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October 31, 2004
Selling Out for Science
By the time Californians go to the polls this week, they will have endured months of Biology 101 lectures from celebrity activists such as eBay founder Pierre Omidyar and producer Doug Wick. Seeing Hollywood and Silicon Valley types pushing their favorite causes—in this case, Proposition 71, a $3 billion research initiative for human embryonic stem cells—is nothing new in California. Seeing scientists do so is another matter. Hans Kierstead of the University of California's Reeve-Irvine Research Center announced shortly before Election Day that he had succeeded in coaxing human embryonic stem cells into producing highly purified brain cells called oligodendrocytes, then injected them into rodents with bruised spines. After nine weeks, the rats regained their ability to walk and run. The results were "thrilling and humbling," said Kierstead. "The humbling part is that the cells are so incredibly powerful."
Posted by Vishwakarma C. K. @ 03:48 PM | Comments (0) | TrackBack
October 30, 2004
We’re funny in the brain
A computer walks into a bar ... no, hang on, why did the mainframe cross the road? Please, don’t heckle. IT humour doesn’t work very well. Computers don’t do jokes and the people who understand computers aren’t famous for being a bundle of laughs either. But Dr Kim Binsted, an expert in artificial intelligence (AI), plans to change that. If her project succeeds, your computer of the future could be swapping wisecracks with you faster than a New York cab driver. Her punning program is already helping children with severe speech problems.
Posted by Vishwakarma C. K. @ 07:32 PM | Comments (0) | TrackBack
October 29, 2004
Scientists zero in on why time flows in one direction
The big bang could be a normal event in the natural evolution of the universe that will happen repeatedly over incredibly vast time scales as the universe expands, empties out and cools off, according to two University of Chicago physicists.
“We like to say that the big bang is nothing special in the history of our universe,” said Sean Carroll, an Assistant Professor in Physics at the University of Chicago. Carroll and University of Chicago graduate student Jennifer Chen will electronically publish a paper describing their ideas at http://arxiv.org/.
Carroll and Chen’s research addresses two ambitious questions: why does time flow in only one direction, and could the big bang have arisen from an energy fluctuation in empty space that conforms to the known laws of physics?
Posted by Vishwakarma C. K. @ 06:57 PM | Comments (0) | TrackBack
October 28, 2004
Signals from monkey's brain move robot
The monkey sees a piece of zucchini and pops the morsel into its mouth. It's a routine act -- or would be, if the monkey had used its own arm.
But this monkey in Andrew Schwartz's laboratory at the University of Pittsburgh is snacking with the help of a robotic arm that the monkey controls simply by thinking
Posted by Vishwakarma C. K. @ 06:51 PM | Comments (0) | TrackBack
October 27, 2004
Brain-in-a-dish flies plane
A living "brain" of cultured rat cells now controls an F-22 fighter jet flight simulator, a U.S. scientist says.
Scientists say the research could lead to tiny, brain-controlled prosthetic devices and living computers flying pilotless aeroplanes.
And if scientists can decipher the ground rules of how such neural networks function, the research may also result in novel computing systems to tackle dangerous search-and-rescue jobs and assess bomb damage without endangering humans.
Posted by Vishwakarma C. K. @ 11:37 AM | Comments (0) | TrackBack
October 25, 2004
A robotics population to explode
The growth of robotics is expected to take off and gather momentum in both home and industrial markets, the United Nations Economic Commission for Europe (ECE) reported in a new survey of the world's robots.
"The chances of having an obedient robot do unwelcome or dangerous jobs have increased tremendously," the report stated.
The World Robotics Survey 2004 was produced by the ECE and the International Federation of Robotics.
Posted by Vishwakarma C. K. @ 03:50 PM | Comments (0) | TrackBack
October 24, 2004
Chips Coming to a Brain Near You
In this era of high-tech memory management, next in line to get that memory upgrade isn't your computer, it's you.
Professor Theodore W. Berger, director of the Center for Neural Engineering at the University of Southern California, is creating a silicon chip implant that mimics the hippocampus, an area of the brain known for creating memories. If successful, the artificial brain prosthesis could replace its biological counterpart, enabling people who suffer from memory disorders to regain the ability to store new memories.
And it's no longer a question of "if" but "when." The six teams involved in the multi-laboratory effort, including USC, the University of Kentucky and Wake Forest University, have been working together on different components of the neural prosthetic for nearly a decade. They will present the results of their efforts at the Society for Neuroscience's annual meeting in San Diego, which begins Saturday.
One more example of applications of cybernetics in medical. The future of artificial brain is not so far.
Posted by Vishwakarma C. K. @ 05:52 PM | Comments (0) | TrackBack
October 23, 2004
Brain implant transmits thoughts to computer
A 25-year-old Massachusetts man who can't move his arms and legs has been checking his e-mail and changing television channels - just by thinking about it.
The man, Matthew Nagle, is the first person ever to receive a brain implant that transmits his thoughts to a computer cursor, using technology originally developed and tested in monkeys at Brown University.
Nagle received the implant at Rhode Island Hospital in late June and began using it about six weeks later. He is the first participant in a study of the device, known as BrainGate, developed by the Foxboro, Mass.-based Cybernetics Neurotechnology Systems. The research is financed by venture capital.
BrainGate is a silicon wafer about a sixth-inch square, with 100 hair-thin electrodes that extend a sixteenth of an inch into the brain.
When Nagle thinks about moving his arm, the electrodes pick up his brain signals and transmit them to a half-inch-high pedestal on the outside of his head. The signals then travel through a fiber-optic cable to a cart laden with computer equipment.
This is one more step towards the applications cybernetics in medical. Cybernetics is one of the advanced technologies that will change the life of common people in coming time. One of the great researchers in the area of Cybernetics, Prof Kevin Warwick of University of Reading has already performed few experiments on himself and his wife.All the sci-fi movies, which use to show the half man and half machines like Will Smith in I, Robot and Arnold Schwarzenegger in Terminator will become normal people living around us. These are the future human machines that will take the shape of reality with the growing research in Cybernetics.
Posted by Vishwakarma C. K. @ 10:54 AM | Comments (0) | TrackBack
October 22, 2004
Robots set to get homely by 2007
Seven times more robots will helping us out with the cleaning, security and entertainment in three years' time, as their price falls and they get smarter.
It is not quite the humanoid vision of blockbuster film I, Robot as many of them will be vacuum bots. Two-thirds of the 607,000 domestic robots in use were bought in 2003, says the UN's annual World Robotics report.
As per the data collected and market research that has been done in consumer robotics, it is surely a big market to capture. And a next boom in the technology like software boom. The consumer robotics has no limit of applications; it involves the most advanced technologies like embedded system, AI, Neural Networks, GA. The people entered in this area have great future as a business as well as technology to work in.
The applications possible are like a personal pet, to a personal servant robot like in the movie I, Robot. That day is not too far from now.
Posted by Vishwakarma C. K. @ 04:11 PM | Comments (0) | TrackBack
October 21, 2004
NASA Space Station On-Orbit Status 19 October 2004
All ISS systems continue to function nominally, except those noted previously or below. Day 4 of joint Exp.9/Exp.10 operations
After wake-up at the regular time (2:00am EDT), another demanding day's schedule awaited the two crews, starting out with rave kudos from Flight Control: "You're making complicated Elektron repairs look easy; you're fixing spacesuits, flying the arm, and completing an impressive array of payloads ops, to say nothing of conducting the handover."
Posted by Vishwakarma C. K. @ 03:30 PM | Comments (0) | TrackBack
High-tech club builds 12-inch airplane
A group of 20 UA students are working on an award-winning Micro-Air Vehicle design, which carries an onboard Global Positioning System, infrared sensors and cutting-edge artificial intelligence.
The students are part of the Micro Air Vehicle club, which hopes to develop a small, hard-to-detect unmanned aerial vehicle, or UAV, for use in military applications.
Machine foresees the future of micro air vehicle mainly in the area of defense where one can track the inaccessible areas. The autopilot micro vehicle with advanced communication/sensing/control and computation technologies like GPS, IR and AI and neural networks which will create its own map and maneuver in the areas no one know about.
For now this is an expensive hobby and research which need a lot of funding but in coming future with rapid advancement in technologies it will become a big area of robotic research like now is Human Robotics.
Posted by Vishwakarma C. K. @ 03:19 PM | Comments (0) | TrackBack
October 20, 2004
'Knowledge discovery' could speed creation of new products
In the recent science-fiction thriller "Minority Report," Tom Cruise plays a detective who solves future crimes by being immersed in a "data cave," where he rapidly accesses all the relevant information about the identity, location and associates of the potential victim.
A team at Purdue University currently is developing a similar "data-rich" environment for scientific discovery that uses high-performance computing and artificial intelligence software to display information and interact with researchers in the language of their specific disciplines.
"If you were a chemist, you could walk right up to this display and move molecules and atoms around to see how the changes would affect a formulation or a material's properties," said James Caruthers, a professor of chemical engineering at Purdue.
Complete Article
Posted by Vishwakarma C. K. @ 05:30 PM | Comments (0) | TrackBack
We're fifty years into the future
On 18 October, 1954, this revolutionary device was announced in America. Fifty years later, it has been blamed for rock and roll, the death of the US consumer electronics industry, the relentless rise of IBM and the shocking state of modern manners. Not a bad score for a transistor radio.
It wasn't just a transistor radio, of course. It was the first. In fact, it was the first transistorised mass-market device, and it symbolised the central role that technology was taking in the post-war world. Never underestimate the power of such symbols – Thomas Watson Jr., head of IBM, gave his senior managers a TR-1 apiece to kick-start the company's transition from valves. That symbolism had a different flavour ten years later as outfits like Sony and Toshiba used the same technology to smoothly wrest control of the market from its inventors. Outsourcing fears are nothing new.
Posted by Vishwakarma C. K. @ 04:05 PM | Comments (0) | TrackBack
October 19, 2004
Connecting the dots
Creating the World Wide Web didn't make Tim Berners-Lee instantly rich or famous. That's partly because the web sprang from relatively humble technologies.
Berners-Lee's invention was based on an information retrieval program called Enquire (named after a Victorian book, Enquire Within Upon Everything), which he wrote in 1980 while working as a programmer at the European Organisation for Nuclear Research (CERN) in Geneva, Switzerland. In part, the lack of riches is because Berners-Lee did the unthinkable when he finished writing the tools that defined the web's basic structure more than 10 years later: he gave them away, with CERN's blessing, no strings attached
Posted by Vishwakarma C. K. @ 03:56 PM | Comments (0) | TrackBack
Insects could hold the key to artificial intellegence
You have seen the movies in which robots are self-aware and joked about computer cockroaches, but scientists in their quest to understand intelligence and to develop artificial intelligence in robotics have actually turned to the study of insects and primitive vertebrates.
They are looking at how these react to stimuli and how they develop memory, striving to replicate it in robotics for use in applications as diverse as medicine and space exploration.
Posted by Vishwakarma C. K. @ 03:36 PM | Comments (0) | TrackBack
October 17, 2004
Electronic Nose
NASA is developing the Electronic Nose, or ENose for short. It's a device that can learn to recognize almost any compound or combination of compounds. It can even be trained to distinguish between Pepsi and Coke. Like a human nose, the ENose is amazingly versatile, yet it's much more sensitive.
"ENose can detect an electronic change of 1 part per million," says Dr. Amy Ryan who heads the project at JPL. She and her colleagues are teaching the ENose to recognize those compounds -- like ammonia -- that cannot be allowed to accumulate in a space habitat.
Posted by Vishwakarma C. K. @ 06:22 PM | Comments (0) | TrackBack
October 16, 2004
Transhumanism at the Crossroads
For as long as I can remember, I've been fascinated by prospects for the future of our society and our species. This has kept me actively involved in the science fiction field, which has likely provoked sighs and raised eyebrows from my staider colleagues in academia and legal practice.
Yet this is nothing compared to the social stigma of being involved in the transhumanist movement. Since about 1997, much of my thinking, reflected in my fiction and nonfiction writing, has focused on issues that concern transhumanists: the prospects of artificial intelligence and uploading; the rights and wrongs of reproductive cloning, genetic engineering and radical life extension; and the general merits of human enhancement technologies. My viewpoint has generally been sympathetic to transhumanist approaches and at least one commentator has labeled me a "transhumanist technophile," which is fair enough.
Complete Article by Russell Blackford
Posted by Vishwakarma C. K. @ 03:32 PM | Comments (0) | TrackBack
October 15, 2004
US science alliance eyes artificial retina
Nine US research institutions, including five of the Department of Energy's (DOE) laboratories, have forged an alliance in a bid to speed development of an artificial retina.
The deal specifies that all institutions involved in the programme will share any intellectual property rights and resulting royalties. In this way, the architects of the agreement hope to encourage free sharing of information, ideas and results. Second Sight Medical Products, the only private company involved in the alliance, will have a limited, exclusive license for inventions that come out of the work.
Posted by Vishwakarma C. K. @ 07:18 PM | Comments (0) | TrackBack
October 14, 2004
Mind over Matter
Sometime in the not-too-distant future, the worlds of people and robots will merge.
Humans already are heading in artificial directions. We have false teeth and hair, plastic limbs, intraocular lenses, mechanical organs and drug-dispensing implants. Robots are becoming more like us in facial expression, voice recognition, and ability to walk, talk and make decisions.
The big question, however, isn't whether people become more techno than flesh, but whether robots develop some form of consciousness - self-aware minds of their own.
Sidney Perkowitz raises this question in "Digital People: From Bionic Humans to Androids" (Joseph Henry Press), a book that describes how a new generation of robots could serve as "the next level of humanity."
Complete Ariticle
Posted by Vishwakarma C. K. @ 03:48 PM | Comments (0) | TrackBack
October 13, 2004
Room with an out-of-this-world view arrives at NASA
The world's ultimate observation deck, a control tower for robotics in space, and a sunroom like no other, has arrived at NASA's Kennedy Space Center (KSC). It is bound for the International Space Station.
Built in Italy for the United States segment of the Station, the Cupola traveled part way around the world to reach KSC. One day it will circle the Earth every 90 minutes, and crewmembers will peer through its 360-degree windows. It will serve as a literal skylight to control some of the most sophisticated robotics ever built.
Posted by Vishwakarma C. K. @ 08:16 PM | Comments (0) | TrackBack
Using python and AOL IM to create nmap bot
"GrokItBot is an IM bot that uses Py-TOC, PyAIML and Divmod Reverend to create an AIM bot that makes uses of AIML (Artificial Intelligence Markup Language) to respond to messages, combined with a Bayesian algorithm to provide learning and guessing capabilities."
Computer scientists have been tinkering with the idea of intelligent systems for quite a while. If you are new to the realm of intelligent systems, check out the October version of Dr. Dobbs Journal.
Posted by Vishwakarma C. K. @ 02:06 PM | Comments (0) | TrackBack
October 12, 2004
INEEL researchers putting more brains into robots
Researchers at the Idaho National Engineering and Environmental Laboratory are trying to put some thought into the robots that have been taking over many of the world's routine tasks.
Their effort could help reduce the numbers of soldiers and civilians killed or wounded by improvised explosive devices.
Robotics researcher David Bruemmer and his colleagues are developing programs that would increase the intelligence behind the robotic ability to mechanically reproduce the actions dictated by human operators.
Posted by Vishwakarma C. K. @ 02:37 PM | Comments (0) | TrackBack
Happy birthday, dear robots
Monday marked the first of four days celebrating the anniversary of Carnegie Mellon's Robotics Institute. This month marks the 25th year of innovation for the Robotics Institute.
The Institute was founded by Raj Reddy, Angel Jordan, and Tom Murrin, professors at the time, when the field of robotics was relatively primitive. Their vision has put Carnegie Mellon on the map in that field. Their goal was to make Carnegie Mellon "the best place on the Earth to do robotics research."
Posted by Vishwakarma C. K. @ 02:30 PM | Comments (0) | TrackBack
October 11, 2004
The semi-autonomous mission plans
Computer rendering of the semi-autonomous mission plans now taking place using the twin Mars' rovers, Spirit and Opportunity.
Credit: Maas/NASA/JPL
Posted by Vishwakarma C. K. @ 02:47 PM | Comments (0) | TrackBack
A bionic leg to help the disabled
A Canadian scientist has developed what he claims is the world's first bionic leg that can help amputees walk and even climb stairs without difficulty.
"The artificial legs that are currently available are mostly passive and reactive. The one we have developed is a motorised prosthetic leg that can restore the mobility of above-knee amputees," said Stephane Bedard, founder and CEO of Victhom Human Bionics Inc.
Posted by Vishwakarma C. K. @ 02:43 PM | Comments (0) | TrackBack
October 10, 2004
NASA to Test Automated Mission
NASA plans to test a new robotic spacecraft later this month that can rendezvous with satellites and maneuver around them without human intervention.
The Demonstration for Autonomous Rendezvous Technology, or DART, spacecraft is slated to launch from Vandenberg Air Force Base in California on Oct. 26. Within hours, it is to chase down and circle an unused military communications satellite. Mission controllers will then watch as the DART dances around the satellite, moving closer and backing off all by itself, in a test of the spacecraft's onboard guidance system.
Posted by Vishwakarma C. K. @ 05:52 PM | Comments (0) | TrackBack
October 09, 2004
NASA software finds satellite problems
NASA scientists recently corrupted a spacecraft's system and caught the glitches with artificial intelligence (AI) software in a test.
Normally, troubleshooting is done on the ground by people.
The AI software, Livingstone Version 2 (L2), automatically detects and diagnoses simulated failures in the NASA Earth Observing One (E0-1) satellite's instruments and systems. E0-1, launched in November 2000, is a flying test bed for new technologies and techniques intended to boost safety and to reduce costs and development times.
Posted by Vishwakarma C. K. @ 12:15 PM | Comments (0) | TrackBack
October 08, 2004
Bovine genome completed
Researchers will now have access to the bovine genome sequence as the first draft is made available to the public -- an effort that will fortify the next several decades of cattle research, leaders of the $53-million Bovine Genome Sequencing Project announced today.
Part of the work to complete this first draft of the cow’s genome sequence -- the first mammalian farm animal to have its genes mapped out -- was completed in collaboration with the University of Alberta.
Posted by Vishwakarma C. K. @ 06:13 PM | Comments (0) | TrackBack
How 10 top new technologies will help world reach globally-agreed goals by 2015
New medical tools that quickly and accurately diagnose diseases like AIDS and malaria top a list of 10 biotech breakthroughs deemed most important for improving health in developing countries within the decade, science that will dramatically move the world towards its Millennium Development Goals for 2015, according to scientists and ethicists in a major new report to the United Nations.
Newly emerged diagnostic tools detect illness at a molecular level in blood or tissues -- thus improving a patient's chance of survival, conserving scarce resources in poor countries now wasted on inappropriate treatments, and better containing disease outbreaks, according to Genomics and Global Health, being launched Oct. 7 at the 4th World Conference of Science Journalists in Montreal.
Posted by Vishwakarma C. K. @ 05:36 PM | Comments (0) | TrackBack
October 07, 2004
Satellite to seek nearest stars, brightest galaxies
A new NASA mission will scan the entire sky in infrared light in search of nearby cool stars, planetary construction zones and the brightest galaxies in the universe.
Called the Wide-field Infrared Survey Explorer, the mission has been approved to proceed into the preliminary design phase as the next in NASA's Medium-class Explorer program of lower cost, highly focused, rapid-development scientific spacecraft. It is scheduled to launch in 2008.
Like a powerful set of night vision goggles, the new space-based telescope will survey the cosmos with infrared detectors up to 500,000 times more sensitive than previous survey missions. It will reveal hundreds of cool, or failed, stars, called brown dwarfs, some of which may lie closer to us than any known stars.
Posted by Vishwakarma C. K. @ 01:16 PM | Comments (0) | TrackBack
October 06, 2004
The Helping Brain
When the optic nerve is attacked by an inflammatory disorder called optic neuritis, certain brain areas reorganize themselves in response to the faulty visual information transmitted by the nerve, according to a study presented October 5, 2004, at the 129th annual meeting of the American Neurological Association in Toronto.
"We found that certain areas of the brain normally associated with more specialized higher visual processing are particularly active early after the onset of optic neuritis and are probably contributing to the recovery process," said lead author Ahmed Toosy, MD, of the Institute of Neurology in London.
Optic neuritis is an advantageous condition in which to study reorganization of brain pathways after injury because the condition is usually temporary. Symptoms ranging from mild blurring to complete loss of vision appear rapidly, within a few hours or days, often accompanied by pain. About half the time these represent an early stage of multiple sclerosis.
Posted by Vishwakarma C. K. @ 03:57 PM | Comments (0) | TrackBack
October 05, 2004
Program cracks crosswords
It's a boon for puzzle addicts and a small leap forward for artificial intelligence: a computer program that can solve crosswords in any language.
The program, called Web Crow, reads crossword clues, surfs the web for the answers and fits them into the puzzle. Computer engineers Marco Gori and Marco Ernandes at the University of Siena in Italy say a prototype should be available by the end of the year.
Posted by Vishwakarma C. K. @ 01:59 PM | Comments (0) | TrackBack
October 04, 2004
How do we move?
It looks like a shoe box with legs, but to Bob Full, ``RHex,'' the Compliant Hexapod Robot, is the harbinger of a new generation of biologically inspired bots.
A professor of integrative biology at the University of California-Berkeley, Full's expertise is in the neural and muscular physiology of creatures that most people would rather step on than study.
RHex is the culmination of years of his research, a legged robot that likely is one of the most maneuverable ever built. More importantly it's the starting point of a $5 million, five-year National Science Foundation study into the mechanical and neurological basis of locomotion. The research hopes to answer a simple but unanswered question: How do we move without falling over?
Posted by Vishwakarma C. K. @ 03:46 PM | Comments (0) | TrackBack
October 03, 2004
Biometrics: Are they ready for the office?
UK businesses expect biometrics to play an increasing role in workplace security - with almost half the companies polled in a recent survey saying they expect to implement the technology within two years.
Fingerprint and iris-scanning technologies are currently being rolled out for passports and ID card schemes but are more frequently coming in for consideration within the workplace as well.
Posted by Vishwakarma C. K. @ 02:41 PM | Comments (0) | TrackBack
October 02, 2004
Decision Evolution
Have you ever known a family in which the child went well beyond the parents? One in which the parents didn't seem to have a lot on the ball, but they bequeathed just enough capabilities to their child for him or her to take off? That's just what happened in the world of automated decision making. The parents—artificial intelligence (AI) and decision support systems (DSS)—were ultimately disappointing despite lots of favorable hype. AI and expert systems required those pesky knowledge engineers to create them, and they were very difficult to maintain. Decision support systems also never really flourished, despite being the darling of academics for decades, perhaps because they required too much statistical expertise and too much human analysis for these lean times.
Posted by Vishwakarma C. K. @ 02:33 PM | Comments (0) | TrackBack
October 01, 2004
New Company Launches Google Challenge
Google Inc. has made its name on advanced-search technology, but a company that launched Thursday with what could prove to be a better idea is poised to be a potential headache for Google as it battles against Yahoo Inc. and Microsoft Corp.
Vivisimo, a privately held company founded by three former computer scientists of Carnegie Mellon University, has entered the crowded Internet-search market with a new site called "Clusty," which uses clustering technology to place search results into categories.
Complete News
Posted by Vishwakarma C. K. @ 02:46 PM | Comments (0) | TrackBack
Four Cool Ways to Use Neural Networks in Games
Most writings on neural networks start with a biological description of neurons in our brains as a metaphor for how artificial neural networks function. Indeed, we give just such a metaphorical description in our book. However, sometimes it's more helpful to think of neural networks in a less biological sense. Specifically, you can think of a neural network as a mathematical function approximator. Input to the network represents independent variables, while the output represents the dependant variable or variables. The network itself is then a function giving one unique set of output for the given input.
Posted by Vishwakarma C. K. @ 02:34 PM | Comments (0) | TrackBack
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