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April 30, 2004: The
rise of the humanoid robot. Commentary by Anthony Paul. The Straits
Times Interactive. "Come June, spectators gathered in an industrial
pavilion in Lisbon will witness some unusual sporting spectacles - RoboCup2004.
... RoboCup 2004 is the eighth in a series that began in Osaka in 1997.
... Why should soccer be so important to robotic science? 'It's a game
that best illustrates a human's various complex skills,' says Dr Zhou
Changjiu, a humanoid robot specialist in the polytechnic's Electrical
and Electronic Engineering School. 'These include locomotive skills
(walking, running, kicking, jumping), perceptive skills (recognising
the terrain, identifying the ball and players), and mental skills (tactics,
strategy and deceiving opponents).' ... For the moment, the Japanese
are in the forefront of robot development. Since 1986, Honda has been
experimenting with its life-sized (1.2m tall) humanoid robot named Asimo
(for Advanced Step in Innovative Mobility, and an echo of the late Isaac
Asimov, author of many novels about robots). NEC also has its R100,
billed as 'a robot with attitude'. It takes 250 photos of you at your
first meeting, and with a memory based on such data is able to recognise
you (and up to nine other people) at subsequent encounters, and shape
its behaviour according to how well you behaved. Last December, NEC's
PaPeRo arrived, billed as the world's first interactive robot able to
translate Japanese and English. ... And the pay-off for Singapore? 'Robotics
is a synergy of many technologies,' says Dr Zhou. 'The R&D in robotics
will also promote advancement in areas like control, sensor, vision
and high-precision manufacturing. I'm confident that Singapore will
be a hub for advanced robotics research and applications.'" April 29, 2004: Doing
it with robots. By Christopher Sell. The Engineer / e4engineering.com.
"Advances in robotics technology - such as machine vision, control
systems and greater flexibility - means that robots are becoming more
effective at improving a diverse range of manufacturing processes. They
are also getting cheaper. ... While the automotive industry has traditionally
represented the largest chunk of the market, cheaper, more powerful,
flexible and more controllable robots from companies such as ABB, Comau,
SIG and Staubli have enabled manufacturers who are not normally associated
with robotics and automation, to take advantage of what the technology
offers. ... Significant improvements in vision systems, control technology
and intelligence have also played a key role in the increasing flexibility
and ease of use. 'Machine vision has come a long way over the last few
years,' said [Dr Ken] Young. 'Machine vision camera technology and software
is making robots more intelligent and enabling them to carry out a greater
number of tasks." April 29, 2004: Computer
animation taking new steps. By Christi C. Babbitt. The Daily Herald.
"In the past, computer animation for movies and computer games
has been expensive and time-consuming. But Brigham Young University
researchers have developed new techniques that let a computer create
more realistic animations faster. Using artificial intelligence, the
researchers have developed a new software technology that allows computers
to learn to animate a computer-generated character through examining
animation examples provided by a human. The computer then makes choices
based on those examples regarding how the character will behave and
react, even if the computer is presented with an unfamiliar situation.
'This is brand new stuff,' said Jonathan Dinerstein, a BYU graduate
student studying computer science and co-author of a paper detailing
the research. The paper was published in Tuesday's issue of the Journal
of Computer Animation and Virtual Worlds." April 28, 2004: Standard
Life revamps bond valuation model - SLI claims to have models that
can calculate government and corporate yields. FT Adviser. " Standard
Life Investments claims to have developed a more accurate model of predicting
bond value and yields. ... SLI said it had developed a valuation model
for government bonds that combined artificial intelligence - with more
mainstream economic variables, as well as credit ratings, equity market
volatility and investor risk appetite." April 27, 2004: Association
for Computing Machinery Honors Innovators Who Changed Scientific World;
David Haussler, Judea Pearl Built Bridges Beyond Computer Science. AScribe
Newswire. "The Association for Computing Machinery (ACM) has recognized
Dr. David Haussler and Dr. Judea Pearl for separate groundbreaking contributions
that have changed the scientific world beyond computer science and engineering.
Dr. Haussler was cited as possibly the most influential contributor
to the field of computational biology. Dr. Pearl made seminal contributions
to the field of artificial intelligence that extend to philosophy, psychology,
medicine, statistics, econometrics, epidemiology and social science.
As the recipients of the 2003 Allen Newell Award, they demonstrate the
remarkable influence that computer science and artificial intelligence
can have on other sciences, on practical tools, and on human thought.
The Allen Newell Award, which is cosponsored by ACM and the American
Association for Artificial Intelligence (AAAI), comes with a cash prize
of $10,000." April 27, 2004: NASA
Develops Decision Support Software For Mars Mission. SpaceDaily.
"'This is mission-critical software and the first application of
an artificial intelligence-based system for operating a platform on
the surface of another planet,' [Kanna Rajan] said, adding that MAPGEN
plans out a whole day of activities for the rovers in advance. MAPGEN
even decides when the rovers wake up from their nightly slumbers to
begin the next 'Sol,' or martian day, of activities. MAPGEN is actually
a combination of two previously built planning systems: the Activity
Plan Generator (APGEN), a manually operated planner developed by JPL
and EUROPA, an automated planning and scheduling system developed at
Ames Research Center. An earlier version of EUROPA was flown as part
of NASA's Deep Space One Remote Agent experiment in 1999." April 27, 2004: Seniors
Need Robots And New Technology To Help At Home. By Ellen Beck. United
Press International / available from SpaceDaily. "Elder advocates
from academia and industry urged Congress on Tuesday to fund research
and nudge reluctant companies to re-imagine existing technologies to
help seniors live high-quality, independent lives. 'Our biggest problem
nationally is an imagination problem, not a technology problem,' Eric
Dishman, director of Proactive Health Research for Intel Corp., of Hillsboro,
Ore., told the Senate Special Committee on Aging. 'There are hundreds
of technologies sitting in the labs of American universities and technology
companies today that could save billions of dollars in our nation's
healthcare bill, if we could only focus some of our nation's ... innovation
and investment dollars on the needs of our aging population.' ... Dishman
said some companies have told him they do not want their brand associated
with the aging demographic. Also, researchers complain elder-tech projects
fall through the cracks of existing government-sponsored research and
developers are afraid of being sued. Such barriers, real or perceived,
pervade technology development. Martha Pollack, a professor in the Department
of Electrical Engineering and Computer Science at the University of
Michigan at Ann Arbor, testified that advanced technology should not
replace but supplement human caregivers in the home. For example, her
team has developed a device that helps seniors remember to eat or take
medicines. It is a 'glorified alarm clock' that does more than sound
an alarm on schedule. She said the device, called an auto-minder, can
recognize when a person is eating and then simply note that they should
the medication they need to take with meals. Another device, called
Coach, developed by Canadian researchers, will guide a senior through
a single activity -- such as hand washing -- by giving cues to each
step in the process, Pollack explained. ... [Joseph] Coughlin said assistive
technology is crucial for baby boomers who are searching for solutions
to help them care for aging parents. There is a $29-billion-a-year loss
in productivity to business and industry because of time away from the
job needed by workers to care for aging parents, he said." April 27, 2004: Cognitive
Rascal in the Amorous Swamp: A Robot Battles Spam. Essay by George
Johnson. The New York Times (no fee reg. req'd.). "In Richard Powers's
postmodern science fiction 'Galatea 2.2,' a young novelist, very much
like the author, returns from the Netherlands to a Midwestern university,
where he teaches a computer called Implementation H, or Helen, the meaning
of beauty. By feeding it example after example of the world's great
literature and music and engaging it in conversation, researchers hope
to imbue the machine with so deep a grasp of human culture that it can
pass a comprehensive master's degree examination. Instead it prefers
to sing. Galatea was the name of the statue brought to life by Pygmalion,
and the novel, published in 1995 by Farrar, Straus & Giroux, captures
the dream of artificial intelligence: the creation of a computer so
smart and engaging that you might want to keep it as a friend. Efforts
nearly as ambitious continue to plod on. ... Most A.I. researchers content
themselves with narrower, more practical tasks: machines that can diagnose
a certain type of illness or an ailing stock portfolio, that can crawl
through the World Wide Web or across the surface of Mars. Recently I've
become acquainted with one of these idiot savants, a software robot
called SpamProbe. Its one modest talent is learning by example to recognize
junk e-mail messages and keep them from my in-box. At the heart of this
and similar programs is a statistical method called Bayesian inference,
a simple learning procedure that works so well in this limited domain
that perhaps something like the fictional Helen is not so far-fetched
after all. Within minutes, the program had discovered rules of spam
identification that had taken me years to acquire. ... Bayesian statistics
were invented in the 18th century by Thomas Bayes, a theologian and
mathematician.... The system has been a staple of A.I. research for
years. Based on what has happened in the past, a Bayesian-savvy computer
can estimate the odds that it will happen again. It learns from experience
through something that seems very much like the process of induction."
April 26, 2004: Next
Wave Of Advances In Tech Will 'Surprise Us,' Gates Predicts. By
Patrick Seitz. Investor's Business Daily / available from Yahoo! News.
"Bill Gates, who foresaw a revolution in computing and built a
business empire on his vision, scoffs at notions the software field
is mature. ... How much promise remains for entrepreneurs? Plenty, Gates
insisted during a tour of several top universities this year. In a stop
at MIT, a student asked Gates if another tech company could ever match
Microsoft's success. 'If you invent a breakthrough in artificial intelligence
so machines can learn,' he responded, 'that is worth 10 Microsofts.'
On the occasion of IBD's 20th anniversary this month, Gates shared his
thoughts on tech's future and past in an e-mail interview. ... IBD:
You've talked a lot about this being the Digital Decade. In what ways
are things developing faster or slower than you expected? Gates:
Many of the longtime dreams of computer science are starting to come
true - we now have powerful devices available in almost any form you
want, computers that understand speech and handwriting, and networks
that put the world's information at your fingertips. ..." April 26, 2004: Crash-proof
vehicles of the future - Toyota to demonstrate new transportation
technology at 2005 fair in Aichi. Reuters / available from CNNmoney.
"Toyota also plans to depict a world free of traffic accidents
using the single-seater, capsule-shaped 'i-unit' vehicle, which will
have built-in sensors to automatically dodge other vehicles. The i-unit,
still under development and derived from the PM (Personal Mobility)
concept shown at last year's Tokyo Motor Show, stems from Toyota's research
into IT and artificial intelligence -- hence the robots -- to one day
'teach' cars to avoid crashes." April 26, 2004: Killing
junk e-mail is big business for many companies. By Dan Lee. The
Seattle Times / Knight Ridder Newspapers. " Spammers aren't the
only ones who see profits in the torrent of unsolicited e-mail pitches
sent around the globe each day. ... Dozens of companies with differing
strategies and technologies have turned the business of killing spam
into one of the hottest sectors of tech. ... Corvigo's appliance, which
plugs into an organization's network, uses artificial intelligence.
It makes a judgment whether something is spam by using filters for keywords
such as 'Viagra' or looking at past frequency of words in junk e-mail." April 26, 2004: Getting
an instant response - FAA turns to automation to address. Web site
users' inquiries. By Sarita Chourey. Federal Computer Week. "Officials
at the Federal Aviation Administration have incorporated new levels
of automation in the agency's Web site that minimize the need for employees
to individually address users' inquiries. The FAA deployed software
earlier this year, developed by RightNow Technologies Inc., that searches
a knowledge database for similar questions that have been answered in
the past, either via e-mail or over the phone. ... RightNow Technologies'
knowledge database is able to provide responses to FAA Web site users
because it constantly updates itself, said Greg Gianforte, chief executive
officer of RightNow Technologies. 'We use a series of both implicit
and explicit learning capabilities, which include artificial intelligence
and machine learning, to observe the historical usefulness of each knowledge
item and provide greater visibility to knowledge,' Gianforte said. ...
But Jonathan Eunice, the principal analyst and information technology
adviser for Illuminata Inc., is skeptical about dubbing such technology
artificial intelligence. 'While it can work well -- and in the case
of Google, which has a very large database with a lot of context-setting
information, extremely well -- calling it artificial intelligence would
be an optimistic label,' he said. 'Even the most sophisticated of these
auto-answer systems do, at most, some adaptive pattern recognition.'" April 22, 2004: Do
What I Mean - If Web Searches Are Going to Get More Accurate, It
Might Require a Technology Like MeaningMaster, Which Was 20 Years in
the Making. By Robert X. Cringely. I, Cringely's The Pulpit, from PBS.
"So MeaningMaster is back and presents a natural language interface
that purports to return more of what you really want to know. This is
Artificial Intelligence, which had us all so excited in the 1980s until
we found how slow and difficult to do it really is. But that very difficulty
is supposed to be MeaningMaster's strength, because to do what these
people claim to have done, which is essentially connecting 200,000 words
to each other in terms of meaning, can't be done with algorithms alone.
You can't just write a program to parse Webster's Dictionary and make
this happen overnight. 'We model the way people interpret the meanings
of a word -- through context,' says Ms. [Kathleen] Dahlgren, who is
today CEO of MeaningMaster. 'We search on meaning by using grammar and
structure and semantics. Every word has associated with it a set of
beliefs.'" April 22, 2004: E-translators
- the more you say, the better, By Gregory M. Lamb. The Christian Science
Monitor. "It's the holy grail of translation, a goal one researcher
has called 'more complex than building an atomic bomb' Smooth, immediate
translations between people speaking different languages would be a
remarkable achievement of enormous economic and cultural benefit. Some
suggest that it won't happen until computers can express true artificial
intelligence - something like C-3PO of 'Star Wars' fame, whose knowledge
extends far beyond mere vocabulary to an understanding of customs and
cultures. .... Universal translation is one of 10 emerging technologies
that will affect our lives and work 'in revolutionary ways' within a
decade, Technology Review says. ... Meanwhile, the US military is giving
a simpler one-way translation device a rugged road test in Iraq. ...
US forces are using the Phraselator to communicate with injured Iraqis,
prisoners of war, travelers at checkpoints, and for other peacekeeping
duties, according to Tony Tether, director of the Defense Advanced Research
Projects Agency (DARPA), who testified before a House subcommittee on
terrorism last month. ... The company foresees civilian applications
for the Phraselator for those working in law enforcement, disaster relief,
fire and rescue, and humanitarian aid. A smaller, cheaper version may
be developed for tourists. ... Carnegie Mellon is working on its own
'Speechlator' for use in doctor-patient interviews, [Robert] Frederking
says. The limited range of the typical conversation in a doctor's office
greatly helps. ... "That kind of [computerized translator], where you're
working on a specific task, is not that far away. I think that might
become possible in the next couple of years.'" April 22, 2004: Artificial
intellect remains elusive. By Fred Reed. The Washington Times. "Whatever
happened to artificial intelligence? There was a time, a couple of decades
ago, when computers were expected soon to be able to behave intelligently
-- to talk to people in English, answer questions, and make complex
decisions. What people really had in mind was an artificial human. HAL,
the computer in the movie '2001: A Space Odyssey,' comes to mind. It
didn't happen. Today, although computers have advanced phenomenally
in power, we see them doing very little that reasonably could be called
intelligent. We still can't talk to computers about the meaning of art
or why Rome fell. Why? ... First, it's harder than many thought it would
be. ... Another reason for the apparent lack of machine intelligence
is that, if you know how a computer does something, it no longer seems
intelligent. ... An example of what might be regarded as intelligent
behavior is automated translation of language. This is done by Google,
for example. ... Finally, the use in connection with computers of words
such as 'memory,' 'language' and 'logic' raised expectations of potential
human likeness that weren't supported by reality." April 21, 2004: Oticon's
New Syncro Hearing Instruments with Artificial Intelligence Take Hearing
Care To New Level. Healthy Hearing. "Oticon, Inc. introduces
Syncro, a new breed of hearing instrument that uses Artificial Intelligence
to improve hearing performance in unpredictable sound environments.
Syncro employs a range of new, innovative directionality, noise management
and compression systems and uses a unique application of Artificial
Intelligence to manage the systems' complex interaction. The instrument
makes as many as 17,000 intelligent decisions per second, simultaneously
comparing the actual outcomes of particular feature combinations and
choosing the specific combination that provides the optimal voice-to-noise
ratio at any given moment." April 20, 2004: Farming
from outer space -It is easier for a satellite in space to see whether
a crop needs watering than for a farmer on the ground. By John Crace.
The Guardian / Education Guardian. "For 15 years, Professor Graeme
Wilkinson, dean of the faculty of applied computing sciences at the
University of Lincoln, has been putting the data to one very particular
use: agriculture. One snapshot from space can map an area of up to 100
by 100 miles, with image enhancement technology allowing you to zoom
in on an image of just a few square metres anywhere within that area.
From his lab in Lincoln, Wilkinson has probably got a better idea of
what pests are attacking a crop, and when they need watering, than farmers
on the ground. ... Receiving the images is one thing; interpreting them
is another. For this Wilkinson has developed some neural network artificial
intelligence programmes that enable the computer to simulate human cognitive
processes and aid pattern recognition - the advantage being that the
computer can not only think a great deal faster than a human, it can
also do so in infra-red. Other members of his team at Lincoln are using
the same software to enhance CCTV images. ... 'My vision is of a smart
farm,' he says. 'The satellite images show what is needed and a robot
fixes it." April 19, 2004: DARPA
tech chief envisions the future - Sci-fi inspires Brachman to use
computers in creative ways. By Frank Tiboni. Federal Computer Week.
"Ron Brachman's curiosity about robots programmed to think on their
own dates back to his childhood in New Jersey. It was the 1960s, 'Star
Trek' first appeared on television and putting a man on the moon became
a remarkable reality. ... Now Brachman works at the Defense Advanced
Research Projects Agency as director of its Information Processing Technology
Office, where he oversees programs that study and develop cognitive
computing. He wants to solve the same problem he pondered as a teenager
watching 'Star Trek' -- how to get people and computers to collaborate.
Military officials think robots, with their superior memory, can aid
generals in command and control centers, Brachman said. 'My sense of
what it takes to put together a cognitive agent that is successful,
like a really good executive assistant, is that you just don't put all
these [technologies] in a pot and stir and hope that it all adds up,'
he said. ... Brachman's team will take an eclectic approach to building
a robot similar to Data. 'The challenge we have asked people to look
at is how do we put all of these pieces together,' Brachman said. 'Maybe
we don't need the world's best computer vision or speech-understanding
technology. But what would happen if they both work together?'" April 18, 2004: Aibo's
mum - Yuka Takeda, head of the team that designed the robot pup,
is a Warhol and Star Trek fan. By Krist Boo. The Straits Times Interactive.
" Miss Yuka Takeda is the woman behind the world's most famous
pet robot, the Aibo. As Sony's creative director, she helms the design
team for Aibo, which has more than 100 members. ... 'Ever since I was
a child, I was crazy about science fiction such as Star Wars and Star
Trek. I was a great fan of Mr Spock,' she told The Sunday Times. Aibo
broke new ground when it went on sale. It made the Guinness Book of
Records for the fastest-selling robotic pet with 3,000 dogs snapped
up in under 20 minutes. ... The latest breed of Aibo, a slick pup with
smooth curves, comes packed with technological wonders. ... It recognises
owners' faces and voices. Having been loaded with artificial intelligence,
it has a mind of its own. ... 'It could just be coincidental,' she said,
stroking the pooch's head. 'But a few times he had responded to me -
in ways I had never expected. That's when I had felt closest to him.'" April 18, 2004: Humans
vs. Computers, Again. But There's Help for Our Side. By James Fallows.
The New York Times (no fee reg. req'd.). "We've seen this pattern
before in the computer world: many companies scrambling at the same
time to solve the same problem. Sometimes the concentration of effort
mainly ends up underscoring how hard it can be to solve a given problem,
like controlling spam.... But often such races result in true breakthroughs
that make computers much more useful and creates countless opportunities
for follow-on innovations and products. ... A current race for a solution
goes by the deceptively blah name of 'knowledge management,' or K.M.
It is an effort to bring Google-like clarity to the swamp of data on
each person's machine or network, and it is based on the underappreciated
tension between a computer's capacity and a person's. Modern computers
"scale" well, as the technologists say - that is, the amount of information
they can receive, display and store goes up almost without limit. Human
beings don't scale. ... The current creative struggle is important because,
when it yields a victor, it will leave everyone less frustrated about
using a computer. ... On the conceptual level, it raises basic questions
about what knowledge is. ... The underlying intellectual question about
knowledge management is whether people actually think of knowledge as
a big heap of laundry just out of the dryer, or as neatly folded pajamas,
shirts and so on, all placed in the proper drawers." April 16, 2004: How
cutting-edge computer techniques can be used to develop drugs. News-Medical.net.
"Leading international experts will gather at the University of
Bradford's Institute for Pharmaceutical Innovation (IPI) for a conference
looking at how cutting-edge computer techniques can be used to develop
drugs. ... Over the last two decades developments in the use of computational
chemistry and automated experiments have been used mainly to help discover
new drugs. ... The IPI, opened by Science Minister Lord Sainsbury in
October 2003, uses the latest artificial intelligence and computer simulation
technology together with advanced analytical techniques to predict how
drugs will behave in the body and to research new methods for the development
of better drugs." April 15, 2004: Condition
Zero has its good points but is a bit overpriced. By Dwight N. Odelius.
Houston Chronicle. "Decades before the invention of the microprocessor,
late mathematician and philosopher Alan Turing proposed that we would
be able to identify intelligence in a computer system through its successful
imitation of human behavior. This assessment became known as the Turing
Test, and it is still widely cited in artificial intelligence and cognitive
science research. In Counter-Strike: Condition Zero, a PC game based
on the venerable Half-Life engine, players fight terrorism alongside
computer-controlled allies and opponents, known as 'bots.' Condition
Zero's bots behave in such a lifelike fashion that you might mistake
them for the real thing. Artificial intelligence is usually the weakest
point of a PC game. In most, enemy bots wander around aimlessly, ignore
the player even when they're within a few feet of them, have little
or no awareness of their comrades and fall off ledges to their death.
Allies run off and never come back or get themselves shot while stuck
on a piece of game geometry. In Condition Zero, the artificial intelligence
far exceeds anything I've played." April 13, 2004: A
Post-Privacy Future for Workers - Futurist Faith Popcorn says productivity-obsessed
companies will soon monitor everything from your health to your emotional
needs. Interview conducted by Olga Kharif. Business Week Online. "Q:
People already don't use half the functions in their software. Why would
employees want all of this new technology you talk about? A:
The problem with technology today is, in many cases, you have to read
through instructions to figure out how to use all the features. What
we need is voice controls. For instance, you should be able to say,
'Bring my car around in front.' Or "I miss my mother. I want to see
her.' ... Q: What do you think can be done by robots?
A: Almost anything. The robots' intelligence will be
very high. Of course, that's a little further out because of ethical
issues. But many of the key technologies needed to make wide use of
robots possible are already here. Carnegie Mellon University has already
developed the world's first robot receptionist, with its ability to
detect motion and greet visitors. Others have developed robots that
could complete simple tasks like fetching documents or coffee. And,
of course, more robots will be used in manufacturing." April 13, 2004: Area
firm's surveillance gear sent to Middle East April 13, 2004: Working
on next generation of robot warriors. By Robert Weisman. The Boston
Globe / Boston.com. "Over the past two and a half years, the remote-controlled
PackBot has been deployed to search for survivors in the World Trade
Center wreckage, for live ammunition in Afghanistan caves, and for explosives
under abandoned vehicles in Iraq. But those missions may be only the
beginning for Army robotics, and for a company with roots at the Massachusetts
Institute of Technology -- if they can reduce the robot's weight. ...
'We're putting the PackBot on the Atkins diet,' said Robert A. Bell,
iRobot's executive director for the Army's Future Combat Systems program.
... 'The unmanned aircraft, like the Predator, got a lot of attention
in Afghanistan,' Corbin said. 'But, to me, they won't be as important
as the ground vehicles. There are few countries that can challenge our
Air Force. But anyone can challenge our ground forces in urban warfare.
It's a type of combat with a lot of casualties on both sides, and the
only easy answer may be robots. If we continue to occupy foreign countries
that don't like us very much, the role of these robots will be key.'
... [T]he company has delivered about two dozen of the advanced PackBot
models, equipped with extension arms, to US troops in Iraq. One was
destroyed detonating an explosive device. 'We had one blown up last
week,' Dyer said yesterday. 'And it was cause for celebration. Because
a robot was sent in harm's way and saved the life of an American soldier.'" April 13, 2004:
Robots
May Fight for the Army. By Mark Baard. Wired News. "Lightweight,
super-strong robots will lead human soldiers into battle within 10 years
-- at least according to iRobot. The robots, called small unmanned ground
vehicles, or SUGVs, will detect the presence of chemical and biological
weapons, identify targets for artillery and infantrymen, and ferret
out snipers hiding inside urban buildings. Today, humans mainly perform
these tasks, often becoming the first casualties of battle while looking
for snipers or explosives. ... SUGVs will be one of 18 networked components
in the U.S. Army's $14.7 billion Future Combat Systems program, which
will include manned and unmanned ground and aerial vehicles, as well
as new sensor systems. ... Some of the robots that are being developed
may also be used to shoot at human targets, iRobot suggested. But the
company said SUGVs will provide advanced reconnaissance first. The company
does not want to be seen as putting human soldiers out of business.
Robot vision systems have serious limitations, and the risk that a robot
might kill an innocent civilian is too great, said iRobot CEO Colin
Angle. But Angle did not rule out the eventual use of weapons on robots,
and noted that Raytheon is developing a targeting system for the SUGV.
'We're not using these robots to hand out flowers,' Angle said."
[A link to a video simulation of the SUGV in combat is provided.] April 12, 2004: U.S.
Company Cheers Loss of Its Robot in Iraq. By Greg Frost. Reuters.
"A U.S. robot manufacturer on Monday hailed the destruction of
one of its units in Iraq and said it showed how valuable the machines
have become for the U.S. military. iRobot Corporation learned last week
from the Pentagon that one of its units, called a PackBot, was 'destroyed
in action' for the first time. Its destruction meant the life of a U.S.
soldier may well have been saved, the company said. 'It was a special
moment -- a robot got blown up instead of a person,' said iRobot CEO
Colin Angle. ... Between 50 and 100 PackBots are now being used in Iraq
and Afghanistan for battlefield reconnaissance, search-and-destroy missions
of explosives and ordnance disposal, while the soldiers who control
them keep out of harm's way." April 12, 2004: Noble
Vision's 'scarebot' picks up seed round. By Scott Foster. Ottawa
Business Journal. " The product is the iScarecrow, a robotic device
that detects birds and deters them from poaching winery grapes. The
'scarebot' relies on artificial intelligence software to alert it to
birds. Running on a wire, it swoops toward winged intruders and wards
them off. ... [T]he team's testing time has been limited to the harvest
season, which has slowed the scarebot's development. ... The new funds
could allow the company to test indoors.... Noble Vision's seed round
announcement comes after D'Andrea presented to potential investors in
Calgary and received calls from oil patch workers in that province.
The workers wondered whether the scarebot could be used to stop birds
from taking fatal flights into tar ponds." April 11, 2004: Computers
Learn to Understand Sefrican - Scientists develop software to recognise
local languages - and accents. By Gill Moodie. Sunday Times / available
from allAfrica.com. "Thanks to South African boffins, computers
have been taught to understand the many languages and accents used in
South Africa. The voice-recognition system, which will one day enable
South Africans to speak to machines for routine tasks such as banking
and booking flights and hotels, can converse in Xhosa, English (with
a range of local accents) and Afrikaans. 'Essentially, we're trying
to emulate what happens in the human brain,' said Professor Justus Roux,
director of the Research Unit for Experimental Phonology at the University
of Stellenbosch. ... The next step is for the team to convert the speech-recognition
system into a translation system. ... 'It has even more value in South
Africa as it can help us preserve African languages. Technology is neutral
but it could overrun other languages if it forces people to interact
in English,' [Dr Daniel Mashao] said. But Professor Mohlomi Moleleki,
chairman of the Pan South African Language Board, had reservations.
'I understand it will play a very important role in multilingualism,'
he said. 'But if such a system is not managed properly it could become
an end in itself and deter people from learning each other's languages.'" April 11, 2004: Korea
as king of tech is ministry ambition. By Chung Sun-gu. JoongAng
Daily. "Relying on his experience in leading a large private company,
Information Minister Chin Dae-je is setting forth a broad and ambitious
strategy aimed at making Korea a world leader in technology. The Ministry
of Information and Communication recently launched a project to identify
and aid growth industries for the future. Mr. Chin, the former head
of Samsung Electronics, coined a slogan, '839 project,' for the strategy.
The slogan refers to eight telecommunications services ... three infrastructure
components ... and nine growth information technologies on which Korea
will stake its future, such as wearable personal computers or robots
with artificial intelligence. Based on the project, the ministry wants
to raise the scale of the information technology industry in Korea from
209 trillion won ($183 billion) in production and $57.6 billion in exports
last year to 380 trillion won in production and $110 billion in exports
by 2007. The information technology industry's share in gross domestic
product would then grow from 15.6 percent last year to 19.3 percent." April 10, 2004: Photo
recognition software gives location. By James Randerson. New Scientist
Magazine (Take a pic to find out where you are; page 23). "You
are lost in a foreign city, you don't speak the language and you are
late for your meeting. What do you do? Take out your cellphone, photograph
the nearest building and press send. For a small fee, photo recognition
software on a remote server works out precisely where you are, and sends
back directions that will get you to your destination. That, at least,
is what two researchers at the University of Cambridge in the UK hope
their software will one day be used for. Roberto Cipolla and Duncan
Robertson have developed a program that can match a photograph of a
building to a database of images. ... The software can match two images
even when they are taken at a different times of day, from different
angles and with clutter such as pedestrians and vehicles in the way.
'That's an easy problem for a human, but it's very difficult for a computer,'
says Robertson." April 10, 2004: In
gadget-loving Japan, robots get hugs in therapy sessions. By Yuri
Kageyama. Associated Press / available from The San Diego Union-Tribune
& SignOnSanDiego.com / also available from the Sun Herald (Robots
Seen As Companions for Elderly). "The elderly patients suffer
from severe dementia, but their faces light up when they see the dog-shaped
robot, swaddled in soft clothing, waddle around the hospital floor.
... This is one in a budding series of robot-therapy sessions at Japanese
hospitals and senior citizens' homes. To some scientists, robots are
the answer to caring for aging societies in Japan and other nations
where the young are destined to be overwhelmed by a surging elderly
population. These advocates see robots serving not just as helpers
carrying out simple chores and reminding patients to take their medication
but also as companions, even if the machines can carry on only a semblance
of a real dialogue. The ideal results: huge savings in medical costs,
reduced burdens on family and caretakers, and old and sick people kept
in better health. 'This technology is really needed for the global community,'
said Russell Bodoff, executive director at the Center for Aging Services
Technologies in Washington, D.C. ... And while proponents say robot
therapy is no different from pet therapy, in which animals offer companionship,
the idea of children and older people becoming emotionally attached
to machines unnerves many people. ... [Toshiyo] Tamura and colleagues
recently published research that found that some patients' activity,
such as talking, watching and touching, increased with the introduction
of the robot in therapy sessions. ... Tamura also found that introducing
a stuffed animal shaped like a dog got almost the same effect from patients.
But a stuffed animal can't be programmed to, for example, help an Alzheimer's
patient remember the names of their visiting children. Neither, of course,
can real animals. ... [H]ow robots will change people remains to be
seen. Will robots make people lazy if they can do mundane chores? Will
they make us more callous or more humane? ... Ranges of appropriate
behavior toward robots will have to be socially defined, [John] Jordan
said. Might it be weird to pat a robot for bringing a drink? 'Humans
are very good at attributing emotions to things that are not people,'
Jordan said. 'Many, many moral questions will arise.' ... 'People aren't
going to be able to throw away robots even when they break,' [Yasuyuki]
Toki said. 'These are major issues that researchers must keep in the
back of our minds.'" April 9, 2004: Striking
Far Cry sets new standard. By Alfred Hermida. BBC News. "Now
Far Cry, the first of a new generation of first-person shooters, has
raised the bar, with its gorgeous graphics, fluid action and engaging
story. In the game, you play the character of Jack Carver, who washes
up on a tropical island where danger lurks around every corner. ...
The artificial intelligence of the enemies is to be commended, with
their behaviour being startlingly realistic. The mercenaries will work
as a team and use the jungle for cover." April 9, 2004: Health
informatics ready for next stage. By Charles F. Moreira. The Star
Online TechCentral. "Three years ago, few local doctors had even
heard of the term "health informatics." Efforts to create an awareness
of it has been successful enough that Malaysia is now ready for the
next stage, said an expert in the field. Health informatics is a relatively
new sub-speciality of medicine which uses information technology to
manage clinical information. ... Globally, health informatics includes
change management, artificial intelligence, messaging, mobile technology
and so on. However in Malaysia it mainly involves hospital management.
MHIA organised eHealth 2004 with two primary objectives. ... 'The first
aim was to encourage the use of IT to minimise problems caused by improper
prescription of drugs,' said MHIA council vice-president Datuk Dr A.
Jai Mohan. ... The second objective was to capture the knowledge and
methodologies of local and foreign medical experts and incorporate them
into the workflow in medical diagnostic and decision support systems." April 8, 2004: Robotics
gains in prestige, in part due to military conflicts. By Charles
Sheehan. Associated Press / available from USA Today / also available
from the Oakland Tribune Online (April 10th: Formerly
arcane research gets new respect - Pentagon, corporate world take
renewed interest in robotics.). "Researchers in robotics have traditionally
faced two debilitating obstacles: terribly expensive parts and difficulty
attracting funding from anyone outside of a small corps of true believers.
But the field could be in line for a major jolt. Robotics experts see
a 'perfect storm' heading their way, thanks in no small part to the
human ravages of war. Just as the constant march of technology is driving
down the cost of key components, top universities in robotics are reporting
major increases in federal funding, with the Defense Department the
biggest spender. ... The Robotics Institute at Carnegie Mellon University
has seen federal funding jump 48% since 2000, and by 117% since 1994.
... Other universities, such as the California, Virginia and Georgia
institutes of technology, say funding for robotics is up at least 50%
or more in recent years. At the same time, the materials that comprise
the most technologically advanced components in robots, from optics
to software, are becoming 'dirt cheap,' said Dan Kara, who covers the
industry for Robotics Trends. Technology that lets robots perceive
and overcome obstacles has made unparalleled bounds largely because
the cost of charge-coupled devices (the core of every camera), microprocessors
and varied sensors has fallen away as rapidly as computing power and
memory have expanded. ... Robert Michelson, a principal research engineer
at Georgia Tech, is holding the fourth annual International Aerial Robotics
Competition in July. Robotic aircraft will be required to fly three
kilometers (1.8 miles) to an urban setting, find a building, then enter
it via a window or a hole in the roof to find a target inside. The robot
must then transmit an image back to base -- all without human interference." April 8, 2004: Pharmacy
focuses on hospital patient and convenience. By Lisa Grzyboski.
The Daily Journal.com. "Walk into the health system's Newcomb Hospital
in Vineland and automated dispensing machines -- like ATMs, except they
distribute medications instead of cash -- are in use. ... By 2006, a
pharmacist will be able to do a computer search for a patient, view
her X-rays and lab results, then determine if the drug and dose prescribed
are correct, Alessandrini said. On top of this, the computer software
the pharmacist will be using has a degree of artificial intelligence
and can detect problems that could arise if a patient is given a particular
drug. Right now, only six percent of all hospitals nationwide have such
a system, called Computerized Physician Order Entry, or CPOE, according
to Douglas Scheckelhoff of the American Society of Health-System Pharmacists.
However, 40 percent of the country's hospitals want to phase in CPOE
within the next two to three years, particularly because watchdog organizations
are pressuring them to make it a standard practice, he added. Reports
have shown that CPOE dramatically reduces medication errors, a leading
cause of extended hospital stays." April 7, 2004: Flood
Risk Management Research Consortium (FRMRC) launched by Environment
Minister Elliot Morley and Environment Agency chair Sir John Harman.
Department for Environment, Food and Rural Affairs (Defra) news release.
"A new floods consortium staffed by some of Britain's leading engineers
and scientists and launched today by Environment Minister Elliot Morley
and Environment Agency chair Sir John Harman, will invest more than
£5.5m to develop more accurate flood forecasting and warning and modelling
systems and improve flood management infrastructure. Its work will help
reduce risk to people, their property and the environment. The new group,
known as the Flood Risk Management Research Consortium (FRMRC) will
pull in staff from a number of universities to work with industrial
partners and operational bodies on integrated research projects, including:
... Using intelligent systems, neural networks, fuzzy set theory, artificial
intelligence evolution computation (genetic algorithms), decision support
tools and expert systems - to help predict the likelihood of flooding." April 7, 2004: Autominder
Serves as Computerized Caregiver for Elderly. SeniorJournal.com.
"[Martha] Pollack, electrical engineering and computer science
professor, leads the team developing the software. 'The growing shortage
of health care providers, ballooning population of aging baby-boomers
and increasingly longer life spans mean computers could be invaluable
aides in caring for people with cognitive disorders,' she says. 'We're
always going to need human caregivers,' she said. 'With the increased
percentage of older adults, there won't be enough adults to provide
full-time care.' The future of the aging population is such a concern
that on April 6, Pollack will testify before the Senate Committee on
Aging about the challenges of developing such technology, and about
how increased government support for such research is critical to its
success. ... Autominder uses artificial intelligence technology tailored
to each user to issue personalized reminders from data it interprets
about what the person has done and is supposed to do." April 6, 2004: Springer
set for polluted waterways. e4engineering.com. "Work has begun
in the UK to build 'Springer', an unmanned surface vehicle (USV) that
will operate in shallow water to track water pollution and carry out
environmental surveys. Funded primarily by the Engineering and Physical
Sciences Research Council (EPSRC), this vehicle will be built at the
University of Plymouth by a multidisciplinary team including engineering
and artificial intelligence experts. ... Conventional methods of tracking
these pollutants to their source such as boat sampling and airborne
sensing are said to be expensive and limited in effectiveness because
they can not be used easily in shallow water. These systems also have
to be manned by operators, making them more expensive to run than a
remote controlled device. ... Designed to work autonomously or under
remote manual control, the electrically powered Springer will use a
wireless link to communicate with its operator and transmit collected
data." April 6, 2004: Japan
Sees High-Tech Toilets, Robots in Future Home. By Nathan Layne.
Reuters. "Imagine getting home from work to be greeted by the family
robot, which recognizes your voice and reminds you that you've forgotten
your spouse's birthday before alerting you that the hospital has just
called. ... This may sound like a scene from 'The Jetsons,' the popular
science-fiction cartoon from the 1960s that provided a glimpse of what
the home and society could look like in 2062, but your home might look
more like the Jetsons' in just a matter of years. ... 'Since the amount
of information available will grow tremendously, much will depend on
the ability to search intelligently,' said Tetsuji Miyano, head of the
new business planning office at Matsushita Electric Works (MEW). ...
Sit down for dinner and a jellyfish known as an 'agent' swims your way.
Each family member has his or her own 'agent,' which contains personal
information and can be commanded with a simple device to download text
or images from the Web. ... 'The agent knows each family members' hobbies
and tastes...and you don't have to use the PC directly,' said Nao Kurosawa,
a guide at Matsushita's Panasonic Center where the showroom is housed.
'Many elderly and children aren't that comfortable using the (keyboard-operated)
PC,' she said. ... Indeed, protecting the private information of consumers
will be a major legal issue for manufacturers like Toto and electronics
firms looking to outfit the future networked home." April 5, 2004: The
rise of the spam exterminators. By Dan Lee. Mercury News. "Spammers
aren't the only ones who see profits in the torrent of unsolicited e-mail
pitches sent around the globe each day. A growing number of businesses
see big money in wiping out the junk e-mails that have become a scourge
of the Internet age. ...'It's complicated, and the most effective approach
to combat spam is a cocktail approach,' said Tumbleweed Chairman and
Chief Executive Jeff Smith in a conference call March 18 announcing
the Corvigo deal. Corvigo's appliance, which plugs into an organization's
network, uses artificial intelligence. It makes a judgment whether something
is spam by using filters for keywords such as 'Viagra' or looking at
past frequency of words in junk e-mail." April 4, 2004: Robo-Cars
Make Cruise Control So Last Century. By Danny Hakim. The New York
Times (no fee reg. req'd.) "The modern car does not have to guess
your weight. It already knows. It watches how you drive and it can pull
a Trump. Skid, and before you can blink, you're fired -- the car is
driving for you, if only for a moment. Cars today can decide when to
brake, steer and can park themselves. They can even see. In short, the
back-seat driver now lives under the hood. And it does more than just
talk. This is all technology on the road now, if not in a single country
or car. But industry engineers and executives view it as the start of
a trend that will play out over the next decade, in which automobiles
become increasingly in touch with their surroundings and able to act
autonomously. ... Which raises a chicken-egg question: What comes first,
the car that drives itself? Or the car-driving robot?" April 4, 2004: A
Pearl for the elderly - Robotic walker is in the works. By Gary
Rotstein. Pittsburgh Post-Gazette. "If the future isn't now, it
is getting closer all the time. With an explosion of the senior population
due in two decades, researchers are looking for ways to match the technology
that science-fiction writers anticipated years ago with the practical
benefits a frail, elderly person living alone might need to continue
living at home. So instead of focusing on robots that work on lunar
surfaces or ocean floors, a research team from Carnegie Mellon, the
University of Pittsburgh, University of Michigan and Stanford University
has spent the past four years tinkering with devices that trek across
carpets and kitchen floors. ... [Judy Matthews] and others leading the
project have become convinced that the new-wave walker, one that knows
how to move itself out of the way when unneeded and return to its user
when summoned, will be the first practical result of Pearl-related work.
Offering guidance as well as support to users, once it has mapped out
the rooms, halls and other features of its location, the IMP can free
up attendants in a long-term care facility for more important things
than walking someone to a dining room. Matthews stressed that such an
invention was meant to supplement what professional or family caregivers
do, not replace them. The original term for the project, Nursebot, attracted
chagrin from some members of the nursing profession who didn't see the
robots as their equivalent, and Matthews has shied away from using that
term. 'We describe them now as intelligent assistive devices for the
elderly,' she said." April 3, 2004 [issue date]: Snapshot
chat creates automatic captions. By Anil Ananthaswamy. New Scientist
Magazine (Computers sort out digital photos; page 21). "A new system
that can caption your digital photos by listening to you and your friends
chat about them is being developed by Hewlett-Packard in California.
... 'This is the weak link for digital photo collections,' says Margaret
Fleck at HP's lab in Palo Alto. 'In 10 years' time, finding something
amongst them will be very difficult.' Fleck's answer is to tap into
the wealth of information in the conversations we have when we talk
about our photos with friends. She says the stories we tell do not merely
describe the photo, but also talk about the events that happened before
and after the picture was taken. To harness this information, Fleck
has developed software that records these conversations to hard disc,
converts the speech to text using a speech-recognition program, and
then extracts keywords with which the photos are captioned and indexed.
... 'Probably any good solution is going to use several different approaches,'
she says, pointing to work at the University of California in Berkeley.
Researchers there have developed software that can identify key elements
in photos, such as types of animal, flowers, geographic features like
rivers and mountains, and use them to index pictures." April 2, 2004: Lawn
Mowing for Lazybones. By Mark Baard. Wired News. "First came
the wave of robot vacuum cleaners, led by Roomba from Burlington, Massachusetts-based
iRobot. Now engineers in the fast-growing consumer robotics market are
selling autonomous machines designed to give residential lawns that
professionally manicured look, which only professional landscapers could
offer in the past. .... And one contraption for trimming that precious
Kentucky bluegrass goes way beyond the needs of the owner of a typical
quarter-acre residential lot. An industrial-grade robotic mower from
Carnegie Mellon University is trimming golf-course fairways and greens,
as well as the training field for the Pittsburgh Steelers football team.
(Toro is sponsoring the robot project, called the Automated Turf Management
system.) Golf-course owners who use robots to cut grass at night will
be able to reduce labor costs and accommodate more players on their
courses during the day. At home, seniors and those with bad backs and
allergies can watch from the comfort of their screened-in porches as
their robotic mowers do the work." April 2, 2004: Inspiring
Science. April 1, 2004: A
is for avatar. By Wendy Leavitt. Fleet Owner. "William E. Halal,
professor of management in the Dept. of Management Science at George
Washington University and director of the TechCast Project, has been
anticipating just such developments in intelligent computers and communications
for some time. 'Information and communications technologies are rapidly
converging to create machines that can understand us, do what we tell
them to do and even anticipate our needs,' says Halal. 'Technology scanning
conducted under the TechCast Project at George Washington University
indicates that advances in speech recognition, artificial intelligence
(AI), powerful computers, virtual environments and flat wall LCD monitors
are creating a conversation human-machine interface that should be part
of mainstream business by about 2010. It will transform how we use computers
and what they do for us.' ... If all this sounds far-fetched, consider
the list of current artificial intelligence applications and initiatives
Dr. Halal cites in his recent article for the Futurist ('The Intelligent
Internet: The promise of smart computers and e-commerce,' March-April
2004). His long list includes Amtrak's virtual salesperson, which permits
customers to do everything from order tickets to discuss complaints,
to a female robot that delivers the weather reports in Japan. The U.S.
Dept. of Energy is also creating an intelligent computer designed to
infer intent, remember prior experiences, analyze problems and make
decisions." April 1, 2004: Revenge
of the Killer Drones. By Noah Shachtman. Wired News. "In just
five years, the U.S. military wants a handful of battle-ready fighting
drones. ... The next step will come in a few days, when a prototype
unmanned combat aerial vehicle (or UCAV, for short) will soar over the
Navy's China Lake testing range in California's Mojave Desert and drop
its first smartbomb. ... [T]he Pentagon wants the UCAVs to be able to
do more than chat with one another. The unmanned planes should be able
to take off, fly and defend themselves as a group without a human telling
them what to do. Darpa is working on a 'decision aid system' that will
automatically handle the many tasks of directing a UCAV team, explained
Marc Pitarys, a deputy program director at the agency. Let's say there's
a problem with the route a drone is following. The decision-aid system
would pick a new one and upload it to the UCAV -- or it would enable
the vehicle to 'make up one on its own,' Pitarys said. Such a system
has already been demonstrated in the lab, noted Michael Francis, Pitarys'
boss. And, within the next few months, it will be loaded onto the planes
themselves. ... Even if the system's autonomy climbs higher, that may
not be an entirely beneficial thing, some outside analysts say. 'We
already have in this country a predisposition that the world is a set
of problems with military solutions. One of the only checks on that
is the threat of American boys coming home in body bags,' said GlobalSecurity.org
director John Pike. Unmanned systems could remove one of those final
checks. Pike asked, 'What happens when we can resort to violence, when
we can hurt others, without being hurt in return?'" April 2004: What's
new in artificial lift. Part 1 - Fifteen new systems for beam, progressing-cavity,
plunger-lift pumping and gas lift. By James F. Lea, Herald W. Winkler,
and Robert E. Snyder. WorldOil.com (Vol. 225 No. 4). "Improved
well automation software. The XSPOC software from Theta Enterprises,
Brea, California, offers advanced well automation capabilities for the
oil field. While the product has been available for several years, recent
enhancements have made it more powerful. The new system uses artificial
intelligence to not only monitor, but also perform detailed analysis
of rod pumping systems; and it is the only automation package to offer
the developer's XDIAG diagnostics module. This module uses pattern recognition
and complex logic algorithms to arrive at accurate conclusions about
the performance of rod-pumped wells." April 2004: The
Reality of Video Games. By Laurie Vaughan. Stanford Graduate School
of Business News. "'Ten years from now, we'll be spending as much
time in the virtual world as the real one. We'll log in to a metaverse
created by game developers, where we'll explore and play in a personalized
way,' Microsoft Home/Entertainment VP Peter Moore told a Business School
audience in April. ... That's the heady future of electronic games,
according to a panel of industry leaders who shared visions and worries
at this year's Future of Entertainment Conference held April 3. In the
meantime, innovations like wireless control and voice control will give
people new ways of playing existing types of games, predicted Jeff Brown,
VP for corporate communications at Electronic Arts. Electronic games,
he said, 'are the only form of entertainment where we cede authorial
control to the user.' By 2010, players will determine most of the challenges
and plot twists from their experience. 'The AI [artificial intelligence]
is going to be just that much better,' said Brown. 'It won't be like
the movie you walked out of because you didn't like the ending -- you'll
get to decide the ending.' ... Recent figures show videogames are a
$10 billion industry in the United States." March 30, 2004: Conventional
behavior, pt. 2. March 30, 2004: Corvigo
MailGate Uses AI To Block Spam From Network. By W. David Gardner.
TechWeb News / available from Internet Week. " A Linux-based antispam
appliance that leverages artificial intelligence helped a Cox Communications
ISP stamp out 95 percent of its spam, the company said. ... It marks
the first implementation of an artificial intelligence anti-spam program
by an ISP, said Jeff Ready, CEO of the antispam appliance vendor. ...
By combining machine-learning techniques with natural language processing,
the AI program reads the text of the messages and then sorts them into
one of the three categories, Ready said. ... 'AI techniques are able
to recognize patterns of speech, even patterns of spam that haven't
been seen before,' Ready said." March 30, 2004: Seeing-Eye
Computer Guides Blind. By Louise Knapp. Wired News. "The portable
system, called iCare, consists of a tiny camera mounted on a pair of
glasses, a laptop carried in a backpack, a headset and a microphone.
Designed by researchers at Arizona State and Wright State universities,
ICare converts the images recorded by the camera to verbal messages
conveyed to the user. ... So far, iCare's greatest talent is its ability
to translate type into spoken words. The iCare-Reader translates text
into a synthesized voice using optical character recognition software
and other software that compensates for different lighting conditions
and orientations. ... The next component of the system is the iCare-HumanRecognizer.
'It has a high probability of recognizing people from its database --
it compares the color of their hair, eyes, facial characteristics, and
from this can know who it is,' Bourbakis said. Currently, however, the
system is only able to do this when the lighting is just right and the
person is directly facing the camera." March 29, 2004: All
Eyes on Google. By Steven Levy. Newsweek / available from MSNBC.
"Google has made such eureka moments as common as sneezing. Who
hasn't had such a revelation on Google, whether the discovery was an
old girlfriend's whereabouts or a cutting-edge treatment for a rare
disease? Amazing to consider that less than a decade ago, search was
a backwater, deemed not very interesting and certainly not very profitable.
... 'Search is the ultimate killer online app,' says Bob Davis, former
CEO of Lycos. 'The Internet without search is like a cruise missile
without a guidance system.' ... 'Search is not a solved problem,' says
Udi Manber, CEO of A9, a new search company formed by Amazon.com that
will focus on e-commerce. 'Ten years from now, what we're doing now
will look pretty primitive.' ... Indeed, over the next few years search
will evolve in a number of key areas, and Google faces big competition
in all of them. ... MULTIMEDIA. Google has an Image Search function
with almost a billion pictures. Microsoft researchers in China are going
full blast to create software that searches through pictures -- possibly
identifying faces and locations. Meanwhile, a Washington, D.C., start-up
called Streamsage has created breakthrough technology that searches
audio and video broadcasts by analyzing speech. ... ARTIFICIAL INTELLIGENCE.
'The ultimate goal is to have a computer that has the kind of semantic
knowledge that a reference librarian has,' says Google's director of
technology Craig Silverstein. But truly smart search engines are probably
decades away." March 24, 2004: Opera
Software announces voice-operated Internet browser. By Doug Mellgren.
Associated Press / available from The Detroit News. "Web surfers
may be able to talk to their computers one day using a browser announced
Tuesday by Opera Software. The new browser incorporates IBM's ViaVoice
technology, enabling the computer to ask what the user wants and 'listen'
to the request. ... 'Voice is the most natural and effective way we
communicate,' said Christen Krogh, head of Opera's software development.
'In the years to come, it will greatly facilitate how we interact with
technology.'" March 24, 2004: All
the news that's fit for searching. March 23, 2004: Asian
Investors Seek Profit in Neural `Karma'. Commentary by Andy Mukherjee.
Bloomberg News / also available from the International Herald Tribune
(Seeking real profit
from artificial intelligence) and Business Day Newspaper, Thailand
(Profit for the taking
in neural 'karma'). "Using Paradigm's Forex DayTrader, which
predicts movements in major currencies over a 24-hour time frame, the
punter made a $46,000 profit in two days. ... DayTrader is one of more
than 100 trading systems based on so-called neural networks that are
supposed to mimic the way billions of brain cells work together to recognize
patterns in complex data. Researchers have tried to replicate the human
brain's neural circuitry in activities such as predicting energy prices
and measuring creditworthiness. Unlike conventional software, systems
based on neural networks aren't limited by their programmers' abilities.
They learn better ways to analyze data as more information comes along.
U.K.-based Retail Decisions uses neural networks to help online retailers
prevent payment fraud. For two decades, researchers at universities
in Britain and France have tried to build the perfect 'neural nose'
that can discern smells. Such a system could alert the authorities to
gas leaks, or warn retailers about foodstuff turning stale. Neural networks
started appearing in the financial industry in the 1980s." March 22, 2004: Questions
and Answers: OvaCheck T and NCI/FDA Ovarian Cancer Clinical Trials Using
Proteomics Technology. Press release from The National Cancer Institute.
"The NCI/FDA clinical proteomics program ties the study of all
proteins in living cells (or proteomics) to the clinical care of patients.
Specific technologies developed in this program are at an early stage
of application to diagnosis and treatment of cancer patients. The scientific
goal of proteomics is to capture the information flow within the cell
and the organism. ... The research, conducted under a Cooperative Research
and Development Agreement between the FDA/NCI Clinical Proteomics Program
and Correlogic Systems Inc., unites two exciting disciplines: proteomics
- the study of the proteins inside cells - and artificial intelligence
computer programs. Using blood from a finger stick in a test that is
completed in 30 minutes, researchers were able to differentiate between
serum samples taken from patients with ovarian cancer vs. normal individuals.
The approach relied on software that is able to detect patterns of key
proteins in the blood. Using a sophisticated artificial intelligence
computer program developed by Correlogic, scientists were able to 'train'
the computer to distinguish between patterns of small proteins found
in the blood of cancer patients vs. control samples. The artificial
intelligence program identified a pattern consisting of only a handful
of proteins, among thousands, that could be used to distinguish between
women with ovarian cancer and women with non-cancerous conditions." March 22, 2004: Sharp
unit to license IP from U.S. labs. By R. Colin Johnson. EE Times.
"Artificial-intelligence technology that could change the way busy
sports fans get their fix will be among the licensable intellectual
property unveiled here Tuesday (March 23) by the newly formed Sharp
Technology Ventures. ... One technology that could find a wide audience
is Sharp's HiMpact Sports, which applies a set of algorithms that understand
the semantics of baseball, football and soccer (for starters) and can
boil down a three-hour game to 45 minutes without skipping a single
play. ... How can Sharp Labs teach a computer to recognize a base hit
regardless of whether it's a grounder, a line drive or a bunt? Traditional
AI would extract features from the video stream, then use handwritten
rules to infer the meaning (base hit) from the features. After extensive
testing, however, Sharp Labs concluded that its requirement that HiMpact
provide 100 percent accuracy could only be met by probabilistic methods
that directly learn from experience. ... The best probabilistic method
Sharp Labs has tried thus far is the hidden Markov model (HMM), which
has previously been successful in learning how to recognize spoken voices.
Just as HMM is 'taught' words by training it with samples of different
people speaking the same word, Sharp Labs trained its HMM on video clips
it categorized into a training set." March 21, 2004: Talent
leak drains AT&T think tank - Once a bastion of cutting-edge research,
it's lost its star power. By Kevin Coughlin. The Star-Ledger / available
from NJ.com. "When AT&T Labs was carved from Bell Labs in the 1995
breakup of AT&T , the telecom giant set lofty goals for its new research
arm. ... Today, many of AT&T's top scientists still chase that dream
-- somewhere else. They strive to invent the future in the shiniest
ivory towers and hottest tech companies, from MIT to Microsoft, from
the Pentagon to Google. ... Gone from AT&T Labs, or nearly so, are groups
highly regarded for their long-term studies in artificial intelligence
and machine learning, network security and cryptography, algorithms
and theoretical computer science, and statistics. AT&T research operations
in Cambridge, England, and at the University of California, Berkeley
are gone, too. The National Science Foundation says federal support
for basic science has waned, as well, since 1980. 'It's an open question
where the next big ideas and discoveries will come from,' said Paul
Saffo of the Institute for the Future. A former adviser to AT&T Labs,
Saffo warned that corporate America's 'relentless race for short-term
value is killing our future ... AT&T Labs was a national crown jewel
-- and it's been terribly devalued.' 'If you're focusing on research
that's short-term, to impact products in a year or two, there are all
kinds of world-changing discoveries that you simply miss,' said Maria
Klawe, president of the Association for Computing Machinery and dean
of engineering at Princeton University. For its part, AT&T says fierce
competition has forced a shift from basic science to business-driven
research." March 18, 2004: Precarn
hands out $1.8M for research projects. Ottawa Business Journal.
"Precarn Inc., an Ottawa-based not-for-profit technology group,
handed out $1.8 million on Thursday to fund Canadian robotics and intelligent
systems projects. The funding was provided to three teams of researchers
representing 14 organizations and universities across the country. Contributions
in kind will add another $3.3 million to the amount. Precarn is a national
consortium of corporations, research institutions and government partners
that support the development of robotics and intelligent systems. The
latter is defined as technologies that perceive, reason, and essentially
act like humans. The three groups to receive funding include: Intelligent
e-Health Portal ... Scheduling the Use of Imaging Satellites ... Acoustic
Monitoring for Transportation...." March 18, 2004: Dial
'em for Mumbai. By Garry Barker. LiveWire / The Sydney Morning Herald.
"Increasingly, companies in Australia, the US, Europe and Britain
are cutting costs by moving customer contact to countries where English
is good and wages low. It is called outsourcing and, because it is costing
jobs in Western countries, it is now a political football, here and
overseas. ... But the outsourcers now face a challenge from fast-developing
artificial intelligence and speech-synthesis technologies. Mobile phones,
which now outnumber fixed-lines in Australia, do not suit call centres
that ask customers to push keypad buttons. If you call ScanSoft, a speech-synthesis
company in Sydney, you will be greeted by an Australian voice that is
rich, tutored and welcoming. ... Few callers realise they have been
holding a conversation with a computer. ... That, some say, is the future
for call centres - perhaps the ultimate future of human jobs of many
kinds." March 18, 2004: Multi-agent
technology: removing the 'artificial' from AI. By Fran Howarth.
IT-Director.com. "I don't want to spoil the book for you if you
haven't read it, but Michael Crichton's 2002 novel 'Prey' is an example
of science fiction meeting the latest technology. In the novel, Crichton
explores the use of a combination of nanotechnology, biotechnology and
computer technology to create a swarm of self-sustaining, self-reproducing
micro-robots that are capable of learning from experience. These micro-robots
have been programmed to prey on humans - and, through self-learning
capabilities, they keep getting more and more dangerous. ... Agents
are small software programs that communicate with each other, acting
behaviorally to interact and respond, matching available resources to
demand. ... In a multi-agent system, each agent communicates with the
network of agents, considering options for matching its capabilities
with demand, negotiating on such constraints as quality, price and time,
and then making decisions for committing resources to match demand.
As such, multi-agent systems have applications in a wide range of business
environments, such as supplying sophisticated decision-support capabilities
for supply chain demand and logistics scheduling. ... The software agents
become intelligent because they can make use of the knowledge contained
in ontology to use in the process of negotiation and decision-making." March 17, 2004: Software
agent targets chatroom paedophiles. By Duncan Graham-Rowe. New Scientist
Magazine (p. 23). "Paedophiles attempting to 'groom' children in
internet chatrooms can now be detected by a computer program. The program
works by putting on a convincing impression of a young person taking
part in a chatroom conversation. At the same time it analyses the behaviour
of the person it is chatting with, looking for classic signs of grooming:
paedophiles pose as children as they attempt to arrange meetings with
the children they befriend. Called ChatNannies, the software was developed
in the UK by Jim Wightman, an IT consultant from Wolverhampton in the
West Midlands. It creates thousands of sub-programs, called nanniebots,
which log on to different chatrooms and strike up conversations with
users and groups of users. ... Chatbots scarcely distinguishable from
people were predicted by computer pioneer Alan Turing as long ago as
1950, says Aaron Sloman, an artificial intelligence expert at the University
of Birmingham in the UK. So he is not surprised the bots are so convincing,
especially as their conversation is restricted to a limited topic -
like youth culture, say - and is kept relatively short. ... ChatNannies
includes a neural network program that continually builds up knowledge
about how people use language, and employs this information to generate
more realistic and plausible patterns of responses. ... Can you tell
the difference? In this chatroom dialogue, which is the bot and which
is the human? ..." March 17, 2004: RFID
chips watch Grandma brush teeth. By Celeste Biever. New Scientist
News. "Tiny computer chips that emit unique radio-frequency IDs
could be slapped on to toothbrushes, chairs and even toilet seats to
monitor elderly people in their own homes. Data harvested from the RFID
chips would reassure family and care-givers that an elderly person was
taking care of themselves, for example taking their medication. Unusual
data patterns would provide an early warning that something was wrong.
A group of Intel researchers demonstrated the technology to US government
officials in Washington DC on Tuesday. ... Algorithms on the PC use
'probabilistic' reasoning to infer what the person is doing. For some
tasks, merely picking up an object such as a toothbrush is enough. But
to determine that someone is making a cup of tea, a series of objects
and their order must also be known. Concerned relatives can then check
on their loved one over the internet. The computer could even be programmed
to pick up on unusual patterns automatically and alert relatives through
an email or SMS message. ... Other companies and universities also showcased
wireless healthcare technologies including a bed that monitors a person's
weight and movements. Larson's team at MIT demonstrated embedded systems
that rely on a network of embedded cameras and temperature sensors to
make inferences about behaviour." March 16, 2004: Robot
for the elderly at Future of Aging Services Conference. Press Release
available from Space Daily. "Professor Martha Pollack, University
of Michigan Department of Electrical Engineering and Computer Science,
and University of Pittsburgh and Carnegie Mellon collaborators, will
demonstrate 'Pearl,' an artificial-intelligence robot designed to assist
the elderly, and a handheld reminder device, during the Future of Aging
Services Conference on Tuesday, March 16, 2004, 3:30 p.m., at the Dirksen
Senate Office Building in Washington, D.C. As baby boomers become senior
citizens and health care costs continue to escalate, assistive technologies
that enable greater self regulation are likely to become more prevalent.
Pearl, is capable of various caregiver tasks, such as escorting an elderly
person to an appointment or reminding her of her daily schedule. Pearl
is intended to assist caregivers not replace them. By taking on more
mundane responsibilities of the caregiver and health professionals,
those individuals have more time to focus on the tasks that require
their high-level of training." March 16, 2004: Congress
let privacy programs be cut. By Michael J. Sniffen. The Associated
Press / available from The Boston Globe & Boston.com. "When
Congress curtailed Pentagon research it feared would ensnare innocent
Americans in the terrorism fight, it also allowed the Bush administration
to eliminate two projects to protect citizens' privacy from futuristic
tools. As a result, the government is quietly pressing ahead with research
into high-powered computer data-mining technology without the two most
advanced privacy protections developed for those terror-fighting tools.
... One privacy project worked with Poindexter's Genisys program, which
scanned government and commercial records for terrorist planning. The
other was part of his Bio-ALIRT program, which scanned private health
records for evidence of attacks. ... In reviewing the rise and fall
of [retired Admiral John] Poindexter's project, the Pentagon's inspector
general concluded the failure to address privacy problems from the outset
of future data-mining research risks developing 'systems that may not
be either deployable or used to their fullest potential without costly
revision.' Professor LaTanya Sweeney of Carnegie Mellon University was
the principal researcher developing privacy protections for the Bio-ALIRT
project. An early version of Bio-ALIRT was used to help protect President
Bush's 2001 inauguration and the 2002 Olympics. ... The biosurveillance
system monitors symptoms of patients at emergency rooms and doctors'
offices and less-obvious sources such as increases in grocery store
orange juice sales and in school absenteeism in hopes of detecting a
biological attack. Names are concealed until evidence suggests victims
need to be treated. Sweeney said DARPA paid to develop the privacy software
but did not pay for a public field test. 'The tool just sits there unused,'
she said. 'People think they have to sacrifice privacy to get safety.
And it doesn't have to be that way.'" March 15, 2004: Web
site faces battle for users in market for local news. March 15, 2004: The
European steel sector gets a makeover. Cordis News. "The European
Commission and the European steel industry have launched a EU Steel
technology platform to develop a roadmap for the industry up to 2030.
... The goal is to support the transformation of the European steel
industry towards a more knowledge based and value added industry with
improved competitiveness and sustainability. Emphasis will be on innovation
in new production technologies such as advanced computers systems, measurement
sensors, physical models and methods of artificial intelligence." March 15, 2004: Robots
to Get Boss Upgrades. By Mark Baard. Wired News. If you want to
glimpse the future of robotics, look no further than Roomba, Segway
and PackBot. The machines that can best navigate our homes and city
streets will be the chassis for tomorrow's home, service and mobile
robots, said roboticists this week at the Emerging Robotic Technologies
and Applications Conference in Cambridge, Massachussets. ... 'The big
future applications will be for the aging populations of the United
States, Europe and Japan,' said [Rodney] Brooks. Such applications could
come in handy for baby boomers in the United States, who are growing
older. By 2023 the United States as a whole will have one in five Americans
over age 65. That's the same percentage of seniors living today in Florida.
Robots will substitute for low-cost, imported elder-care workers in
developed countries where help is becoming scarce, said Brooks. March 1 1, 2004: The
gentle rise of the machines. Robotics - The science-fiction dream
that robots would one day become a part of everyday life was absurd.
Or was it? The Economist Technology Quarterly. "Since 1939, when
Westinghouse Electric introduced Electro, a mechanical man, at the World's
Fair in New York, robot fans have imagined a world filled with tireless
robotic helpers, always on hand to wash dishes, do the laundry and handle
the drudgery of everyday tasks. So far, however, such robots have proliferated
in science fiction, but have proved rather more elusive in the real
world. But optimists are now arguing that the success of the Roomba
and of toys such as Aibo, Sony's robot dog, combined with the plunging
cost of computer power, could mean that the long-awaited mass market
for robots is finally within reach. 'Household robots are starting to
take off,' declared a recent report from the United Nations Economic
Commission for Europe (UNECE). Are they really? ... [R]obots have had
their greatest impact in factories. Industrial robots go back over 40
years, when they first began to be used by carmakers. Unimate, the first
industrial robot, went to work for General Motors in 1961. ... Industrial
robotics is a $5.6 billion industry, growing by around 7% a year. But
the UNECE report predicts that the biggest growth over the next three
years will be in domestic rather than industrial robots. ... While prices
drop and hardware improves, research into robotic vision, control systems
and communications have jumped ahead as well." March 11, 2004: Drivers
wanted. Motoring - It is already possible to build driverless cars,
trucks and buses. But practical problems and safety concerns mean they
may never be allowed on the roads. The Economist Technology Quarterly.
"The teams competing in DARPA's Grand Challenge (see
article) have it easy. The driverless vehicles racing off-road in
the Mojave desert merely have to avoid boulders, dunes and the occasional
cactus. That is nothing compared with the hazards of the open road.
Put those same autonomous vehicles on Interstate 15 -- the busy road
that links Los Angeles and Las Vegas -- and they would also have to
contend with bleary-eyed weekenders, huge trucks and octogenarians puttering
along in mobile homes. Even so, engineers and scientists at a handful
of academic and industrial research centres are valiantly grappling
with the problem of designing autonomous passenger vehicles, buses and
trucks. They imagine a future in which convoys of cars would communicate
with each other and with roadside sensors to navigate congested freeways,
ensure smooth traffic flow and virtually eliminate accidents." March 10, 2004: Invasion
of the Robots - From medicine to military, machines finally arrive.
By Michael Kanellos. CNET News.com. "The robots are coming. And
when they get here, they will take out the trash. Mobile, intelligent
robots that can perform tasks usually reserved for humans are starting
to creep into mainstream society and could become a multibillion-dollar
market in a few years. ... The surge in robot activity is at least partly
the result of steady improvements in performance and steadily dropping
costs for processors, sensors, navigation software and the other technologies
required to put a mobile robot together. ... Just as important as performance
and costs, from a sales perspective, is customer satisfaction. Robot
developers have adjusted their products to meet practical customer needs
rather than simply using the machines to showcase a company's technological
abilities or as entertainment devices. ... The idea of automatons that
can perform various tasks has been around since ancient Egypt. The word
'robot,' however, is of relatively recent vintage, coined by Czech playwright
Karel Capek in the 1921 play 'R.U.R.' ... In all, North American robotics
manufacturers ship about $1 billion worth of products a year, according
to Robotic Industries Association spokesman Jeff Burnstein. Other statistics
show that the international market approaches $5 billion. ... The market
for personal and mobile robots could grow to $5.4 billion this year
and become larger than the industrial, nonmobile robot market, according
to Dan Kara, president of Robotics Trends, which holds conferences and
promotes the industry. By 2010, that figure will approach $17 billion,
Kara said." March 9, 2004: Talking
Up a Good Game - Computer Simulation to Stimulate Soldiers to Speak
in Tongues. By Paul Eng. ABCNEWS.com. "Computer science professors
at the University of Southern California, with funding from DARPA, have
been working on a simulation program designed to help military personnel
perform a more prevalent -- and difficult -- task in the international
war on terrorism: communicating peacefully and correctly with foreigners
in their own native tongues. ... And the idea, says Lewis Johnson, director
of the Center for Advanced Research in Technology for Education (CARTE)
at USC, was that computer games, programmed with artificially intelligent
'agents' could help soldiers develop those much needed linguistic abilities.
... The result: The Tactical Language Training System. ... The program
is based on the graphics capabilities of Unreal Tournament, a consumer
computer game that has been popular with game players for its team-based
approach to virtual combat. But, Johnson and his team of researchers
have tweaked the game by adding a 'speech recognition' engine and their
own 'intelligent agents,' software code that 'reacts' to how a user
speaks and what he says. ... The first part of the game, says Johnson,
acts as basically an 'intelligent tutoring' program.' ... But what makes
the program really 'intelligent' are the computer-generated and -controlled
characters, such as a virtual village leader and a virtual 'team member'
that acts as an in-game guide. These game characters are programmed
to react in ways that are unique to each individual user." March 8, 2004: City
pushes computer tutor for struggling algebra students. By Maggi
Newhouse. Tribune-Review / available from PittsburghLIVE.com. "About
40 percent of the city's ninth graders fail first-year algebra every
year, and Pittsburgh Public Schools officials say it's time to expand
an innovative math program used by some schools to the rest of the district.
... The centerpiece of the Carnegie Learning method, developed by Carnegie
Mellon University researchers, is a computer program that combines traditional
algebra problems with technology that can assess a student's progress
and skill level. The Cognitive Tutor program can then use the student
information to offer individualized instruction and provide instant
feedback for a student and teacher. 'What you're seeing here is artificial
intelligence,' said Jackie Smith, an instructional support director
for mathematics. 'The computer is learning and building a profile of
every single student as it diagnoses their strengths and weaknesses.'" March 8, 2004: No
Riders - Desert Crossing Is for the Robots Only. By John Markoff.
The New York Times (no fee reg. req'd.). "Anthony S. Levandowski
is working feverishly with a team of students from the University of
California at Berkeley to build an ambitious robot motorcycle to race
without a driver across the Mojave Desert. They are part of a crowd
that has been attracted by a Pentagon promise to pay $1 million to the
creators of the first self-guided vehicle to find its way this Saturday
along a programmed course from Barstow, Calif., to near Las Vegas. ...
Once the stuff of science fiction, autonomous vehicles have become relatively
commonplace. Airplanes take off and land under computer control, iRobot's
$199 Roomba vacuum cleaner trundles itself through living rooms, and
Sony sells a $1,599 pet robot. Yet the challenge of designing ground-hugging,
path-finding automated vehicles remains one of the thorniest tasks facing
those who work on artificial intelligence. ... Just as promising as
any useful military technologies that might emerge, said John Nagle,
Team Overbot's leader, are the potential commercial applications. 'The
killer app for this thing is automatic rental car return at the airport,'
he said." March 7, 2004: Canada
listens to world as partner in spy system. By Lynda Hurst. The Toronto
Star. "The public may not be so blasé about the fact that 'good'
countries, not just 'bad,' practice espionage -- routine, all-pervasive,
electronic espionage. But it's naive to think otherwise. All nations
spy on friends as well as enemies. ... Every day, billions of telephone
calls, e-mails, faxes, radio transmissions, even Internet downloads
are captured by orbiting satellites monitoring signals on Earth, then
processed by high-powered computers. ... 'Echelon is an electronic vacuum
cleaner, but it is finely tuned,' says Canadian intelligence specialist
Wesley Wark. ... Though it all may sound like Big Brother, there is
no need for the public to 'get paranoid that the government is listening
to them,' says [John] Thompson. 'That's not the case. They can't 'read'
a fraction of what they pick up.' In fact, less than 2 per cent of the
transmissions are ever seen by human eyes. Artificial intelligence does
the bulk of the listening and reading. ... Each alliance partner has
its own dictionary of key names, phrases, people, places and words (bomb,
for example), but all five are used at each country's listening posts.
The computer scans all messages for these words, flags those that contain
them, and eliminates the vast majority that don't. ... Echelon has also
devised an advanced voice-recognition system." March 7, 2004: Robotic
race could lead to robots packing weapons. By Byron Spice. Pittsburgh
Post-Gazette. "A prize of $1 million awaits the winning team in
Saturday's Grand Challenge, a 200-mile race across the Mojave Desert.
Related article: The nuts and bolts of the Grand Challenge But the race
is no more about the money than Charles Lindbergh's 1927 solo flight
across the Atlantic was about claiming the $25,000 Orteig Prize. This
wild scramble by a motley group of robotic vehicles is all about stretching
the limits of technology. It's about proving to a skeptical public that
machines can 'see' and 'think' well enough to rapidly traverse a varied
terrain. ... The race sponsor, the Defense Advanced Research Projects
Agency, has always been clear about why it is prepared to give away
$1 million in taxpayer money. The Defense Department, looking to repeat
the success of its unmanned aircraft such as the Predator, is heavily
investing in unmanned ground vehicles that will keep human soldiers
out of harm's way. 'This is an attempt to accelerate that technology
development,' said Air Force Col. Jose Negron, who is running the race
for DARPA.,,, Though it is possible to operate some unmanned vehicles
by remote control, the amount of bandwidth necessary to control a fleet
of vehicles simply will not be available on the battlefield, Rand's
[John] Matsumura said. So unmanned military vehicles will need to operate
largely autonomously, even though humans would continue to maintain
control over firing the weapons they carry, he added." March 7, 2004: Research
raises more than one debate. By Stacey Singer. PalmBeachPost.com.
"Beyond the debate on stem cells, [Xu] Wu's discovery also touches
a lesser-known controversy. Its implications may prove equally profound.
It concerns a major shift in the way drugs have been discovered and
made. Wu's way, and Scripps' [Research Institute] way, represents a
future that some scientists fear -- one where robots quickly draw from
vast libraries of man-made molecules, then test them, mixing and matching
with the same sort of equipment that transformed the Detroit automotive
industry. Indeed, Scripps has relied on engineers from the auto industry
to design its robots. ... The robot combines chemical solutions, then
drips them into hundreds of test tubes containing reactive animal proteins
or cells. If a sought-after reaction develops, the robot identifies
the substance as a 'hit.' Wu's screen identified 80 potentially useful
molecules. Four proved to be most potent. Wu then tested them in gelatin-coated
plates, laced with embryonic mouse cells. Then he waited. After one
week, about half the cells tested positive for proteins essential to
heart muscle contraction. Had he tested those chemicals himself, one
at a time, the research would have used up the better part of his career.
'It would have taken 10 years or something without the robot,' he said." March 7, 2004: Warrenville,
Ill.-Based Navistar Cut Indianapolis Plant Jobs by Automating. By
James P. Miller. Chicago Tribune
Knight Ridder/Tribune Business News / available from The Miami Herald.com.
"'The automation of factory production is just as significant as
globalization for explaining the loss of manufacturing jobs,' says Robert
Reich, a professor at Brandeis University and former Labor secretary
in the Clinton administration. Indeed, although it is a wrenching process,
many experts argue that sacrificing some jobs to automation may be the
best way to prevent millions more U.S. jobs from migrating offshore.
... American manufacturers have been automating plants--replacing workers
with 'smart' equipment like industrial robots and computerized factory
machines--since the early 1980s. But the automation trend has been accelerating
in recent years, as U.S. companies face intense price competition from
abroad at the same time that soaring health-care and pension costs have
been making U.S. workers ever more expensive. ... Humans have long been
slower than machines, and less capable in performing repetitive tasks.
The human advantage used to be that, in contrast to robots, they were
flexible enough to jiggle a dashboard to make it fit properly, or to
notice that somebody up the line had used the wrong screw. 'When General
Motors first started trying to make cars using robots, the robots would
smash windshields, or grow confused if things were slightly out of alignment,'
[David] Autor said. But a series of technical improvements, particularly
advances in robots' visual acuity, has in recent years made machines
superior to humans for many industrial tasks." March 5, 2004: Japan
Seeks Robotic Help in Caring for the Aged. By James Brooke. The
New York Times (no fee reg. req'd.). "Then there is the Wakamaru,
a mobile, three-foot-high speaking robot equipped with two camera eyes.
It is used largely by working people to keep an eye on their elderly
parents at home. These devices and others in the works will push Japanese
sales of domestic robots to $14 billion in 2010 and $40 billion in 2025
from nearly $4 billion currently, according to the Japan Robot Association." March 4, 2004: Walking
'signature.' March 4, 2004: Robo-talk
helps pocket translator. By Jo Twist. BBC News. "Visitors landing
at Tokyo's Narita Airport will be able to hire a device which can translate
the local lingo. The speech-to-speech technology was developed by NEC,
tested in Papero robots and then put in PDAs. ... As well as being able
to understand and imitate human behaviour, Papero (Partner-Type Personal
Robot), is the first robot to translate verbally between two languages
in colloquial tongue. It can cope, in other words, with slang and local
chatter, and has a vocabulary of 50,000 Japanese and 25,000 English
travel and tourism related words." March 4, 2004: New
research field focuses on videogames. By Anne Joling. The Michigan
Daily. "[Prof. Dmitri William] said videogame research is a growing
field studying all aspects of games, from their effects on people in
the form of causing violence and aggression -- as well as their possible
beneficial effects on society -- to their economic and cultural impact.
... John Laird, a professor in electrical engineering and computer science,
said he is interested in research that would aid in the creation of
the games. 'The research my group does on computer games is to use computer
games as an environment for testing out ideas on building artificial
intelligence characters, as well as exploring new types of games. By
adding artificial intelligence characters, it might be possible to make
computer games that are more of a synthesis of interaction and plot-driven
stories,' Laird said. ... Schools throughout the United States, including
the Massachusetts Institute of Technology as well as Purdue, Ohio State
and Princeton universities, all have classes and programs dealing in
videogame research." March 2, 2004: Virtual
robots patrol chatrooms. By Richard Warburton. Birmingham Post /
available from ic Birmingham. "A software programmer from Wolverhampton
has developed an army of 100,000 virtual robots to search internet chatrooms
to track down paedophiles. ... The artificial intelligence programmes,
known as 'bots', act exactly like humans in the way they communicate,
and have the power to locate suspect users to within about 50 metres.
The bots target internet users who are acting suspiciously or ask suspicious
questions. Every time they discover something suspicious they report
back to Mr [Jim] Wightman with the location of the internet user. ...
'I do a lot of programming for insurance companies and banks but I wanted
to do something that would benefit the world socially,' Mr Wightman
added." March 1, 2004: At
the technology sharp end - In these days of constraint and focus,
do carriers still have room for research laboratories? Hugh Bradlow
thinks so, but then he runs one. Telstra's CTO speaks to Robert Clark
about how research groups today pay their way. Telecom Asia. "[Q]Is
speech recognition the one that works for the Telstra's directory inquiries
IVR? [A] Now, the expectation is that these natural language speech
systems will become increasingly deployed because they offer some really
significant advantages, both from the point of view of productivity
and from the customer perspective. ... It's a hell of a lot easier than
punching your way through an IVR system. But the grammar development
is time-consuming, and at the moment it requires specialized expertise
and that complicates the deployment. What we've developed is a very
interesting tool, developed by one of our staff members who's actually
doing a PhD on the topic. He's come up with a way of actually doing
grammar inference. Instead of having to have someone program the grammar
in it, he's developed a tool where you can give it examples of the grammar
and it will start to learn the grammar. ... [Q]You've got
a very broad range of research topics artificial intelligence, Internet
systems and architecture. Are any of these bigger or given more resources
or priority than others? ... [A] No, my joke is: you name it, we
do it...." March 1, 2004: Microsoft,
Amid Dwindling Interest, Talks Up Computing as a Career. By Steve
Lohr. The New York Times (no fee reg. req'd.). "Bill Gates went
on a campaign tour last week, trying to reinvigorate his base, as they
say in politics. The number of students majoring in computer science
is falling, even at the elite universities. So Mr. Gates went stumping
at the University of Illinois at Urbana-Champaign, Carnegie Mellon,
Cornell, M.I.T. and Harvard, telling students that they could still
make a good living in America, even as the nation's industry is sending
some jobs, like software programming, abroad. ... The Computing Research
Association's annual survey of more than 200 universities in the United
States and Canada found that undergraduate enrollments in computer science
and computer engineering programs were down 23 percent this year. M.I.T.,
like other universities, is seeking to counter the trend by emphasizing
that computer science is increasingly a collaborative discipline, involving
work with experts in other fields of business and science to solve all
kinds of economic and social problems. 'What we have to emphasize is
that a good computer science education is a great preparation for almost
anything you want to do,' Professor [John V.] Guttag said. 'It's a terrific
time to be a computer scientist.' ... With each lecture, [Bill Gates']
message was that because of ever-faster machines, improved software
and the accumulated wisdom of decades of research, computer science
was on the cusp of genuine breakthroughs in areas like speech recognition,
artificial intelligence and machine-to-machine communication. These
advances may take five years, 10 years or more, but they are not so
far off now, he said." March 2004: The
Great Robot Race - Unmanned aerial vehicles are for wimps. 20 driverless
bots are about to get down and dirty in the Pentagon's million-dollar
rumble from L.A. to Las Vegas. Start your engines. By Douglas McGray.
Wired Magazine ( March 2004: March 2004: Terror
Games -
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