August 31, 2004: Blabble Releases Beta Of Blog-Tracking Service. InternetWeek. "Blabble has released the beta version of its research and analysis blog-tracking service for monitoring the viewpoints of blog postings. The service can track, aggregate, and evaluate opinions from more than two million blogs. ... 'The Blabble difference is our natural language processing. By using language processing, we break down and group intended thoughts in valuable ways,' said Blabble founder Matt Rice in a statement."
>>> Information Retrieval & Extraction, Natural Language Processing, Business, Applications

August 31, 2004: Sharper, smarter dirt robots. Devices a hit despite some hang-ups. By Mark Jewell. Associated Press / available from Milwaukee Journal Sentinel & JS Online (8/30/04). "A new generation of robotic vacuums is ready to do battle with dirt, dust and dog hair with more cleaning power and cunning than their ancestors could muster. Faced with the usual obstacles - furniture, stairs, low-hanging bed skirts and stray socks - they intelligently and acrobatically extricate themselves from most tight spots and largely avoid getting stuck or sucking in what they shouldn't. ... [T]heir artificial intelligence is impressive. The Discovery employs some of the technologies iRobot developed for military mine-sweeping. What limits these competing robovacs' performance isn't related to their artificial intelligence so much as to their small size and lightweight batteries."
>>> Household Appliances, Robots, Applications

August 31, 2004: Will Mario fold under pressure in 'Paper' sequel? Here's a closer look at what's making headlines in the world of interactive entertainment. By Marc Saltzman. USA Today. "Game of the Week: The Political Machine. ... Securing the most Electoral College votes is the goal of this lighthearted and timely simulation. You can choose to represent George W. Bush or John Kerry, or other contemporary or historical political figures.... You play against the computer's artificial intelligence or log onto the Internet for multiplayer matches."
>>> Video Games, Politics, Applications

August 31, 2004: Hard-drive hi-fi. By Sholto Macpherson. Australian IT. "Bose Australia will launch its Lifestyle 48 DVD system in October. Its uMusic management program uses artificial intelligence to decide which songs you like most and make selections according to your mood. It records up to 340 hours of music...."
>>> Agents, Machine Learning, Applications

August 30, 2004: Always on watch - 4.2 million surveillance cameras monitor public places in Britain. By Jane Wardell. Associated Press / available from The Journal Gazette / also available from CNN.com (Big Brother watches Britain; 8/31/04). "Big Brother is always watching in Britain. An estimated 4.2 million closed-circuit TV cameras observe people going about their everyday business, such as getting on a bus, lining up at the bank and driving around London. It's widely estimated that the average Briton is scrutinized by 300 cameras a day. The phenomenon is enabled by the arrival of digital video, cheap memory and sophisticated software. And Britain is acknowledged as the world leader of Orwellian surveillance -- perhaps because it has the experience of Irish terrorism, and is on guard for even worse today. ... Gas stations around the country are testing automatic number plate recognition to catch people who fill up but don't pay. ... Other video-cam networks use software that instructs the cameras to pick up unusual activity. 'They can identify something, like a bag in an airport, that shouldn't be part of the scene,' [Peter] Fry said."
>>> Law Enforcement, Image Understanding, Vision, Machine Learning, Applications, Ethical & Social Implications; also see this related article from July 2002.

August 30, 2004: In Search Of Better Video Search. IBM, Microsoft, and academic researchers are trying to invent ways to find specific images in video footage. By Aaron Ricadela. InformationWeek. "At a conference in Cambridge, England, last week, an IBM researcher gave the first public demonstration of a computer system called Marvel that uses statistical techniques to learn about relationships between colors, shapes, patterns, sounds, and other clues from video footage that can help identify its content. IBM's prototype then labels the footage so users can go back and find individual shots. That could be a boon not only to TV news producers but intelligence analysts watching surveillance video and even PC users editing home movies. Today's state of the art relies on searching for keywords embedded in video files, says IBM Research senior manager John Smith, who heads the project. ... Smith's team also is working with Columbia University's digital video multimedia lab on a project to search news footage from U.S. and foreign broadcasters for related topics, combining computer vision and image understanding with machine learning approaches that analyze each station's signature approach to a story."
>>> Information Retrieval, Image Understanding, Machine Learning, Vision, Law Enforcement, Applications

August 30, 2004: Coming soon - Robo-greeter. Automation has slashed factory jobs and is streamlining services and high-tech - but at what cost? By Gregory M. Lamb. The Christian Science Monitor. "In 19th-century England, craftsmen donned masks and rioted to force the destruction of textile machines that were stealing their jobs. The rebellion was crushed and the followers of Ludd - or Luddites - have come to be viewed as hapless rubes standing in the way of progress. But they had a point: Automation causes unemployment. The wave of automation now crashing onto the economy looks especially broad and powerful. Although its full impact is unclear, it could cause worker dislocation on a scale not seen since the Industrial Revolution, experts say. Eventually, technology creates more jobs than it takes away, they add. But in the short term, it's affecting more sectors of the labor market than in past eras of rapid technological change. ... Take industrial robots. Over the past 10 years, companies have spent some $100 billion installing them. Nearly 1 million are now on the job. The investment has proven spectacularly effective. The productivity of these machines has risen about 7 percent a year for the past decade. But the human cost has been immense. ... 'Smart systems,' computers that can do relatively routine tasks well, are beginning to gobble up jobs ranging from check-out clerks at Home Depot to airline ticket agents and hotel desk clerks - even to insurance underwriters and software customer support staff. ... So far, though, automation doesn't appear to have had a deep impact on job loss. For example, despite its airline kiosks and a tough travel economy, Continental says it has seen only a 4 percent decrease in ticket agents since 9/11. Kinetics is also running a pilot program at 55 McDonald's restaurants, where customers can order food at kiosks. Some restaurants have actually had to increase employment in the kitchen because of the faster customer turnover out front, says Jim Brown, a spokesman for Kinetics in Lake Mary, Fla. ... New technology becomes irresistible to businesses because it boosts productivity: That's bad for workers who lose jobs, but good for consumers who receive faster service and better products at lower prices. And it's perplexing for lawmakers."
>>> Ethical & Social Implications, Business & Manufacturing, Marketing, Customer Relations & E-Commerce, Robots, Industry Statistics, Applications

August 30, 2004: An apple for the computer - Machines are so sophisticated they can be used to grade essays. But in some ways, artificial intelligence still lacks common sense. By Faye Flam. Philadelphia Inquirer. "First, computers learned to beat people at chess, then they started answering 411 calls. Now, computers endowed with artificial intelligence are going where only teachers ventured before: They're grading essays. At least three companies are marketing computerized essay graders, and thousands of schools across the country are using them as teaching tools and to score standardized tests. ... Jill Burstein, [E-rater's] lead scientist and a computational linguist, said the computer is 'trained' by feeding it thousands of essays that have already been scored and then asking the system to look for patterns that distinguish the good from the bad. ... [E]ssay-scoring programs will work for students who make a good-faith effort, said Harry Barfoot, vice president for marketing and sales at Vantage Learning. 'It can't score poetry and creative writing,' he said, but that was never promised. ... [Henry] Lieberman and other artificial intelligence researchers say computers could become dramatically smarter and more humanlike in the future. The brain is just a physical machine, albeit a complicated one we don't yet understand, they argue. 'People have this illusion that what we do is magic and it will never be automated,' said University of Pennsylvania computer science professor Lyle Ungar. When he first started studying artificial intelligence, he said, no one thought a computer could play chess well enough to beat the masters. Today, computers can beat everyone at chess, he said, and we're no longer impressed."
>>> Education, Intelligent Tutoring Systems, Pattern Recognition, Commonsense, The AI Effect, Machine Learning, Applications

August 30, 2004: Robotics firm refigures military technology for commerical markets. By Joyce Gannon. Associated Press / available from SunHerald.com. "Even though Carnegie Mellon [University] has attracted millions of dollars worth of defense contracts to develop military robots, only a handful of companies actually are working on ways to apply robotic technology in the commercial market. [Keith] Moore cited industry veteran RedZone Robotics as 'one I see the most immediate potential for.' Also a Carnegie Mellon spinout, RedZone earned a high profile in the 1980s and 1990s as it created robots that could handle hazardous nuclear waste removal for the government. But its government contracts weren't enough to sustain it and in 2002, it filed for Chapter 11 bankruptcy. A year ago, it emerged with new management and a new focus on developing automated equipment to inspect and repair sewer lines and municipal water tanks. ... For the handful of local companies involved in robotics to make its mark as a booming industry, researchers and engineers have to 'manage expectations,' [Jorgen] Pedersen said. "The problem in the past has been a technology push rather than a technology pull. ... People hear the term robotics and think of Rosie (the maid) from The Jetsons'. But robotics won't be anywhere near the cognitive ability of human ability anytime soon."
>>> Robots, Hazards & Disasters, Autonomous Vehicles, Military, Applications; also see the next two articles in regard to the migration of military technology

August 29, 2004: Thought leadership. By Joseph Divanna. Moneyweb. "I was in Johannesburg recently, and Moneyweb's Alec Hogg posed to me an interesting set of questions surrounding the origins and nature of thought leadership that caused me think about thinking. Alec wanted to know what is a thought leader and how does someone create thought leadership. Here is how I would answer him. 1) What is thought leadership? Thought leadership is the product of associative aggregation that formulates a new state or condition to a specific problem. Simply, the process of connecting an idea, concepts, or product to a business process or condition that may or may not be typically associated with one another to either create or enhance a value proposition or determine the relativity of one item to another. For example, collaborative technologies that facilitate the rapid exchange of data can be aggregated together to streamline the mortgage application process. Similarly, technologies like artificial intelligence and expressive systems can be combined to analyze a customer's financial status and previous history and eliminate the mortgage application process entirely leaving only the settlement process. ... 2) How do Thought Leaders create materials and where do you get the ideas? ... Conversely, ideas also spring from a variety of unrelated sources brought together over time when a new challenge presents the right conditions. For example: a military software application that rates the probability of incoming missiles on a battlefield could be adapted to rank the probability of daily stock market fluctuations based on an array of data points...."
>>> Business, Banking & Finance, Expert Systems, Military, Applications; also see the next article in regard to the migration of military technology

August 29, 2004: It's a second pair of eyes. By Patrick Springer. In-Forum News. "Even highly trained radiologists can miss an irregularity that, if spotted, could mean early intervention against breast cancer. Now they have another set of eyes to help point to areas that need more attention -- a computer that provides a second read of the mammogram. The technology, called computer-aided detection, has been used in mammography screening at Innovis Health in Fargo for three months. ... At Innovis, the computer is prompting doctors to take more second looks. Most of the time, the abnormalities are benign. 'We're doing a lot more of the additional views,' [Paula] McGuinty said. That means calling the patient back for another mammogram, this time targeted at the suspicious area. In fact, the technology originally was used by the military for automatic target recognition. It combines image processing and artificial intelligence to sift through the clutter and zero in on potential trouble spots. Most studies have shown that more than 20 percent of cancers missed by a radiologist will be detected by the technology."
>>> Medicine, Image Understanding, Vision, Military, Applications

August 27, 2004: Toyota Concepts set for Paris debut. motoring.iafrica.com. "A new six-speed manual transmission is standard on the new Land Cruiser, designed to be compact and lightweight and to permit quick, smooth gearshifts. At the same time, the four-speed automatic gearbox is replaced by a five-speed unit that is equipped with AI-SHIFT, an artificial intelligence feature that adapts the gearchange pattern to suit road conditions and driver inputs. The addition of a linear solenoid valve reduces the shock when shifting gears, making for smoother and more refined operation."
>>> Transportation, Applications

August 27, 2004: What awaits this year's GCSE generation? By Jenny Rees. The Western Mail / available from ic Wales. "Thousands of children in Wales picked up their GCSE [General Certificate of Secondary Education] results yesterday and started to make one of the biggest decisions of their lives - what do I do next? Here Jenny Rees takes a look at what life may be like when their children reach exam age. Ian Neild, of the BT research centre, looks at new and emerging technologies, and says that while the pace of change is rapid, in some cases very little has changed.... As the internet and technology becomes more sophisticated young people are unlikely to see the relevance of learning foreign languages. 'We use the language of the web, it's the Microsoft language,' said Mr Neild. And if we're ever stuck without a dictionary in our chosen language, 'there are all these lovely language translators on line,' he added. ... Teaching is set for possibly the biggest change, our crystal ball tells us. 'Teaching numbers will be in decline because no one will want to teach the children so there will be an increasing use of artificial intelligence to give personal teaching,' said Mr Neild. 'Just as you have typing tutors, these sorts of things will let you learn in different way.'"
>>> Education, Intelligent Tutoring Systems, Machine Translation, Applications, Ethical & Social Implications

August 26, 2004: From factoids to facts. At last, a way of getting answers from the web. The Economist. "Ask MSR is still a prototype, although Microsoft is trying to improve it and it may be launched commercially under the name AnswerBot. Dr [Eric] Brill, meanwhile, has moved to a more difficult task. One of his most recent papers, written jointly with Radu Soricut of the University of Southern California, is entitled 'Beyond the Factoid'. It describes his efforts to build a system capable of providing 50-word answers to questions such as "What are the rules for qualifying for the Academy Awards?" This is harder than finding a single-word answer, but Dr Brill thinks it should be possible using something called a 'noisy channel' model. Such models are already employed in spell-checking and speech-recognition systems. They work by modelling the transformation between what a user means (in spell-checking, the word he intended to type) and what he does (the garbled word actually typed). ... Rather than relying on a traditional 'artificial intelligence' approach of parsing sentences and trying to work out what a question actually means, this quick-and-dirty method draws instead on the collective, ever-growing intelligence of the web itself."
>>> Information Retrieval, Web-Searching Agents, Natural Language Processing, Machine Learning, Applications

August 25, 2004: Card fraud prevention 'pays off'. BBC News. "Market analyst Datamonitor said credit card fraud fell 5% to £402.4m last year, from £424.6m in 2002. ... 'The efforts spent by the various players in preventing card fraud are finally paying off,' report author Karina Purang said. She added that the introduction of new technology - such as neural network systems which flag up transactions that do not match a cardholder's usual spending behaviour - had helped to curtail card fraud."
>>> Fraud Detection & Prevention, Banking, Neural Networks, Machine Learning, Applications

August 25, 2004: University of Maryland to Host Media Briefing on IT and Terrorism. TelecomWeb. "Current and future information technology (IT) applications for the prevention of terrorist attacks, as well as the exploitation of the Internet and other IT by terrorists will be the subjects of a University of Maryland media briefing at the National Press Club on Sept. 1. Experts from the university will assess technological developments and policy issues in many different areas, including gait and facial recognition surveillance systems; computer translation and artificial intelligence for sifting through batches of information; and information architecture and information sharing in the intelligence community."
>>> Law Enforcement, Biometrics (@ Image Understanding), Information Retrieval, Machine Translation, Web-Searching Agents, Applications, Computer Vision, Ethical & Social Implications, Natural Language Processing, Conferences & Events (@ Resources for Students)

August 25, 2004: EA's Gordon: Entertainment's future is interactive. By John Gaudiosi. The Hollywood Reporter. "Bing Gordon has been with Electronic Arts since its humble beginnings 22 years ago and now presides as executive vp and chief creative officer. He spoke with The Hollywood Reporter's video game reporter John Gaudiosi about the future of entertainment, which Gordon believes is clearly interactive. ... THR: What aspect of these impending new game platforms is most exciting to you? Gordon: The holy grail of movies is "story," which actually means 'surprise based on plot and character.' The next few years of game design creativity will be focused on surprises based on world dynamics, physics, artificial intelligence and other people's intelligence. THR: What are some things that the game industry can do better? Gordon: The games business needs to reach more people. We need more visionary women to make games for girls and women. We need games for the indigenous tastes of India and China. And we need to make games for people who have as much free time as teenagers: seniors."
>>> Video Games, Drama, Interviews, Applications

August 24, 2004: Cognitive radios would deliver signal - Built-in software would be smart enough to configure the signal to overcome obstacles. By Andrew Kantor. The Roanoke Times & roanoke.com. "Virginia Tech's Center for Wireless Telecommunications is developing a high-capacity communications system that would be smart enough to configure itself to work through all sorts of interference. That makes it a potential boon to military and emergency services personnel, who often have to deal with rubble-strewn streets or smoke-filled rooms. But just as important, it will allow communications systems to make much better use of the airwaves around them, potentially reducing or even eliminating the need for the government to divide the radio spectrum. Called 'cognitive radio' - a term coined in the late 1990s by Dr. Joseph Mitola. ... Cognitive-radio networks might be the answer, according to Dr. Charles Bostian, engineering coordinator of the CWT, who describes it as 'a merger of artificial intelligence with radio technology.' ... Further, he said, having several cognitive radios connected can create an entire high-speed network that can adjust itself based on its surroundings."
>>> Telecommunications, Networks, Hazards & Disasters, Applications

August 23, 2004: New software makes debut in tanker sector - Tankers International uses system to manage scheduling across its VLCC fleet. By Hugh O'Mahony. Lloyd's List (subscription req'd.). "Cutting-edge software deployed to accelerate complex decision-making in the logistics sector is being applied for the first time in oil tanker operations to optimise scheduling. ... After two years of trials Tankers International plans to take live a 'multi-agent' software package next month from London developer Magenta to manage scheduling across its very large crude carrier fleet. Multi-agent software uses the artificial intelligence principle of ontology to assess the factors subject to change - 'agents' - that act on a set of assets, devising optimal deployment in relation to prevailing requirements. ... When a new cargo is offered, 'agents', amounting to individual software programmes, 'negotiate' the optimum vessel for the cargo by comparing alternative routes, vessels, ports, costs, freight rates, fuel against propulsion, speed and distance."

• Cover Story - Robots: "Kurt Andersen talks with Rodney Brooks, Director of the MIT Artificial Intelligence Lab, about the culture of robots. ... Rodney Brooks is a scientist, professor, and director of the MIT Artificial Intelligence Lab. He is the inventor of many robots, including the Roomba, the intelligent vacuum cleaner. His latest book is Flesh and Machines."
• Robot Hut: "The toy collector John Rigg began wiring circuits in kindergarten. He was still little when he gave his mom a cardboard robot he built with motors, electric lights, and a little candy-filled drawer. Today, John Rigg displays thousands of "metal men" in a big barn near Spokane, Washington. Produced by Harriet Baskas."
• Fembot Factor: "Most of the robots you know from the movies are male. There's Robbie the Robot, C-3PO, Data the sensitive android on Star Trek, and the violent cyborgs of Terminator and Robocop. But what about the female robots? Writer Susie Bright has some thoughts on the ways they've been imagined on the big screen. Produced by Jocelyn Gonzales."
• Voyager: " The Voyager computer program is a powerful robot. It composes music--improvised, unpredictable music--using a virtual 64-piece orchestra. The Voyager's inventor, George Lewis, improvises with his robotic partner, and creates music that we'd like to think only humans could make. Produced by Ted Panken."

>>> Robots, Music, Science Fiction, Applications, Interviews