AI ALERT

25 January 2007

  
 

newspapersWelcome to the AI ALERT, a service from The American Association for Artificial Intelligence, showcasing an eclectic subset from the AI in the news collection in AI TOPICS, the AAAI sponsored pathfinder web site. As explained in our notices & disclaimers, the AI ALERT is intended to keep you informed of news articles published by third parties. The mere fact that a particular item is selected for inclusion does NOT imply that AAAI or AI TOPICS has verified the information (articles are offered "as is") or that there is endorsement of any kind. And because the excerpt may not reflect the overall tenor of the article, nor contain all of the relevant information, you are encouraged to access the entire article.

The Headlines:

The Articles:

January 2007: The Discover Interview - Marvin Minsky: The legendary pioneer of artificial intelligence ponders the brain, bashes neuroscience, and lays out a plan for superhuman robot servants. By Susan Kruglinski. Discover (Volume 28, Number 1).
"[Q] So as you see it, artificial intelligence is the lens through which to look at the mind and unlock the secrets of how it works?  [A] Yes, through the lens of building a simulation. If a theory is very simple, you can use mathematics to predict what it'll do. If it's very complicated, you have to do a simulation. It seems to me that for anything as complicated as the mind or brain, the only way to test a theory is to simulate it and see what it does. ... [Q] Many people feel that the field of AI went bust in the 1980s after failing to deliver on its early promise. Do you agree?  [A] Well, no. What happened is that it ran out of high-level thinkers. ... [Q] Has science fiction influenced your work?[A] It's about the only thing I read. ... [Q] What did you do as consultant on 2001: A Space Odyssey? ... "
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January 8, 2007: Conference to bring artificial intelligence closer to people - The meet titled 'AI and its benefits to society' will be inaugurated by the Chief Minister. The Hindu.
"In an attempt to bring the concept of artificial intelligence (AI) closer to society from the research labs where it has been mostly confined for the last five decades, the 20th International Joint Conference on Artificial Intelligence (IJCAI) will begin here on Monday. ... There would be seven special lectures, with Prof. Raj Reddy, Carnegie Mellon University, US, delivering the keynote address."
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January 9, 2007: McGill's research funds for robotic studies drying up - Directors warn about brain drain. Centre shows off wizardry while ringing alarm. By Roberto Rocha. The Gazette [canada.com].
"Among the nifty inventions created by McGill University engineers are an amphibious robot, a surveillance camera that can tell an intruder from a janitor, and a touchpad that converts written text into Braille. Almost 20 years since its founding, McGill's Centre for Intelligent Machines, or CIM, is counted among the world's top robotics labs. But federal research money is running dry and the centre risks losing its top brains to wealthier American schools, its directors are warning. ... [Gregory] Dudek was careful not to sound too alarmist, however. A $1.2-billion promise by Quebec to spur research and innovation is encouraging, he said, and an indication of the province's 'forward looking attitude.'"

  • Also see: Precarn faces funding crunch. An industry-led consortium that provides money for intelligent systems projects may only last another year or two. We highlight some of the research the organization is supporting. By Briony Smith. ITBusiness.ca (January 8, 2007). "The coffers of Precarn, a non-profit IT development consortium of corporations, research institutes, and government partners may be all out of money in a year or two, according to Precarn vice-president Graham Taylor. Some of Precarn's funding for universities was released through the Institute of Robotics and Intelligent Systems (IRIS), a Precarn-managed network of institutions and one of the federally-funded Networks of Centres of Excellence, according to Taylor. But a federal policy dictated that funding could only be offered for two seven-year periods. 'Then (the money would be used) to fund new networks,' said Taylor. 'It seems like a rather arbitrary policy.' ... He mourned the potential loss of cutting-edge research -- especially in the arena of robotics and intelligent systems. 'They're a huge part of the future. We need excellence in robotics to be able to compete on the world stage,' Taylor said."

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January 10, 2007: After Years of Effort, Voice Recognition Is Starting to Work. By Lee Gomes. The Wall Street Journal (page B1).
"So maybe you won't be talking to your car anytime soon, the way Microsoft and Ford would like you to be. Odds are, though, that you are already on speaking terms with silicon, probably more than you realize. And you can expect to be chatting it up more and more. Almost since computers were invented, computer scientists have been working to get the machines to understand what people are saying to them. Until the past few years, they hadn't been successful enough to offer anything but lab demos. Now, though, computer speech recognition is sufficiently advanced that it is showing up in a surprising variety of places. Like automobiles. ... While voice-controlled computers are sci-fi staples, in practice most people find a keyboard and a mouse are fine for telling a PC what to do. Bill Meisel, a veteran observer of the speech-recognition market, says the main use of speech recognition at the moment is in specialized applications like law and medicine. Radiologists, for example, are increasingly dictating their diagnoses and observations into a speech-recognition program rather than into a tape recorder that must later be transcribed. At its core, speech recognition takes advantage of extraordinarily complex statistical methods to match the sounds you say with the right words. ... One of the biggest applications of the technology is in call centers. ... David Nahamoo, who oversees IBM's speech research, says that some other new applications are already at hand. One is a system that produces automatic translations of foreign-language broadcasts, such as those in Arabic, first by performing speech recognition of the spoken words and then by using translation software to render things in English."
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January 10, 2007: Mother and Two Teenagers Make the Most of Cramped Spaces and Unlimited Goals. By Joseph P. Fried. The New York Times [registration req'd].
"Life is tight in the small apartment. Tight physically. Tight financially. But there is still room for large aspirations. 'I want to have combined majors in mechanical and computer engineering and a minor in business,' Dorichel Rodriguez, a high school senior and one of two teenage daughters living in the apartment with their mother, said recently. Sitting at a table in the compact living room, Dorichel, 17, told of having completed applications to 15 colleges, including three in the Ivy League, and of beginning the suspenseful wait to hear from them. 'I want to be a robotics technician,' she said. 'I’m interested in artificial intelligence.'"
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January 11, 2007: Pursuing a Lifelong Passion. By David Pluviose. Diverse: Issues In Higher Education (formerly Black Issues In Higher Education).
"M. Brian Blake - Title: Associate Professor, Department of Computer Science, Georgetown University. ... Driven. That, in a word, best describes Dr. M. Brian Blake. For somebody who fell into teaching by accident, he has taken the academy by storm. At age 33, he was the nation's youngest Black computer science professor awarded tenure. ... Dr. Juan E. Gilbert, an associate professor in Auburn University's computer science department and a 2002 Emerging Scholar, says Blake is an outstandgin scholar as his research in artificial intelligence and software integration is the top in the field. ... Blake says it's his duty to encourage young African-Americans to pursue high-tech careers; that's why he co-founded a program that maps out career pathways for students at a number of Washington, D.C.-area high schools."
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January 12, 2007:  Machine learning attracting major players - Research applications vary from gaming to cancer identification. By Laura Severs. Business Edge (Vol. 7, No. 1).
"Google is paying attention, so is Yahoo. But the University of Alberta-based Alberta Ingenuity Centre for Machine Learning (AICML) hasn't fully played its hand yet. Established as a centre for pure and applied machine- learning research with financial support in 2006 of $2.3 million from the province's Alberta Ingenuity Fund, AICML's machine-learning operation brings together experts with backgrounds in artificial intelligence, computer science, statistics and mathematics. Combining this knowledge, it finds useful data patterns in databases - but at speeds with which humans would be hard-pressed to compete. It has enjoyed early success with work in the gaming sector - its Poker Academy software, described as a full-feature poker simulator, has generated revenue for Edmonton spinoff firm BioTools - and software that helps with the identification of brain tumours. ... 'Data mining is a technique applied to databases. Machine learning is a step beyond data mining,' adds [AICML scientific director Russ Greiner, a U of A professor of computing science]. Web search engines such as Google and Yahoo wouldn't exist without machine learning, he notes."
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January 16, 2007: Ethics dilemma in killer bots. By Philip Argy (National President of the Australian Computer Society). Australian IT.
"When science fiction writer Isaac Asimov developed his Three Laws of Robotics back in 1940, the first law was: 'A robot may not harm a human being, or, through inaction, allow a human being to come to harm.' Asimov later amended the laws to put the needs of humanity as a whole above those of a single individual, but his intention was unchanged: that robots should be designed to protect human life and should be incapable of endangering it. So reports out of Korea of newly developed guard robots capable of firing autonomously on human targets are raising concerns about their potential uses. ... Ethicists have always questioned the use of technology in weapons development, but the new robots are causing additional disquiet because of their self-directing capabilities. ... It is the responsibility of all technology professionals to ensure that those in our organisation and within our influence are both responsible and ethical in the way they develop and apply technology."

  • Also see: Military Builds Robotic Insects. By David Hambling. Wired News (january 23, 2007). "If you feel something crawling on your neck, it might be a wasp or a bee. Or it might be something much more dangerous. Israel is developing a robot the size of a hornet to attack terrorists. And although the prototype will not fly for three years, killer Micro Air Vehicles, or MAVs, are much closer than that. British Special Forces already use 6-inch MAV aircraft called WASPs for reconnaissance in Afghanistan. ... 'After some development time, many countries would produce them,' warns Juergen Altmann, a physicist at Dortmund University, working in assessment of new military technologies. Indiscriminate use would cause many civilian casualties -- and they could end up in the hands of terrorists.... To prevent this danger, Altmann advocates an international ban on armed MAVs, similar to the ban on landmines."

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January 17, 2007: Walking like a Bomber - New strides in radar and gait-analysis software show that it's possible to detect when someone is carrying a bomb well before he or she reaches a security checkpoint. By Karen Nitkin. Technology Review.
"A new radar-imaging technology expected to reach market later this year could solve the problem by directing low-power radar beams at people--who can be 50 yards or more away--and analyzing reflected radar returns to reveal concealed objects. And early research indicates that this method could one day be augmented with video-analysis software that spots bombers by discerning subtle differences in gait that occur when people carry heavy objects. ... [T]his technology is helped by novel technology that tracks the subject--thereby enabling the radar to be continuously aimed at the moving person. Software developed by Rama Chellappa, a professor in the department of electrical and computer engineering and a member of the University of Maryland's Institute for Advanced Computer Studies, uses a form of 'gait recognition' to do this. It notes a person's walking style and physical attributes such as height, then uses those features to follow individuals as they move and locate them again even after they've been obscured by poles or other objects. ... But the next generation of Chellappa's technology could extend the role of gait recognition. In early-stage research, he has shown that he can analyze the joint movements of a walking person and tell whether those movements are anomalous and possibly consistent with carrying heavy objects--and even whether the person has just deposited something on the ground."
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January 18, 2007: Shortage of graduates threatens future of UK IT sector, warns BCS. By Justin Richards. ComputerWeekly.com.
"The British Computer Society has highlighted an alarming downturn in computer science graduate projections which could imperil long-term success for the nation's expanding IT economy. ... ... BCS president Nigel Shadbolt, a professor of artificial intelligence at the University of Southampton, said, 'Data collected suggests that the year-on-year reductions affecting the number of students studying computing within higher education will continue until at least 2009.' ... Shadbolt believes that one way for the UK to address its long-term IT skills needs is by getting students interested in IT at an early age. 'We need to introduce children at school to the excitement of computing and information technology in the age of the web. Action is required now to reverse the decline from 2010 onwards,' he said."

  • Also see: Women abandoning tech jobs - And fewer choosing IT as a career. By Steve Ranger. silicon.com (January 18, 2007). "The number of women choosing careers in IT continues to decline, with many put off by the long-hours culture and lack of flexible working. ... According to Carrie Hartnell, programme manager at industry trade group Intellect, only 16 per cent of tech workers are women, and even that meagre number is a drop from 18 per cent a couple of years ago. ... Intellect is asking members of the IT industry to participate in research examining the culture of their workplace and their career experiences. Using the results of the research Intellect intends to create an 'action plan' to improve diversity in the sector."

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January 19, 2007: Keeping more eyes on the planet - The US needs more satellites to learn how humanity is changing the Earth -- and fix any mistakes. The Monitor's View (commentary). The Christian Science Monitor.
"How vital is America's armada of Earth-watching satellites? Just ask forest firefighters or water managers tracking the West's winter snowpack. Many know this armada is in serious trouble. Washington needs to put the system on a stable orbit. ... Last year, some 60 countries and dozens of nongovernmental organizations began to implement a 10-year plan to establish a network of space-based, ocean-based, and land-based environmental sensors. And it comes at a time when satellite capabilities are expanding. For example, software engineers at NASA's Jet Propulsion Laboratory have developed ways to allow satellites to select their own objects to view, using artificial intelligence to train them in the art of picking the 'interesting' or 'unusual.'"
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January 22, 2007: Q & A: Ronald J. Brachman, Head, Worldwide Research Operations Yahoo! Research: ‘Yahoo research uses artificial intelligence everywhere.’ Interviewed by BV Mahalakshmi. The Financial Express.
"[Q] Why is there is so much talk on artificial intelligence (AI) globally? How does this system of learning help in developing intelligent systems? [A] Artificial intelligence is about understanding intelligent behaviour in machines and converting them to natural languages. We want to produce PCs that can perform natural language conversations. Moreover, it helps in planning ahead for the human activities in various applications. ... AI is a form of science having a potential for long-term aspirations like making computers more intelligent. ... [Q] How did the study of AI originate? What is its history ? ... [Q] How do you propose to develop your India R&D centre? What will be its focus area? ... AI is being used in every part of Yahoo’s research especially since we collect over 12 terabytes of data everyday. ... [Q] What is the AI’s future and how does your company propose to capitalise on this ? ..."
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January 23, 2007: Of Robots and Men - Rights for the Artificially Intelligent [radio broadcast]. Listen to "KJZZ's Dennis Lambert speak[ing] with Scottsdale attorney David Calverley, whose research into bioethics is driving him to artificial intelligence."

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January 24, 2007: Street-fighting robot challenge announced. By New Scientist Tech and AFP. NewScientist.com news.
"A contest to build a robot that can operate autonomously in urban warfare conditions, moving in and out of buildings to search and destroy targets like a human soldier, was launched in Singapore on Tuesday. The country's Defence Science and Technology Agency (DSTA) is offering one million Singapore dollars ($652,000) to whoever develops a robot that completes a stipulated set of tasks -- yet to be revealed -- in the fastest time possible. DSTA said individuals, companies, universities and research institutes are all welcome to participate in the contest, dubbed the TechX Challenge, although foreigners must collaborate with local partners."

  • Also see:
    • Boffins compete to build real Terminator - Singapore government wants autonomous urban combat robot. By Iain Thomson. vnunet.com (January 25, 2007)
    • Robotic 'Boss' stays the course in road demo. By David Templeton. Pittsburgh Post-Gazette (January 24, 2007). "'Boss' -- Carnegie Mellon University's robotic Chevrolet Tahoe -- drives without human assistance in urban settings with surprising skill. ... Boss is being prepared for an October qualifier in the Urban Challenge sponsored by the Defense Advance Research Projects Agency of the U.S. Department of Defense. The main race will be Nov. 3 in a yet-unnamed Western urban setting with a $2 million prize going to the team whose vehicle best travels 60 miles through cityscape in less than six hours without human assistance. As many as 50 vehicles are expected to compete. ... [General Motors] researchers Hong Bae and Jim Nickolaou said their company joined the team because the technology will make driving safer. The more immediate hope is to help drivers remain in lanes and prevent collisions. 'This is pushing the envelope,' Dr. Bae, a GM senior research engineer, said of Boss. 'It's sensing what's going on, and it makes smart decisions.' Ultimately, Mr. Nickolaou said, GM has big aspirations for the technology."

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January 25, 2007: Future of science debate begins - The UK public is being invited to have its say on the future. BBC News.
"Sciencehorizons [http://www.sciencehorizons.org.uk/], a government funded programme, aims to get people discussing their hopes and fears for future technologies. Their views will then be fed back to the government and could help shape future science policy. ... Science and Innovation Minister Malcolm Wicks said: 'What's important about Sciencehorizons is that we're inviting anyone and everyone to get involved in the discussions, not only the scientists. Over the coming decades, we're going to have some huge ethical debates about science as new discoveries are made and new technologies emerge. We will all need to be part of making informed decisions about how we develop and use scientific and technological advances,' he said."

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January 25, 2007: Artificial intelligence | Winning ways - Computers have started to outperform humans in games they used to lose. The Economist.
"Researchers in the field of artificial intelligence have long been intrigued by games, and not just as a way of avoiding work. Games provide an ideal setting to explore important elements of the design of cleverer machines, such as pattern recognition, learning and planning. They also hold out the tantalising possibility of fame and fortune should the program ever clobber a human champion. ... Deep Blue and its successors beat Mr Kasparov using the 'brute force' technique. ... In the past two decades researchers have explored several alternative strategies, from neural networks to general rules based on advice from expert players, with indifferent results. Now, however, programmers are making impressive gains with a technique known as the Monte Carlo method. ... MoGo, a [Go] program developed by researchers from the University of Paris, has even beaten a couple of strong human players on the smaller of these boards -- unthinkable a year ago. It is ranked 2,323rd in the world and in Europe's top 300."
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The Expansion Slot

January 4, 2007: How to go to M.I.T. for free - Online 'intellectual philanthropy' attracts students from every nation on earth. By Gregory M. Lamb. The Christian Science Monitor. "By the end of this year, the contents of all 1,800 courses taught at one of the world's most prestigious universities will be available online to anyone in the world, anywhere in the world. Learners won't have to register for the classes, and everyone is accepted. The cost? It's all free of charge. The OpenCourseWare movement, begun at the Massachusetts Institute of Technology (MIT) in 2002 and now spread to some 120 other universities worldwide, aims to disperse knowledge far beyond the ivy-clad walls of elite campuses to anyone who has an Internet connection and a desire to learn."
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January 5, 2007: Robo Cup.  Podcast & audio transcript from The Discovery Files - new advances in science and engineering from the National Science Foundation, hosted by Bob Karson. "Manuella Veloso [head of Carnegie Mellon's CORAL (Cooperate, Observe, Reason, Act, and Learn) lab] is a very unusual soccer mom. The players she coaches are focused, don't get tired, and always learn from their mistakes. They play with a machine-like precision -- because they're robots. ... Unlike remote-control robotic games, these players are on their own, using principles of artificial intelligence to make decisions, execute plays, and score goals."
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January 6, 2007: Robot lab to open in Osaka. Daily Yomiuri Online. "Osaka University is to open a laboratory to develop next-generation robots.... Taking advantage of its city center location, the university aims to create user-friendly robots to assist people with their everyday lives, in cooperation with the Osaka municipal government and private firms in and outside Japan. ... The laboratory's researchers will pursue such aspects of robotics as communication networks, artificial intelligence and control technology. ... The laboratory plans to exhibit prototypes of robots and machines, and will allow the public to test them to determine their usability and potential commercialization problems."
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January 8, 2007: Ford-Microsoft software unveiled. BBC News. "Microsoft and Ford have unveiled a system to enable voice-activated music and telephone calls for car drivers. ... Drivers will be able to say contacts' names in English, French or Spanish, or tell the car which song they want to hear from their MP3 player."
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January 8, 2007: Technology clears a path for putting robots to work - Emphasis shifts at consumer show. By Hiawatha Bray and Carolyn Y. Johnson. The Boston Globe [boston.com]. "Robots have been instrumental in exploring Mars and doing heavy-duty industrial work for years, but robots for consumers have mostly been pricey toys. Now, as the largest consumer technology trade show opens today in Las Vegas, personal robots are striding away from the toy aisle and toward the tool department. ... 'They're ready for prime time,' said Tara Dunion , director of communications for the Consumer Electronics Association. ... That's exactly what Microsoft, iRobot, and other robot-makers hope to do as they release new robots and software that allow people to use their products as a starting point to create something of their own."

  • Also see/hear:
    • Build your own bot, courtesy of iRobot. By Michael Kanellos. CNET News.com (January 7, 2007). "At the Consumer Electronics Show, iRobot will publicly release its latest product, the iRobot Create, a programmable robot for entertainment and education. ... "This isn't a toy or a plug-and-chug thing," iRobot co-founder Helen Grenier said in an interview. "It is a programmable robot for students and robot enthusiasts." Engineers at the company and students at various universities have been tinkering with the device for a while. ... More than 2 million Roombas have already shipped. Competitor Evolution Robotics, meanwhile, will enter the market with a vacuum it says has a more sophisticated navigation system than is available on the market today."
    • Consumer Electronics Show Abuzz About Mobility (radio broadcast). NPR Morning Edition report by Laura Sydel (January 8, 2007). Hear SpeechGear's machine translation demonstration at the consumer electronics show in Las Vegas.

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January 11, 2007: The nonhuman touch - Robots are making inroads in health care, are great with stroke patients, autistic kids. By Seth Borenstein. The Associated Press / available from TimesDispatch.com. "'We're able to show consistently better outcome with therapy using robots rather than conventional standard care,' said his MIT colleague, Neville Hogan. In experiments across the country, robots are providing the human caring touch to patients who need more help than there are therapists and nurses: stroke victims, autistic children, and the elderly.... At the University of Southern California, Maja Mataric, who runs the robotics center, is also using robot therapy on stroke patients. Unlike Hogan's robots, Mataric's are more like a coach, using humor and personality, to guide patients through monotonous therapy. ... In Pittsburgh, 'Nursebot' (a robot that took on male and female personalities of Earl and Pearl depending on the voice used at the time) was tried out with elderly patients. Despite the stereotype of older people being technology phobic, the patients accepted the robots."
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January 11, 2007: Must-know terms for the 21st Century intellectual - Redux. George P. Dvorsky's Sentient Developments Blog. "Before I get into the list, however, I'd like to clarify the purpose of this exercise. First, I am trying to come up with a list of the most fundamental and crucial terms that are coming to define and will soon re-define the human condition...." Here are some excerpts > "Artificial General Intelligence: This ain't your daddy's AI. Rather, AGI describes the kind of intelligence that you and I have -- the commonsense knowhow.... Bayesian Rationality: Bayesian rationality is a probabilistic approach to reasoning. ... Friendly AI: If we are going to survive the Singularity and the onset of greater-than-human AI, it had better be friendly. And if it turns out to be friendly, it won't be by accident. ... Mass Automation: The robotic revolution has only just begun. Robots, AI and automated systems are poised to dramatically reduce the amount of manual labor performed by humans. ..."

  • Also see: Futurist - Technology, education are crucial. By Fanny S. Chirinos. Corpus Christi Caller-Times (January 12, 2007). "Futurist Ed Barlow suggested the following eight literacies to help prepare the work force for today's and tomorrow's global job market. ... Science and Technology: *Learn molecular science: bio- and nanotechnology *Learn information technology: virtual, digital and artificial intelligence *Learn about ethics ..."

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January 12th - This Day in History: January 12, 1997. From The Computer History Museum. "The Fictional HAL 9000 Computer Becomes Operational: The fictional HAL 9000 computer becomes operational, according to Arthur C. Clarke's 2001: A Space Odyssey."
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January 12, 2007: Robo Crawler Monitors Underground Power Cables - Researchers have developed a robot that senses damage in cables before they fail. By Kate Greene. Technology Review. "Often before a power cable goes, it gives off a few subtle signs of distress. Unfortunately, many critical distribution cables are underground, which makes them difficult for people to access and monitor. But now a new cable-crawling robot, developed by researchers at the University of Washington (UW), Seattle, could provide much-needed insight into the health of subterranean power systems. 'Monitoring cable systems is one of the holy grails of the electricity industry,' says Don Von Dollen, program manager for the IntelliGrid Program at the Electric Power Research Institute (EPRI), in Palo Alto, CA. ... The UW researchers approached the challenge by designing a robot that can autonomously traverse underground cables buried in pipes and tunnels."
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January 12, 2007: Artificial Intelligence Used To Grade Medical School Tests. By K.C. Jones. InformationWeek. "The Association of American Medical Colleges will use artificial intelligence to score the writing portion of the Medical College Admission Test. Vantage Learning and Prometric announced this week that they will provide intelligent, computer-based essay scores beginning this year. ... The new format allows AAMC to administer the test 22 times annually, up from two."
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January 16, 2007: Robot learns to play dirty Scrabble. New Scientist (Issue 2586, page 23; subscription req'd). "Beating people at Scrabble is already no contest for computer programs, which can easily memorise entire dictionaries. Now a Scrabble-playing program has gone one better by playing dirty. Developed by Eyal Amir and Mark Richards at the University of Illinois, Urbana-Champaign, the program is able to predict which letter tiles other players hold, and use this information to choose moves which block a high-scoring word that an opponent might otherwise have played. ... [Amir] presented the bot at a conference on artificial intelligence in Hyderabad, India this week."
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January 17, 2007: Ring for a robot. The Engineer Online. "Swarms of intelligent robots that can clean, tidy and even attend to patients remotely could revolutionise the provision of healthcare in hospitals. ... The EU-funded project, known as IWARD, will be co-ordinated by the Fraunhofer Institute in Germany and involve collaboration between European academic institutions, including the universities of Cardiff, Dublin and Newcastle. Project leader Thomas Schlegel, from Fraunhofer's human-computer interaction division, says the robots could also help hospitals cut MRSA infections on wards by keeping them cleaner. While the hardware and modules will use off-the-shelf technology as much as possible, the swarm-based intelligence will demand ground-breaking work, according to Schlegel. Fraunhofer is working with Warwick University to develop this innovative software platform to allow the robots to operate semi-autonomously."

  • Also see: Robot nurses could be on the wards in three years, say scientists. By Angus Howarth. Scotsman.com News (January 22, 2007). "Robot nurses could be bustling around hospital wards in as little as three years. The mechanised 'angels' - being developed by EU-funded scientists - will perform basic tasks such as mopping up spillages, taking messages and guiding visitors to hospital beds. ... The robots would also employ face and voice recognition technology to communicate with patients and spot unauthorised visitors."

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January 18, 2007: Fantastic Voyage - Departure 2009. By Emmet Cole. Wired News. "An international team of scientists is developing what they say will be the world's first microrobot -- as wide as two human hairs -- that can swim through the arteries and digestive system. ... The tiny robot, small enough to pass through the heart and other organs, will be inserted using a syringe. Guided by remote control, it will swim to a site within the body to perform a series of tasks, then return to the point of entry where it can be extracted, again by syringe. ... 'I think the use of this sort of technology is like any other technology in the sense that it is subject to the desires, for better or worse, of the people with the ability to make use of it,' [James Friend of the Micro/Nanophysics Research Laboratory at Australia's Monash University, who leads the team] said. 'In light of human history I wouldn't be surprised to see the entire gambit from dystopia to utopia played out in miniature here. Even so, I remain optimistic.'"
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January 19, 2007: Microsoft Predicts The Future With Vista's SuperFetch - SuperFetch, a feature within Vista, predicts which applications are used when, then pre-loads them so that they're instantly available. By Gregg Keizer. InformationWeek. "Microsoft Research contributed to the SuperFetch effort, a feature within Vista that predicts which applications are used when, then pre-loads them so that they're instantly available. 'As part of a long term set of projects, we want to teach the computer to learn from users to make the machine more proactive,' says Eric Horvitz, a principal researcher with Microsoft's R&D as well as the president-elect of the American Association for Artificial Intelligence. 'We want to use the system's idle time to make things punchier.' Horvitz and his colleagues developed the core algorithms that make up the predictive part of SuperFetch, the technology that plays Nostradamus for the operating system. ... Long-range, says Horvitz, he'd like to extend SuperFetch-like predicting to actions within individual applications"
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January 22, 2007: Expert KOs Rocky's artificial intelligence - The latest Rocky film, which opened in Ireland last weekend, has posed questions about the potential of artificial intelligence (AI). By Emmet Ryan. ElectricNews.net. "'The fact that a computer fight is a central plot point to the movie makes it a work of sci-fi [science fiction],' said Bernard Gorman, a researcher on AI in Dublin City University, speaking with ENN. '[The computer simulation] is significantly ahead of what is possible at present.' ... The idea for a computer-simulated fight in Rocky Balboa was inspired by an actual simulation that measured Muhammad Ali against Rocky Marciano in 1970, in what was known as 'The Superfight'. ... Gorman said the greater focus on AI at present is looking to the future rather than comparing champions of the past. 'There are groups that hope to have a robot soccer team capable of beating the world champions by 2050," he said. "Like Rocky it's a long shot but the goal is there and people are working towards it all the time.'"
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January 23, 2007: You are wasting time. Find out why. The cost of ineffective search. By Jon Brodkin. Network World. "A company that employs 1,000 information workers can expect more than $5 million in annual salary costs to go down the drain because of the time wasted looking for information and not finding it, IDC research found last year. ... It turns out, analysts say, that most enterprises are not using the most up-to-date search applications. Not only that, enterprises aren’t using the applications they have as effectively as they should. ... Searching based on concepts is 'the generation of search that is just being adopted now.' Most enterprises have not yet upgraded to enterprise search platforms that use this technique, [Susan] Feldman says.... Feldman and some other analysts are optimistic that semantic technology will fuel the next generation of searches. The word semantic 'means meaning,' she says, so an application using semantic technology understands not just keywords but the relationships between subjects, verbs and modifiers. 'This means you can type in a question and it will understand it,' she says. 'More and more applications are able to understand who, what, when, where and why questions, and differentiate among them.' The so-called 'Semantic Web' has been a hot topic of discussion in technology circles for several years. The Semantic Web has been defined as 'an extension of the current Web in which information is given well-defined meaning, better enabling computers and people to work in cooperation.' ... The U.S. Army used artificial intelligence to create a virtual officer known as 'SGT STAR,' who is capable of answering a range of questions posed by potential recruits visiting the Army Web site."
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January 24, 2007: At Yale, robotics research matures. Yale Daily News. "No thanks to Steven Spielberg, robotics research has moved from the realm of science fiction into that of academia in recent years. At Yale this move is manifested in part by the presence of Nico, a short, baseball-capped addition to the Computer Science Department. Nico is a robot that computer science student Kevin Gold GRD ’09 uses to run experiments dedicated to topical issues in the field of artificial intelligence. Gold, a member of professor Brian Scassellati’s social robotics lab, develops models of language acquisition and self-recognition with the diminutive robot. ... The robot classifies everything it sees into one of three categories -- self, other and inanimate -- which it generates from parameters that Gold has given it and from observing its surroundings. ... Nico is not the only project underway at the social robotics lab. Wilma Bainbridge ’09, who works at the lab, said that researchers are planning to add new robots and improve old ones. 'The lab is currently working on a project that involves prosody, which refers to the way the pitch, stress and intonation of one’s voice varies,' she said. 'The goal is to eventually create robots able to interpret prosody.' ... Scassellati also reflected on the rapid integration of robots in human life that has taken place in the recent past."
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January 25th: Jan. 25, 1921: The Robot Cometh. By Tony Long. Wired News. "A new play premiers at the National Theater in Prague, the capital of what was then Czechoslovakia. R.U.R, (which stands for Rossum's Universal Robots) by Karel Capek, marks the first use of the word 'robot' to describe an artificial person."
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January 25, 2007: Artificially intelligent homes for Alzheimer's patients coming: scientists. CBC News. "Scientists in Toronto are developing an artificial intelligence system that would help people with Alzheimer's disease or other cognitive impairments live safely at home.The Toronto Rehabilitation Institute is working with University of Toronto researchers to make home-based computer systems that would assist elderly people with memory loss in living independently. ... [L]ead scientist Alex Mihailidis said in a written statement. 'We are using artificial intelligence to support aging-in-place so that people can remain in their homes for as long as possible.' ... The researchers have also created a home emergency alert system that uses ceiling-mounted cameras linked to computers running image analysis software to determine whether a person has fallen down. It would then ask whether he or she needs help and use a voice-recognition system to process a response. ... The researchers say they are the first in the world to test home-based artificial intelligence systems in clinical trials."
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FROM THE DECK OF THE AI NEWS CLIPPER: Did you see the AI Crossword in the latest AI Magazine [Winter 2006] on pages 118 - 119? There's a good chance that you have a connection to at least one clue or answer. An interactive version can be accessed from our Crossword home page, which is also where you'll find a link to the annotated solution.

 

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