| |
AI Topics Home | ||
|
<< Headlines are listed according to date posted <-> Articles are organized by date published >>
April 30, 2004: The
rise of the humanoid robot. Commentary by Anthony Paul. The Straits
Times Interactive. "Come June, spectators gathered in an industrial
pavilion in Lisbon will witness some unusual sporting spectacles - RoboCup2004.
... RoboCup 2004 is the eighth in a series that began in Osaka in 1997.
... Why should soccer be so important to robotic science? 'It's a game
that best illustrates a human's various complex skills,' says Dr Zhou
Changjiu, a humanoid robot specialist in the polytechnic's Electrical
and Electronic Engineering School. 'These include locomotive skills (walking,
running, kicking, jumping), perceptive skills (recognising the terrain,
identifying the ball and players), and mental skills (tactics, strategy
and deceiving opponents).' ... For the moment, the Japanese are in the
forefront of robot development. Since 1986, Honda has been experimenting
with its life-sized (1.2m tall) humanoid robot named Asimo (for Advanced
Step in Innovative Mobility, and an echo of the late Isaac Asimov, author
of many novels about robots). NEC also has its R100, billed as 'a robot
with attitude'. It takes 250 photos of you at your first meeting, and
with a memory based on such data is able to recognise you (and up to nine
other people) at subsequent encounters, and shape its behaviour according
to how well you behaved. Last December, NEC's PaPeRo arrived, billed as
the world's first interactive robot able to translate Japanese and English.
... And the pay-off for Singapore? 'Robotics is a synergy of many technologies,'
says Dr Zhou. 'The R&D in robotics will also promote advancement in areas
like control, sensor, vision and high-precision manufacturing. I'm confident
that Singapore will be a hub for advanced robotics research and applications.'" April 29, 2004: Doing
it with robots. By Christopher Sell. The Engineer / e4engineering.com.
"Advances in robotics technology - such as machine vision, control
systems and greater flexibility - means that robots are becoming more
effective at improving a diverse range of manufacturing processes. They
are also getting cheaper. ... While the automotive industry has traditionally
represented the largest chunk of the market, cheaper, more powerful, flexible
and more controllable robots from companies such as ABB, Comau, SIG and
Staubli have enabled manufacturers who are not normally associated with
robotics and automation, to take advantage of what the technology offers.
... Significant improvements in vision systems, control technology and
intelligence have also played a key role in the increasing flexibility
and ease of use. 'Machine vision has come a long way over the last few
years,' said [Dr Ken] Young. 'Machine vision camera technology and software
is making robots more intelligent and enabling them to carry out a greater
number of tasks." April 29, 2004: St.
Ed's student wins at science fair. Press Journal news briefs / available
from TCPalm.com. "St. Edward's Middle School student Diana Pechter
recently came home a state winner for her computer science project. Diana
came in first place in her division at the State Science and Engineering
Fair, held April 14-16 in Jacksonville. Diana, who also got a Discovery
Young Scientist Challenge award, was among 22 students from Indian River
County who competed at the state level. Diana's computer project was titled
'Enhancing Computer Logic Through Heuristics and Artificial Intelligence.'" April 29, 2004: Computer
animation taking new steps. By Christi C. Babbitt. The Daily Herald.
"In the past, computer animation for movies and computer games has
been expensive and time-consuming. But Brigham Young University researchers
have developed new techniques that let a computer create more realistic
animations faster. Using artificial intelligence, the researchers have
developed a new software technology that allows computers to learn to
animate a computer-generated character through examining animation examples
provided by a human. The computer then makes choices based on those examples
regarding how the character will behave and react, even if the computer
is presented with an unfamiliar situation. 'This is brand new stuff,'
said Jonathan Dinerstein, a BYU graduate student studying computer science
and co-author of a paper detailing the research. The paper was published
in Tuesday's issue of the Journal of Computer Animation and Virtual Worlds." April 26 - 28, 2004:
Robot
- The honest servant. The quantum leap in Information Technology.
By Hajar Shibam. Yemen Times (Issue: 732, Volume 13). "The artificial
robots have been changing many things in the nature of the world of industry
and the role of human beings in it. They have had a great role in increasing
the production average, decreasing the product cost prices and developing
its capability and many other things that man can't do either because
it is dangerous or is not suitable for him. ... Whatever technological
strides computers and robots have achieved or may achieve in future, automation
can't wholly pervade all the fields because these occupations need ingenuity
and innovation, which can be achieved only by the human beings." April 28, 2004: Standard
Life revamps bond valuation model - SLI claims to have models that
can calculate government and corporate yields. FT Adviser. " Standard
Life Investments claims to have developed a more accurate model of predicting
bond value and yields. ... SLI said it had developed a valuation model
for government bonds that combined artificial intelligence - with more
mainstream economic variables, as well as credit ratings, equity market
volatility and investor risk appetite." April 28, 2004: Men
and machines embrace in an extravaganza of sight and sound. By Bill
White. Seattle Post-Intelligencer. "The curtain opened on four men
standing at laptop computers, silhouetted in a bright red square of light.
A robotic voice intoned the words 'man' and 'machine' against sharp metallic
rhythms. A surprising lack of movement on the dance floor emphasized that
German electropop pioneers Kraftwerk had not come to lead a techno dance
party, but a revolution of sight and sound. They were opening Monday night's
Paramount Theatre concert with 1978's 'Man and Machine,' accompanying
the music with bold red and black graphics reminiscent of campaign art
from Germany's dark political past. The word 'man' was outnumbered by
the multiplications of the word 'machine,' making a not-so-subtle statement
about the victory in the battle between the rival intelligences. ... While
the real journeys in life are made on vehicles, the virtual journey is
a falling into the rabbit hole of artificial intelligence. In 1981's 'Computerworld,'
one of several encores, the phrase 'I program my home computer/ And beam
myself into the future' seemed an apt one for the four men whose imaginations
are linked to those little, unassuming laptops." April 27, 2004: NASA
Develops Decision Support Software For Mars Mission. SpaceDaily. "'This
is mission-critical software and the first application of an artificial
intelligence-based system for operating a platform on the surface of another
planet,' [Kanna Rajan] said, adding that MAPGEN plans out a whole day
of activities for the rovers in advance. MAPGEN even decides when the
rovers wake up from their nightly slumbers to begin the next 'Sol,' or
martian day, of activities. MAPGEN is actually a combination of two previously
built planning systems: the Activity Plan Generator (APGEN), a manually
operated planner developed by JPL and EUROPA, an automated planning and
scheduling system developed at Ames Research Center. An earlier version
of EUROPA was flown as part of NASA's Deep Space One Remote Agent experiment
in 1999." April 27, 2004: Seniors Need Robots And New Technology To Help At Home. By Ellen Beck. United Press International / available from SpaceDaily. "Elder advocates from academia and industry urged Congress on Tuesday to fund research and nudge reluctant companies to re-imagine existing technologies to help seniors live high-quality, independent lives. 'Our biggest problem nationally is an imagination problem, not a technology problem,' Eric Dishman, director of Proactive Health Research for Intel Corp., of Hillsboro, Ore., told the Senate Special Committee on Aging. 'There are hundreds of technologies sitting in the labs of American universities and technology companies today that could save billions of dollars in our nation's healthcare bill, if we could only focus some of our nation's ... innovation and investment dollars on the needs of our aging population.' ... Dishman said some companies have told him they do not want their brand associated with the aging demographic. Also, researchers complain elder-tech projects fall through the cracks of existing government-sponsored research and developers are afraid of being sued. Such barriers, real or perceived, pervade technology development. Martha Pollack, a professor in the Department of Electrical Engineering and Computer Science at the University of Michigan at Ann Arbor, testified that advanced technology should not replace but supplement human caregivers in the home. For example, her team has developed a device that helps seniors remember to eat or take medicines. It is a 'glorified alarm clock' that does more than sound an alarm on schedule. She said the device, called an auto-minder, can recognize when a person is eating and then simply note that they should the medication they need to take with meals. Another device, called Coach, developed by Canadian researchers, will guide a senior through a single activity -- such as hand washing -- by giving cues to each step in the process, Pollack explained. ... [Joseph] Coughlin said assistive technology is crucial for baby boomers who are searching for solutions to help them care for aging parents. There is a $29-billion-a-year loss in productivity to business and industry because of time away from the job needed by workers to care for aging parents, he said."
>>> Assistive
Technologies, Robots, Ethical
& Social Implications, Industry Statistics,
Applications
-> back to headlines April 27, 2004: Cognitive
Rascal in the Amorous Swamp: A Robot Battles Spam. Essay by George
Johnson. The New York Times (no fee reg. req'd.). "In Richard Powers's
postmodern science fiction 'Galatea 2.2,' a young novelist, very much
like the author, returns from the Netherlands to a Midwestern university,
where he teaches a computer called Implementation H, or Helen, the meaning
of beauty. By feeding it example after example of the world's great literature
and music and engaging it in conversation, researchers hope to imbue the
machine with so deep a grasp of human culture that it can pass a comprehensive
master's degree examination. Instead it prefers to sing. Galatea was the
name of the statue brought to life by Pygmalion, and the novel, published
in 1995 by Farrar, Straus & Giroux, captures the dream of artificial intelligence:
the creation of a computer so smart and engaging that you might want to
keep it as a friend. Efforts nearly as ambitious continue to plod on.
... Most A.I. researchers content themselves with narrower, more practical
tasks: machines that can diagnose a certain type of illness or an ailing
stock portfolio, that can crawl through the World Wide Web or across the
surface of Mars. Recently I've become acquainted with one of these idiot
savants, a software robot called SpamProbe. Its one modest talent is learning
by example to recognize junk e-mail messages and keep them from my in-box.
At the heart of this and similar programs is a statistical method called
Bayesian inference, a simple learning procedure that works so well in
this limited domain that perhaps something like the fictional Helen is
not so far-fetched after all. Within minutes, the program had discovered
rules of spam identification that had taken me years to acquire. ... Bayesian
statistics were invented in the 18th century by Thomas Bayes, a theologian
and mathematician.... The system has been a staple of A.I. research for
years. Based on what has happened in the past, a Bayesian-savvy computer
can estimate the odds that it will happen again. It learns from experience
through something that seems very much like the process of induction."
April 27, 2004: Engineer
foresaw computer, built precursor. Vannevar Bush made differential
analyzer. By Paula Schleis. Akron Beacon Journal / Ohio.com. "A machine
on a desk can access the collective knowledge of the human race. Touch
a button, and millions of repositories are searched with lightning speed.
... This is how Vannevar Bush described the modern computer. In 1945.
The Atlantic Monthly published his musings as World War II was coming
to an end. The scientist urged his peers to redirect their wartime energy
toward making the world's knowledge more accessible. The groundbreaking
piece of prose has been credited with not only influencing the design
of the personal computer, but inspiring the hypertext language that made
the World Wide Web possible. ... He led a group of colleagues in developing
the differential analyzer, the most advanced calculator of its time. ...
He predicted artificial intelligence -- computers that would act when
spoken to and type text that is dictated into a microphone. ... Bush's
essay also gave the world a reason to pursue the dream: mankind's future
depended on it. Knowledge that could improve and save lives was being
lost in a mountain of paper that was fragile, far flung and unorganized." April 26, 2004: Next
Wave Of Advances In Tech Will 'Surprise Us,' Gates Predicts. By Patrick
Seitz. Investor's Business Daily / available from Yahoo! News. "Bill
Gates, who foresaw a revolution in computing and built a business empire
on his vision, scoffs at notions the software field is mature. ... How
much promise remains for entrepreneurs? Plenty, Gates insisted during
a tour of several top universities this year. In a stop at MIT, a student
asked Gates if another tech company could ever match Microsoft's success.
'If you invent a breakthrough in artificial intelligence so machines can
learn,' he responded, 'that is worth 10 Microsofts.' On the occasion of
IBD's 20th anniversary this month, Gates shared his thoughts on tech's
future and past in an e-mail interview. ... IBD: You've
talked a lot about this being the Digital Decade. In what ways are things
developing faster or slower than you expected? Gates:
Many of the longtime dreams of computer science are starting to come true
- we now have powerful devices available in almost any form you want,
computers that understand speech and handwriting, and networks that put
the world's information at your fingertips. ..." April 26, 2004: Crash-proof
vehicles of the future - Toyota to demonstrate new transportation
technology at 2005 fair in Aichi. Reuters / available from CNNmoney. "Toyota
also plans to depict a world free of traffic accidents using the single-seater,
capsule-shaped 'i-unit' vehicle, which will have built-in sensors to automatically
dodge other vehicles. The i-unit, still under development and derived
from the PM (Personal Mobility) concept shown at last year's Tokyo Motor
Show, stems from Toyota's research into IT and artificial intelligence
-- hence the robots -- to one day 'teach' cars to avoid crashes." April 26, 2004: Killing
junk e-mail is big business for many companies. By Dan Lee. The Seattle
Times / Knight Ridder Newspapers. " Spammers aren't the only ones
who see profits in the torrent of unsolicited e-mail pitches sent around
the globe each day. ... Dozens of companies with differing strategies
and technologies have turned the business of killing spam into one of
the hottest sectors of tech. ... Corvigo's appliance, which plugs into
an organization's network, uses artificial intelligence. It makes a judgment
whether something is spam by using filters for keywords such as 'Viagra'
or looking at past frequency of words in junk e-mail." April 26, 2004: Getting
an instant response - FAA turns to automation to address. Web site
users' inquiries. By Sarita Chourey. Federal Computer Week. "Officials
at the Federal Aviation Administration have incorporated new levels of
automation in the agency's Web site that minimize the need for employees
to individually address users' inquiries. The FAA deployed software earlier
this year, developed by RightNow Technologies Inc., that searches a knowledge
database for similar questions that have been answered in the past, either
via e-mail or over the phone. ... RightNow Technologies' knowledge database
is able to provide responses to FAA Web site users because it constantly
updates itself, said Greg Gianforte, chief executive officer of RightNow
Technologies. 'We use a series of both implicit and explicit learning
capabilities, which include artificial intelligence and machine learning,
to observe the historical usefulness of each knowledge item and provide
greater visibility to knowledge,' Gianforte said. ... But Jonathan Eunice,
the principal analyst and information technology adviser for Illuminata
Inc., is skeptical about dubbing such technology artificial intelligence.
'While it can work well -- and in the case of Google, which has a very
large database with a lot of context-setting information, extremely well
-- calling it artificial intelligence would be an optimistic label,' he
said. 'Even the most sophisticated of these auto-answer systems do, at
most, some adaptive pattern recognition.'" April 25, 2004: Fast-forward
to the past. By Kathleen Laufenberg. The Tallahassee Democrat / Tallahassee.com.
"Throughout the 1980s and much of the '90s, 'Star Wars' and 'Star
Trek' held us spellbound. Not anymore. These days, it's swords not light
sabers, magic not technology, the past not the future, that captivates
our collective imagination. Think 'The Lord of the Rings' and all things
Harry Potter. ... The thrill of technology is gone for most of us, too.
Instead of a dream, technology is part of our lives. We know its downside.
If you're in your 20s like Lost Woods game player Brad Ellis, technology
might even seem a bit of a yawn. 'Even as recently as 1980, the thought
of a small, hand-held global communicator or a computer that has artificial
intelligence and talks to you seemed completely awesome and fictional,'
Ellis wrote in an e-mail. 'On the other hand, ... it's pretty safe to
say that none of us will ever have to travel across the country on horseback
and carry a sword to defend ourselves from random marauders, storm a castle,
etc. In essence, as time passes, the medieval era is being so far removed
from our collective conscious that it seems more fictional than, say,
'Star Trek' is to us.'" April 23, 2004: A
chat with futurist John Smart. Next News by James M. Pethokoukis.
USNews.com. "Every Friday, I post a new E-mail chat with a forward-looking
thinker about the road ahead. Today, our prescient Friday Forward prognosticator
is John Smart, president of the Institute for Accelerating Change a nonprofit
futurist community based in San Pedro, Calif., that conducts research
and holds conferences on the future of technology and the accelerating
pace of technological change. ... Next News: What tech
trends do you see developing over the next 10 to 25 years that the average
person today has little awareness of? Smart: A surprising
number of today's technologies, like most nanotechnology and biotechnology,
will be much less powerful in the next several decades than many futurists
presently realize. Perhaps the most underappreciated accelerating transition
we are participating in today is the emergence of the Linguistic User
Interface or LUI. The LUI is the natural language front end to an increasingly
intelligent and profoundly humanizing and malleable Internet. LUIs exist
today in primitive form in interfaces like Google, but will be increasingly
powerful in coming years. So what will Windows 2015 look like? For one
thing, it seems clear now that it will have some very sophisticated software
simulations of human beings as part of the interface. ... Now imagine
that we have begun talking to our computers in a crude but useful verbal
exchange circa 2015. It is now very clear that we will not simply want
to talk to a disembodied machine. We will want to relate to our favorite
virtual human beings, from a wide range of possible choices, as those
agents will have an ability to nonverbally communicate, to frown or place
their hand on their chin until they understand what we are telling them
to do, to smile when they detect we are smiling at their jokes, to talk
and act in calm and relaxing manner when their voice analyzers tell them
we are upset, to speak more rapidly when they detect we are bored or hurried,
etc. This parallel, nonverbal visual channel makes all our linguistic
communication a lot more efficient." April 23, 2004: Entertainment
News - Future shock. The Times-Picayune / available from nola.com.
"A robot playing soccer? Check this out! The world of artificial
intelligence beams down to your doorstep this weekend as the Robocup U.S.
Open sets up at the University of New Orleans. The competition is part
of a project to foster robotic research around the globe, with entries
from Mexico, Korea, Taiwan, Canada, Germany and elsewhere. It's also great
fun to watch." April 23, 2004: JPL
researcher to give talk at Sunday meeting. Pasadena Star-News. "Ayanna
Howard, a JPL computer-science researcher, will speak at Mount Wilson
Observatory Association's April meeting at 2:30 p.m. Sunday in the Community
Room of the Altadena Public Library. In her lecture, titled 'Human- Inspired
Computing Techniques for Exploring Space,' Howard will discuss how artificial
intelligence may be used in future space missions. Artificial intelligence
refers to the capability of a device to perform human functions such as
learning from experience and independent reasoning." April 22, 2004: Rise
of the machines. Next News by James M. Pethokoukis. USNews.com. "But
[Bill] Joy is probably just as well known for his belief that the accelerating
technologies of genetics, nanotechnology, and robotics pose a dire threat
to humanity by opening the way to new weapons of mass destruction such
as tiny, replicating nanobots run wild. But Joy isn't the only techie
who frets about what his own labors might one day help create. Hugo de
Garis is a Belgian-born associate professor of computer science at Utah
State University. A former theoretical physicist, de Garis now researches
neural networks, a branch of artificial intelligence. Neural networks
try to mimic (on a smaller scale) the human brain's biological network
of hundreds of billions of neurons, which transmit information back and
forth via electrical impulses. He terms himself a 'brain builder.' Yet
de Garis worries that one day supersmart machines -- or artilects (for
artificial intellects) -- will dominate humanity. ... De Garis admits
some ambivalence himself. He is involved with building artificial brains
-- the precursors to the artilects -- but he's also raising the alarm
about their political effects. How could such conflict be prevented? I
recently E-mailed de Garis that exact question. His response: 'Ah, the
$100 trillion question. I wish I knew. I haven't yet found a plausible
way out of this terrible dilemma. ... " April 22, 2004: Do
What I Mean - If Web Searches Are Going to Get More Accurate, It Might
Require a Technology Like MeaningMaster, Which Was 20 Years in the Making.
By Robert X. Cringely. I, Cringely's The Pulpit, from PBS. "So MeaningMaster
is back and presents a natural language interface that purports to return
more of what you really want to know. This is Artificial Intelligence,
which had us all so excited in the 1980s until we found how slow and difficult
to do it really is. But that very difficulty is supposed to be MeaningMaster's
strength, because to do what these people claim to have done, which is
essentially connecting 200,000 words to each other in terms of meaning,
can't be done with algorithms alone. You can't just write a program to
parse Webster's Dictionary and make this happen overnight. 'We model the
way people interpret the meanings of a word -- through context,' says
Ms. [Kathleen] Dahlgren, who is today CEO of MeaningMaster. 'We search
on meaning by using grammar and structure and semantics. Every word has
associated with it a set of beliefs.'" April 22, 2004: E-translators
- the more you say, the better, By Gregory M. Lamb. The Christian Science
Monitor. "It's the holy grail of translation, a goal one researcher
has called 'more complex than building an atomic bomb' Smooth, immediate
translations between people speaking different languages would be a remarkable
achievement of enormous economic and cultural benefit. Some suggest that
it won't happen until computers can express true artificial intelligence
- something like C-3PO of 'Star Wars' fame, whose knowledge extends far
beyond mere vocabulary to an understanding of customs and cultures. ....
Universal translation is one of 10 emerging technologies that will affect
our lives and work 'in revolutionary ways' within a decade, Technology
Review says. ... Meanwhile, the US military is giving a simpler one-way
translation device a rugged road test in Iraq. ... US forces are using
the Phraselator to communicate with injured Iraqis, prisoners of war,
travelers at checkpoints, and for other peacekeeping duties, according
to Tony Tether, director of the Defense Advanced Research Projects Agency
(DARPA), who testified before a House subcommittee on terrorism last month.
... The company foresees civilian applications for the Phraselator for
those working in law enforcement, disaster relief, fire and rescue, and
humanitarian aid. A smaller, cheaper version may be developed for tourists.
... Carnegie Mellon is working on its own 'Speechlator' for use in doctor-patient
interviews, [Robert] Frederking says. The limited range of the typical
conversation in a doctor's office greatly helps. ... "That kind of [computerized
translator], where you're working on a specific task, is not that far
away. I think that might become possible in the next couple of years.'" April 22, 2004: Artificial
intellect remains elusive. By Fred Reed. The Washington Times. "Whatever
happened to artificial intelligence? There was a time, a couple of decades
ago, when computers were expected soon to be able to behave intelligently
-- to talk to people in English, answer questions, and make complex decisions.
What people really had in mind was an artificial human. HAL, the computer
in the movie '2001: A Space Odyssey,' comes to mind. It didn't happen.
Today, although computers have advanced phenomenally in power, we see
them doing very little that reasonably could be called intelligent. We
still can't talk to computers about the meaning of art or why Rome fell.
Why? ... First, it's harder than many thought it would be. ... Another
reason for the apparent lack of machine intelligence is that, if you know
how a computer does something, it no longer seems intelligent. ... An
example of what might be regarded as intelligent behavior is automated
translation of language. This is done by Google, for example. ... Finally,
the use in connection with computers of words such as 'memory,' 'language'
and 'logic' raised expectations of potential human likeness that weren't
supported by reality." April 21, 2004: Oticon's
New Syncro Hearing Instruments with Artificial Intelligence Take Hearing
Care To New Level. Healthy Hearing. "Oticon, Inc. introduces
Syncro, a new breed of hearing instrument that uses Artificial Intelligence
to improve hearing performance in unpredictable sound environments. Syncro
employs a range of new, innovative directionality, noise management and
compression systems and uses a unique application of Artificial Intelligence
to manage the systems' complex interaction. The instrument makes as many
as 17,000 intelligent decisions per second, simultaneously comparing the
actual outcomes of particular feature combinations and choosing the specific
combination that provides the optimal voice-to-noise ratio at any given
moment." April 21, 2004: Teaching
Robots to Herd Cats. By Michelle Delio. Wired News. "Robots designed
for emergency rescue work can survive a six-story drop onto collapsed,
jagged concrete. They can be thrown 100 feet into a disaster site. They
can even cope with poisonous chemicals, fires, freezing temperatures and
floods. But, like most rugged individualists, they don't play well with
others. ... To translate the human concept of teamwork into electronics,
three teams of university researchers are working together to develop
technology that would turn a pack of robots into a single machine. Led
by Nikos Papanikolopoulos, researchers at the University of Minnesota,
the University of Pennsylvania and Caltech are working on software that
will allow small robots to coordinate their actions, carry out commands
from a single human operator or take directions from a larger, smarter
robot. ... Robots have to do much of this work on their own. Humans usually
can't control more than three or four robots at one time. 'We've tried
it -- anything over four robots and the rescuers are overwhelmed with
too much information,' says Papanikolopoulos." April 20, 2004: Farming
from outer space -It is easier for a satellite in space to see whether
a crop needs watering than for a farmer on the ground. By John Crace.
The Guardian / Education Guardian. "For 15 years, Professor Graeme
Wilkinson, dean of the faculty of applied computing sciences at the University
of Lincoln, has been putting the data to one very particular use: agriculture.
One snapshot from space can map an area of up to 100 by 100 miles, with
image enhancement technology allowing you to zoom in on an image of just
a few square metres anywhere within that area. From his lab in Lincoln,
Wilkinson has probably got a better idea of what pests are attacking a
crop, and when they need watering, than farmers on the ground. ... Receiving
the images is one thing; interpreting them is another. For this Wilkinson
has developed some neural network artificial intelligence programmes that
enable the computer to simulate human cognitive processes and aid pattern
recognition - the advantage being that the computer can not only think
a great deal faster than a human, it can also do so in infra-red. Other
members of his team at Lincoln are using the same software to enhance
CCTV images. ... 'My vision is of a smart farm,' he says. 'The satellite
images show what is needed and a robot fixes it." April 20, 2004: "Magnus,
Robot Fighter" Fights His Way Back Into Comics. By Jonah Weiland.
Comic Book Resource News. "Created by writer/artist Russ Manning
and set in the year 4000 A.D., 'Magnus' was one of the few science fiction
based comics success stories of the '60s. ... CBR News spoke with iBooks
publisher Byron Preiss about their announcement earlier this month that
they've signed a deal with Classic Media, the owners of Magnus, to publish
novels and graphic novels based on the character. ... 'We intend to honor
the Russ Manning vision of man and robot' said Preiss, 'but to add layers
of complexity that evolve from nanotechnology, Asimovian thought and the
world of personal computing and artificial intelligence which did not
exist when the character was invented.'" April 19, 2004: Cream
Of The Science Crop - New dean of Carnegie Mellon's School of Computer
Science faces challenge of how to continue attracting the best and brightest
to the field. By Chris Murphy. InformationWeek. "Applications for
Carnegie Mellon's computer-science program this year are down more than
40% since 2001. Concerns that the career path is less promising because
of competition from lower-cost offshore locales and the end of the dot-com
boom appear to have caused the drop. ... Yet Bryant is aware of the challenge
the school faces in attracting the best teenage scientific minds. 'It's
clear if public perception is that IT is dead, or all the jobs are going
overseas, we risk losing the best and the brightest,' he says.... Lost
in all the talk of IT being on the decline are the challenges that remain
in researching still-emerging fields such as robotics, data mining, spoken-language
recognition, automation, and sensor technology. 'The technology part isn't
over yet,' [Randal] Bryant says. 'There's still tremendous work to be
done to exploit the computing power we're creating.' To get undergraduates
more interested in computer science, Bryant says he and his colleagues
will consider whether the school needs to expose students more to that
kind of emerging technology, instead of focusing as much on the technological
foundations of programming languages and operating systems. The computer-science
school also needs to figure out how best to work with other departments,
which increasingly see their futures tied to computer technology." April 19, 2004: DARPA
tech chief envisions the future - Sci-fi inspires Brachman to use
computers in creative ways. By Frank Tiboni. Federal Computer Week. "Ron
Brachman's curiosity about robots programmed to think on their own dates
back to his childhood in New Jersey. It was the 1960s, 'Star Trek' first
appeared on television and putting a man on the moon became a remarkable
reality. ... Now Brachman works at the Defense Advanced Research Projects
Agency as director of its Information Processing Technology Office, where
he oversees programs that study and develop cognitive computing. He wants
to solve the same problem he pondered as a teenager watching 'Star Trek'
-- how to get people and computers to collaborate. Military officials
think robots, with their superior memory, can aid generals in command
and control centers, Brachman said. 'My sense of what it takes to put
together a cognitive agent that is successful, like a really good executive
assistant, is that you just don't put all these [technologies] in a pot
and stir and hope that it all adds up,' he said. ... Brachman's team will
take an eclectic approach to building a robot similar to Data. 'The challenge
we have asked people to look at is how do we put all of these pieces together,'
Brachman said. 'Maybe we don't need the world's best computer vision or
speech-understanding technology. But what would happen if they both work
together?'" April 18, 2004: Aibo's
mum - Yuka Takeda, head of the team that designed the robot pup, is
a Warhol and Star Trek fan. By Krist Boo. The Straits Times Interactive.
" Miss Yuka Takeda is the woman behind the world's most famous pet
robot, the Aibo. As Sony's creative director, she helms the design team
for Aibo, which has more than 100 members. ... 'Ever since I was a child,
I was crazy about science fiction such as Star Wars and Star Trek. I was
a great fan of Mr Spock,' she told The Sunday Times. Aibo broke new ground
when it went on sale. It made the Guinness Book of Records for the fastest-selling
robotic pet with 3,000 dogs snapped up in under 20 minutes. ... The latest
breed of Aibo, a slick pup with smooth curves, comes packed with technological
wonders. ... It recognises owners' faces and voices. Having been loaded
with artificial intelligence, it has a mind of its own. ... 'It could
just be coincidental,' she said, stroking the pooch's head. 'But a few
times he had responded to me - in ways I had never expected. That's when
I had felt closest to him.'" April
18, 2004: Humans
vs. Computers, Again. But There's Help for Our Side. By James Fallows.
The New York Times (no fee reg. req'd.). "We've seen this pattern
before in the computer world: many companies scrambling at the same
time to solve the same problem. Sometimes the concentration of effort
mainly ends up underscoring how hard it can be to solve a given problem,
like controlling spam.... But often such races result in true breakthroughs
that make computers much more useful and creates countless opportunities
for follow-on innovations and products. ... A current race for a solution
goes by the deceptively blah name of 'knowledge management,' or K.M.
It is an effort to bring Google-like clarity to the swamp of data on
each person's machine or network, and it is based on the underappreciated
tension between a computer's capacity and a person's. Modern computers
"scale" well, as the technologists say - that is, the amount of information
they can receive, display and store goes up almost without limit. Human
beings don't scale. ... The current creative struggle is important because,
when it yields a victor, it will leave everyone less frustrated about
using a computer. ... On the conceptual level, it raises basic questions
about what knowledge is. ... The underlying intellectual question about
knowledge management is whether people actually think of knowledge as
a big heap of laundry just out of the dryer, or as neatly folded pajamas,
shirts and so on, all placed in the proper drawers." April 17, 2004:
The
semantic engineer - Profile: Daniel Dennett. By Andrew Brown. The
Guardian. "It was at Oxford, too, that he first became interested
in computers and the brain. The Oxford philosopher John Lucas had published
a paper - still famous - arguing that Gödel's theorem disproved any
theory that humans must be machines, and that human thought could be
completely simulated on a computer. This is the position Dennett became
famous for attacking. ... The essential doctrine that Dennett took from
Quine was that knowledge - and philosophy - had to be understood as
natural processes. They have arisen as part of the workings of the ordinary
world, which can be scientifically studied, and are not imposed or injected
from some supernatural realm. So there is nothing magical about human
brains - no ghost in the machine, to use Ryle's phrase. When we talk
about 'intelligence' we are describing behaviour, or a propensity towards
certain behaviour, and not the exercise of some disembodied intellect.
How these propensities arise is an empirical question, to be answered
by looking at the engineering involved in brains (or computers) and
philosophers who don't do this can't be serious.... He's famous among
philosophers as an extreme proponent of robot consciousness, who will
argue that even thermostats have beliefs about the world. ... 'Somehow,
you've got to reduce the [inner] representation, and the representation
understanders, to machinery. And a computer can do that. That's the
great insight. Turing saw that AI [artificial intelligence] might not
be the way the brain did it in many regards. But it was a way of reducing
semantic engines to syntactic engines. Our brains are syntactic engines.
They have to be, because they're just mechanisms. But what they do is
they extract meaning from the world. Hence they're semantic engines.
Well, how can they be semantic engines? How could there be a semantic
engine?' ... What matters to him is that consciousness arises from what
the brain does - its work as a 'syntactic engine' - not from what it
is made of. ... 'Conscious robot is not an oxymoron - or maybe it was,
but it's not going to be for much longer. How much longer? I don' t
know. Turing [50 years ago] said 50 years, and he was slightly wrong,
but the popular imagination is already full with conscious robots.'" April 16, 2004:
Robot
games draw thousands of teenagers from around U.S. By Elliott C.
McLaughlin. Associated Press / available from USA Today. "About
7,000 high school students will butt brains Friday and Saturday at the
Georgia Dome to see which of more than 300 student-designed robots will
earn their teams a piece of the $4.5 million scholarship kitty. The
13th annual Robotics Competition is sponsored by FIRST, For Inspiration
and Recognition of Science and Technology, which inventor Dean Kamen
said he founded as a way to promote careers that society often overlooks.
... The prospect of funding future engineers is prompting several corporate
sponsors to devote money and manpower to the competition, and they aren't
shy about it. WildStang is sponsored by Motorola, and four former WildStang
members are now engineers for the telecommunications giant. Other sponsors
include DaimlerChrysler, General Motors, Lockheed-Martin and NASA. Dave
Lavery, NASA's program executive for solar system exploration, said
the space administration is FIRST's biggest supporter, sponsoring 180
teams this year. Like the corporations, NASA has a self-serving interest.
'We're concerned about the supply of future engineers and scientists,'
said Lavery, who oversaw the Mars-rover project. 'This is a wonderful
way to fill the pipeline again from the bottom up.'" April 16, 2004:
How cutting-edge
computer techniques can be used to develop drugs. News-Medical.net.
"Leading international experts will gather at the University of
Bradford's Institute for Pharmaceutical Innovation (IPI) for a conference
looking at how cutting-edge computer techniques can be used to develop
drugs. ... Over the last two decades developments in the use of computational
chemistry and automated experiments have been used mainly to help discover
new drugs. ... The IPI, opened by Science Minister Lord Sainsbury in
October 2003, uses the latest artificial intelligence and computer simulation
technology together with advanced analytical techniques to predict how
drugs will behave in the body and to research new methods for the development
of better drugs." April 15, 2004:
Contest
seeks to foster social blending of blind. Ophthalmology Times. "Madrid-Researchers
specializing in technologies for the blind have until May 31 to submit
entries in the third ONCE International Research & Development Competition
in Biomedicine and New Technologies for the Blind. ... Areas of research
eligible include engineering, artificial intelligence, information technology,
telecommunications, biotechnology, and biomedicine." April 15, 2004: Summer of Science - In outdoors-oriented camps, learning goes on after school's out. By Melissa DeVaughn. Anchorage Daily News. "Science is a recurring theme in this year's Daily News list of summer camps, and for good reason. It's a tough topic that is often difficult to comprehend in a classroom setting. Yet it is an astonishing topic, and what better way to learn more about it than by hands-on experimentation. ... Academy Charter School will teach robotics, and the Anchorage School District's gifted program will host an Invention Camp."
>>> Summer
Camps (@ Resources for Students), Robots April 15, 2004:
Condition
Zero has its good points but is a bit overpriced. By Dwight N. Odelius.
Houston Chronicle. "Decades before the invention of the microprocessor,
late mathematician and philosopher Alan Turing proposed that we would
be able to identify intelligence in a computer system through its successful
imitation of human behavior. This assessment became known as the Turing
Test, and it is still widely cited in artificial intelligence and cognitive
science research. In Counter-Strike: Condition Zero, a PC game based
on the venerable Half-Life engine, players fight terrorism alongside
computer-controlled allies and opponents, known as 'bots.' Condition
Zero's bots behave in such a lifelike fashion that you might mistake
them for the real thing. Artificial intelligence is usually the weakest
point of a PC game. In most, enemy bots wander around aimlessly, ignore
the player even when they're within a few feet of them, have little
or no awareness of their comrades and fall off ledges to their death.
Allies run off and never come back or get themselves shot while stuck
on a piece of game geometry. In Condition Zero, the artificial intelligence
far exceeds anything I've played." April 14 - 20, 2004:
The Neural
Approach to Pattern Recognition. Artificial neural networks could
surpass the capabilities of conventional computer-based pattern recognition
systems. By John Peter Jesan. Ubiquity (Volume 5, Issue 7). "For
example, when we see a dog, first we recognize that it's an animal....This
recognition concept is simple and familiar to everybody in the real
world environment, but in the world of artificial intelligence, recognizing
such objects is an amazing feat. The functionality of the human brain
is amazing; it is not comparable with any artificial machines or software.
Let us go deeper and analyze what is recognition and how it is done
through machines. ... In this article, I am concerned with recognition
of concrete items. Applications include finger print identification,
voice recognition, face recognition, character recognition, signature
recognition and classification of objects in scientific/research areas
such as astronomy, engineering, statistics, medical, machine learning
and neural networks." April 13, 2004:
A
Post-Privacy Future for Workers - Futurist Faith Popcorn says productivity-obsessed
companies will soon monitor everything from your health to your emotional
needs. Interview conducted by Olga Kharif. Business Week Online. "Q:
People already don't use half the functions in their software. Why would
employees want all of this new technology you talk about? A:
The problem with technology today is, in many cases, you have to read
through instructions to figure out how to use all the features. What
we need is voice controls. For instance, you should be able to say,
'Bring my car around in front.' Or "I miss my mother. I want to see
her.' ... Q: What do you think can be done by robots?
A: Almost anything. The robots' intelligence will be
very high. Of course, that's a little further out because of ethical
issues. But many of the key technologies needed to make wide use of
robots possible are already here. Carnegie Mellon University has already
developed the world's first robot receptionist, with its ability to
detect motion and greet visitors. Others have developed robots that
could complete simple tasks like fetching documents or coffee. And,
of course, more robots will be used in manufacturing." April 13, 2004:
All-girl
team stars in student robotics competition. April 13, 2004:
Area
firm's surveillance gear sent to Middle East April 13, 2004:
Working
on next generation of robot warriors. By Robert Weisman. The Boston
Globe / Boston.com. "Over the past two and a half years, the remote-controlled
PackBot has been deployed to search for survivors in the World Trade
Center wreckage, for live ammunition in Afghanistan caves, and for explosives
under abandoned vehicles in Iraq. But those missions may be only the
beginning for Army robotics, and for a company with roots at the Massachusetts
Institute of Technology -- if they can reduce the robot's weight. ...
'We're putting the PackBot on the Atkins diet,' said Robert A. Bell,
iRobot's executive director for the Army's Future Combat Systems program.
... 'The unmanned aircraft, like the Predator, got a lot of attention
in Afghanistan,' Corbin said. 'But, to me, they won't be as important
as the ground vehicles. There are few countries that can challenge our
Air Force. But anyone can challenge our ground forces in urban warfare.
It's a type of combat with a lot of casualties on both sides, and the
only easy answer may be robots. If we continue to occupy foreign countries
that don't like us very much, the role of these robots will be key.'
... [T]he company has delivered about two dozen of the advanced PackBot
models, equipped with extension arms, to US troops in Iraq. One was
destroyed detonating an explosive device. 'We had one blown up last
week,' Dyer said yesterday. 'And it was cause for celebration. Because
a robot was sent in harm's way and saved the life of an American soldier.'" April 13, 2004:
Robots
May Fight for the Army. By Mark Baard. Wired News. "Lightweight,
super-strong robots will lead human soldiers into battle within 10 years
-- at least according to iRobot. The robots, called small unmanned ground
vehicles, or SUGVs, will detect the presence of chemical and biological
weapons, identify targets for artillery and infantrymen, and ferret
out snipers hiding inside urban buildings. Today, humans mainly perform
these tasks, often becoming the first casualties of battle while looking
for snipers or explosives. ... SUGVs will be one of 18 networked components
in the U.S. Army's $14.7 billion Future Combat Systems program, which
will include manned and unmanned ground and aerial vehicles, as well
as new sensor systems. ... Some of the robots that are being developed
may also be used to shoot at human targets, iRobot suggested. But the
company said SUGVs will provide advanced reconnaissance first. The company
does not want to be seen as putting human soldiers out of business.
Robot vision systems have serious limitations, and the risk that a robot
might kill an innocent civilian is too great, said iRobot CEO Colin
Angle. But Angle did not rule out the eventual use of weapons on robots,
and noted that Raytheon is developing a targeting system for the SUGV.
'We're not using these robots to hand out flowers,' Angle said."
[A link to a video simulation of the SUGV in combat is provided.] April 12, 2004:
U.S.
Company Cheers Loss of Its Robot in Iraq. By Greg Frost. Reuters.
"A U.S. robot manufacturer on Monday hailed the destruction of
one of its units in Iraq and said it showed how valuable the machines
have become for the U.S. military. iRobot Corporation learned last week
from the Pentagon that one of its units, called a PackBot, was 'destroyed
in action' for the first time. Its destruction meant the life of a U.S.
soldier may well have been saved, the company said. 'It was a special
moment -- a robot got blown up instead of a person,' said iRobot CEO
Colin Angle. ... Between 50 and 100 PackBots are now being used in Iraq
and Afghanistan for battlefield reconnaissance, search-and-destroy missions
of explosives and ordnance disposal, while the soldiers who control
them keep out of harm's way." April
12, 2004: Scholarship
aids study in France. Shanghai Daily. "A Sino-French scholarship
fund will provide money to 20 to 30 Chinese students to do their post-doctorate
research and study in France this year. ... The scholarships are mainly
targeted at students working in pioneering fields like nanotechnology,
artificial intelligence and biological safety, [Jacques] Caen said.
... French post-doctorate students can also apply for the scholarships
to do research in China, officials said." April 12, 2004:
UAF
attempting to build robot vehicle - $2 million prize offered for
robust, autonomous, robotic transport that drives itself over 142-mile
obstacle course. By Robert Howk. Alaska Journal of Commerce / available
from Juneau Empire Online. "Slow and steady wins the race. And
the Arctic Tortoise has a chance at victory - next time. That's the
philosophy of Rick Ruhkick, team leader of a project at the University
of Alaska's Geophysical Institute in Fairbanks which is preparing for
the Defense Advanced Research Projects Agency 'Grand Challenge.' ...
The team now has its sights on a similar event in September, also in
California, sponsored by the International Robot Racing Federation.
... Ruhkick is more serious about pursuing the DARPA Challenge when
is held again in another 16 to 18 months. Revised plans for the race
raise the prize from $1 million to $2 million for the winner, but he
said that's just a 'drop in the bucket,' compared to the potential for
snagging lucrative military contracts. The Pentagon wants to convert
many of its vehicles to be autonomous within the next decade, and the
Tortoise will be in the running if enough financial and in-kind support
for the project is available, he said." April 12, 2004:
Hive
Means Business - Tsunami Research's hive computing is a cluster
technology that puts the smarts in software. By John Soat. Information
Week. "In the computer industry, the right metaphor counts. Consider
the term client-server computing: It's simple, appropriate, easily understandable.
Not so Web services, which has suffered a good deal of confusion, in
part because of its unwieldy designator. While Web services is likely
to overcome that, the list of failed metaphors is long: artificial intelligence,
expert systems, and neural networks, to name a few." April 12, 2004:
Noble
Vision's 'scarebot' picks up seed round. By Scott Foster. Ottawa
Business Journal. " The product is the iScarecrow, a robotic device
that detects birds and deters them from poaching winery grapes. The
'scarebot' relies on artificial intelligence software to alert it to
birds. Running on a wire, it swoops toward winged intruders and wards
them off. ... [T]he team's testing time has been limited to the harvest
season, which has slowed the scarebot's development. ... The new funds
could allow the company to test indoors.... Noble Vision's seed round
announcement comes after D'Andrea presented to potential investors in
Calgary and received calls from oil patch workers in that province.
The workers wondered whether the scarebot could be used to stop birds
from taking fatal flights into tar ponds." April 12, 2004:
America's
Best Graduate Schools 2005. U.S.News & World Report. New ranking
for 2004: Engineering Specialties: Computer
Engineering. April 11, 2004:
Computers Learn
to Understand Sefrican - Scientists develop software to recognise
local languages - and accents. By Gill Moodie. Sunday Times / available
from allAfrica.com. "Thanks to South African boffins, computers
have been taught to understand the many languages and accents used in
South Africa. The voice-recognition system, which will one day enable
South Africans to speak to machines for routine tasks such as banking
and booking flights and hotels, can converse in Xhosa, English (with
a range of local accents) and Afrikaans. 'Essentially, we're trying
to emulate what happens in the human brain,' said Professor Justus Roux,
director of the Research Unit for Experimental Phonology at the University
of Stellenbosch. ... The next step is for the team to convert the speech-recognition
system into a translation system. ... 'It has even more value in South
Africa as it can help us preserve African languages. Technology is neutral
but it could overrun other languages if it forces people to interact
in English,' [Dr Daniel Mashao] said. But Professor Mohlomi Moleleki,
chairman of the Pan South African Language Board, had reservations.
'I understand it will play a very important role in multilingualism,'
he said. 'But if such a system is not managed properly it could become
an end in itself and deter people from learning each other's languages.'" April 11, 2004:
Machine
rage is dead ... long live emotional computing. Consoles and robots
detect and respond to users' feelings. By Robin McKie. The Observer.
"Computer angst - now a universal feature of modern life - is an
expensive business. But the days of the unfeeling, infuriating machine
will soon be over. Thanks to break throughs in AI (artificial intelligence),
psychology, electronics and other research fields, scientists are now
creating computers and robots that can detect, and respond to, users'
feelings. The discoveries are being channelled by Humaine, a £6 million
programme that has just been launched by the EU to give Europe a lead
in emotional computing. As a result, computers will soon detect our
growing irritation at their behaviour and respond - by generating more
sympathetic, human-like messages or slowing down the tempo of the games
they are running. Robots will be able to react in lifelike ways, though
we may end up releasing some unwelcome creations - like Hal, the murderous
computer of the film 2001: A Space Odyssey . 'Computers that can detect
and imitate human emotion may sound like science fiction, but they are
already with us,' said Dr Dylan Evans, of the University of the West
of England and a key Humaine project collaborator. ... A key breakthrough
has been the discovery that cool, unemotional decision-making is not
necessarily a desirable attribute. In fact, humans cannot make decisions
unless they are emotionally involved. 'The cold, unemotional Mr Spock
on Star Trek simply could not have evolved,' said artificial intelligence
expert Professor Ruth Aylett of Salford University, another Humaine
project leader." April 11, 2004:
Korea
as king of tech is ministry ambition. By Chung Sun-gu. JoongAng
Daily. "Relying on his experience in leading a large private company,
Information Minister Chin Dae-je is setting forth a broad and ambitious
strategy aimed at making Korea a world leader in technology. The Ministry
of Information and Communication recently launched a project to identify
and aid growth industries for the future. Mr. Chin, the former head
of Samsung Electronics, coined a slogan, '839 project,' for the strategy.
The slogan refers to eight telecommunications services ... three infrastructure
components ... and nine growth information technologies on which Korea
will stake its future, such as wearable personal computers or robots
with artificial intelligence. Based on the project, the ministry wants
to raise the scale of the information technology industry in Korea from
209 trillion won ($183 billion) in production and $57.6 billion in exports
last year to 380 trillion won in production and $110 billion in exports
by 2007. The information technology industry's share in gross domestic
product would then grow from 15.6 percent last year to 19.3 percent." April 10, 2004:
Photo
recognition software gives location. By James Randerson. New Scientist
Magazine (Take a pic to find out where you are; page 23). "You
are lost in a foreign city, you don't speak the language and you are
late for your meeting. What do you do? Take out your cellphone, photograph
the nearest building and press send. For a small fee, photo recognition
software on a remote server works out precisely where you are, and sends
back directions that will get you to your destination. That, at least,
is what two researchers at the University of Cambridge in the UK hope
their software will one day be used for. Roberto Cipolla and Duncan
Robertson have developed a program that can match a photograph of a
building to a database of images. ... The software can match two images
even when they are taken at a different times of day, from different
angles and with clutter such as pedestrians and vehicles in the way.
'That's an easy problem for a human, but it's very difficult for a computer,'
says Robertson." April 10, 2004:
In
gadget-loving Japan, robots get hugs in therapy sessions. By Yuri
Kageyama. Associated Press / available from The San Diego Union-Tribune
& SignOnSanDiego.com / also available from the Sun Herald (Robots
Seen As Companions for Elderly). "The elderly patients suffer
from severe dementia, but their faces light up when they see the dog-shaped
robot, swaddled in soft clothing, waddle around the hospital floor.
... This is one in a budding series of robot-therapy sessions at Japanese
hospitals and senior citizens' homes. To some scientists, robots are
the answer to caring for aging societies in Japan and other nations
where the young are destined to be overwhelmed by a surging elderly
population. These advocates see robots serving not just as helpers
carrying out simple chores and reminding patients to take their medication
but also as companions, even if the machines can carry on only a semblance
of a real dialogue. The ideal results: huge savings in medical costs,
reduced burdens on family and caretakers, and old and sick people kept
in better health. 'This technology is really needed for the global community,'
said Russell Bodoff, executive director at the Center for Aging Services
Technologies in Washington, D.C. ... And while proponents say robot
therapy is no different from pet therapy, in which animals offer companionship,
the idea of children and older people becoming emotionally attached
to machines unnerves many people. ... [Toshiyo] Tamura and colleagues
recently published research that found that some patients' activity,
such as talking, watching and touching, increased with the introduction
of the robot in therapy sessions. ... Tamura also found that introducing
a stuffed animal shaped like a dog got almost the same effect from patients.
But a stuffed animal can't be programmed to, for example, help an Alzheimer's
patient remember the names of their visiting children. Neither, of course,
can real animals. ... [H]ow robots will change people remains to be
seen. Will robots make people lazy if they can do mundane chores? Will
they make us more callous or more humane? ... Ranges of appropriate
behavior toward robots will have to be socially defined, [John] Jordan
said. Might it be weird to pat a robot for bringing a drink? 'Humans
are very good at attributing emotions to things that are not people,'
Jordan said. 'Many, many moral questions will arise.' ... 'People aren't
going to be able to throw away robots even when they break,' [Yasuyuki]
Toki said. 'These are major issues that researchers must keep in the
back of our minds.'" April 10, 2004:
NTU
gets serious on games - Game lab to boost Singapore push into new
areas of technology. By Ho Ka Wei. The Straits Times Interactive. "The
immediate focus of the lab will be to further research and development
on gaming applications and interactivity projects that are already going
on at NTU [Nanyang Technological University]. ... According to computer
engineering dean Seah Hock Soon, the areas for exploration over the
long term include artificial intelligence, mobile and wireless technologies
and applications, robotics, simulations and e-learning. ... [Ms Sarah
Fay Krom] noted that one of the possible areas Singapore can excel in
is 'serious gaming' - where simulation and virtual technologies are
employed to solve challenges in areas such as education, health and
public policy. ... The global electronic games market was worth US$31
billion (S$52 billion) in 2003, according to Britain's Informa Media
Group, an outfit that gathers business information." April 9, 2004: Artificial
Intelligence' opens in Lower Lake. Clear Lake Observer. "The
performance represents a full-scale production of the winning script
in LCRT's 'Playing by the Lake' contest, held earlier this year. Playwright
Robert Frankel came from Minnesota to see the staged reading of his
farce. In 'Artificial Intelligence,' a college professor faces ruin
when a computer program named Alice crashes on the very day he is supposed
to demonstrate it for a major investor." April 9, 2004: Striking
Far Cry sets new standard. By Alfred Hermida. BBC News. "Now
Far Cry, the first of a new generation of first-person shooters, has
raised the bar, with its gorgeous graphics, fluid action and engaging
story. In the game, you play the character of Jack Carver, who washes
up on a tropical island where danger lurks around every corner. ...
The artificial intelligence of the enemies is to be commended, with
their behaviour being startlingly realistic. The mercenaries will work
as a team and use the jungle for cover." | |||