Robot swarms 'evolve' effective communication

New Scientist Tech: "Robots that artificially evolve ways to communicate with one another have been demonstrated by Swiss researchers. The experiments suggest that simulated evolution could be a useful tool for those designing of swarms of robots.

Roboticists Dario Floreano, Sara Mitri, and Stéphane Magnenat at the Swiss Federal Institute of Technology in Lausanne collaborated with biologist Laurent Keller from the University of Lausanne.

They first evolved colonies of robots in software then tested different strategies on real bots. Both simulated and real robots were set loose in an arena containing two types of objects – one classified as 'food' and another designated 'poison' – both lit up red.

In each experiment, five hundred generations were evolved this way, under different selective pressures. "Under some conditions, sophisticated communication evolved," says Keller. "We saw colonies that used their lights to signal when they found food and others that used signals to communicate they had found poison."

World's tiniest RFID tag unveiled

BBC NEWS: "The world's smallest radio frequency identification tags have been unveiled by Japanese electronics firm Hitachi. The minute devices measure just 0.05mm by 0.05mm (0.002x0.002in) and to the naked eye look like spots of powder. They are thin enough to be embedded in a sheet of paper, Hitachi spokesman Masayuki Takeuchi says."

See some potential for ubiquitous computing?

Women Scientists And Engineers Tackle Isolation On Campus

ScienceDaily — Integrating new location-aware computer networks with old-fashioned human networks, researchers at the New Jersey Institute of Technology (NJIT) have developed an innovative solution to the problem of isolation that women face in the academic science and engineering workforce. The project, 'NJIT Advance,' is funded by a three-year grant from the National Science Foundation (NSF)."

Computer Model Mimicks How Brain Recognizes Street Scenes

ScienceDaily — "At last, neuroscience is having an impact on computer science and artificial intelligence (AI). For the first time, scientists in Tomaso Poggio's laboratory at the McGovern Institute for Brain Research at MIT applied a computational model of how the brain processes visual information to a complex, real world task: recognizing the objects in a busy street scene. The researchers were pleasantly surprised at the power of this new approach."

Teaching Your Cell Phone Where It Is And How To Act

ScienceDaily — "Future cellular telephones and other wireless communication devices are expected to be much more versatile as consumers gain the ability to program them in a variety of ways. Scientists and engineers at the National Institute of Standards and Technology (NIST) have teamed up with a variety of computing and telecommunications companies to develop both the test methods and the standard protocols needed to make this possible."

"Programmable networks will include location aware services that will allow users to choose a variety of 'context aware' call processing options depending on where they are and who they are with. For example, a cell phone that 'knows' your location could be programmed to invoke an answering message service automatically whenever you are in a conference room or in your supervisor's presence. Context aware, programmable cell phone or PDA networks also may help users with functional tasks like finding the nearest bank or restaurant. Within organizations, these capabilities might be used to contact people by their role and location (e.g., call the cardiologist nearest to the emergency room)."

More simply -- recognize when I walk into church and turn off the ringer automatically.

Open Communication Among Operating Room Equipment

ScienceDaily — "New research at the University of New Hampshire aims to make hospital operating rooms safer by opening the lines of communication between computerized hospital beds and blood pressure monitors."

"We’re trying to get pieces of equipment that don’t normally talk to each other to do so," says John LaCourse, professor of electrical and computer engineering at UNH. "We’re doing something that we feel is going to save peoples’ lives."

"In modern operating rooms, major pieces of equipment like beds and monitors are computerized, yet they lack the ability to share information with each other. When a bed is raised or lowered, for instance, a patient’s blood pressure fluctuates but the monitor, which is static, may give a faulty reading."

Computers Read Your Intentions

FOXNews.com: "New experiments show it is possible for computers to detect, at a higher level of sophistication than ever before, people's intentions for the future, neuroscientists reported yesterday.

The findings could yield a big improvement in brain-computer interfaces, could help the disabled control robotics with their minds and could make it so a computer could read our minds far better than is currently possible."