| |
AI Topics Home | ||||
|
<< Headlines are listed according to date posted <-> Articles are organized by date published >> HEADLINES
September 30, 2005: Hot 'Topix' - A conversation with Rich Skrenta. By Dana Greenlee. Tacoma Daily Index. "Rich Skrenta, CEO of Topix.net and co-founder of Netscape's Open Directory Project took a few minutes out of his news day to explain his huge online news creation. Dana Greenlee: What does your site do and how does it work? Rich Skrenta: Topix.net is reading all of the news published online constantly and categorizing stories, both geographically as well as by subject. ... Greenlee: Building out your keyword database -- you must have spent a lot of long nights working. Skrenta: Yeah -- it’s a massive knowledge base which drives our system in conjunction with some artificial intelligence that we developed. ... Skrenta: What we’re trying to do is classify text by concept instead of keyword. ... We wanted a system that could be intelligent enough to decide a document was actually about that concept as opposed to being a strict keyword match." September 30, 2005: With friends like these, who needs actual people? Japanese firms study robots as companions for aging population. Jim Lander's business column. The Dallas Morning News / available from WCNC.com. "Sony Corp.'s Katsumi Muto thinks a lot of elderly Japanese might be looking for mechanical friends. The old and alone develop an emotional attachment that deepens over time to Aibo, Sony's robot dog, he says. That relationship will get even more complex with Qrio, a humanoid robot under development. ... Honda has worked for 20 years on a robot named Asimo (a name that honors science-fiction writer Isaac Asimov). The latest iterations walk and run, dance, climb steps and navigate with the help of cameras and sensors. ... Whether Asimo will ever become a caregiver to the elderly is up in the air. But the pursuit of such a complex technology could offer other rewards." September 29, 2005: Deciphering a brave new world. By Declan McCullagh. CNET News.com. "Ray Kurzweil was one of the most remarkable and prolific inventors of the late 20th century. Now Kurzweil, who can claim credit for developing the first text-to-speech synthesizer and the first CCD flat-bed scanner, is busy inventing a future in which humans merge with machines and the pace of technological development accelerates beyond recognition. ... CNET News.com spoke with Kurzweil on Wednesday about his book tour, his views of the melding of man and machine and the political ramifications of having hyper-intelligence initially available to the very wealthy. ... [Q:] Your concept of the future relies heavily on 'Strong AI,' the idea that artificial intelligence will become self-aware and eventually surpass human intelligence. But it seems like AI researchers have abandoned that idea for focused real-world applications like face recognition. I was at a speech this week where computer science professor Rudy Rucker said that Strong AI was dead. Kurzweil: There are hundreds of applications where AI is performing projects that would have required a human level of intelligence a few years ago. Those include diagnosing heart disease, routing e-mail messages, cell phone routing, landing planes. We are now in an era of narrow AI, meaning it's not Strong AI. It's not the full range of human intelligence. But it's performing functions that used to require human intelligence. Looking for credit card fraud is one example of that. These were research projects 15 years ago. This isn't 2029. We'll make a billion-fold increase in hardware capacity between now and then. ... [Q:] You say in your book that augmented humans will run software programs and that 'government authorities will have a legitimate need on occasion to monitor these software streams' in our brains. Doesn't that sound Orwellian? Kurzweil: I think there's going to have to be a balance, like there is today. We need to be keenly aware of the empowerment that these technologies provide. We have an existential risk right now in terms of the ability to bioengineer biological viruses. Nanotechnology will have destructive applications. So will Strong AI. ... " [audio available] September 29, 2005: Tate jumps on art carousel - New search facility brings catalogue to masses. By Miya Knights. Computing. "The Tate Gallery has launched a new search facility on its web site to attract visitors and grow sales for its art-on-demand service. The new 'carousel' feature scrolls through 2,000 catalogued pieces of art from the Tate's collection automatically, to help make them more accessible to a broader audience. Launched at the end of August, the tool uses BT-developed artificial intelligence software to display works of art in the same or similar genre to those that users have already clicked on." September 28, 2005: Everything’s Coming Up Robots - DARPA Grand Challenge Dramatic progress is expected for robotic ground vehicle prize event, which begins on September 28, and culminates on October 8, 2005. Motor Trend's Truck Trend. "The Grand Challenge event itself will be preceded by a semi-final competition called the National Qualification Event (NQE), at California Speedway in Fontana, California, from Wednesday, September 28, through Wednesday, October 5. More than 40 semi-finalist teams will compete in the NQE [see the list of participants on page 2 of the article], and the 20 final teams will go on to compete in the Grand Challenge event on October 8. DARPA selected the semifinalists from a field of 118 entrants, using results from on-site visits conducted by DARPA technical staff."
>>> Autonomous Vehicles, Robots, Military, Applications, Grand Challenges, Competitions (@ Resources for Students) September 28, 2005: Canadian Christians discuss science-and-religion - The Canadian Scientific and Christian Affiliation is the only national organization that addresses the relationship between science and Christian faith. By Anne Reilly. Science & Theology News. "The affiliation researches and promotes the science-and-religion dialogue along a three-fold purpose: investigation, education and proclamation. Emphasizing that the group is the only national organization that addresses the broad issues of science and Christian faith, [Robert] Mann said their mission is important because it 'provides a network for persons interested in such issues, occasions for thoughtful commentary and debate on science and faith issues, and educational resources for the Canadian public that reflect Canada’s tastes and concerns.' ... 'We have had meetings on pretty much every science-faith issue, Mann said, mentioning such topics as miracles, artificial intelligence and environmental stewardship. 'In some sense these issues are universal. What the Canadian Scientific and Christian Affiliation does is address them from a Canadian Christian viewpoint.'" September 27, 2005: Looking for a Few Good Bots - Robots for Work and Play The present and future of automated household machines programmed to do your bidding. By Daniel Tynan. PC World magazine (from the November 2005 issue). "I'm not a demanding person. All I ask from life is a happy home, steady work, and a personal robot slave to cater to my every whim. We're not quite there yet, but the age of household bots has arrived. There are robotic vacuum cleaners, lawn mowers, and floor scrubbers, plus a boatload of robotic toys. I decided to see what the modern robotic lifestyle was like." September 26, 2005: Children imagine a flying future. By Rebecca Smithers. The Guardian. "Today's 10-year-olds imagine a future transformed by technology in which their lessons will be taught by robots and they will learn about celebrities and alien languages. ... Participants in the study by internet provider AOL to mark its 10th anniversary are the first generation born in the internet era, and their views show how central technology is to their lives. Most believe there will still be schools to go to, but that technology will play an increasingly important role in learning. The 600 children surveyed think there will still be teachers, but 37% imagine them to be robots. ... When it comes to the curriculum, they predict future generations will be learning robot building (63%)...." September 26, 2005: They made the Internet. Now they want to make money. BBN turns its focus to new technologies for use in wartime. By Robert Weisman. The Boston Globe. "With new ownership and a new strategy, BBN [formerly known as Bolt, Beranek & Newman] wants to profit off the new century's next big thing: the war on terror. The company hopes to benefit financially from the speech recognition, network security, and wireless mobile technologies it is pioneering for use in Iraq and elsewhere. ... The speech processing research it began in the mid-1970s is one key to the future of BBN and its 650 employees. Next month the company expects to land a contract from the Pentagon's research arm, the Defense Advanced Research Projects Agency, to lead an effort to develop technology that immediately translates spoken languages, such as Arabic or Mandarin Chinese, into searchable English text. That contract will be for a Darpa program known as GALE, for global autonomous language exploitation. Valued at more than $15 million for its first year, it will be one of BBN's largest contracts ever." September 26, 2005: Robots ready to race in Grand Challenge - Winner to receive $2 million prize. By Alicia Chang. The Associated Press / available from CNN.com. "Wanted by the Pentagon: A muscular, outdoorsy specimen. Must be intelligent and, above all, self-driven. When 20 hulking robotic vehicles face off next month in a rugged race across the Nevada desert, the winning machine (if any crosses the finish line) will blend the latest technological bling and the most smarts. The military sponsors the race to speed the development of unmanned vehicles for combat. ... Teams have beefed up their vehicles' artificial intelligence through improved computer algorithms that will help them avoid pitfalls such as ditches and boulders strewn across the roughly 150-mile-long course. ... DARPA Director Anthony Tether hopes that a robot will be able to traverse the course in under 10 hours and snatch this year's prize. ... But if no one wins this year, the stakes will be raised again, to $4 million." September 26, 2005: In Chess, Qualified Respect for Computers - Computing, as a science and an industry, has always been intimately connected with games, and with none more so than chess. Michael Hiltzik's Golden State column. Los Angeles Times. "The quest to build a computer grandmaster has helped bring focus to computing research since the 1950s and was a major line of inquiry in artificial intelligence. ... [E]ight years after IBM's Deep Blue chess computer defeated world champion Garry Kasparov in what was billed as the ultimate test of man vs. machine, experts still debate whether that match is computing's last word on the subject -- and even whether the computer didn't somehow, well, cheat. The issue has been getting a new airing, thanks to an exhibit installed this month at the Computer History Museum in Mountain View. Titled 'Mastering the Game: A History of Computer Chess,' the exhibit chiefly covers the 50 years of efforts to teach a machine to play a quintessentially human pastime culminating in the Deep Blue-Kasparov match. The museum launched the exhibit with a two-hour panel discussion whose participants' careers spanned the same period. ... The role of chess in artificial-intelligence research received special attention from the group. ... [C]omputing and artificial-intelligence professionals still seem to regard Deep Blue's victory as somehow unsatisfactory, the cybernetic equivalent of a boxer who pulverizes every opponent by sheer muscle, but doesn't have the slightest sense of technique or finesse. [John] McCarthy expressed this frustration when he threw out the idea of a man-machine tournament 'with extremely stringent restrictions on the speed of computers,' like thoroughbreds forced to carry extra weight in a race. Under such conditions the computers 'might be able to beat humans, but they would have to be clever.' Nor do artificial-intelligence proponents consider Deep Blue's brute-force victory a conclusive refutation of their theories. 'We still have a lot to learn from chess playing,' [Edward] Feigenbaum says." September 26 - October 3, 2005: A Female Sensibility - Videogame makers have ignored half their potential market. Now they're having a second look, and altering the possibilities of gaming. By Christopher Dickey and Nick Summers. Newsweek International / MSNBC.com. "As broadband Internet access becomes commonplace and portable games link up wirelessly, players are interacting with each other and with their machines as never before. At the same time, experimental games using artificial intelligence raise the possibility that characters on the screen will take on a virtual life of their own. 'We're talking about relationships illuminated through conflict,' says Chris Crawford, whose career as a design guru goes back to Atari, in the Precambrian era of video recreations. Indeed, 'relationship' is the word that best defines the differing interests of men and women as they enter an on-screen adventure. ... Girl gamers were largely hidden from view until The Sims brought them out in the 1990s. ... Today, some of the most creative efforts to incorporate character, narrative and relationships into games go beyond the preprogrammed ironies of The Sims and the chat-room companionship of the Web to embrace the more unpredictable world of artificial intelligence. Characters have lives, ambitions and sensibilities. 'We're talking about personality -- about the human condition,' says Crawford. ... So far, only one game has moved into this arena. It's a free download called Facade...." September 24, 2005: CarSim turns witnesses' words into movies - Software that can interpret everyday written language is being used to turn descriptions of an event into a 3D animation of what happened. By Duncan Graham-Rowe. New Scientist (subscription req'd: Issue 2518). "The software, called CarSim, is the work of a group led by Pierre Nugues at Lund University in Sweden. The researchers hope it will one day be used to help people visualise a complex chain of events such as the build-up to an accident, or as a training aid to teach drivers what they are doing wrong." September 24, 2005: E-nose to sniff out hospital superbugs. By Paul Marks. New Scientist (Issue 2518: page 30). "E-noses analyse gas samples by passing the gas over an array of electrodes coated with different conducting polymers. Each electrode reacts to particular substances by changing its electrical resistance in a characteristic way. Combining the signals from all the electrodes gives a 'smell-print' of the chemicals in the mixture that neural network software built into the e-nose can learn to recognise. ... David Morgan, a surgeon at the hospital, says the idea of sniffing out superbugs came to him one day in the operating theatre. 'I was operating on neck abscesses on two different patients and noticed their infections had slightly different smells, so I wondered if a machine could work out what the bacterial infections were from the smell alone.'" September 24, 2004: AI systems may blow weathermen away. New Scientist (Issue 2518; page 27). "Weather forecasters could find themselves pushed out of a job by an artificial intelligence system designed to write clearer, less ambiguous reports. Computer scientists at the University of Aberdeen, UK, were asked to generate an 'artificial weatherperson' by operators of offshore oil rigs, who wanted more clarity in their forecasts. ... To remove such uncertainties, the team programmed a natural language generation (NLG) software package to transform data on the forecast weather into an unambiguous written bulletin (Artificial Intelligence, vol 167, p 137)." September 23, 2005: Intelligent Icelandic knee wins award. Iceland Review Online. "Iceland-based Össur, a global supplier of prosthetic and orthotic devices, was awarded the Frost & Sullivan Technology of the Year Award for the European medical devices market for the RHEO KNEE in London yesterday. ... According to Össur, RHEO KNEE is the first artificially intelligent knee system with the ability to learn and adapt to its user's movements in real-time." September 22, 2005: Move over, Google Sidebar. By Elinor Mills. CNET News.com. "Watson 2.0, to be launched on Friday by Intellext, is designed to understand the context of the text a computer user is reading or creating and automatically offer relevant news articles, Word documents and other Web- or PC-based information--without the privacy concerns Google's service has raised--and in real time. The context-sensitive Windows search tool is based on technology developed at Northwestern University. ... 'Watson 2.0 uses an artificial-intelligence approach to understand what you are working on and formulate queries,' [Al Wasserberger] said. 'It sends the queries to the online (information) sources and compares the results against the document you are working on and then sorts (the results) according to relevance.'" September 22, 2005: Human genome expert at UCSC receives award. SantaCruzSentinel.com. "David Haussler, the human genome expert at UC Santa Cruz, will receive a prestigious award from Carnegie Mellon University and a $50,000 prize. ... R&D Magazine named Haussler 'Scientist of the Year' in 2001. He has also been honored by the American Association for Artificial Intelligence. ... His current project uses the genomes of living mammals to reconstruct by computer the entire genome of the common ancestor of all placental mammals." September 22, 2005: A Sci-Fi Future Awaits the Court. By Bruce Schneier. Wired News. "At John Roberts' confirmation hearings last week, there weren't enough discussions about science fiction. Technologies that are science fiction today will become constitutional questions before Roberts retires from the bench. The same goes for technologies that cannot even be conceived of now. And many of these questions involve privacy. ... Privacy questions will arise from government actions in the 'War on Terror'; they will arise from the actions of corporations and individuals. They will include questions of surveillance, profiling and search and seizure. And the decisions of the Supreme Court on these questions will have a profound effect on society. ... That story illustrates a number of technologies that might become commonplace over the next several decades. Automatic face recognition will allow police, businesses and individuals to identify people without their knowledge or consent. Data-mining programs will sift through mountains of data, both real-time and historical, and select people for further investigation. And people might even be accused of conspiracy based on nothing more than a nebulous pattern of events." September 21, 2005: Champions of robot 'rumble.' By Jon Tampoi. Borneo Bulletin. "The Anggerek Desa Primary School has won the 2nd Brunei Robotics Olympiad 2005 and will represent the country at the upcoming 2nd World Robotics Olympiad 2005 in Thailand. ... The competition which was held to increase students' interest in learning science and mathematics was organised by the Science Technology and Environment Partnership Centre (STEP) Centre, the Ministry of Education in partnership with Brunei Shell Petroleum Company and with the cooperation of CFLT. The objectives of the competition were to introduce basic knowledge to build robots at primary school level, cultivate students' interest in robot technology and relate it to the real world, develop science, mathematics and technology among students as well as promote creative thinking, communication and cooperation." September 21, 2005: Seoul to Build Combat Robot. By Reuben Staines. The Korea Times. "Defense and communications technicians will team up to develop a mobile combat robot to fight alongside human soldiers on the battlefield, the government said Wednesday. ... The robot will be armed with various weapons and will operate both by remote control and its own artificial intelligence system." September 21, 2005: Bot Builders Scramble for Cash. By Michael Grebb. Wired News. "With the exception of military and space applications, the United States is falling behind Europe and Asia in robotics research, according to an international study by the World Technology Evaluation Center. ... [George] Bekey said that robotics research funding has been dropping in the United States for at least the last decade, with NSF's funding now at less than $10 million per year. In contrast, he said Japan's government will spend nearly $100 million in 2005." September 21, 2005: Divorce? Let the computer be the judge. By Adele Horin. The Sydney Morning Herald. "After a marriage breaks down, couples can spend a fortune in legal fees wrangling over property and custody. But a new computer program called Family Winner may short-circuit the court battles. Developed by Emilia Bellucci, a lecturer at Victoria University's school of information systems, and John Zeleznikow, professor of information systems, the program requires a couple to prioritise their demands.... A second program called SplitUp, developed with Andrew Stranieri of the University of Ballarat, calculates the likely results of property settlements in Family Court proceedings, Professor Zeleznikow said." September 20, 2005: Virginia Tech to smarten up cognitive radio. R. Colin Johnson. EE Times. "Virginia Tech hopes to smarten up experimental cognitive radios so that ad hoc communications networks can adapt to aid in disaster relief, battlefield communications, consumer Wi-Fi and other cognitive radio applications. ... Cognitive engines allow radios to share a distributed knowledge base that parcels out individual and collective reasoning tasks to network nodes as a way to automate adaptation and learning. ... In 2003, the Federal Communications Commission issued a request for proposals to add artificial intelligence to cognitive radios. The upgrade would allow the new radios to sense dead zones, interference and usage patterns as well as adapt to changing real-time circumstances." September 20, 2005: NASA Announces Prize for Digging Moon Dirt. SPACE.com. "NASA announced Tuesday a $250,000 prize for the team that can win a lunar dirt-digging contest that will take place here on Earth. The competition will pit robots to see which can excavate the most lunar regolith (a fancy word for soil) and deliver it to a collector. The challenge will be held in late 2006 or early 2007. ... 'This challenge continues NASA's efforts to broaden interest in innovative concepts,' said Brant Sponberg, NASA's Centennial Challenges program manager." September 20, 2005: Telling You What You Like - 'Preference engines' track consumers' choices online and suggest other things to try. But do they broaden tastes or narrow them? By Alex Pham and Jon Healey. Los Angeles Times. "Preference engines emerged in the earliest days of e-commerce to boost sales -- the Internet equivalent of 'Would you like a belt to go with that?' -- but they have improved with technology and incorporated human feedback to more precisely predict what someone might like. Their spread worries some who fear that preference engines can extract a social price. As consumers are exposed only to the types of things they're interested in, there's a danger that their tastes can narrow and that society may balkanize into groups with obscure interests. ... The most common recommendation tools involve collaborative filtering, a technique that suggests products based on what other people with similar tastes have bought. These tools keep tabs on what people purchase, what items they browse or whether they put items into their shopping carts. Some take a further step by asking people how well they liked their purchases." September 20, 2005: Brit's bot chats way to AI medal. BBC News. "A British computer chat program, called George, has won an international prize for holding the most convincingly human-like conversation. George and its creator Rollo Carpenter competed against three other talkative bot finalists in New York. Reigning three-time winner, Alice, came fourth in this year's Loebner Prize. The competition is based on the Turing Test, which suggests computers could be seen as 'intelligent' if their chat was indistinguishable from humans. ... Mr Carpenter told the BBC News website that the win was a first for such a learning type of AI (Artificial Intelligence). ... George is a 'character' which has learned its conversation skills from the interactions it has had with human visitors to the Jabberwacky website."
>>> Turing Test, Chatbots (@ Natural Language Processing), Machine Learning, Competitions (@ Resources for Students) September 19, 2005: Chapin Tells Value Of Lego Competition To Students. the Chattanoogan.com. "Chattanooga Engineering Club member Ed Chapin told fellow members Monday that a Lego League Competition that the club has helped sponsor gives middle school students the opportunity to use math, science, teamwork, and research in a fun and competitive way. Mr. Chapin said the schools in Chattanooga became involved in the program in 2002 when associates of the Oak Ridge National Laboratory asked the Chattanooga Engineering Club to be involved. This Lego league is considered the 'little league' of the FIRST Robotics Competition, which is designed for high school students, he said. ... Last week the FIRST Lego League announced that this year’s theme will be 'Ocean Odyssey,' Mr. Chapin said." September 19, 2005: Robot rescue - These guys go where human searchers can't . A bay area company takes its technology to Mississippi after Hurricane Katrina, to show a team where it didn't need to look. By Dave Gussow. St. Petersburg Times. "Mark Micire makes it very clear: His robot did not rescue any victims of Hurricane Katrina. But it did come in handy. 'We saw inside structures that would not have been able to be searched by a human,' said Micire, 29 and president of American Standard Robotics in St. Petersburg. 'It's as important to find where not to search as it is where to search.' ... While many consumers think of robotic pets such as the Sony Aibo, appliances such as the Roomba vacuum cleaner or industrial robots, search and rescue wants a different image. 'This is something that has a little stronger humanitarian undertone,' Micire said. 'We're trying to build robots that serve people, that really have an impact when we need assistance the most.' Micire was part of a USF team that went to the World Trade Center after 9/11, which was a major learning event for the robotics field." September 19, 2005: American robots face spirited competition abroad. By Byron Spice. Pittsburgh Post-Gazette. "Though still a leader in areas such as health care robotics, the United States faces strong, and in many ways superior, competition from abroad, [George Bekey] added. Summarizing the report's findings at a workshop hosted by the National Science Foundation, he noted that Japan, Korea and Europe all have mounted concerted, coordinated efforts to develop robots. While U.S. robotic research has been driven primarily by the Defense Department, Asian and European research is much more oriented to commercial products. ... But Matt Mason, director of the Robotics Institute at Carnegie Mellon University, expressed reservations about adopting the models of coordinated research such as those used in Japan and Korea. Though those programs are effective -- both countries are clearly preeminent in the development of walking, humanoid robots and robots to help care for the elderly and infirm -- their uniform approach to problems would not mesh well with U.S. culture. 'I actually value our tradition of independent thought,' Mason said. 'I think it would be a big mistake for us to seek the kind of unity of purpose that we see there.' A diversity of ideas is one of the strength's of the U.S. research community, he argued." September 19, 2005: 'Smart chair' system readied for market. By Jennifer Bails. Pittsburgh Tribune-Review & PittsburghLIVE.com. "Despite high-tech features that rival those in any luxury car, a power wheelchair can be a challenge to steer. That's why University of Pittsburgh bioengineer Richard Simpson is working to develop a robotic system that could provide wheelchair users with a smooth, collision-free experience. ... In the past 20 years, more than a dozen other research groups in the United States and Europe have developed prototype wheelchairs with artificial intelligence to detect roadblocks and help users avoid them." September 19, 2005: Intelligence in the Internet age - It's a question older than the Parthenon: Do new innovations and technologies make us more intelligent? [This is the first installment in a 3 part series.] By Stefanie Olsen. CNET News.com. "Today, terabytes of easily accessed data, always-on Internet connectivity, and lightning-fast search engines are profoundly changing the way people gather information. But the age-old question remains: Is technology making us smarter? Or are we lazily reliant on computers, and, well, dumber than we used to be?"
>>> Nature of Intelligence, Ethical & Social Implications, Cognitive Science, Information Retrieval, Applications, Science Fiction September 19, 2005: Milestones. By Ruth Browning. The Daily Citizen (The milestones for the week of September 17-23 were posted on September 16, 2005.) "Sept. 19, 1982, at 11:44, Scott Fahlman, a computer scientist at Carnegie Mellon University, sent a message in which the first 'smiley' or 'emoticon' was used. At least, he is credited with the first time one was used with the suggestion that they can express emotions; there is some dispute about this. ... He is a fellow of the American Association for Artificial Intelligence." September 18, 2005: It's hard to stop playing Go - Players become addicted to ancient Asian board game. By Missy Baxter. The Courier-Journal. "Unlike chess, in which computer programs can defeat the best human players, the strongest Go programs are routinely conquered by Asian children. Computer programmers, such as [Ed] Hammerbeck, note that Go is more accurate than chess in reflecting ways in which the human mind works. That's why computer programmers call Go 'the fruit fly of artificial intelligence.' 'Go proves that computers can't totally mimic the human thought process because there's no way that a computer can predict the outcome of the moves that are made early in the game,' Hammerbeck said." September 17, 2005: Mitsubishi banking on robot companion's charm. stuff.co.nz. "Japan's Mitsubishi Heavy Industries say their new internet-linked robot 'Wakamaru', unveiled on Thursday, has a friendly personality that could make her a much-loved member of the family. 'We have tried to create a robot you can have a relationship with, just like a human,' said technical team leader Ken Onishi... ". September 16, 2005: Kickin' robots lead way in artificial intelligence - German university professor gives presentation at newest UC. By Rosalio Ahumada. Merced Sun-Star. "Soccer-playing robots can kick off artificial intelligence research that will lead to a science fiction world only seen in movies. That's what a leading computer science professor said when he spoke about his world champion soccer team of robots Thursday at the University of California, Merced. 'The soccer field is a good laboratory,' said Raul Rojas, a mathematics and computer science professor at Freie Universitaet in Berlin. 'It's small enough, but it's also very complex. The game is very fast.' The soccer robots, known as FU-Fighters, are now used as a benchmark for artificial intelligence research, he said. ... Rojas and his team of students built the robots, which have participated in the last six world championships in robotic soccer, known as the RoboCup. ... Alberto Cerpa, a computer science professor at UC Merced, said artificial intelligence is a research field the department is really interested in exploring." September 16, 2005: Tiniest remote-controlled robot created. By Celeste Biever. NewScientist.com news. "The tiniest mobile robot ever has been created by US researchers. It is a sliver of silicon one ten thousandth of a millimetre thick that can be precisely steered like a remote-control car to move in any direction across the surface of a special plate. ... Its creators lead by Bruce Donald of Dartmouth University in Hanover, New Hampshire will present it at the International Symposium for Robotics Research on 14 October." Videos can be accessed via a link in the article. September 15, 2005: Robots can be lifesaving rescue workers - Robotic aircraft play a role in assessing Katrina's damage. By Marsha Walton, with Daniel Sieberg contributing. CNN. "They look like big, high-tech toys. But robotic airplanes and helicopters with cameras, microphones and sensors can provide crucial information for emergency responders in the aftermath of disasters like Hurricane Katrina. 'You don't even have to wait until dawn the next morning to start flying to get a view of where the damage is, what areas have been hit hardest, what roads are still open, and how to get access to them,' said Robin Murphy, director of the Center for Robot Assisted Search and Rescue (CRASAR). Murphy, a professor in the department of computer science and engineering at the University of South Florida, used the unmanned aerial vehicles in Pearlington, and Bay St. Louis, Mississippi a couple days after Katrina hit the Gulf Coast. ... Search robots earned credibility after the 9/11 attacks in New York, Virginia and Pennsylvania. 'At the World Trade Center we saw the first use of ground robots, they could go underneath, go into places that people and dogs simply couldn't fit into or that were still on fire. They could do things that people just couldn't or shouldn't do,' she said. But each disaster, natural or manmade, is different." September 15, 2005: Robotics laboratory in Bremen. channel-e. "A new robotics laboratory of the Deutschen Forschungszentrums für Künstliche Intelligenz (DFKI) [German Research Center for Artificial Intelligence] will be established in Bremen. Its aim is to develop innovative products for use in space and the underwater world." September 14, 2005: China, Japan jointly develop disaster relief robot. Xinhua News Agency & China View. "An underwater robot in a flood rescue effort? A snake-shaped robot penetrating debris to search for survivors of an earthquake? A flying robot monitoring fire danger in forest? The common dream of mankind of a world aided by robots may soon become a reality. The Shenyang Institute of Automation of the Chinese Academy of Sciences and the International Resure System Institute of Japan jointly set up a Sino-Japan Rescue and Safety Robot Technology Research Center Monday to conduct research and development into robots for disaster relief purposes." September 14, 2005: Dubai to have robotic car parks soon. By Zaigham Ali Mirza. Khaleej Times Online. "The city of Dubai, well known in the region for employing the best available technology in every field, is now turning to Robotics for finding solutions to its car parking problems. According to a source in Dubai Municipality, the civic body is all set to install on a trial basis an operator-less robotic car parking facility near its headquarters in Deira in just over a month's time. ... The fully automatic facility boasts 'artificial intelligence' ...." September 14 - 20, 2005: Silicon Alleys - Gnarly Computations For the Future. By Gary Singh. Metro. "If you really want the grit on how fast society is changing, Stanford University will host a conference called 'Accelerating Change 2005: Artificial Intelligence and Intelligence Amplification; Transforming Technology, Empowering Humanity' (www.accelerating.org). Artificial intelligence ('AI'), broadly defined, improves the intelligence, capacity and autonomy of our technology. Intelligence amplification ('IA') empowers human beings and their social, political and economic environments. ... According to Los Gatos–based science fiction author Rudy Rucker, it's all about computation. Rucker, a retired SJSU professor, will infiltrate the conference to discuss his new nonfiction book, The Lifebox, the Seashell, and the Soul: What Gnarly Computation Taught Me About Ultimate Reality, the Meaning of Life, and How to Be Happy, a tome that looks to be a rip-roaring combo of popular science, fringe math and Rucker's bent journey of discovering the computational universe. (Full disclosure: Rucker is a friend and former professor of mine.)" September 14, 2005: Robotic Vehicles Race, but Innovation Wins. By John Markoff. The New York Times (registration req'd.). "It has been almost 18 months since the Pentagon's research arm, the Defense Advanced Research Projects Agency, first attracted a motley array of autonomous vehicles with a prize of $1 million for the first to complete a 142-mile desert course from Barstow, Calif., to Las Vegas. The most successful robot, developed by a Carnegie Mellon University team, managed all of seven miles. With the next running scheduled for Oct. 8 - and this time a $2 million purse for the winner among 43 entries - it is clear that many of the participants have made vast progress. For some researchers, it is an indication of a significant transformation in what has been largely a science fiction fantasy. 'Computers are starting to sprout legs and move around in the environment,' said Andy Rubin, a Silicon Valley technologist and a financial backer of this year's Stanford Racing Team, which produced Stanley. ... The Pentagon agency, known as Darpa, struck upon the idea of a race - calling it the Grand Challenge - as a way to stimulate innovations useful in battlefield applications like unmanned logistics vehicles. For the two Stanford scientists, however, the Grand Challenge is about something larger. 'The military are interested in more potent weapons, and by itself that's a bad answer,' said Mr. [Sebastian] Thrun, a roboticist and director of the Stanford Artificial Intelligence Laboratory. His broader goal is to advance robotics as a science and explore applications ranging from aids for the elderly to basic advances in intelligent computerized systems."
>>> Autonomous Vehicles, Military, Transportation, Assistive Technologies, Competitions (@ Resources for Students), Robots, Applications; also see the article below September 14, 2005: 'Brilliant' minds honored. By Marissa Newhall. USA Today. "Examining ancient trees, probing black holes and observing cannibalistic spiders are all part of the job for young researchers honored in Popular Science's fourth annual 'Brilliant 10' feature. The list recognizes young minds who have pushed their fields in innovative directions but remain virtually unknown to the public. ... Sebastian Thrun, 38 - As director of the Artificial Intelligence Laboratory at Stanford University.... Doug James, 33 - Thanks to James' software tools and research at Carnegie Mellon University.... "
>>> Careers in AI (@ Resources for Students) September 13, 2005: NSF panel to assess U.S. robotics technology. By R. Colin Johnson. EE Times. "The World Technology Evaluation Center (WTEC) will release its International Study of Robotics on Friday (Sept. 16) at a National Science Foundation conference. During the NSF conference, 'Robots: An Exhibition of U.S. Automatons from the Leading Edge of Research,' WTEC will compare Asian and European robotic technology with U.S. robots exhibited at an NSF workshop last year. Since then, a six-member panel has toured 50 robot facilities in Japan, South Korea and Western Europe to assess the status of international research. ... Six different robot types will be studied: robotic vehicles, space robots, industrial and personal robots, humanoid robots, robotics in biology and medicine and networked robots."
>>> Robots, Applications, Exhibits (@ Resources for Students) September 13, 2005: Stars Rise at Startup Summer Camp. By Ryan Singel. Wired News. "Having just finished his sophomore year at Stanford University, Sam Altman spent this summer holed up in a Cambridge, Massachusetts, apartment paid for with a little bit of startup funding, writing code for hours on end.... The sophomores were just one of eight groups selected for three months of summer seed funding from Y Combinator, a startup incubator founded by Paul Graham, a writer and programmer known for creating the first web application. Graham, a startup evangelist who sold his company to Yahoo in 1998, came up with the idea of paying students to program instead of working a summer job after giving a talk about startups to Harvard University computer science undergraduates. ... Soon after, Graham teamed up with an investment banker and two hackers from his old company, and the group announced the Summer Founders Program in late March." September 13, 2005: MOD to sponsor underwater competition. Ministry of Defence News. "In the first competition of its kind in the UK, teams of students from universities will have the chance to win £10,000 in prize money for building the ultimate unmanned underwater vehicle (UUV). The challenge, sponsored by the MoD's Research Acquisition Organisation (RAO) and Defence Science and Technology Laboratory (Dstl), is to design and build an autonomous UUV capable of carrying out a specified in-water 'mission'. ... The integration of sensors, artificial intelligence/autonomy, navigation, propulsion, and special materials with the associated tactics is the key systems problem in evolving UUVs into a viable military force." September 13, 2005: Mac mini robot prototype revealed. Macworld UK. "Researchers at the University of Oklahoma have built a Mac mini-powered robot, which uses iSight as its eyes. ... The researchers are part of the Artificial Intelligence Research laboratory in Computer Science. They were interested in evaluating the Mac mini because of its small size, and 'built-in wireless and Firewire capabilities'." September 13, 2005: Fujitsu's Robot on Wheels to Go on Sale. By Yuri Kageyama. Associated Press / available from Wired News. "Equipped with voice recognition capabilities, cameras and sensors, the 4-foot tall robot on wheels will go on sale for 6 million yen ($54,000) each in Japan in November for just such a purpose. ... Enon can find itself around in an office or store, based on a map programmed inside its computer brain, move at a slow pace of up 1.86 miles an hour, and picks up things as heavy as 1.1 pounds. Its mechanical arms have paws at the end that can grip objects. 'We hope that robots like this will be able to help people in an aging society where the population is declining,' Tokuichi Shishido, director at Fujitsu Frontech, said Tuesday." September 13, 2005: Six degrees. The Engineer Online. "University of Massachusetts Amherst researchers have invented a new algorithm that solves a network-searching conundrum that has puzzled computer scientists and sociologists for years. The scientists created an algorithm that helps explain the sociological findings that led to the theory of 'six degrees of separation,' and could have broad implications for how networks are navigated, from improving emergency response systems to preventing the spread of computer viruses. ... Dubbed expected-value navigation, the algorithm describes an efficient way of searching a particular class of networks.... The work was inspired by research pioneered in the late 1960s that focused on navigating social networks, explains [Ozgur] Simsek." September 12, 2005: Georgia Tech's Ronald Arkin. "Technology Research News Editor Eric Smalley carried out an email conversation with Georgia Institute of Technology professor Ronald C. Arkin in August of 2005 that covered the economics of labor, making robots as reliable as cars, getting robots to trust people, biorobotics, finding the boundaries of intimate relationships with robots, how much to let robots manipulate people, giving robots a conscience, robots as humane soldiers and The Butlerian Jihad. ... TRN: Tell me more about what ever-increasing computational power is likely to enable and how supercomputing will enable fundamentally new approaches to problems. Arkin: Some of my colleagues feel more strongly than I do on this subject, e.g., interpreting Hans Moravec; it would seem that it's simply a matter of time that advances in computational speed will enable human-level intelligence in machines. My tack is somewhat different... I believe that now with better tools, we can explore our understanding, development and implementation of intelligence in novel ways, perhaps, for example, by creating highly efficient distributed and parallel machines that can enable us to better understand and recreate intelligence. The end result will be new paradigms. What specifically they will be remains to be seen, but just as better ships enabled man to voyage further on his expeditions, even into space, so will better computational engines facilitate new discoveries of this sort. TRN: Tell me about trends in robotics. What are the pluses and minuses of the technologies as they exist today? What do you see as the most urgent needs in robotics research and development? Arkin: ...." September 12, 2005: Robot cars aim to kick up dust - University, industry teams race to build fastest driverless vehicle on wheels. By Tom Abate. San Francisco Chronicle & SFGate.com. "The Berkeley Blue Team is one of dozens of academic and industrial teams that will send driverless vehicles racing across the Mojave Desert on Oct. 8 in hopes of winning the $2 million first-place prize being offered by the Defense Advanced Research Projects Agency. Darpa -- the outfit that spawned the Internet and promoted a betting Web site to predict terrorist attacks -- held a similar desert race in March 2004 to spark research on future unmanned military vehicles. ... While just 15 teams competed last year, 118 hopefuls entered what Darpa calls its Grand Challenge 2005. In June, the agency winnowed the field down to 40 semifinalists. A late September elimination round is scheduled to choose the 20 robotic vehicles that will vie to finish an undisclosed course expected to traverse nearly 150 miles of desert not far from Las Vegas." September 12, 2005: Ontologies for e-business. IST Results. "With e-business becoming increasingly dynamic and complex, companies offering real-world services require business and service models that take full advantage of these new opportunities. Now tools for smart, collaborative e-business are on hand to help. 'OBELIX is the first ontology-based e-business system of its kind in the world to provide smart, scaleable integration and interoperability capabilities,' explains project coordinator Iñaki Laresgoiti at Labein in Spain. ... The project's interdisciplinary approach draws not only from computer science and artificial intelligence but also from economics, systems theory and current business practice. The system is a first step toward automating e-business services in a Semantic Web environment, relying on machine-understandable semantics in e-business data and processing systems." September 12, 2005: Is it just a game? - Virtual violence has parents and politicians worried about real-world aggression. The science behind those fears hasn't made it to the next level. By Melissa Healy. Los Angeles Times. "Los Angeles father and screenwriter Gregg Temkin calls it his 'constant conflict' -- this wavering between fear and complacency about violence in video games. Temkin's 14-year-old son, Josh, plays a slew of nonviolent games, but he also likes to get together with friends and play the fantasy-violence game 'Halo 2' and the graphically violent 'Grand Theft Auto.' Temkin says he has read plenty about these games' purported effects -- both good and bad -- and finds that the experts are as confused as he is. ... Research published in recent months hasn't helped clarify the risks, or benefits, of these games. ... If there is one partial antidote for the potential risk of violent video games, say psychologists, it is family -- in particular parents or trusted adults who are aware of what their children play, understand its content and speak up against -- or at least about -- it." September 12, 2005: Judge Bork's Inkblot. Opinion by Glenn Harlan Reynolds [being one of five opinions - each proposing 5 questions - that constitute the Twenty-Five Questions - Play the Senator: What to Ask Judge Roberts?]. The New York Times. "3. Could a human-like artificial intelligence constitute a 'person' for purposes of protection under the 14th Amendment, or is such protection limited, by the 14th Amendment's language, to those who are 'born or naturalized in the United States?'" September 11, 2005: Robo-justice - Do we have the technology to build a better legal system? By Drake Bennett. The Boston Globe. "Computer judges, of course, aren't going to be ascending to the bench in the foreseeable future. 'Nobody thinks that's a good idea,' says Carole D. Hafner, a Northeastern University computer scientist and pioneer in using artificial intelligence to study the law. Judging, and most especially Supreme Court judging, is a complex and subtle mix of imagination, acuity, and political calculation. Still, at a time when doctors are starting to use software to aid in their diagnoses and when hedge funds are using computer models to make multibillion-dollar investment decisions, there is growing interest -- even in an American legal establishment usually resistant to change -- in finding ways to incorporate artificial intelligence into the law. ... Put simply, artificial intelligence is the branch of computer science that deals with getting machines to think like human beings. Its application to the law dates, in its earliest form, to the 1950s, when mathematicians first tried to use formal logic to model legal reasoning. ... Some of the fruits of this fascination, however, have been decidedly practical, from intelligent document retrieval systems that use fuzzy logic to search not just by keyword but by concept (the only AI application widely used in American law firms) to programs that predict the outcomes of court cases or evaluate potential clients." September 10, 2005: Who coined. Philip Woodward Malvern's letter to the Editor. New Scientist (Issue 2516; page 23). "My letter of 28 May (website letters) has stirred up some discussion with John McCarthy of Stanford University, who has proof of having used the phrase 'artificial intelligence' in 1955, the year before I thought I had invented it. Oddly enough...." September 9, 2005: Profs' New Software 'Learns' Languages. By Ben Birnbaum. The Cornell Daily Sun. "Think a language-learning robot sounds like science fiction? The day may not be as far off as it seems, in light of new software, developed by Prof. Shimon Edelman, psychology, with colleagues from Tel Aviv University in Israel. The soon-to-be-patented program -- 'Automatic Distillation of Structure,' or 'ADIOS,' for short -- can derive a language's rules of grammar, and then produce sentences of its own, simply from blocks of text in that language. 'When scanning new input, the program looks for recurring patterns or interchangeable sequences,' explained Edelman.... ADIOS is not limited to human language, however. The program has also detected patterns in sequences of non-linguistic data, such as musical scores and DNA strands." September 9, 2005: A robot for the hardhat world. CNET News.com. Photo of a "humanoid robot designed to work on construction sites and in other risky places." September 9, 2005: Duke phones installed with voice recognition. By Shivam Joshi. The Chronicle Online. "Researchers have developed a voice-recognition system that allows a caller to be forwarded to the person they are trying to reach -- even if they don't have the person’s phone number. ... The system uses error-correction technology developed by Professor of Computer Science Alan Biermann, research associate Ashley McKenzie and computer science graduate student Bryce Inouye. Typical voice recognition systems work accurately two-thirds of the time. But when the software is combined with error-correction technology, the number of misplaced calls and unrecognized names drops to less than 10 percent." September 9, 2005: How Google Got Its Groove On. Book review by Ryan Singel. Wired News. "Journalist John Battelle's The Search is a surprisingly gripping story of hackers turning insights about information into a billion-dollar business and giant corporations shaping the web to their profit models. Battelle, a longtime tech journalist, became fascinated with Google and spent three years wandering Silicon Valley, talking to the wizards, the investors and the naysayers. Battelle's book shows how search is pushing technology toward the dream of artificial intelligence. ... Despite his business-model obsession, Battelle is also fascinated by the cultural ramifications and the societal promises of Google and ubiquitous information." September 9, 2005: Pupils have "close contacts" with robots. Xinhuanet. "Robots in science fictions and movie will not be riddles any more for pupils in Harbin, capital city in northeast China's Heilongjiang province, but become new open course in the new semester. From this semester, students in some schools in the northeastern city will learn lessons on fancy robots in their classes, and this is also China's first and trial step for students to learn about robots. Composed of hardware, software and teaching materials, robot 'Nuobao', was manufactured by Harbin Institute of Technology and can be used for reinstallment and operation in classes." September 8, 2005: Women are 'put off' hi-tech jobs. BBC News. "The UK's technology industry must do more to keep women within its folds if it wants long-term success, according to a report by Intellect. The research, by the hi-tech trade group and the Department of Trade and Industry (DTI), said there was an 'old boys club' in parts of the industry. Action was needed to ensure that all was being done to recruit, motivate and retain women in hi-tech work. It concluded there should be more equality and support in the workplace. ... Office of National Statistics (ONS) figures show that the number of women employed in technology industries fell from 27% in 1997 to 21% in 2005. ... The British Computer Society (BCS) also reported that 28% of UK organisations do not employ women technologists. Industry commentators say women are put off from thinking about hi-tech careers because there is a lack of successful role models. ... " September 8, 2005: £42m to transform Capital eyesore. By Brian Ferguson. Edinburgh Evening News. "Work is to start on the transformation of a city centre eyesore into a new multi-million-pound research centre for Edinburgh University within months after a major funding deal was sealed. The Scottish Executive and Scottish Enterprise Edinburgh and Lothian have agreed to plough £14 million and £5m respectively into the new home at Potterrow for the world-renowned school of informatics. It is a global leader in the fields of artificial intelligence, computer science, computer engineering and speech recognition. The school's researchers, who are currently dispersed around the city, will be brought together under the one roof for the first time at the new Informatics Forum complex.... Hundreds of academics and researchers were left devastated when the Old Town fire of 2002 ripped through their labs and offices on South Bridge, destroying an artificial intelligence library, dating back four decades, as well as £1.2m in computer equipment."
>>> AI Academic Departments (@ Resources for Students), Applications September 8, 2005: Coming to grips with robot learning. IST Results. "A 'living' artificial hand that learns through imitation has been developed, enhancing human-machine communication and paving the way for novel prosthetic aides. ... Exploring the functional and neuropsychological mechanisms of imitation learning was the aim of the ArteSImit project funded by the Future and Emerging Technologies initiative of the IST programme. The overarching goal was to reveal the neurophysiological structures for finger and hand movements in humans and monkeys, and design a computer-operational dynamic model of imitation learning. ... Research will be continued within the follow-up project JAST, which took up some of the ArteSImit findings. JAST aims to develop jointly-acting autonomous systems that communicate and work intelligently on mutual tasks in dynamic unstructured environments expanding the concept of group to human plus artificial agents." September 8, 2005: Clever artificial hand developed. BBC News. "At present, prosthetic hands either do not move at all or have a simple single-motor grip. But the University of Southampton team has designed a prototype that uses six sets of motors and gears so each of the five fingers can move independently. ... The human thumb can move in special ways the fingers cannot. ... To mimic this, the Remedi-Hand uses two motors - one to allow it to rotate and one to allow it to flex. The researchers say it has the first artificially-made opposable thumb. ... The next stage will be to integrate the latest sensor technology to create a 'clever' hand which can sense how strongly it is gripping an object, or whether an object is slipping." September 7, 2005: Winning the skills race. By John Yochelson. Mercury News (registration req'd.). "The governor of California and president of the University of California will soon invite every freshman entering the state's flagship system to consider becoming a K-12 math or science teacher. Their invitation will be backed by a specially tailored program at every campus and a network of industry partners. This is the kind of grass-roots initiative that will help win the skills race in science and technology. Clearly, the United States is in a high-stakes race to develop human capital. That's why the heads of the nation's 15 most influential business organizations joined forces recently to call for doubling the number of American degree holders in technical disciplines by 2015. ... Here are some concrete examples of community-based efforts that are meeting the talent imperative head-on: * Joint degrees. Historically black institutions in Atlanta with long records of achievement in producing technical talent have teamed up with Georgia Tech to offer joint-degree programs in cutting-edge disciplines. ... *Strategies of inclusion. Carnegie Mellon University in Pittsburgh has achieved large, sustained increases in the number of women in computer sciences by dropping the admissions requirement of advanced-placement calculus and adding a hands-on component to the curriculum. ... " September 7, 2005: Expert Reveals Future of Robotics. University of Ulster news release. "Professor Noel Sharkey, star of BBC cult-series Robot Wars, will be one of the guest speakers at a University of Ulster conference on Artificial Intelligence today. ... His talk will trace the history of 'intelligent' mechanisms from ancient to modern. Professor Sharkey asserts that contrary to popular belief, robots have no chance of taking over the world. 'They don't have as much intelligence as bacteria and they never will,' he says." September 6, 2005: Ancient Geek. By Megan Ogilvie. Toronto Star (registration req'd.). "Geeks have always been there. They just solved math problems with an abacus instead of a laptop computer. ... Geek culture is neither coming nor going, says Mark Pearrow, senior system administrator in MIT's Computer Science & Artificial Intelligence Lab. 'It has been around forever,' he says. ... Geeks pop up throughout history, says Bert Hall, professor at the Institute for History and Philosophy of Science and Technology at the University of Toronto. And most, it seems, were scientists. 'Science is an area that rewards geekiness,' he says. 'Obsessive concentration, repeated experimentation until they're absolutely sure of the results, thinking outside of the box, breaking away from the established theory. These geeky traits are not easy to come by.' But not all scientists are geeks, he adds." September 5, 2005: Pushing girls toward science. By Zhanda Malone. Edwardsville Intelligencer. "The NSF would like to see more women study engineering and the sciences, and Southern Illinois University Edwardsville Associate Professor Jerry Weinberg is trying to help. ... Weinberg is part of a team that recently received a $360,000 grant, titled 'The Effects of Robotics Projects on Girls' Perceptions of Achievement in Science, Technology, Engineering, and Mathematics.' ... 'The students will be led by teachers who will be trained in the use of the robot kits and how to use robotics to support their curricula in science and math,' Weinberg said. ... He also pointed out that the project will involve an in-depth study of the participants to gain an understanding of how such programs affect girls' perception of their achievement in the areas of science, technology, engineering, and mathematics (STEM). 'We also would like to learn whether these attitudes translate into long-term choices in study and career options,' Weinberg said." September 5, 2005: Summer camps give girls opportunities for hands-on science. By Jenn Day. Minnesota Women's Press. "... That's the kind of response [Polly] Williamson and others are hoping for on college campuses around the Twin Cities, where girls are spending their summer building robots and programming them, learning circuitry and applying math to real-world challenges. It's the kind of intensive, hands-on approach to science that doesn't often find its way into the regular school day. And it’s just the approach that’s needed to get more girls interested in careers in science and technology. ... GEMS runs its own summer camps for girls in the Minneapolis public school system at Augsburg College. This summer the girls met for eight-hour days twice a week for nine weeks. .. . GEMS camps are free, thanks in large part to grants from Medtronic and the Minneapolis Public Schools. Many of the 110 girls enrolled this year will continue on in after-school GEMS programs offered at 13 Minneapolis schools." September 5, 2005: NMSU developing pilotless helicopter. By Argen Duncan. The Associated Press / available from Free New Mexican. "Robots with artificial intelligence are moving from the realm of imagination to reality, opening opportunities for both military and commercial use. New Mexico State University graduate and undergraduate engineering students and a faculty member are developing an autonomous helicopter -- one that can pilot itself without a human in the cockpit or holding a remote control. From the university's NASA-funded RioRoboLab, which specializes in combining robotics and artificial intelligence, they are working with White Sands Missile Range and Lockheed Martin Corp." September 5, 2005: Man and machine share same convention. Daily Herald. "GeckoSystems Inc. makes CareBot ... The University of Michigan has created Omni Tread ... Motoman Inc.'s RoboBar ... These are examples of robot technology that will be featured at the International Robots & Vision Show Sept. 27-29 at the Donald E. Stephens Convention Center in Rosemont. The trade show, sponsored by the Robotic Industries Association and the Automated Imaging Association, is geared toward businesses, but individuals are welcome...." September 5, 2005: Computer vs. humans in chess - Machine stares down man in museum show. By Benjamin Pimentel. San Francisco Chronicle (page E-1) & SFGate.com. "Deep Blue, as the machine was known, earned the distinction of being the first computer to defeat a reigning world chess champion. This week, a section of the historic machine will be on display at the Computer History Museum in Mountain View as part of its new exhibit called Mastering the Game: A History of Computer Chess. The exhibit will trace the different ways humans have tried to build a machine that could play chess, a story that reached a high point eight years ago when Kasparov was beaten. The growth of computer chess technology also highlighted the advances in the field of artificial intelligence, the branch of science focused on building machines that can mimic human thinking. On Thursday, the museum will hold a panel discussion on computer chess and artificial intelligence." September 5, 2005: The Machinist. By Quentin Hardy. Forbes Magazine. "Type a phrase into Google and, in an instant, it pores over an astounding 8 billion Web pages. Peter Norvig is haunted by the prospect of what it misses. As Google's director of search quality and research (a doozy of a job description), Norvig spurs on 140 scientists and engineers racing to add more depth, speed and relevance to the world's best search engine. ... What makes improving search quality so complex, Norvig says, is 'the uncertainty about a right answer. There is a lot of human intuition in the loop.' His hope is to inject a lot more machine intelligence into that loop. Norvig arrived at Google in 2001, bringing serious artificial intelligence chops to a company still run in seat-of-the-pants fashion."
>>> Information Retrieval, Applications September 4, 2005: This day in History - AI pioneer McCarthy is born (September 4, 1927). Computer History Museum. "John McCarthy, whose many contributions to the field of computer science included the language LISP, is born in Boston." September 4, 2005: Josh Magner, 18 - Robot builder, Fort Wayne. By Rosa Salter Rodriguez. The Journal Gazette. "Josh Magner's life changed when he got a letter in the mail when he was a freshman in high school. It was an invitation to join Explorer Post 2819, a group that focused on robotics. ... How'd you get started making robots? 'I started doing Sumo (wrestling) robots, which is basically two robots that try to push each other out of a ring. Then I went into the Journey Robot Competition - it's one of many robotics competitions run by the Society for Manufacturing Engineers at the Rochester Institute of Technology in Rochester, N.Y. For that one, I had to build a robot that would first follow a set of lines and then navigate a set of hills.' ... What's the biggest challenge to doing robotics? 'Probably that when you're dealing with the real world, things don't behave ideally as they would in a (theoretical) physical world. ..." September 4, 2005: A robotic approach to science. By Karen Nitkin. The Baltimore Sun. "Two years ago, when she was a sophomore at Glenelg High School, Megan Lu thought she would pursue a career in journalism. Then her algebra II teacher, Dean Sheridan, suggested she join the school robotics team. 'I just kept coming back and getting more involved, and now I'm here all the time,' Lu said. As she thinks about her future, the senior said, 'I'm looking at techie schools.' Though she still takes a journalism class -- 'I'd like to keep my options open,' she said -- Lu said she never would have discovered her interest in engineering if she had not joined the robotics team. The goal of the team, which Sheridan formed four years ago, is to create a robot that can compete in FIRST Robotics competitions. ... 'If people would give the same recognition and stature to kids that work with technology at this level as to kids that play football, we could save the world,' Sheridan said." September 4, 2005: Deceit of the Raven. By David Berreby. The New York Times Magazine (registration req'd.). "This 'theory of mind,' cognitive scientists say, is what makes life with other people so rich and productive. ... The significance of research like [Brian] Hare's and [Thomas] Bugnyar's is that it adds mind reading to the long list of skills we can't claim for our own kind only. When it comes to mental abilities, animals aren't on the other side of a chasm: birds and dogs, as well as apes and sheep, stand with us on a continuum. And even as biology establishes that animals aren't automatons, another challenge to our sense of uniqueness arises in the field of artificial intelligence. Even automatons aren't acting like automatons anymore. They're increasingly apt and lively -- less like machines and more like living minds. The robot soldiers on the drawing boards at the Pentagon will be able to understand orders and make decisions (including decisions about whether to kill). Tiny computer sensors are designed to be flung as 'smart dust' over wide areas and to configure themselves with no human guidance. Earlier this year, researchers at Cornell described a robot that could make robots, a working example of machine reproduction. Machine-based intelligences can also read minds -- at least at one remove, after those minds express themselves in writing. Last spring a British software firm released Sentiment, an application that sums up the tone of press clippings.... So science is chipping away at the case for human uniqueness from two different angles. Not only is it showing that animals are more like us than we believed but it is also making machines that are more like us than we believed possible. What happens, as these trends continue, to the familiar guideposts for deciding what is human? How will people decide, without a checklist of yes-no criteria for human standing, who, or what, is entitled to privileges and rights?" September 4, 2005: Labor pains - The role of the worker in a technological age. Opinion by Dan Jacoby. The Seattle Times. "There have been many times in the past when analysts have suggested the end of work is near. ... Yet, without dipping too far into science fiction, we already see the outlines of new technologies that integrate the sensory functions, flexible movements and logical decision-making capacities that have made human beings indispensable in production. Robots now not only roll on wheels, but they can walk, run and dance (albeit clumsily). ... Visual sensors guide automated tasks such as precision welding. At Google and Microsoft, software is being fine-tuned to translate material from one language to another without human intervention. Artificial intelligence does not need to be perfected to substantially reduce the demand for human employment in repetitive jobs. ... Labor's challenge for the future consists of ensuring that human development is the primary industry of employment growth. As machines begin to look more like humans, workers must distinguish themselves through their capacity for human creativity, responsibility, autonomy and inquiry." September 2, 2005: Early in the game - RPI creates video game major. By Richard A. D'Errico. The Business Review (print edition; posted online 9/5/05). "Rensselaer Polytechnic Institute is getting serious about games. The Troy school is creating a major in video game development beginning next fall. But the major is more than fun and games. Students participating in the program have to have a double major--a bachelor of science in games and simulation arts and sciences; and a bachelor in computer science, communication, psychology, management or electronic arts. Courses include introduction to cognition and gaming, sensation and performance, and 3-D animation. There are eight courses specifically devoted to games, including game architecture, history and culture of games, and artificial intelligence for games. ... Game developers don't want one-dimensional employees working on 3-D games. Students will take courses on Shakespeare and calculus. ... Several schools at the graduate level, such as MIT, Carnegie Mellon, Georgia Tech and the University of Southern California, have gotten into the field." September 1, 2005: Man Against Machine - Computer-generated method outperforms human-designed program for fingerprint improvement. National Science Foundations Discoveries. "It sounds like a plot for a science fiction movie, but it's not. Computers now create programs that solve complex problems better than programs designed by people. University of Texas at Austin researchers Uli Grasemann and Risto Miikkulainen, for example, recently reported that a computer-generated algorithm can digitally improve images of fingerprints better than the FBI's human-designed program currently can. ... 'Genetic algorithms' are created when computers evaluate and improve a population of possible solutions to a problem in a stepwise fashion. The new program evolves by letting good solutions produce offspring as bad solutions die out. Over time, the individual solutions in the population become better and better, producing a final, best solution. The method uses terms derived from biology, such as generation, inheritance and mutation, to describe the particular program manipulation the computer uses at each step of improvement, hence the name genetic algorithm. ... [Grasemann and Miikkulainen] provided their computer with the basic programming instructions needed to compress graphic images and then waited for a better algorithm to be born." September 1, 2005: Guided by Vision.
By Richard G. Zens Jr. Assembly Magazine. "Flexibility is an increasingly high priority for many U.S. manufacturers, and the vision-guided robot has become a powerful tool to meet this demand. Vision-guided robotic (VGR) systems can be quickly adapted from one product to the next, facilitating new product introductions. VGR systems can enhance assembly, packaging, test and inspection processes, and they can perform in environments that are hazardous to humans.
Robots have been at the forefront of flexible automation for many years, but until recently robot vision was limited. ... Cost-effective vision systems are readily available, with greater accuracy and a much wider range of capabilities than earlier systems. Today's off-the-shelf software makes guiding robots with machine vision more practical." September 1, 2005: Aerobot aims for Titan - Robotic plane could survey alien moons or Amazon rain forest. By Mark Peplow. news@nature.com. "An intelligent floating robot could help to explore Saturn's moon Titan, following flight tests that prove it can survey large areas of land completely autonomously. ... The [Jet Propulsion Laboratory] team tested the artificial intelligence of its 11-metre-long airship over a dry lake bed in El Mirage, California, last year. The craft was able to explore areas that lay several kilometres away from its launch site in less than an hour, working out its own route between sites of interest that had been chosen by scientists before the flight. The robot corrected its path whenever it was blown off course, and could also assess danger from air turbulence by sensing wind speeds, changing its altitude to reach calmer air when necessary." September 1, 2005: Canine coach keeps dieters on a leash. By Celeste Biever. NewScientist.com news. "A robot dog that monitors your daily food intake and exercise levels and warns you not to eat that cheesecake could encourage people to stick to their diets. ... While it may sound frivolous, its US developers hope the robot, a souped-up version of Sony's dog Aibo, could ultimately help in the fight against the western world's obesity epidemic. The system is being designed by Cynthia Breazeal at the MIT Media Lab in Cambridge, Massachusetts.... 'It's promising to look at mobile robots for defining behavioural change," says Tim Bickmore, a computer scientist at the Boston University School of Medicine, who showed recently that an animated computer companion could encourage people to exercise more." September 1, 2005: Robots to extract wounded with less risk to medics. By Karen Fleming-Michael. Fort Detrick Standard & dcmilitary.com. "Gary Gilbert of the Telemedicine and Advanced Technology Research Center first started looking at the robot option when he married his experience as a company commander for a ground ambulance company in Germany with his doctoral training in artificial intelligence and robotics. ... The Battlefield Evacuation and Recovery humanoid robot's goal is to safely pick up an injured Soldier on the battlefield, and wouldn't require the Soldier to roll onto a sled. The Robotic Emergency Medicine and Danger Detection robotic vehicle is being designed to respond to civilian natural disasters and acts of terrorism in rural areas where medical resources are limited, but the Army is looking at it as well." September / October 2005: Artificial Intelligence for Homeland Security. IEEE Intelligent Systems (Volume 20, Number 5). "In dealing with today's security problems, law enforcement, criminal analysis, and intelligence communities face information overload but tremendous opportunities for innovation. Many existing computer and information science techniques need to be reexamined and adapted for security applications. New insights from this unique domain could result in breakthroughs in data mining, visualization, knowledge management, and information security. This special issue reports on AI technologies, methods, and systems that are contributing to this important emerging field." September 2005: How to Choose A Grad School - Figure out what you want and who can give it to you. By Susan Karlin. IEEE Spectrum Online. "'Can you hold on a minute? I need to charge my robot.' Uri Kartoun is developing robots, nicknamed EDNex and Clango, for handling suspicious packages. Down the hall, classmate Juan Wachs is working on a computer interface that responds to hand gestures. Both are enrolled in a joint master's/Ph.D. program in intelligent systems at Ben-Gurion University of the Negev, located in Beersheba, Israel. But their reasons for choosing Ben-Gurion were very different and illustrate the range of issues prospective students should consider when choosing an engineering graduate program. ... The key to choosing a suitable graduate program is to think less in terms of degree titles and more in terms of the concrete things you will experience and learn. ... Graduate school can also benefit those with established careers. ... There's been an increase in financial aid for women and minorities wanting to study engineering and science." September 2005: A Robot with Pom-Poms - The Media Lab toy makes programming children's play. By Tracy Staedter. Technology Review. "The decades-long partnership between the Media Lab and Lego has spawned a new company and an innovative robotic toy that blends craft activities with engineering. This fall, the Montreal-based Playful Invention Company (Pico) will launch Cricket, a programmable computer about the size of a candy bar. ... The Pico Blocks software that accompanies Cricket gives kids an easy introduction to programming. Instead of struggling with a complicated computer language, kids click, drag, and snap together blocks of commands, controlling how and when a motor should start or a light should go off. The on-screen command blocks look more like puzzle pieces than code." September 2005: On the Internet, Nobody Knows You're a Bot - In the booming world of online poker, anyone can win. Especially with an autoplaying robot ace in the hole. Are you in, human? By David Kushner. Wired Magazine (Issue 13.09). "There's plenty at stake. An estimated 1.8 million gamblers around the world ante up for online poker every month. Last year, poker sites raked in an estimated $1.4 billion, an amount expected to double in 2005. ... CptPokr is a robot. Unlike the other icons at the table, there is no human placing his bets and playing his cards. He is controlled by WinHoldEm, the first commercially available autoplaying poker software. Seat him at the table and he will apply strategy gleaned from decades of research. ... But WinHoldEm isn't just smart, it's a machine. Set it to run on autopilot and it wins real money while you sleep. Flick on Team mode and you can collude with other humans running WinHoldEm at the table. For years, there has been chatter among online players about the coming poker bot infestation. WinHoldEm is turning those rumors into reality.... The battle goes beyond Bornert's app. Other bots are appearing on the scene - including some that were never intended for online play. For the past 14 years, computer scientists at the University of Alberta Games Group have been building the poker version of Deep Blue: a program that can beat a top player, just as IBM's bot trumped Garry Kasparov in chess." September 2005: Microsoft's Emissary in Japan. By Robert Buderi. Technology Review. "[Katsushi] Ikeuchi, who taught for 11 years at Carnegie Mellon University (CMU) before joining Japan's top academic institution [the University of Tokyo], is renowned in academic circles for his efforts to transform the way people interact with the world via computers. Beyond the archive project, he is the architect of dexterous humanoid robots that learn tasks by observing people, as well as an innovator in intelligent-highway research--projects that have made him a force in computer vision, robotics, and virtual reality. This summer, Microsoft tapped Ikeuchi to direct its new Institute for Japanese Academic Research Collaboration. ... His intelligent-highway work is linked to a Japanese government effort to develop a transportation system that will route cars more efficiently to minimize congestion and reduce pollution. ... . Human-computer interaction and computer vision systems will be essential to this infrastructure, which will recognize driving behaviors and warn of impending collisions, he says. September 2005: Introducing the Spelman Spelbots - Imaginative researchers of artificial intelligence make their mark in history. Ebony Magazine's Special College Section (page 108). "In a nutshell, the Spelbots are programming the robotic pups to do all the things that a human has to do in order to play soccer -- seeing the ball, thinking about the ball, communicating to other teammates and scoring a goal, all without human interference. ... Just last September the team was formed under the guidance of Dr. [Andrew B.] Williams, whose immediate goal was to encourage more African-American students to get involved in the field of artificial intelligence. His next immediate goal was to enter his team into the prestigious International RoboCup competition (held in Osaka, Japan), which is widely considered the 'Olympic Games' of robotics research. ... At EBONY press time, the SpelBots had qualified to compete in the RoboCup's 4-Legged League, where two teams of robots play soccer on a field without external human intervention."
>>> Robots, AI Academic Departments & Competitions & Careers in AI & Diversity (@ Resources for Students), Applications; also see this related article for the results of the competition |
|||||