Air Force Wants Drones to Sense Other Planes’ ‘Intent’

I think the right direction to go in HCI (Human-Computer Interaction) is to design interfaces that understand people, not just interfaces that people understand. Combine that with autonomous agents, and you get the linked story at Wired.com.

"Unmanned aircraft, for all their utility, are fairly simple beasts. They’re good at taking direction, but they’re not so good at processing information on their own. Now the Air Force figures it’s time for drones to get a lot smarter, especially as they take off or land."

Surgery without (human) surgeons?

Next generation surgical robots: Where's the doctor?

I heard that the military is working on autonomous battlefield medics that could initiate treatment without direct instruction from a human operator. The linked story describes a pretty amazing autonomous surgical robot.

"Feasibility studies conducted by Duke University bioengineers have demonstrated that a robot -- without any human assistance -- can locate a man-made, or phantom, lesion in simulated human organs, guide a device to the lesion and take multiple samples during a single session. The researchers believe that as the technology is further developed, autonomous robots could some day perform many more simple surgical tasks."