream of commerce, Honda not only demonstrated the four-foot-tall robot, it compared the robot to its much earlier version in a film 18 years ago of a two-legged device led about by a pulley. Today, ASIMO (pronounced AH-si-mo for Advanced Step in Innovative Mobility) is a self-contained and self-locomoting presence. ... ASIMO has just been honored by Carnegie Mellon's Robotic Institute. In its second annual Robot Hall of Fame, ASIMO was distinguished along with SRI International's Shakey, Astro Boy, C-3PO, and Robby the Robot. ASIMO and Shakey are the only nuts-and-bolts robots. The other three are inventions of science fiction. ... Charlie Ortiz, program manager for SRI's artificial intelligence center, is in charge of the demonstration team of 100 robots that operate together. He said Shakey was one of the first autonomous robots and was debuted in 1966. He said all robots that SRI has developed since then 'have embodied the research in artificial intelligence used in Shakey.' 'New developments in planning and perception and learning were novel at the time for Shakey and embodied important elements in thinking, which are necessary if you're going to solve problems in the world, if you're going to navigate around the world, move objects around. These were important elements of intelligent beings, and in 1966 artificial intelligence was a very young field.' Ortiz said that the capabilities pioneered by Shakey, which now resides at the Computer Museum in Mountain View, are essential for current devices used in space exploration." November 15, 2004: Software to discover new treatments. BJHC.co.uk (British Journal of Healthcare Computing & Information Management). "New treatments for patients could be found by a computer program that can 'read' thousands of clinical papers in minutes. Use of this artificial-intelligence software has already resulted in a new treatment for heart disease based on an anti-psychotic drug. Developed by scientists at the University of Texas South-western Medical Center in Dallas, the IRIDESCENT program uses data-mining techniques to discover potential new uses for existing therapies." November 14, 2004: New software to demolish the Tower of Babel on mobiles. By M. Rajendran. The Telegraph. "Speak in Bengali, hear in Tamil. The digital world is working on a solution to break the Tower of Babel -- the biblical problem created by speakers of myriad tongues that ensured that no one understood the other. Soon, mobile users will be able to speak in their mother tongues -- and find the people at the other end are able to comprehend them because technology translates the spoken word into another language. The solution, which is being cobbled by the Centre for Development of Advance Computing (C-DAC), is expected to be commercially available three years from now. ... There is a big future for the new technology. [Shyam S.] Agrawal reckons that 'technology of speech and language translation will have a major impact on the economy and the world market. Like the telephone, everyone will like to have the voice synthesizer or voice recognition at home.' 'It will also help voice-based commands for physically challenged persons to undertake their daily activities. It will also have an easy consumer application like switching on a television with a voice command,' Agrawal said. ... The effort is also aimed to enhance the prospects for electronic governance. V. N. Shukla, director special application at C-DAC, said, 'With more than 22 official languages, we are uniquely positioned to develop products that can be used by other countries for text and speech interface.'" November 14, 2004: Editorial: Robots and us. The Japan Times Online. "Personal robots have been a long time coming. ... [T]eams from Japan's Advanced Institute of Science and Technology and America's Purdue University have announced the launch recently of an ambitious four-year project to 'give humanoid robots the ability to behave and move more like human beings, to have the skill-learning capabilities of humans.' That last clause brings into focus the corner that robot technology is about to turn. The next generation of robots will not feature machines mindlessly performing pre-programmed tasks. It will -- so scientists hope -- feature machines that can adapt and learn. ... As has happened at every step on the road to the robotics revolution, there are those who fear what such developments might portend. It hardly matters that scientists are talking about endowing a robot with the dexterity of a human 6-year-old -- or the reflexes of a smart dog. In some people, the Frankenstein complex lurks so deep it is hard to persuade them that there is not something sinister in the rise of the robot helpers. ... Of all the nations involved in such research, Japan is the most inclined to approach it in a spirit of fun -- hence Aibo and QRIO and the other quirky assistants and companions dreamed up here. The United States, by contrast, has invented robotic military vehicles, vacuum cleaners, gardeners and pill dispensers -- all thoroughly utilitarian applications. According to some observers, however, there is more common ground between the two approaches than might seem apparent." November 13, 2004: PluggedIn: Smart New World of Digitoys. By Lucas van Grinsven. Reuters UK. "Toy land is digitizing, and the victory march of GameBoy and computer games is just the tip of the iceberg. ... Smart toys came onto the market around five years ago, but Moore's Law of exponentially increasing computer power means manufacturers can put a lot more sensors, processors and memory into a plaything for the same amount of money, toy retailers say. ... One reason for the $20 billion a year U.S. toy industry becoming 'smarter' is that the video games generation is casting a shadow over traditional toys. Boys ages 5 to 12 spend more time playing video games than with each of the traditional toy categories, market researcher NPD Group found. ... Stirling University professor Lydia Plowman found that 'touchable technology', such as a soft toys, may encourage very young children to interact with computers and even improved social interactions. But she also found that a child's interest in talking toys, with a vocabulary of up to 10,000 words, diminished over a relatively short period. Most children learned little from talking toys and found they became monotonous or irritating, she noted. ... 'You can give a 3-year-old a toy train that moves by itself, but that doesn't support the child's development, because it won't have to choose if the train should go left or right at a junction,' says Norien Jansen, who owns a store Cedille in Amsterdam...." November 13, 2004: Young guns in lab coats - They're fresh, they're smart and they're going to change our world. Here we introduce the brightest stars in medical science. By Mark Henderson, interviews by Seb Mackenzie-Wilson, and research by Zoe Strimpel. Times Online. "Lisa Saksida, 34, Unravelling Alzheimer’s: What does she do? Saksida develops artificial intelligence (AI) and computer models in the department of experimental psychology at Cambridge University to research how human and animal brains learn and remember. Originally, she applied knowledge of how human beings think to give robots AI. Now she has reversed that approach and is applying her knowledge of computers to increase our understanding of the mind." November 12, 2004: Cyborg geologist explores Spain - Part human, part machine tests kit for planetary missions. By Philip Ball. news@science.com. "European scientists have sent a 'cyborg' to roam the Spanish countryside as part of a mission to create robots that are good at exploring planets independently. Researchers at the Centre for Astrobiology near Madrid kitted out a human with a camcorder linked to a computer system programmed to look for interesting features in the landscape. The human merely did the donkey-work of carrying the hardware while the computer did the 'thinking'. On a planetary mission, a robotic vehicle such as NASA's rovers Spirit and Opportunity, currently touring the surface of Mars, would carry the hardware. ... Proponents of human space exploration often argue that robots are no match for trained astronauts and geologists in spotting promising study sites and responding to chance discoveries. But if the current work fulfils its promise, future robotic explorers will have a decision-making capacity similar to that of human experts. ... The system's mapping software, developed by the Madrid team and computer scientists at the University of Bielefeld, Germany, mimics the behaviour of real geologists scanning a new scene." November 12, 2004: Robot Doctors and Cats? Oh, My! WISH-TV. "At the ninth annual Future of Health Technology Summit in Boston developers recently unveiled the Robo-doc - a robot that will allow doctors to visit patients anywhere in the world. ... If the Robo-doc's beside manner isn't your style then maybe you can embrace the technology with something smaller, like a pet. Robo-cat (we kid you not) sounds and acts like a real cat. It's programmed with artificial intelligence and sensory feedback that allows it to respond to the human voice and touch. The makers claim patients can have the best of both worlds: the therapeutic benefits of a pet without having to actually take care of one -- much like Rex the dog in Woody Allen’s futuristic seventies spoof 'Sleeper.'" November 11, 2004: Emotional computing. By Ann Geracimos. The Washington Times. "People talking back to a computer is common enough -- usually in a moment of pique or frustration. Getting the computer to respond in kind is a far different task, one that computer scientists are undertaking with various degrees of success and consternation. The challenge isn't simply a matter of inventing new software and sometimes hardware, difficult enough as that is, but also of coming to grips with some of the ethics involved. If computers are to have emotional components, what role would they play in everyday life? Do human beings really want an emotional relationship with a mechanical mind? The field is called 'affective technology.' ... The term 'affective technology' has different meanings for different groups around the country doing research on human interaction with computers. ... Computers don't have emotional intelligence yet, in the sense of being able to express emotion intelligently, points out Ms. [Rosalind W.] Picard, who wrote at length on the subject in a 1996 MITPress book called 'HAL's Legacy: 2001's Computer As Dream and Reality.' HAL, of course, was the anthropomorphic computer in Stanley Kubrick's 1968 movie '2001: A Space Odyssey.' Ms. Picard is especially interested in finding ways the technology could help children overcome frustrations in the learning process -- using the computer almost as a companion to work alongside the child who is attempting to process a great deal of information at once." November 11, 2004: Local programmer toys with success. By Holly Lake. Ottawa Sun Online. "Getting laid off by Corel in 2002 was the best thing that ever happened to Robin Burgener. He vowed to his wife he wouldn't serve 'another 20-year sentence in a cubicle,' and instead devoted himself to taking a game he created in 1988 a step further. ... Yesterday, 20Q -- the first hand-held game that uses artificial intelligence for the classic game of 20 questions -- was one of two toys named the Energizer Battery-Operated Toy of the Year by the Canadian Toy Testing Council (CTTC). It tied with Wow Wee's Robosapien, a programmable robot. 'Corel was great for me,' Burgener said of getting laid off. 'There's nothing like a swift kick to get you going.'" November 11, 2004: Healing the hearing world. By Michael McCord. Portsmouth Herald & Seacoast Online. "[Stephen] Little says the emergence of competitive products such as the Oticon Syncro and ReSoundAIR are the 'most remarkable breakthroughs ... and most intelligent hearing aids I’ve seen' since founding Seacoast Hearing Center eight years ago. ... In the case of the Oticon Syncro, said an Oticon Inc. product manager, there has been a quantum leap of the technology into the realm of artificial intelligence. 'We’ve had digital hearing aids for about eight years, but what they often did was make predictions on what you should hear,' said Tami Gaeu from Oticon headquarters in New Jersey. But 'the Syncro has a three-tier parallel processing chip that allows the hearing aid to anticipate and make decisions for you,' Gaeu said. 'It interacts with the environment and offers solutions for unpredictable noise settings.' In essence, imagine the new hearing aids as a recording studio with chips acting as recording engineers sorting out sounds with a 16-track system. According to Gaeu, reports from the field reveal that patients have said time and again that 'it’s as close to normal hearing as possible.'" November 11, 2004: Does Grandma Need a Hug? A Robotic Pillow Can Help. By Jeffrey Selingo. The New York Times (no fee reg. req'd.). "[R]obotics researchers at Carnegie Mellon in Pittsburgh have designed a soft, huggable pillow that uses sensing and wireless phone technology to provide a physical touch, and thus better social and emotional support, for distant family members. The pillow, called the Hug, was developed after the researchers studied how robotics could improve products the elderly use every day. ... After it was developed, researchers showed it to residents at a nursing home they work with in Pittsburgh. The reaction was generally positive, Professor [Jodi] Forlizzi said, although there were plenty of opinions about the pillow's color and shape." November 10, 2004: A New Way Out of the Prisoner’s Dilemma: Cheat. Software agents use a strategy of covert collusion to win game theory championship; auctioneers beware. By Camberley Crick. IEEE Spectrum Online. "Within a certain obsessive breed of computer scientists, the geek equivalent of the World Series is a little known tournament called the Iterated Prisoner’s Dilemma Competition. Academics from around the globe struggle to devise the best strategy for tackling one of the fundamental problems in game theory, Prisoner’s Dilemma, and then build artificially intelligent software 'robots' to play their strategies in a competitive round-robin tournament. As it turns out, real-world situations from live auctions to nuclear standoffs can bear striking resemblance to this very simple game, and so it was no small matter when this year the longstanding champion of Iterated Prisoner’s Dilemma had to settle for silver. A team of robots submitted by computer scientists from Southampton University, in England, used conspiracy and collusion to sweep this year’s competition stealing the crown from the 20-year reigning incumbent, a simple strategy called Tit for Tat." November 10, 2004: Students use Legos to study, understand disabilities. By Jennie Runevitch. WNDU-TV. "For most people, living life with a disability is hard to imagine, but a group of Berrien County youngsters is learning about the challenges firsthand. They’re also developing ways to help the disabled, with toys and technology, through a group called Gears in Motion. The children are nine through 13-year-olds, gearing up for a national Lego robotics competition, whose theme is helping the disabled through robotic technology." November 10, 2004: IT unravels tangled legal webs. The Australian; page B08 (subscription req'd.). "Remote dispute resolution is a fast-growing field that could provide a new direction for tech-savvy students. ... Melissa Conley Tyler, program manager at the International Conflict Resolution Centre at the University of Melbourne, says online dispute resolution is booming. There are now 115 online dispute resolution services worldwide that have resolved more than 1.5million disputes. Conley Tyler, who convened the third UN annual forum on online dispute resolution (ODR) at Melbourne University earlier this year, believes it is a field that could provide many job opportunities for a generation of technologically literate law students. ODR uses online and video conferencing and even artificial intelligence to facilitate negotiations. ... While Australian universities do not offer degrees in ODR, several universities have short courses. Bond University runs a semester-long course in online dispute resolution as part of its master of dispute resolution and master of laws." November 10, 2004: Birmingham in €6m AI project. By Harry Yeates. ElectronicsWeekly.com. "Researchers in artificial intelligence (AI) at the University of Birmingham are participating in a €6.25m, four-year European project to develop a cognitive robot. One of the project's aims is to help throw some light on human cognition. The plan is to take the various AI systems that have so far been realised in some form or other ('natural language' systems that process human voice inputs and can use bits of our grammar and machine vision) and create a robot that combines those cognitive abilities. 'The idea is to put it all back together, and that's what's hard,' said Dr Jeremy Wyatt, a lecturer in computer science at Birmingham." November 9, 2004: Dancing to That Robotic Engineering Beat. By Chris Hedges. The New York Times (no fee reg. req'd.). "[Prof. Naomi Ehrich Leonard] has been able to transcend the boundaries of her physical surroundings, as well as the traditional boundaries of her discipline, as a professor of mechanical and aerospace engineering. She has interwoven control theory, fluid mechanics, robotics, computer science, oceanography and biology. Her work has shattered barriers and helped her design new sensing systems that replicate the coordinated behavior of flocks of birds and schools of fish. The advances she has made, which recently led to her being awarded a MacArthur fellowship worth $500,000, have been found to apply far beyond robotics, extending control theory to all mechanical systems. 'It comes from having many interests,' she said modestly. ... Professor Leonard's field is not one that has traditionally attracted women, something she is trying to change by helping Princeton recruit prospective engineers. 'People hear the term mechanical engineering and they think we wear jumpsuits, carry wrenches and fix cars,' she said. 'It is hard to enter a field where they are few other women, but once we get people to think beyond these old-fashioned labels, once we show people how engineering is interdisciplinary, how it can be a bridge even into the humanities, we will attract diverse students. We need people who think broadly and deeply.'" November 9, 2004: The age of the robot - The idea of machines taking charge of our daily chores has been the stuff of science fiction. But is that fantasy fast becoming a reality? By Charles Arthur. The Independent Online Edition. "They sing. They dance. They even play a limited game of golf - well, they're able to putt a ball into a well-defined hole, a talent that puts them on a par with many bored executives with too much office space. They are Sony's humanoid QRIO robots.... But do they herald a time when intelligent, autonomous machines will do our household chores, and then put on a show to entertain us as we sip a relaxing drink? Or are they no more than the phonetic spelling of their name implies - a curio, to be gazed at like a Victorian exhibit behind glass, but never taken out and used? More importantly, might the QRIO be a glimpse of the battlefield soldier of the future - a completely autonomous machine indifferent to humans in its path as it heads towards an objective? ... But even if the QRIO isn't going to be warbling in our living rooms any time soon, robots have already invaded our lives. They make our cars: almost every car is produced to some extent by robots, which perform welding, painting and simple assembly at car plants around the world. Any time you've been on an airplane you've entrusted your life to a robot - specifically, the automated pilot, which turns the entire aircraft into an autonomous machine where computers control the rudder, thrust and flaps. ... The concept of a mechanised automaton is almost a century old, first depicted in Karel Capek's stage play RUR (for "Rossum's Universal Robots") in the 1920s. ... Our expectations of what they should look like have been moulded by decades of science fiction books and films.... [T]he essential yardstick against which any robot application must be measured before it will become widespread is economic: that is, is it cheaper over the life of the machine to use a robot, or a human? ... And what about the fear that people express - that robots will first become more intelligent than humans, and then eradicate us?" November 8, 2004: Artificial brain on lookout for leaks. By Seb Ramsay. Manchester Online. "An artficial intelligence system which will predict water and gas leaks in Manchester University's biggest buildings could save the institution millions every year. The computer system is being developed by Manchester firm, Information Prophets, to monitor any fluctuation in both plumbing and energy output throughout the campus. The computer network aims to use information from sensors including water and gas meters to build up and 'learn' a pattern of normal operation 24 hours a day. ... Engineers hope the 'neural network' will allow any change to be spotted immediately and alert the university to any problems the moment they happen - preventing costly bursts and failures before they occur." November 8, 2004: This 'halo' isn't for angels. By Todd Burbo. The Columbia Chronicle Online. "The story of Halo, and Bungie, the game developer behind the smash hit, is proof of that. And with anticipation for Halo 2’s Nov. 9 release at an all-time high for a video game, it is clear that Bungie has evolved into one of the industry giants. As Frank Crist, a faculty member in Columbia’s Academic Computing Department, said, 'Halo 2 is the most highly anticipated game -- ever.' ... 'Halo did something other shooters failed to accomplish,' said Octavio Nevarez, avid gamer and employee of EB Games. '[Its subtle] Combat Evolved really meant that the developers spent a lot of time building the artificial intelligence. The enemies really strategize, take cover and work as a team. In other shooters, you’re just running and gunning, there’s no thought. Halo added real strategy to first person shooters.' ... Halo has since been labeled a classic, given perfect ratings and reviews by nearly every publication in the business. All eyes are on Bungie for the next generation, but how can they possibly improve on perfection? They found a way. ... Gameplay has improved with the addition of 'dual wielding' (the ability to use two weapons at once), enhanced artificial intelligence from both enemy and friendly characters, and interactive multiplayer environments." November 8, 2004: Gidday mate, need a hand? By Anna Saunders. The Dominion Post / Stuff. "More than two-thirds of New Zealanders would welcome robots to do chores around the house, according to a study of 750 people, commissioned by Honda. Most people wanted robots to help with housework, many wanted an extra mechanical hand with the washing up and some wanted a robot to mow the lawns." November 8, 2004: Putting a face to 'Big Brother.' By Roberto Belo. BBC News. "Literally putting a face on technology could be one of the keys to improving our interaction with hi-tech gadgets. Imagine a surveillance system that also presents a virtual embodiment of a person on a screen who can react to your behaviour, and perhaps even alert you to new e-mails. Basic versions of these so-called avatars already exist. Together with speech and voice recognition systems, they could replace the keyboard and mouse in the near future. Some of these ideas have been showcased at the London's Science Museum, as part of its Future Face exhibition." November 8, 2004: Super Searches - IBM's webfountain, a new internet tool, helps companies spot online trends before they emerge. By Laura A. Locke. Time Online Edition. "The new tool, called WebFountain, is a next-generation search technology that lets users ask specific questions, in complete sentences -- something today's search engines have trouble handling. ... Geared for corporate applications, WebFountain spots online trends as they emerge, identifies patterns — assessing even word-of-mouth gossip, chatter and sentiment — and keeps track of them, noting how they change over time. ... [T]he intelligence community is among the hungriest customers of such advanced, large-scale text analytics. The CIA's venture-funding arm, for example, has invested one-third of its $30 million portfolio in data mining and text/visual analytic companies like Inxight. When it comes to tracking terrorist threats, says Jim Thompson, chief scientist for information technologies at the Department of Homeland Security's newly created National Visualization and Analytics Center, high-volume text analytics 'has saved people's lives.' That's hardly child's play." November 7, 2004: Hoping to be heard - During the next several months, The Sun will follow a tiny Columbia firm that thinks it has the technology to replace a keyboard and a mouse with the human voice. By Tricia Bishop. baltimoresun.com (no fee reg. req'd.). "This is it. It's real. A decades-old doctoral dissertation has grown into an actual product supported by a fledgling company, which on this early autumn day is being unveiled in a windowless ballroom several stories above the cab-choked streets of Times Square. The guys from Sonum Technologies Inc. are confident, but fidgety. ... Human beings have long chased, or at least romanticized, the essence of Sonum's technology. Artificial intelligence - machines interacting and conversing with humans - has been glorified in science-fiction and popular culture for at least a half-century: the Jetsons' relationship with their robot maid in the 1960s cartoon series.... But reality hasn't yet come close to the fiction. Some machines can take dictation, but the programs are often unreliable and don't involve real communication or interaction. Others, like those associated with voice-activated telephone menus, accept spoken commands, but are typically driven by a few key words. They don't understand the stammers and stalls, 'uhms,' 'likes,' and grammatical errors of everyday - or natural - speech. And no one has been able to figure out how to make them do so - until now, Sonum contends. The algorithms and programming processes beneath its software aim to teach machines the human language: how to understand it, interpret it and respond appropriately. Some outside experts maintain that this is an impossible goal. Others have tried to attain it, failed and given up, or at the very least shifted direction. Today, Sonum's four-person full-time technical staff is competing with researchers at major education institutions and technology businesses like Microsoft, who are still working on the project. But most of their competitors no longer claim - as Sonum does - the goal of a type of artificial intelligence that would enable users to completely control computers through speech. ... [Sonum's] goal is to enable anything, even an entire operating system, to be run through natural speech. The company's patent-pending processor, developed by Ford, is based on the way the human brain organizes information. It has been fed a huge vocabulary along with ways to interpret phrases through repeated simplification and classification. Words and their meanings are assigned numbered codes that the computer can understand and act upon." November 7, 2004: WonderBots - You're in no danger, aging baby boomers. We'll clean and care for you and keep you company. By Kevin Maney. USA Today / available from News-Leader.com. "Never mind the humanoid Automated Domestic Assistants walking rich people's pets in the movie 'I, Robot,' or the accordion-armed Robot B9 in TV classic 'Lost in Space' warning of danger on lonely planets. The real force driving the development of personal robots -- and what eventually will create demand for them in the marketplace -- is aging baby boomers. That's the secret among robotics researchers and budding robot companies. ... 'As the demographics change, robots could help solve some problems,' says Rodney Brooks, director of the Artificial Intelligence (AI) lab at the Massachusetts Institute of Technology. 'The question is, where is that transition?' ... Robots that are likely to serve the elderly seem to fall into three broad categories. Though the categories don't officially have names, you could call them homebots, carebots and joybots. ... Joybots ... Here is a great point of departure between U.S. and Japanese robotics research. U.S. labs and companies generally approach robots as tools. The Japanese approach them as beings." November 7, 2004: Computer science students to explore robotics. By Chris Valdez. The Pine Log Online. "Beginning in Spring 2005, the computer science department [at Stephen f. Austin State University] will offer a course in robotics. 'Robotics are what’s coming down the pipe,' Dr. Robert Strader, computer science professor in charge of the robotics program, said. 'New revolutions are going to be bio- and nano-robotics.' ... 'I had a pre-existing interest in the area, because I taught the artificial intelligence course in the past,' Strader said. 'Some people speculate that these areas are going to be the next revolutions in society.'" November 7, 2004: Technology helping curb U.S. losses in Iraq. By Denis D. Gray. Associated Press / available from HoustonChronicle.com. "U.S. soldiers behind a computer screen inside a shed monitor video images from the plane, known as a Shadow, as it loiters over a traffic circle frequently attacked by insurgent bombs. 'We fill some of the gaps in the intelligence field. We put one of these in harm's way instead of a soldier. It's all about saving lives,' says Sgt. Francisco Huereque, who is in charge of the night's launch. Unmanned aerial vehicles and other so-called 'stand-off' weapons, whether currently used or in secret testing, belong to a developing high-tech arsenal that the U.S. military says will help minimize casualties as it battles insurgents. ... On the ground, a variety of new unmanned vehicles are expected to enter the field in coming years. Among them is the Military R-Gator, built by tractor-maker Deere & Co. and iRobot, which makes the far smaller remote-controlled PackBot robots already deployed to scout out dangerous locations and dispose of explosives. The R-Gator, set to begin full production in 2006, will be autonomous, meaning it will navigate and perform some tasks without any input from humans. In the air, military officials are investigating the use of stationary, spherical 'spy in the sky' airships and a digital camera packed into a mortar shell that transmits photos to a soldier's laptop while the shell floats to the ground attached to a parachute. Unmanned aerial vehicles, or UAVs, were flying over Iraq even before the war began and now range from the high-altitude, super-sophisticated Global Hawk to the Raven, which comes in a carrying case and is launched by just flipping it into the air." November 5, 2004: Humanoid Robot Qrio Makes UK Debut. By Helen William. PA News / available from scotsman.com. "A humanoid robot, described as the most advanced of its kind, sang, danced and played football as it made its UK debut today. Qrio, which is about the size of a three-year-old child, is at the forefront of developments in artificial intelligence, according to its Japanese maker Sony. ... Qrio, which stands for quest for curiosity, can also hold intelligent conversations with people and recognise faces." November 5, 2004: Hi robot. By Jon Excell. The Engineer & e4engineering.com. "UK researchers have received 1m Euros (£700,000) to investigate intelligent robots that can understand the ambiguities of natural speech and work more effectively alongside humans. The four-year project forms part of a wider European Commission initiative consisting of seven academic teams from around Europe known as Cosy (Cognitive Systems for Cognitive Assistants). ... Dr Jeremy Wyatt, who heads the Intelligent Robotics lab at Birmingham, said his group is looking at a number of significant problems involved in building 'thinking' robots. Wyatt referred to the recently published UN World 2004 robotics report - the theme of which was 'A robot in every home?' He explained that in order to arrive at such a situation, devices must be able to interact with us and satisfy our expectations about acceptable behaviour. One way in which they plan to do this is in the area of object recognition. Wyatt explained that his team will be working with computational linguists and cognitive psychologists in order to take ideas on how humans recognise things. He said that the team will begin by mounting a vision system on a mobile platform to watch an arm on a separate table and report back in natural language what it sees. An apparently humble aim, but it will nevertheless break new ground in the area of artificial intelligence." November 4, 2004: Humanoid domestic robots on sale next year - As technology improves, the devices will evolve into chatty companions for sick or elderly people living on their own, says maker of the R30000 Nuvo. By the Information Technology Editor. Business Day. "Next year, ZMP will release the first commercially available humanoid robot designed for home use. Nuvo will cost about R30000, and will contain enough artificial intelligence to hold short conversations using voice recognition technologies. It will also serve as a watchdog, transmitting images of what it sees around the house to the owner's cellphone. This week ZMP is demonstrating Pino, a more basic robot, at the International Science Innovation & Technology Exhibition (Insite) in Midrand. ... As technology improves, the robots will evolve into chatty companions for sick or elderly people living on their own, [Hiroshi] Kaminaga says. 'That could be the killer application for the next generation of robots." When he talks of "killer applications', he is using technology jargon for an idea so compelling that everyone has to have it. Yet anyone spooked by I, Robot may fear that the machines will take the idea of a killer application too literally. The variety of technologies on show at the inaugural Insite exhibition should kindle the interest of young black people in scientific careers, hopes Science and Technology Minister Mosibudi Mangena. Insite will also promote science and technology collaboration and let experts network within a showcase for their developments, he says." November 4, 2004: Duke Robot Climbs to Victory in Madrid. Duke University / available from PhysOrg.com. "A wall-climbing, book-sized autonomous vehicle made by a Duke University team drove up a challenging vertical course to win first prize in an international competition Sept. 22-24 in Madrid. The student competition was part of the seventh annual International Conference on Climbing and Walking Robots. ... 'Robots that climb walls and cross ceilings can go where humans can’t," [Jason] Janet said. "They can do security and safety jobs like looking for bombs or finding cracks in a support beam or the wing of a jumbo jet.' ... Janet said Duke’s future robotics efforts include teaming with a group from Carnegie Mellon University for the DARPA (Defense Advanced Research Projects Agency) Grand Challenge to design a full-sized autonomous land vehicle and continuing the development of autonomous underwater vehicles." November 3, 2004: The autonomic army (third of four parts) - Intelligent software systems could put machines on the front lines instead of human beings, but analysts wonder whether killer robots are the military's best solution. By Fawzia Sheikh. ITBusiness.ca. "... autonomous intelligent systems. These are essentially software systems that can operate with 'a greater independence of human input,' explained Bruce Digney, a defence scientist at Defence R&D Canada-Suffield in Alberta. His team is developing these technologies for the country’s military ground vehicles, although they can also be fitted into unmanned air (UAV) and marine vehicles. Even Digney acknowledged the obstacles to putting this technology, which may be equipped with missiles, on to the world’s battlefields: 'If you have a machine that's making decisions in the world for itself, how do you gain some trust, especially if you're . . . expected to put your life in the decisions of that machine?' ... Ottawa-based Frontline Robotics Inc., which is developing these technologies, believes one of the greatest impediments to using these systems is asking the robots, or vehicles, to operate in an unconstrained world model in which 'you just literally drop it in the middle of nowhere and have it try to figure out what it can do next' -- a method requiring a great deal of computational power, said president and CEO Richard Lepack. Rather, he said, robots can better perform in a defined environment that limits the number of variables. There are, of course, advantages to a greater adoption of defence-related robotics, Lepack explained. Most notably, although an enemy or an intruder can destroy a robot, 'it's a lot better than taking out a soldier.'" November 3, 2004: My baby bot - A small robot has startling human characterists. By Peter Familar. "NEC designer Junichi Osada calls his latest robotic wonder his baby, and he isn't kidding. NEC's young genius has obviously developed a close relationship with the small robot that goes far beyond mechanical boundaries. Osada has programmed PaPeRo with a startling range of human responses. Up close, the machine responds to Osada's voice with an appropriate smile or sigh. It also converses, delivers personal messages and, when Osada dozes off, switches off the telly. And there's more. 'We've programmed PaPeRo to take photographs, tell us about tomorrow's weather, provide updates on the stock market and connect to the internet,' Osada says. ... PaPeRo, an acronym for partner-type personal robot, is the face of the near future, when electronic helpers could assume most of the duties of a housekeeper, security guard, children's companion and much more. ... It is one more example that alerts us that robots are really coming, says Mike Hanlon of Gizmag, an Australian-based magazine for early technology adopters. Another example is NEC's PDA-based travel interpreter at Narita Airport in Tokyo." November 3, 2004: Using technology for learning & teaching science. IST Results. "Researchers are demonstrating how technologies when applied to science learning can help motivate and engage pupils and promote better take-up of scientific disciplines at school and university. The following eight IST research projects are focusing on technology-enhanced learning methods, in subjects as varied as astronomy, space research, physics, mathematics and the earth sciences. ... A learner-centred approach is the tack taken by the LeActiveMath project. It aims to design a third generation intelligent learning environment to support Web-based active learning in maths, adapted to the needs and context of the learner by offering interactivity and personalisation. This 36-month project that started in January 2004 builds on its successful forerunner, ActiveMath. Learner feedback from this earlier project revealed that 'students like a lot of interactivity in exercises and benefit from it,' says Erica Melis, the coordinator of LeActiveMath at the German Research Center for Artificial Intelligence. While ActiveMath had some of these features, LeActiveMath will offer much more. ... It will provide intelligent feedback and involve the student in tutorial dialogues that stimulate the student to think rather than learn by heart. 'Dialogues are a natural way to communicate and human-centred dialogues are known to improve learning,' says Melis." November 3, 2004: New Digital Curation Centre set up to preserve digital media. Posted by P. Pothen. PublicTechnology.net. "The UK funding bodies for universities, colleges and research councils have combined to fund the Digital Curation Centre, with an annual budget of over £1m a year. Formally launched at a ceremony today in Edinburgh, the DCC is charged with raising awareness and providing practical tools and support to a new breed of digital curators, drawn from research units, archives, libraries and computing centres. ... The research community has decided to make concerted effort to secure its investment in the digital. It is essential that research builds upon research, and that valuable outputs are available for scientists to use again, to check claims, re-interpret and to test new ideas. ... Professor Tim O'Shea - Principal of the University of Edinburgh, lead institution for the DCC, welcomed its launch, saying: 'As a computer scientist and as Principal of an institution which lost its artificial intelligence archive to fire not two years ago, the importance of the Digital Curation Centre is manifest and I'm therefore delighted that the University has been able to work in collaboration with others to deliver this facility for the UK.'" November 2, 2004: In This Battleground, Well-Orchestrated Noise. By John F. Harris and Paul Farhi. The Washington Post. "Millions have been spent toward maximizing the vote in expected and unlikely places, as technology allows operatives to reach voters with vastly greater precision. ... While ACT [America Coming Together] and its partner groups in a coalition called America Votes are operating intensely statewide -- using sophisticated 'data mining' techniques that allow canvassers to identify Democratic families house by house -- the core of ACT's efforts remains the voters identified this spring. The America Votes coalition will have 20,000 paid and volunteer canvassers on Ohio streets on Tuesday to remind supporters to vote." November 2, 2004: Find Your Presidential Dreamboat. By Louise Witt. Wired News. "On your way to the poll and still undecided? Maybe a new online artificial intelligence program, Presidential Guidester, can help you decide for whom to pull the lever. Think of it as a Match.com that pairs voters with their ideal presidential candidate. Working with the pollster Zogby International, Decidia Decision Systems created software that matches voters' main concerns with the candidate who other likely voters believe will best address them. ... Decidia, whose corporate clients include Sharp Electronics, Whirlpool and Lexmark International, plans to apply the same technology to help consumers buy products." November 1, 2004: Sony lab tips 'emergent semantics' to make sense of Web. By Junko and Yoshida R. Colin Johnson. EE Times. "Sony Computer Science Laboratory is positioning its 'emergent semantics' as a self-organizing alternative to the W3C's Semantic Web that does not require any recoding of the data currently available online. Based on successful experiments with communities of robots, emergent-semantic technology is built on the principles of human learning, representatives of the Sony lab said at an open house here last month. Much as these communities of 'agents' extract meaning (semantics) from the character of their interactions, emergent semantics extracts the meaning of Web documents from the manner in which people use them, the researchers said. Based on just-patented emergent-semantics principles for its robots, the Sony scheme harnesses the human communication and social interaction among peer-to-peer file sharers, database searchers and content creators to append the semantic dimension to the Web automatically, instead of depending on the owner of each piece of data to tag it. The latter methodology forms the basis of W3C's Semantic Web. Conceived by Sir Tim Berners-Lee, the inventor of the World Wide Web, the Semantic Web uses extended markup language to assign 'meaning' to elements of Web pages. A dedicated team of people at the World Wide Web Consortium (www.w3.org) are dutifully spinning out specs for database coding. At its open house, Sony argued that this is similar to attempting artificial intelligence by writing if-then statements about everything in the world -- the bane of traditional AI. ... In emergent semantics, a user's agent bootstraps the information and categorization of content, such as the classification of music in genres. Through interactions among agents trading 'favorite' songs, genres emerge that are common to sets of users. Such emergent semantics as self-organizing genres are automatically tagged onto the content as an extra layer of information rather than depending on people to do the tagging, [Peter] Hanappe said." November 1, 2004: JHU Course Catalog - The Natural and the Artificial ("part of an occasional series in which reporters drop in on interesting classes"). By Lisa De Nike. Johns Hopkins Gazette. "THE COURSE: The Natural and the Artificial: The Concept of the Man-Made Man. The course attempts to illustrate society's changing understanding of science by examining the concept of the artificial human being. It begins with the Renaissance's 'golem' legend and proceeds through the Scientific Revolution/Enlightenment, the Industrial Revolution and the 20th century. ... REQUIRED READING: R.U.R., by Karel Capek; The Fourth Discontinuity, by Bruce Mazlish; He, She and It, by Marge Piercy; Frankenstein, by Mary Shelley; Island of Dr. Moreau, by H.G. Wells. Students also read selections from Science and Change, by Hugh Kearney; The Golem, by Chaim Bloch; Man a Machine, by J.O. de la Mettrie; and The Sandman, by E.T.A. Hoffmann. FILMS VIEWED IN CLASS: The Golem; Frankenstein; Island of Lost Souls; Colossus: The Forbin Project; The Stepford Wives (the original version); Bladerunner; A.I. ..." November 1, 2004: 'What does it mean to be human?' By David Wilkinson. BBC News Magazine. "Contemporary science, far from solving every question, often highlights the big questions which are central to human existence. This is the case with the discovery of LB1, the 18,000 years old specimen of the new species Homo floresiensis. The find of this so-called 'hobbit' on Flores island excites me both as a scientist and a Christian theologian, for it poses the big question of what it means to be human. ... LB1 becomes part of this contemporary question alongside developments in science such as human cloning and the growth of artificial intelligence where what it means to be human is seen in Star Trek's Mr Data and Kubrick's AI. Some have tried to separate human beings in terms of physical, mental or genetic characteristics. The trouble with this, as LB1 demonstrates is that these are simply often different points on a spectrum rather than absolutes." November 1, 2004: Software to curb money laundering. The Times of India. "Tata Consultancy Services, India's biggest software company,on Monday launched an information technology solution that would help financial institutions detect and curb money laundering and terror funding. ... Experts say financial institutions across the world are facing increased scrutiny and pressure to guard against growing money-laundering threats in the post 9/11 scenario. ... The solution encompasses sophisticated technologies including pattern analysis, link analysis, statistical analysis and artificial intelligence." November 1, 2004: Space-age vacuum cleaner senses dirt, potential disasters. By Liane Faulder. Edmonton Journal (subscription required). "The CEO of iRobot, Colin Angle, says the robotic vacuum cleaner uses sensors and 'powerful artificial intelligence software' to figure out the size of a room and how to avoid getting stuck between the coffee table and the armchair. 'Many people, when they think of a robot, believe it's like (the Star Wars character) CP30, a humanoid,' says Angle. '... If you wanted to build a vacuum-cleaning robot that was an android, you could, but it would cost $200,000, and it's a complicated and challenging program. Practical home robots are not going to work like R2D2 or CP30.' What makes Roomba a robot is that it gathers information from its environment and makes decisions about where to go and what to do. It sells for $250. The Roomba Red is just one among a growing group of robotic solutions for life's little inconveniences. ... These projects and more are just part of the push to come up with the next 'killer application' for robots, to use the words of computer science Prof. Hong Zhang, a member of the University of Alberta's Robocup project -- a robotic soccer-playing initiative. A 'killer application' would be something comparable to the use of robotics in automobile manufacturing, which revolutionized that industry several decades ago. Zhang says cleaning devices like Roomba Red may well take off, but the real promise for domestic robots is in health care, where there are not enough humans to do the work required. ... Zhang says Robocup can be compared to the efforts to send the first man to the moon -- the journey is as important as the destination." November 1, 2004: Organised chaos gets robots going. By Will Knight. New Scientist Magazine (Organised chaos gets robot walking; issue of October 30, 2004 at page25). "A control system based on chaos has made a simulated, multi-legged robot walk successfully. The researchers behind the feat say it may have brought us closer to understanding how people and animals learn to move. ... ... Remarkably, the robot performed these tricks without any conventional programming. And its behaviour emerged far more quickly than it would if it had used genetic algorithms. Kuniyoshi suggests that his chaotic approach may have similarities to the way that biological systems learn to move. 'Many findings point to the presence of chaotic patterns in general in the human brain,' says Max Lungarella, who researches artificial intelligence at the University of Tokyo. But [Yasuo] Kuniyoshi and [Shinsuke] Suzuki’s approach is still unconventional, he says. 'It diverges radically from the traditional way of thinking about intelligence.'" November/December 2004: Moving AI Out of Its Infancy - Changing Our Preconceptions. By Steve Grand. IEEE Intelligent Systems (Vol. 19, No. 6). The full text is only available to non-subscribers for a limited time. Abstract: "What we've learned about AI over the past 50 years is a lot about how not to build intelligent machines, explains Steve Grand. He argues that the critical breakthrough will require new and radical ideas at the most fundamental level. Consequently, he offers some of the deliberate provocations that stimulate his own research (a robot named Lucy)-provocations 'sufficiently misaligned with established wisdom to suggest interesting new directions.'" November/December 2004: In the News. By Danna Voth & Benjamin Alfonsi. IEEE Intelligent Systems (Vol. 19, No. 6). "Holonics in Manufacturing: Bringing Intelligence Closer to the Machine" and "No-Fly Zone - An team of roboticists and microbiologists have developed the EcoBot II, a small-scale robot that uses microbial fuel cells to convert dead flies into electrical energy to power itself." November 2004: The Lean, Green Service Machine. By Narayan Nallicheri, T. Curt Bailey, and J. Scott Cade. strategy+business Resilience Report. "Many companies prefer not to talk about service. But Dell Inc. does, and it has been rewarded for doing so: In 1998, the leading PC maker began investing in a customer service initiative that uses artificial intelligence (AI) software to automatically provide its telephone-based service agents a series of increasingly 'educated' and specific responses to give to customers who are having problems with their computers. Gone is the frustrating interaction in which the first question the agent posed was the inscrutable 'Have you tried reloading Windows?' Instead, agents are ready to ask relevant troubleshooting questions that quickly address and resolve almost any problem. Dell’s returns from this AI system have been impressive: Today, 90 percent of customer issues can be handled in one phone call, and costly product returns from dissatisfied customers have declined. This service network contributed to a Dell cost-cutting campaign that reduced overall operating expenses by $1 billion between 1998 and 2003. Even though more complicated repairs are now being handled on the phone, average call times have been trimmed by 8 percent. ... Dell’s AI-based customer service system shows how a successful service strategy can similarly be built on speed and quality. The effectiveness of the system is predicated on Dell’s using the information culled from service calls to manufacture better products, which, in turn, should lead to fewer calls (lower service costs) and more satisfied customers (higher revenue)." November 2004: The Real da Vinci Code - Is his mysterious three-wheeled cart a proto automobile? A remote-controlled robot? A rolling Renaissance computer? The quest to rebuild Leonardo's "impossible machine." By Tom Vanderbilt. Wired Magazine (Issue 12.11). "In the early 1990s, Rosheim's twin passions of da Vinci and robotics fatefully converged. After an Italian scholar showed Rosheim some recently recovered da Vinci drawings, [Mark] Rosheim took a fresh look at what had been dubbed 'Leonardo's automobile,' a wooden three-wheeled cart. Da Vinci enthusiasts have reconstructed the automobile several times during the past century, but it's never worked. The device seemed destined to join the ranks of da Vinci's grandiose but flawed inventions - what one scholar called his 'impossible machines.' To Rosheim, the machine was hardly impossible. Immersing himself in the minutiae of each sketch, gleaning inspiration from inventions that came later, he concluded that the device was not simply a spring-powered cart - as novel as that might be for 1478 - but something more radically innovative. Da Vinci's automobile, Rosheim maintains, is actually a robot with its own set of programmable instructions. This 'precursor to mobile robots,' Rosheim suggests, might even be 'the first record of a programmable analog computer in the history of civilization.' ... One of the biggest breakthroughs, strangely enough, came not from da Vinci's own work but from a drawing Rosheim had of a karakuri, an 18th-century Japanese tea-carrying automaton (often resembling a geisha) - the Sony Qrio of shogunate Japan." November 2004: Customer Data Integration, Linkage Precision and Match Accuracy. By Ed Allburn and David Loshin. DM Review Magazine. "As customer relationship management (CRM), personalization, data mining, one-to-one relationship marketing/database marketing and customer loyalty programs are becoming de rigueur at many large (and some not so large) organizations, billions of dollars are being invested in sophisticated customer data integration technology as a means to total customer data integration (CDI). The underlying technology for CDI evolved out of the data quality tools space, particularly from the concepts of record linkage and matching. ... Regardless of the term used, all perform a similar process of identifying and linking related records by parsing name, address and other text fields into separate components and then using advanced approximate string matching algorithms and sophisticated similarity scoring to compare sets of these components and identify pairs that are similar enough to isolate as referring to the same entity. There has been great success in deploying record linkage for the purpose of customer data integration. ... Today's CDI systems have evolved into highly sophisticated applications incorporating leading-edge research and development advances in fields such as information theory, natural language processing, artificial intelligence and others."
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