Study Computing!

Adapting to the iPad, called education's 'equalizer'

2011-09-16T10:00:00.000-04:00

Image source: USA Today

Well-designed interfaces can open the world to people.

"The 18-year-old is a quadriplegic with multiple disabilities that make speech and muscle control extremely difficult. He interacts through eye gaze or by tapping his head against a switch on a communication device to spell out words.

But on a recent afternoon at the Lehmann Center, a special-needs school in Lakewood, N.J., Leuck was able to make music. With some effort, he slid his knuckles lightly over the digital image of a guitar on an iPad screen. The touches produced a series of acoustic-style chords from the iPad — and a big grin from Leuck."

IBM's Doctor Watson?

2011-09-15T14:48:00.000-04:00

From USATODAY.com

"IBM's supercomputer system, best known for trouncing the world's best "Jeopardy!" players on TV, is being tapped by one of the largest U.S. health insurers to help diagnose medical problems and authorize treatments.

WellPoint Inc., which has 34.2 million members, will integrate Watson's lightning speed and deep health care database into its existing patient information, helping it choose among treatment options and medicines."

The WellPoint application will combine data from three sources: a patient's chart and electronic records that a doctor or hospital has, the insurance company's history of medicines and treatments, and Watson's huge library of textbooks and medical journals.

IBM says the computer can then sift through it all and answer a question in moments, providing several possible diagnoses or treatments, ranked in order of the computer's confidence, along with the basis for its answer.

Previously IBM developed Deep Blue, "a massively parallel computer, to be applied to the study of biomolecular phenomena such as protein folding."

Robocleaners, tweeting appliances in the home of tomorrow

2011-09-15T14:39:00.000-04:00

From USATODAY.com

Image Source: jeffbots.com
"Ever wondered what your home might look like in 10 years' time? Will it be cleaned by robots and run by computers? Will your fridge go online to allow you to discuss dinner plans with your spouse or instruct it to do the shopping?"

"If the technology giants exhibiting their latest wares at the recent IFA trade fair in Berlin are to be believed, this is what life could be like. The technology exists, even if some of the products have so far only been launched in places like Korea, one of the world's leading consumer electronics markets."

Smart credit cards coming

2011-09-14T08:15:00.000-04:00

From USATODAY.com

"The United States is the only developed country still hanging on to credit and debit cards with those black magnetic stripes, the kind you swipe through retail terminals. The rest of the industrialized world has switched —or is in the process of switching— to "smart" chip-based cards.

"The problem with that black magnetic stripe on the back of your credit card is that it's about as secure as writing your account information on a postcard: everything is in the clear and can be copied. Card fraud, and the measures taken to prevent it, costs U.S. merchants, banks and consumers billions each year.

The smart cards can't be copied, which greatly reduces the potential for fraud. Smart cards with built-in chips are the equivalent of a safe: they can hide information so it can only be unlocked with the right key. Because the important information is hidden, the cards can't be replicated."

This seems to be an example where being technologically advanced stands in the way of technological advancement. Countries that adopt technologies early go on to build infrastructure to support that technology. Then when new technologies come along, there is an inertia to stick with the existing technology. Something similar has happened in many developing countries -- land line telephones have been completely bypassed, with a majority of the population going from no phone to a cell phone in a relatively short time.

10 years after 9/11, cyberattacks pose national threat

2011-09-13T14:23:00.001-04:00

From Computerworld

"...catastrophic cyberattacks against U.S. critical infrastructure targets are not a mere theoretical threat."

"This is not science fiction," the NSPG said in its report. "It is possible to take down cyber systems and trigger cascading disruptions and damage. Defending the U.S. against such attacks must be an urgent priority."

Self-directed microspider could repair blood vessels

2011-09-09T11:16:00.000-04:00

Image Source: imdb.com

From New Scientist

I remember watching Fantastic Voyage as a kid and wondering if I would some day have tiny machines navigating through my bloodstream, repairing damage and keeping me healthy. Researchers at Penn State are working on it...

"A new spider-like micromachine could swim through a person's blood vessels, healing damaged areas and delivering drugs as it goes.

Ayusman Sen of Pennsylvania State University in University Park and his colleagues have created the self-propelling microspiders using spheres less than a micrometre wide. Each sphere is made up of two halves – one hemisphere is gold, the other silica – and looks like a gold-and-silver Christmas bauble."

Google announces Dart programming language

2011-09-08T19:13:00.001-04:00

From ExtremeTech

On the programming languages front.

"A few days after Google was caught registering a bunch of Dart-related domain names, and the inevitable storm of speculation, it has now emerged that Dart is a new programming language for “structured web programming."

"With the “structured web programming” moniker, it’s also likely to be some kind of interpreted, in-the-browser language — so more like JavaScript or Python, and less like Java or other compiled languages. One of the biggest hints, though, is that both Bracha and Bak have worked extensively with Smalltalk in the past — and an interpreted Smalltalkesque language would fit right into the “structured web programming” mold, too."

Many U.S. schools adding iPads, trimming textbooks

2011-09-06T14:57:00.000-04:00

From USATODAY.com

I got to be Santa Claus this week, handing out 11 iPads, a Kindle and a Sony eReader to students participating in pilot projects here at Messiah. We're exploring the utility of these technologies in the learning environment. At Educause last year I heard about several school districts forgoing textbooks in favor of iPads and digital resources; according to the article there are now at least 600 schools districts that have launched programs which provide at least some of their students with iPads for use in school.

Image Source: getliquid.com

I'd love to see this at my kids school, if for no other reason than to save their backs from the enormous backpacks full of textbooks :)

For incoming freshmen at western Connecticut's suburban Brookfield High School, hefting a backpack weighed down with textbooks is about to give way to tapping out notes and flipping electronic pages on a glossy iPad tablet computer.

The iPads generally cost districts between $500 and $600, depending on what accessories and service plans are purchased.

By comparison, Brookfield High in Connecticut estimates it spends at least that much yearly on every student's textbooks, not including graphing calculators, dictionaries and other accessories they can get on the iPads.

IT Hiring Remains Strong Despite Economic Fears

2011-09-06T14:36:00.000-04:00

From CIO.com

Good news for CIS folks on the jobs front:

"IT professionals looking for new jobs need not fear that the recent spate of bad economic news will hamper their job searches. IT staffing industry executives agree that IT hiring in the U.S. will remain robust through the end of the year, bucking renewed fears of a double dip recession recently brought on by stock market corrections, the ongoing debt crisis in Europe and the U.S., and Standard & Poor's downgrade of America's credit rating.

"Despite the economic woes we've been hearing about, I haven't on the ground seen any change in demand [for IT workers]," says Shane Bernstein, managing director of IT staffing firm Q. "In fact, demand keeps increasing. Every week I hear [from our clients], 'We have a lot more positions coming down the pipeline that we need to fill.'"

Quantum optical link sets new time records

2011-09-06T08:08:00.000-04:00

From physorg.com

Image Source: physorg.com

Advice to young people interested in cutting-edge computing: take lots of physics! So many interesting physics news items... so little time to comprehend.

"Quantum communication could be an option for the absolutely secure transfer of data. The key component in quantum communication over long distances is the special phenomenon called entanglement between two atomic systems. Entanglement between two atomic systems is very fragile and up until now researchers have only been able to maintain the entanglement for a fraction of a second. But in new experiments at the Niels Bohr Institute researchers have succeeded in setting new records and maintaining the entanglement for up to an hour. The results are published in the scientific journal Physical Review Letters."

SignalGuru - a high-tech way to avoid red lights

2011-09-05T20:51:00.001-04:00

Image Source: gizmag.com

From gizmag.com

Driving is yet another activity being totally transformed by technology. I always check my iPhone before heading across the Susquehanna to figure out if it's worth it to take the Turnpike (and avoid the 83 traffic). This story describes a system to help drivers avoid red lights.

"One of the most effective hypermiling techniques is maintaining a steady speed while driving instead of constantly stopping and starting. Unfortunately, traffic lights all too often conspire to foil attempts at keeping the vehicle rolling. Researchers at MIT and Princeton have now devised a system that gathers visual data from the cameras of a network of dashboard-mounted smartphones and tells drivers the optimal speed to drive at to avoid waiting at the next set of lights."

"The new system, dubbed SignalGuru, was tested in both Cambridge, Massachusetts, and in Singapore. In Cambridge, where traffic signals are on fixed schedules, the researchers say the system was able to predict when lights would change with an average error of only two-thirds of a second and helped drivers cut fuel consumption by an average of 20 percent. "

Researchers identify first flaws in the Advanced Encryption Standard

2011-09-05T11:49:00.001-04:00

From Katholieke Universiteit Leuven

Image Source: edgetechcorp.com

A flaw in the AES sounds pretty scary, given that most of our online banking and other 'secure' network transactions rely on AES. But note the repercussions (esp. those of you who have been in Data Structures and Algorithms):

"To put this into perspective: on a trillion machines, that each could test a billion keys per second, it would take more than two billion years to recover an AES-128 key."

'via Blog this'

New Computer Chip Modeled on a Living Brain

2011-09-05T11:46:00.000-04:00

From Popular Science

Note the reference to the von Neumann bottleneck (esp. students in Organization of Programming Languages). See more about von Neumann architecture.

“This new architecture represents a critical shift away form today’s traditional von Neumann computers, to extremely power-efficient architecture,” Dharmendra Modha, project leader for IBM Research, said in an interview. “It integrates memory with processors, and it is fundamentally massively parallel and distributed as well as event-driven, so it begins to rival the brain’s function, power and space.”

Computational method predicts new uses for existing medicines

2011-09-04T11:52:00.004-04:00

From National Institutes of Health (NIH)

Image Source: nccs.gov

An example of computation as a "fourth leg" of scientific research.

"For the first time ever, scientists are using computers and genomic information to predict new uses for existing medicines.

A National Institutes of Health-funded computational study analyzed genomic and drug data to predict new uses for medicines that are already on the market. A team led by Atul J. Butte, M.D., Ph.D., of Stanford University, Palo Alto, Calif., reports its results in two articles in the Aug. 17 online issue of Science Translational Medicine.

“Bringing a new drug to market typically takes about $1 billion, and many years of research and development,” said Rochelle M. Long, Ph.D., who directs the NIH Pharmacogenomics Research Network. “If we can find ways to repurpose drugs that are already approved, we could improve treatments and save both time and money.”

'via Blog this'

C++ upgrade wins unanimous approval

2011-09-03T11:55:00.001-04:00

From InfoWorld

News on the Programming Languages front (pay attention, COSC382 students!)

"C++11 is the first major new version of ISO C++, said Herb Sutter, chair of the ISO C++ standards committee. Featured in C++11 are lambda functions, which serve as a key enabler of emerging parallel algorithms and revolutionize the use of the existing Standard Template Library, said Sutter, also a principal architect for native languages at Microsoft. "What's already there in the C++98 standard library will immediately become even easier to use," he said. Move semantics in C++11, meanwhile, lead to higher performance. Concurrency features include types for portable, lock-free programming.

'via Blog this'

Internet Use Affects Memory, Study Finds (Yawn)

2011-09-02T13:11:00.002-04:00

Image Source: masternewmedia.org

From NYTimes.com

"The widespread use of search engines and online databases has affected the way people remember information, researchers are reporting."

Some would likely interpret this with alarm -- "Internet use impairs memory!" But is it really cause for concern? Does use of tools make us rely on the use of tools? Almost certainly! (How many of us could live an independent hunter-gatherer lifestyle?) But so what? The march of technological progress moves us away from low level menial tasks to higher level work. If we didn't have calculators, ability to do mental arithmetic would be much more important. But since we do have them, mathematicians can focus on much more interesting problems!

Nearby supernova found within 24 hours, thanks to computing

2011-09-02T08:14:00.000-04:00

Image Source: Wikimedia Commons

From Wired.com

Where would modern astronomy be without computers to search through the torrent of data?

"The team from Lawrence Berkeley National Laboratory and University of California, Berkeley, credit the early detection to a specialized survey telescope at the Palomar Observatory in Southern California and advanced computing."

"Uncanny valley” explained?

2011-09-01T23:20:00.001-04:00

From Digital Trends

Were you creeped out by the characters in Polar Express? Do you find clowns, human puppets, and overly-realistic robots to be unsettling? How about the too-close-to-human robotic Hiroshi Ishiguro (see image on left)? The term "Uncanny Valley" has been used to describe the unease people feel as inanimate objects become closer and closer to human in appearance. On the one side of the valley, Kermit the Frog and R2D2 are fine. At the opposite side we have the sexy Cylons in the remade Battlestar Galactica. No problem with any of them. But somewhere in the middle we hit the almost-but-not-quite-human animations and robots that seem to make us squirm. Now scientists may have uncovered the mechanism behind this dissonance.

Image Source: Wikimedia Commons

"Researchers from the university of California, San Diego, have discovered that a mismatch between movement and humanoid traits could be causing the uncanny valley effect, or the uneasiness we feel when we look at humanoid robots or CGI creations."

"Unfortunately, we still don’t entirely know why our brain hates this inconsistency, but if movies and video games are any indication, our brains may be able to get used to the oddness of our human-like creations in time. Games like L.A. Noire have found success by somewhat reducing the uncanny valley effect by drastically improving the facial and body animation of its characters. Faster animation in motion-capture CGI films like the upcoming Spielberg film The Adventures of Tintin are also working around this odd phenomenon. Unfortunately, we don’t quite know if our brains will ever truly accept fake humanoids until they are completely indistinguishable from ourselves."

Python Cloud IDE

2011-08-30T15:06:00.009-04:00

Our incoming students might be interested in this - PythonFiddle.com is a cloud-based IDE that lets you write and run code in your browser. Both apps and data are migrating to the web, but apps have lagged. There are plenty of ways to store almost any data in the cloud, but there are still many kinds of apps that only run locally (and many apps that do have cloud-based versions are still far behind their local equivalent. Working with students on their code over the years, I've been desperate for a GOOD cloud-based IDE, so that wherever we are I can sit down with them and run their code in the same environment in which they've been running it (it gets old really fast to have them email me their code, often missing some files, then download them, import them into Eclipse, compile, run, debug, comment, and then reupload the files for them...

Let me know if you know of other cloud-based IDEs that you like, especially any for C++, Java, Prolog, or any of the Lisp variants.

Stanford offers free CS courses

2011-08-30T13:53:00.001-04:00

From DeviceGuru

Last year at Educause, I heard Neil Gershenfeld (of MIT's Center for Bits and Atoms) speak on a shift away from a scarcity-based model of education. A significant point was that technology has the potential to radically revolutionize the business of education. In the past, access to ideas was limited by access to physical resources: books, laboratories, faculty members. When resources are digitized, the nominal cost of reproducing them becomes insignificant.

In the latest of a series of similar examples, Stanford University has announced that it will be offering a series of 10 free online computer science courses, including their introduction to computer science, artificial intelligence, and robotics. As of a couple of days ago, more than 120,000 students had signed up for the courses.

Why Were Irene's Intensity Predictions So Off?

2011-08-29T20:44:00.000-04:00

From Technology Review

A timely piece on weather prediction - a heavily data-intensive modeling discipline.

"Hurricane path prediction has enormously improved. Forecasters knew days before it made landfall that Irene would hit the Carolinas and move up the East Coast, reaching New York and New England."

"While path prediction has steadily improved over the decades, forecasting the intensity of storms still proves tricky. Irene's expected monster intensity—much to the nation's relief—was far less as she weakened a day or so after reaching land. "What made Irene especially difficult for the forecasting models was that she had three landfalls and followed the coastline," says Heymsfield. "We need a lot more research to understand how to better model this land interaction."

IBM's moves toward quantum computing

2011-08-29T18:12:00.000-04:00

From Computerworld

Image Source: zmescience

IBM, one of the most patent-rich companies in the world, continues it's amazing pace of research and innovation. The future, they believe, is in a radically different paradigm of computing hardware (which will also require new thinking in software approaches as well).

"But the computing industry is moving to a new future as disruptive and as radical as the era that began with the introduction of silicon chips, and that future is quantum computing. These are systems that use the behavior of subatomic particles to conduct calculations now performed with transistors on a chip."

"An ordinary computer is a collection of bits that can either be a 0 or a 1. But quantum bits can hold those states, 0 and 1, simultaneously. Instead of doing a calculation one after the other, the processing power in a quantum computer can increase exponentially. Two quantum bits, or qubits, can hold four distinct states, which can be processed simultaneously, three qubits can hold eight and 10 qubits can hold 1,024 states. In time, researchers expect machines with thousands of qubits."

Profile Pics Put Your Privacy At Risk

2011-08-29T12:48:00.002-04:00

From Discovery News

Data mining techniques applied to massive amounts of publicly available data make it easier than you would imagine to cyberstalk.

Image source: neonfudge.com

"In one experiment, Acquisti and his team uniquely identified 4,900 out of 5,800 anonymous dating site members."

"In arguably the most disturbing experiment, Acquisti used students who had their date of birth and hometown publicly posted on their social network profile to predict their Social Security numbers (SSNs). By using techniques from a previous study showing that SSNs can be somewhat accurately guessed using public information, Acquisti correctly identified the first five digits of SSNs in 16 percent of the students. After four attempts, the accuracy rate jumped to 27 percent."

How Computational Complexity Will Revolutionize Philosophy

2011-08-28T15:59:00.002-04:00

From Technology Review

Image courtesy http://www.core.org.cn/

For those of you who have been in my Data Structures and Algorithms class... or anyone who is interested in what can be accomplished "before the heat death of the universe." :-)

"The theory of computation has had a profound influence on philosophical thinking. But computational complexity theory is about to have an even bigger effect, argues one computer scientist."

"Since the 1930s, the theory of computation has profoundly influenced philosophical thinking about topics such as the theory of the mind, the nature of mathematical knowledge and the prospect of machine intelligence. In fact, it's hard to think of an idea that has had a bigger impact on philosophy."

"And yet there is an even bigger philosophical revolution waiting in the wings. The theory of computing is a philosophical minnow compared to the potential of another theory that is currently dominating thinking about computation."

Data are traveling by light

2011-08-28T11:46:00.003-04:00

From Fraunhofer-Gesellschaft

My favorite part of the article: the use of the word "ensconced." A visible light WLAN might be kind of impressive, but if the users are also ENSCONCED in a room, well then that's just amazing!

Joking aside, this is an interesting approach to networking that doesn't rely on traditional radio signals.

"Just imagine the following scenario: four people are comfortably ensconced in a room. Each one of them can watch a film from the Internet on his or her laptop, in HD quality. This is made possible thanks to optical WLAN. Light from the LEDs in the overhead lights serves as the transfer medium."

'via Blog this'

5D glass storage could revolutionize medical imaging, computing

2011-08-27T14:00:00.000-04:00

From ExtremeTech

"Researchers from the University of Southampton, England, have successfully recorded, read, and erased data from a piece of nano-structured glass. This technique could revolutionize microscopy in general, and medical imaging in specific — and, perhaps more importantly for computing, it could also be used to store binary data, like an optical disc."

"The end result, and it’s hard to say this with a straight face, is permanent five-dimensional data storage. Not only can the standard three dimensions be used — vertical and horizontal position on the piece of glass, and varying depth depending on the duration of the femtosecond laser pulse — but the wavelength and polarization of the light can also carry data. These nano-structures are absolutely tiny, too — just a few nanometers, much smaller than a DVD or Blu-ray disc — so we could be talking about an incredibly high-density storage medium."

How 5 Recent Social Uprisings Were Wired

2011-08-27T10:16:00.003-04:00

From Scientific American

Iran, Tunisia, Egypt, China -- modern day revolutions are relying on wired technologies.

"From the horseback ride of Paul Revere—and for millennia before—people have used the latest technology available to rally others sympathetic to their cause. As ubiquitous as Twitter and Facebook have seemed lately in spreading the word for gatherings, whether benevolent or malevolent, many recent demonstrations and revolts have used a variety of primarily digital platforms to spread their message. Here are five examples in just the past two years:"

Apple's back-to-school promo clobbering Microsoft's efforts

2011-08-26T16:36:00.001-04:00

From AppleInsider

Image Source: Forbes

Apple isn't just for artists anymore!

"Global Equities Research analyst Trip Chowdhry issued a note to investors earlier this week pointing out that education sales of Apple’s Macs have been significantly outselling Windows PCs. The firm’s research indicated that “80% of incoming students are buying Apple Computers vs. Windows Computers.”"

Chowdrhy also reports that Apple is enjoying substantial success in the Enterprise. New data indicates that “probably about 35% of Fortune 500 companies are giving Apple as a Choice to its employees, and majority are preferring Apple over Windows.”

The report believes that Apple's gains are a result of “the success of iPad is putting pressure on Enterprise IT to not only support iPad, but also Apple iPhones and Apple iMacs and MacBooks,” going as far as to say that high-level executives are “influencing the IT to bring Apple products into the Enterprise.”

A Day Made of Glass

2011-08-26T14:45:00.001-04:00

From Corning.

This video shows some cool possibilities for near future tech. It's more than five minutes long, but engaging and worth it.

'Software is the Modern Language of Science'

2011-08-26T12:02:00.002-04:00

From HPCwire

Computation, according to Nobel physics laureate Ken Wilson, has joined theory and experimentation as a "third leg" of scientific discovery (see Denning 2007, for example).

“We now have very small periods in time that are leading to very large changes in the amount of data, the amount of computation, and the amount of knowledge that is needed in order to carry out this kind of work,”

“...after more than four centuries of science being conducted at a painstakingly slow pace, today’s communications technologies and scientific advances are forcing a dramatic change–and acceleration–in all areas of science. At the heart of this change will be software.”

More recently, some have even been talking of a "fourth paradigm" -- the use of massive databases to discover new knowledge. For more see "The Fourth Paradigm," a series of essays published by Microsoft Research.

BrainGate neural interface system reaches 1,000-day performance milestone

2011-08-26T07:45:00.000-04:00

From Brown University News and Events

Image Source: Brown Univ

An interesting milestone in machine/human integration. The system described is being used to replace functionality lost to tetraplegia, but as with any such system, it could someday be used to give unimpaired people extra abilities.

"An investigational implanted system being developed to translate brain signals toward control of assistive devices has allowed a woman with paralysis to accurately control a computer cursor at 2.7 years after implantation, providing a key demonstration that neural activity can be read out and converted into action for an unprecedented length of time."

"Under development since 2002, the investigational BrainGate system is a combination of hardware and software that directly senses electrical signals produced by neurons in the brain that control movement. By decoding those signals and translating them into digital instructions, the system is being evaluated for its ability to give people with paralysis control of external devices such as computers, robotic assistive devices, or wheelchairs. The BrainGate team is also engaged in research toward control of advanced prosthetic limbs and toward direct intracortical control of functional electrical stimulation devices for people with spinal cord injury, in collaboration with researchers at the Cleveland FES Center."

Good time for CS jobs

2011-08-25T10:30:00.000-04:00

From NetworkWorld

"It's a good time to be a computer science major. Job prospects are rosy for today's graduates, who are entering the workforce at a time when tech hiring is on the rise and talent is hard to find.

'We've calculated that there are about two to three open jobs for every computer science grad this year,' says Alice Hill, managing director at job site Dice.com."

For anyone searching, build your online professional presence at LinkedIn; search for positions on Monster.com, and join the CIS-Messiah Facebook group.

Computer science tops list of best major for jobs

2011-07-13T16:53:00.000-04:00

See original news item at Computer science tops list of best major for jobs.:

Good news for CS grads; actual results vary by state.

"July 8, 2011 — Computer science graduates now get more offers of employment than any other major. This is the first time since 2008 that computer science has topped the list: previously, accounting majors had the highest offer rate.

In 2011, 56.2% of computer science majors received job offers, compared to only 53.8% of accounting majors. The offer rate for computer science majors increased 13.8% this year from the previous year."

Integrating humans with machines

2011-06-16T13:09:00.000-04:00

As prosthetics become more and more sophisticated, one of the major challenges is the mind-machine interface. In the past we've relied on rather crude signaling methods, but continuing advances bring us closer to true replacements. And once we can replace natural function, it's a short hop to enhancing natural function. Perhaps a boutique at the mall where you can pick out new arms and have them cut off your old ones?

Supercomputers transform science

2011-04-27T15:07:00.000-04:00

See original at NYTimes.com

I often talk in class about how computing is transforming almost every discipline it touches. The article linked discusses how the process of scientific discovery is shifting into a computing-centric approach.

"The physical technology of scientific research is still here — the new electron microscopes, the telescopes, the particle colliders — but they are now inseparable from computing power, and it is the computers that let scientists find order and patterns in the raw information that the physical tools gather.

Computer power not only aids research, it defines the nature of that research: what can be studied, what new questions can be asked, and answered."

Augmented Reality App For Librarians - I love technology!

2011-04-20T23:59:00.000-04:00

Source: http://www.popsci.com/

Augmented Reality App For Librarians Instantly Shows Which Books Are Misfiled:

"E-books, iPads and Kindles may be the way of the future, but most of the world's knowledge is still stored in millions of good old paper books on library shelves. So researchers at Miami University have created an augmented reality app that makes all those books easier to organize. ShelvAR instantly analyzes an entire shelf, spots any misplaced books, and shows librarians the quickest way to put the books back in order."

How about an app that helps you pick out the books you haven't read yet? Or books you're likely to enjoy? All kinds of possibilities!

Flying robots playing tennis

2011-04-08T08:19:00.002-04:00

One thing I love about robotics -- it combines fun with seriously challenging computing.

Navy Wants Doc-Bots, Robo-Ambulances

2011-04-06T22:15:00.001-04:00

See original at Navy Wants Doc-Bots, Robo-Ambulances

"Not all of the military’s robot research goes into creating unfeeling killing machines. Some of them are here to heal, like the Navy’s plan to create a medical robot to treat troops carried by drones."

The Office of Naval Research recently announced that it’s looking to build a prototype medical robot it calls the Autonomous Critical Care System. ACCS’ first job would be monitoring critical patients’ vital signs. Eventually, though, the Navy wants its bot to provide fluid, drugs, anaesthesia, suction, oxygen and help regulate a patient’s temperature.

The Navy envisions its medic-bot actually diagnosing and managing a number of “medically complex, life-threatening clinical events” for more than six hours — to be done either autonomously or with the assistance of a human caregiver. To do some of that critical management, ACCS would come equipped with its own drug kit, including “epinephrine, phenylephrine, dopamine, vasopressin, paralytics” among others.

Carnivorous Robots Trap, Eat Bugs for Fuel

2011-04-02T15:37:00.000-04:00

See original at VIDEO: Carnivorous Robots Trap, Eat Bugs for Fuel - CPUs, Boards & Components by ExtremeTech

"To summarize: science has produced a self-sustaining robot that is designed to trap, kill, and consume living creatures for energy. As far as flies are concerned, the robot apocalypse has already begun."

Robot comedian. Watch out Seinfeld.

2011-03-31T14:12:00.000-04:00

Heather Knight: Silicon-based comedy | Video on TED.com: "In this first-of-its-kind demo, Heather Knight introduces Data, a robotic stand-up comedian that does much more than rattle off one-liners -- it gathers audience feedback (using software co-developed with Scott Satkin and Varun Ramakrishna at CMU) and tunes its act as the crowd responds. Is this thing on?"

Navy Building Humanoid Robot to Fight Fires

2011-03-23T21:40:00.000-04:00

Navy Building Humanoid Robot to Fight Fires: "The Navy next week will kick off a new project to build a humanoid robot that could be used for firefighting aboard ships.

The three-year effort, which will be funded by the Office of Naval Research, will be aimed at building a prototype of the robotic firefighter. The eventual goal is a walking, talking robot equipped with sensors and fire suppressant that could move around a ship independently, putting out blazes."

2011-02-16T12:46:00.000-05:00

See original at Computer crushes human 'Jeopardy!' champs

Source: www.ibm.com

Finally! Definitive proof that humans are destined for obsolescence while computers take over the tedious work of "thinking."

"An IBM computer crushed two human champions Tuesday in the second round of a man vs. machine showdown on the popular US television game show 'Jeopardy!'

Most of the banter and gentle humor that usually pepper the popular quiz show was gone as the supercomputer dominated the game by beating his human opponents to the buzzer again and again."

Gleefully posted by GeneBot 2.0

New Device Will Give Soldiers Eyes in the Back of Their Head - Technology News by ExtremeTech

2011-01-07T19:48:00.000-05:00

See original at Technology News by ExtremeTech:

"DARPA is developing a new technology that will give soldiers a super human view of the battlefield—and not just from multiple angles, but from every angle. The new high tech vision works via glasses connected to soldiers' headgear that will give the viewer the power of zoom vision; night vision; and, more spectacularly, 'full sphere awareness' of everything around them. To achieve the 360 vantage point, the glasses will combine images from various cameras connected around the soldier's head gear. And for an added ability, the images can be combined with data from fellow soldiers as well as from aerial drones to give a single soldier a real-time 3D map of their surroundings. A true god's-eye-view of the combat zone."

Software Engineer, Mathematician are best job in the US

2011-01-07T19:46:00.001-05:00

See reference at Wall Street Journal Online. Original at www.careercast.com

Based on flexibility, job satisfaction, working environment, income, physical demands, and job outlook.

AI: No command, and control

2010-12-01T13:58:00.000-05:00

See original story at The Economist

Can AI agents make better decisions under stressful situations than humans? Some people think so:

"ARMIES have always been divided into officers and grunts. The officers give the orders. The grunts carry them out. But what if the grunts took over and tried to decide among themselves on the best course of action? The limits of human psychology, battlefield communications and (cynics might suggest) the brainpower of the average grunt mean this probably would not work in an army of people. It might, though, work in an army of robots."

Once again, computing tops "Best Jobs in America"

2010-11-21T08:37:00.000-05:00

See original at Money Magazine Best Jobs in America 2010.

"The job is creatively challenging, and engineers with good people skills are liberated from their screens. Salaries are generally higher than for programmers, and a typical day has more variety."

Virtual-Reality Expert Jaron Lanier on the Potential of Avatars - WSJ.com

2010-10-27T14:43:00.000-04:00

See original WSJ article at Virtual-Reality Expert Jaron Lanier on the Potential of Avatars

Do brains make minds, or do minds make brains? Recent approaches to AI have begun exploring the idea that not only do minds need brains, they need bodies as well. Disembodied thought may be impossible. The linked article takes an interesting tangent on the mind-brain problem by giving a preview of how our brains might adapt to being 're-embodied' in some other form. Sure to be of interest to gamers, but perhaps also to the most philosophically-minded.

"Becoming an avatar in virtual reality, as a full-bodied human (or even nonhuman), has the potential to be vastly more interesting and important than one would expect from a technological amusement. What is really going on is the opening up of a new frontier of human potential, which can be called 'somatic cognition'—somatic meaning 'of the body.'"

The coming ubiquity of Human-Agent Collectives

2010-10-13T14:33:00.001-04:00

Or, why (you+tech) > (you) + (tech)

See original story at New science to enable humans and computers to interact more effectively

"Embryonic and relatively unsophisticated examples of current human interactions with autonomous software entities include the crowd-sourcing that provides a growing element of our traffic information, user-generated content for weather reports, and our interactions with software that can find us hotels according to our preferences.

Professor Jennings says: “We are fast approaching an ‘era of ubiquity’ where each of us will become increasingly dependent on multiple smart and proactive computers that we carry with us, access at home and at work, and that are embedded into the world around us."

Google Cars Drive Themselves

2010-10-09T18:57:00.000-04:00

Image courtesy NYTimes

See original story at NYTimes - Google Cars Drive Themselves, in Traffic

I've posted links before to government and academic research projects working on autonomous navigation, but now apparently Google has gotten into the fray.

"The car is a project of Google, which has been working in secret but in plain view on vehicles that can drive themselves, using artificial-intelligence software that can sense anything near the car and mimic the decisions made by a human driver."

"Robot drivers react faster than humans, have 360-degree perception and do not get distracted, sleepy or intoxicated, the engineers argue. They speak in terms of lives saved and injuries avoided — more than 37,000 people died in car accidents in the United States in 2008. The engineers say the technology could double the capacity of roads by allowing cars to drive more safely while closer together. Because the robot cars would eventually be less likely to crash, they could be built lighter, reducing fuel consumption. But of course, to be truly safer, the cars must be far more reliable than, say, today’s personal computers, which crash on occasion and are frequently infected.

Portable, personal augmented reality a step closer

2010-10-09T14:48:00.000-04:00

Image courtesy BBC News at news.bbcimg.co.uk/

See original story at BBC News - Smart specs unite world and data

Very cool -- images are superimposed on the real world by projecting them directly onto the retina.

"A lightweight pair of augmented reality glasses that overlay the world with digital content, such as directions or a travel guide, has debuted in Japan.

The headset, created by Olympus and phone-maker NTT Docomo, uses augmented reality software on an attached phone."

Cars as traffic sensors

2010-09-27T14:39:00.001-04:00

Image: Google

See original story at MIT News -- Cars as traffic sensors

A great example of how ubiquitous networked processors can function together as a single sensor network.

"Data about road and traffic conditions can come from radio stations’ helicopters, the Department of Transportation’s roadside sensors, or even, these days, updates from ordinary people with cell phones. But all of these approaches have limitations: Helicopters are costly to deploy and can observe only so many roads at once, and it could take a while for the effects of congestion to spread far enough that a road sensor will detect them."
"MIT’s CarTel project is investigating how cars themselves could be used as ubiquitous, highly reliable mobile sensors."

Gadgets to learn about you

2010-09-20T22:22:00.001-04:00

See original story at CNET News

I've often heard people humbly say "I'm not very good at computers." My favorite response is "No, it's just that computers aren't very good at you." (The original line is from a Friends episode where Jeff Goldblum is coaching Joey on acting technique...) Anyway, the point is that our frustrations with computers are often indicators of poor design. In his book The Design of Everyday Things, Don Norman makes the case that if tools are well-designed, the intuitive thing to do will be the right thing to do. Great idea, but it takes an exceptionally creative designer to implement it. The story linked describes another approach -- use machine learning so that software can adapt to the people who use it.

"Rather than teach your gadgets what to do, Intel researchers say that in the not-too-distant future they will learn about you on their own. That means where you are, how you're feeling, and what you want.

It's actually not as creepy as it sounds. Intel Chief Technology Officer and Director of Intel Labs Justin Rattner took the stage Wednesday at the annual Intel Developer Forum here to talk about the future of 'context-aware computing,' what Intel is doing about it, and how gadgets can make life easier for their owners, but in a way that the owners can control."

Emotional robot pets

2010-09-20T22:10:00.000-04:00

See original story at Eurekalert.org

Don't you hate it when your robotic dog doesn't notice that you're annoyed at its barking? I know I do.

"Designers of robot pets are fighting a never-ending battle with consumers to provide entertaining and realistic gadgets that respond to human interaction in ever more nuanced ways, mimicking the behavior of real pet animals or even people. Researchers in Taiwan are now looking at a new design paradigm that could see the development of a robot vision module that might one-day recognize human facial expressions and respond appropriately."

Robot insects for exploration

2010-09-18T20:42:00.000-04:00

Image courtesy www.wpafb.af.mil

See original story at Tiny MAVs May Someday Explore and Detect Environmental Hazards

Insects provide a great model for robust cooperative exploration. With swarms of relatively inexpensive microrobots, reliability is increased since the loss of one or more need not affect the others. Processing power can be distributed across the swarm. Still huge compared to smart dust, but a step in that direction!

"Dr. Robert Wood of Harvard University is leading the way in what could become the next phase of high-performance micro air vehicles for the Air Force.

His basic research is on track to evolve into robotic, insect-scale devices for monitoring and exploration of hazardous environments, such as collapsed structures, caves and chemical spills."

Songs in the key of EEG

2010-09-15T07:46:00.000-04:00

See original article at CultureLab

Brain-computer interfaces have been researched and developed for all kinds of practical reasons; here's an example of an artistic application.

"Mick Grierson of Goldsmiths College, London, developed a program that allows a computer to read music from your mind. Think of a note, and the computer will play it back. It wasn't perfectly accurate, but it was good enough to get Peters' attention."

Electric Skin that Rivals the Real Thing

2010-09-13T22:43:00.000-04:00

See original article at Technology Review.

In Artificial Intelligence, an agent is defined as an entity that perceives and acts in an environment. Here's an example of a cool technology for perceptual input.

"The tactile sensitivity of human skin is hard to re-create, especially over large, flexible surfaces. But two California research groups have made pressure-sensing devices that significantly advance the state of the art."

One, made by researchers at Stanford University, is based on organic electronics and is 1,000 times more sensitive than human skin. The second, made by researchers at the University of California, Berkeley, uses integrated arrays of nanowire transistors and requires very little power. Both devices are flexible and can be printed over large areas; they are described this week in separate papers in the journal Nature Materials.

The Brain Speaks

2010-09-13T22:32:00.000-04:00

See original article at The University of Utah.

A logical next step in human augmentation / technological integration.

"Sept. 7, 2010 -- In an early step toward letting severely paralyzed people speak with their thoughts, University of Utah researchers translated brain signals into words using two grids of 16 microelectrodes implanted beneath the skull but atop the brain."

Screensaver discovers new star

2010-09-10T14:02:00.000-04:00

One of the first significant applications of distributed computing I heard about (and actually participated in) was SETI@home, a project that uses the computers of volunteers to analyze radio telescope data. Another is the search for Mersenne Primes -- in 2008 the Great Internet Mersenne Prime Search (GIMPS) found the then-largest known Mersenne Prime; a number that would stretch 30 miles if printed in 12-point type.

Here's another success of distributed computing: the discovery of a new star:

"WASHINGTON -- Astronomers announced Thursday the discovery of a new star, found with help from a most unusual source -- a screen saver.

Chris and Helen Colvin, owners of the personal computer running the screen saver are participants in a project called Einstein@home, an experiment in distributed computing that uses the donated idle time from hundreds of thousands of home computers across the globe in lieu of more expensive supercomputers." See original story at FOXNews.com

With robot car, no driver needed

2010-09-08T14:21:00.000-04:00

Image courtesy www.ce.unipr.it

See original story at New Scientist

An interview with Alberto Broggi, leader of an autonomous driving project.

"We are making a three-month journey, travelling 13,000 kilometres from Parma, Italy, to Shanghai, China, using autonomous vehicles - a world first. We've just left Moscow and are heading to Siberia."

Translating Thought into Speech

2010-09-08T08:34:00.000-04:00

See original story at latimes.com

"In a first step toward helping severely paralyzed people communicate more easily, Utah researchers have shown that it is possible to translate recorded brain waves into words, using a grid of electrodes placed directly on the brain.

Although they have only done it with one person and individual words can only be identified with accuracy in tests 50% of the time, the study reported Tuesday provides a ray of hope for people who can now communicate only by blinking, or wiggling a fingertip."

You, too, can have your own mind-reader for on $80! Mattel's Mindflex and Uncle Milton's Force Trainer both allow you to practice your powers of mental telepathy...

Your trash can may be watching you...

2010-09-08T08:18:00.000-04:00

Source: media.cleveland.com

See original story at cleveland.com

Students in COSC418 -- I saw this article and couldn't resist. Not exactly the same as the FoamRecycleBot we described in class on Monday, but a step in that direction. Challenge question: in which aspect of "PEAS" does the agent described in the article differ from the one we described in class?

"It would be a stretch to say that Big Brother will hang out in Clevelanders' trash cans, but the city plans to sort through curbside trash to make sure residents are recycling -- and fine them $100 if they don't."

Swarming spacecraft to self-destruct for greater good

2010-09-06T08:39:00.000-04:00

Image: ESA/Medialab

See original at New Scientist

Students in COSC 180 -- this is a step toward the kind of space exploration we mentioned in class last Thursday -- using many many small devices rather than one large one. The probes described in this article aren't yet "smart dust," but they are a step in that direction.

Also interesting is the behavior described in the article and referred to in the title: self-destruction of individual probes "for the greater good of the collective." Begins to sound a bit like altruistic behavior, no?

"The agency foresees a day when space missions are undertaken not by one large spacecraft but by swarming formations of much smaller, cheaper ones. Such craft could collectively provide a 'floating optics' system for a space telescope comprising separate craft flying in formation, for instance."

Robot with frog egg smell sensor

2010-08-30T22:44:00.000-04:00

See original at PhysOrg.com

Microphones and webcams aren't the only ways for robots to get sensory input.

"Researchers from the University of Tokyo have invented a novel means of improving a robot's sense of smell, by using inexpensive olfactory sensors containing frog eggs."

Robots learning from experience

2010-08-25T16:27:00.000-04:00

See original at ICT Results

Great example of "bottom-up" approaches to AI, which rely on statistical learning techniques to acquire knowledge, rather than attempting to hand-code it all explicitly.

"Software that enables robots to move objects about a room, building up ever-more knowledge about their environment, is an important step forward in artificial intelligence.

Some objects can be moved, while others cannot. Balls can be placed on top of boxes, but boxes cannot be stably stacked on top of balls. A typical one-year-old child can discover this kind of information about its environment very quickly. But it is a massive challenge for a robot – a machine – to learn concepts such as ‘movability’ and ‘stability’, according to Björn Kahl, a researcher at the Bonn-Rhein-Sieg University and a member of the Xpero robotics research project team.

The aim of the Xpero project was to develop a cognitive system for a robot that would enable it to explore the world around it and learn through physical experimentation."

20:20 Vision - the future for IT workers

2010-08-25T16:24:00.000-04:00

See original at Computerworld

Especially interesting to me is the quote "combining a technology degree with business knowledge will lead them to the higher-paying areas of IT." Double major anyone? In any field?

"Computerworld - Information technology has always been a fast-changing field. But nothing compares to the expected sea changes in the next decade that will impact the career plans of every generation of IT worker.

'The rate of change has accelerated dramatically,' says Alain Chesnais, president of the Association for Computing Machinery (ACM) and founder of Visual Transitions, which specializes in computer graphics and social networks. Consider, he says, that graphics chips are doubling in capacity every six months. That translates into a thousandfold increase in capacity over a five-year period -- the average shelf life of most game platforms. 'We've never seen anything like it in any industry,' he says."

“P vs NP” Finally Solved?

2010-08-24T15:04:00.000-04:00

See original at Discover Magazine

The repercussions of proving P/=NP are interesting enough; but perhaps even more interesting is the way mathematics is being conducted in a public online forum.

"P is not equal to NP. Seems simple enough. But if it’s true, it could be the answer to a problem computer scientists have wrestled for decades.
Vinay Deolalikar, who is with Hewlett-Packard Labs, has sent to peers copies of a proof he did stating that P is not equal to NP. Mathematicians are reviewing his work now—a task that could go on for a long time. If he’s correct, Deolalikar will have figured out one of the Clay Mathematics Institute’s seven Millennium Prize Problems, for which they give $1 million prizes"

Grand unified theory of AI: Combining top-down with bottom-up

2010-08-19T21:26:00.000-04:00

See original at Science Daily

In the 1950s and '60s, artificial-intelligence researchers saw themselves as trying to uncover the rules of thought. But those rules turned out to be way more complicated than anyone had imagined. Since then, artificial-intelligence (AI) research has come to rely, instead, on probabilities -- statistical patterns that computers can learn from large sets of training data.

The most well-known example of the top-down approach to AI is the Cyc project. I wonder how it could be combined with bottom-up approaches?

At The Extreme Edge Of Artificial Intelligence - Forbes.com

2010-08-19T21:19:00.000-04:00

See original at Forbes.com

Think sentient computers are the stuff of science fiction? We have news for you.

The last couple of posts were a bit pessimistic; here's someone writing from the other side. Make sure to check out the link to 11 Leaders in Artificial Intelligence.

Dr. Robot?

2010-08-19T21:14:00.000-04:00

See original at Duke University news

That's Dr. "Robot," not Dr. "Rohrbot" :-)

As physician-guided robots routinely operate on patients at most major hospitals, the next generation robot could eliminate a surprising element from that scenario -- the doctor.

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.

Computers: Will They Ever Learn?

2010-08-19T21:12:00.000-04:00

See original at Forbes.com

Have we plateaued in our progress on AI?

A computer that translates as well as a human, which is as good a definition as any of genuine artificial intelligence, is nowhere in sight.

This isn't just an issue for computer translation; it exists for just about all of the tough problems computers are working in: language, vision, robotics--even search, which is at the heart of the Web. Computers have become remarkably useful but are still a far cry from the dream of early computer pioneers of a machine so smart it would be indistinguishable from a human.

Your Brain on Computers

2010-08-19T21:06:00.000-04:00

See original at NYTimes.com

I've noticed an interesting trend in recent years -- I've met more and more students who seem tired of technology. Is it time to back off?

"The quest to understand the impact on the brain of heavy technology use — at a time when such use is exploding — is still in its early stages. To Mr. Strayer, it is no less significant than when scientists investigated the effects of consuming too much meat or alcohol."

The First Church of Robotics

2010-08-19T21:00:00.000-04:00

See original at NYTimes.com

Not everyone is enamored with the search for Artificial Intelligence. Does AI devalue humans?

"THE news of the day often includes an item about some development in artificial intelligence: a machine that smiles, a program that can predict human tastes in mates or music, a robot that teaches foreign languages to children. This constant stream of stories suggests that machines are becoming smart and autonomous, a new form of life, and that we should think of them as fellow creatures instead of as tools. But such conclusions aren’t just changing how we think about computers — they are reshaping the basic assumptions of our lives in misguided and ultimately damaging ways."

GPUs Threaten Password Security

2010-08-11T12:43:00.000-04:00

See original at Georgia Tech Research Institute

Earlier this year I saw a story about how the US Air Force used PlayStation 3 consoles to build a supercomputer "100,000 times faster than high-end computer processors sold today." The power comes from the PlayStations' graphics processing units.

"It's been called revolutionary - technology that lends supercomputer-level power to any desktop. What's more, this new capability comes in the form of a readily available piece of hardware, a graphics processing unit (GPU) costing only a few hundred dollars.

Georgia Tech researchers are investigating whether this new calculating power might change the security landscape worldwide. They're concerned that these desktop marvels might soon compromise a critical part of the world's cyber-security infrastructure - password protection."

First robot able to develop and show emotions is unveiled

2010-08-09T15:11:00.000-04:00

See original at The Guardian

We've all gotten mad at our computer, but what if your computer could get mad at you?

"When Nao is sad, he hunches his shoulders forward and looks down. When he's happy, he raises his arms, angling for a hug. When frightened, Naohe cowers, and he stays like that until he is soothed with some gentle strokes on his head.

Nothing out of the ordinary, perhaps, except that Nao is a robot — the world's first that can develop and display emotions. He can form bonds with the people he meets depending on how he is treated. The more he interacts with someone, the more Nao learns a person's moods and the stronger the bonds become."

Phone Calls Not Efficient

2010-08-06T19:28:00.000-04:00

See original article on Techdirt

Is texting better than voice communication?

"The telephone, in other words, doesn't provide any information about status, so we are constantly interrupting one another. The other tools at our disposal are more polite. Instant messaging lets us detect whether our friends are busy without our bugging them, and texting lets us ping one another asynchronously. (Plus, we can spend more time thinking about what we want to say.) For all the hue and cry about becoming an 'always on' society, we’re actually moving away from the demand that everyone be available immediately."

Gaming for a cure

2010-08-06T14:19:00.000-04:00

See original article at University of Washington News and Information

A nice example of a GWAP ("Game with a Purpose").

"Biochemists and computer scientists at the University of Washington two years ago launched an ambitious project harnessing the brainpower of computer gamers to solve medical problems.

The game, Foldit, turns one of the hardest problems in molecular biology into a game a bit reminiscent of Tetris. Thousands of people have now played a game that asks them to fold a protein rather than stack colored blocks or rescue a princess."

First Human Testing of Mind-Controlled Artificial Arm

2010-08-04T00:32:00.000-04:00

See original at Singularity Hub

A next step in the integration of human with technology.

"The world’s first human testing of a mind-controlled artificial limb is ready to begin. A joint project between the Pentagon and Johns Hopkins Applied Physics Laboratory (APL), the Modular Prosthetic Limb will be fully controlled by sensors implanted in the brain, and will even restore the sense of touch by sending electrical impulses from the limb back to the sensory cortex. Last week APL announced it was awarded a $34.5 million contract with DARPA, which will allow researchers to test the neural prosthetic in five individuals over the next two years."

The Fantastic Voyage?

2010-08-02T15:38:00.000-04:00

Robot Pills: Scientific American

I remember seeing The Fantastic Voyage as a kid on TV -- scientists shrink a submarine and its crew and inject it into a person. Coming soon! :-)

"Active pill-size robotic capsules are being developed for use in screening, diagnosis and therapeutic procedures.

"Miniaturizing robotic components to perform tasks inside the body poses novel engineering challenges. Those challenges are giving rise to creative solutions that will influence robotics and other medical technologies in general."

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

2010-07-23T14:21:00.000-04:00

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?

2010-07-21T16:05:00.000-04:00

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."

How many atoms in a vacuum tube?

2010-06-14T12:30:00.000-04:00

BBC News - Seven atom transistor sets the pace for future PCs: "Researchers have shown off a transistor made from just seven atoms that could be used to create smaller, more powerful computers."

If robots can marry[1], can they also marry[2]?

2010-06-14T12:28:00.000-04:00

Robot Conducts Wedding Ceremony in Tokyo : Discovery News:

Marry[1] - to conduct a wedding ceremony.
Marry[2] - to enter into the formalized relationship of marriage

"Almost everyone stood when the bride walked down the aisle in her white gown, but not the wedding conductor, because she was bolted to her chair.

The nuptials at this ceremony were led by 'I-Fairy,' a 4-foot (1.5-meter) tall seated robot with flashing eyes and plastic pigtails. Sunday's wedding was the first time a marriage had been led by a robot, according to manufacturer Kokoro Co.

'Please lift the bride's veil,' the robot said in a tinny voice, waving its arms in the air as the newlyweds kissed in front of about 50 guests."

MIT researchers enable self-assembling of chips

2010-06-14T12:21:00.000-04:00

MIT researchers enable self-assembling of chips: "Researchers at the Massachusetts Institute of Technology on Tuesday released research detailing how molecules in chips can self-assemble, potentially reducing manufacturing costs.

A step on the way to building the "other" von Neumann machines (self-replicating machines). If you're a CS major, you're more likely to think of "von Neumann machine" as a type of computer architecture.

"The researchers have developed a technique in which polymers automatically fall into place to create an integrated circuit, said Caroline Ross, professor of materials science and engineering at MIT and a researcher behind the technology. The researchers designed a template to cause polymers to spontaneously arrange themselves into useful patterns."

Watch out for grey goo.

Living with Robots

2010-03-10T13:28:00.000-05:00

Honda has been developing robotics technologies for many years now. This short video explores some of the successes to date as well as challenges to be overcome (largely social rather than technological).

You think MY password is long?

2010-03-03T22:35:00.001-05:00

Check out the password at time 1:40... students wouldn't laugh at THAT password.

Light-activated, DNA-based Nanomachines

2010-03-03T22:32:00.001-05:00

Nanomachinery lights up: "A light-activated switch to turn nanomachines on and off has been developed by Japanese researchers. The team showed how tiny tweezers made with DNA could be triggered to open and close in response to UV and visible light. The clever mechanism is hoped to find useful roles in designing future nano-robots.

DNA is a versatile building block to construct nanomachinery that is small enough to interact with single molecules. But these nanomachines usually require a source of 'fuel' to trigger activity: typically small DNA fragments that are added each cycle. The problems associated with this process are delays in activating and deactivating systems, and the build up of waste products that can inhibit movement."

Flying Pixel Display

2010-03-03T21:47:00.000-05:00

3D display made of flying pixel-copters in the works: "Two teams at the Massachusetts Institute of Technology are working on a unique 3D display dubbed Flyfire, in which a flock of tiny aircraft carrying multicoloured LEDs hover in front of the viewer to form an image. As pixels that can move through space, the free-flying LEDs could form a shape-shifting 3D display (see video). As well as the pixels displaying moving images like a normal screen, they could change their position to add real depth."

Dubai Assassination Caught on Surveillance

2010-02-18T20:28:00.000-05:00

Big news this week was the assassination of a Hamas official in Dubai by a team of more than 10 assassins. What was particularly striking to me was how much of the unfolding event was captured on surveillance video. I've often asked my students how much of their lives they think is captured on video -- certainly not as much as in a place like Dubai. But whatever amount it is, it will only be increasing.

There are at least two significant issues this raises: first is the social issue of privacy. It's not exactly that surveillance makes private things public; however it does turns public events that would have been transient into permanent records. What will the social cost be?

Second is the technological issue of how to deal with the deluge of data. Not just how to store it, but what to do with it. Imagine a day when intelligent software can monitor the massive flow of data from ubiquitous video, audio, and other sensors. Will we be able to prevent crimes and terrorist acts by catching the would-be perpetrators in advance? Starting to sound a bit like "Minority Report!"

Image credit: http://blogs.edweek.org/edweek/LeaderTalk/

Real-time language translation coming soon?

2010-02-18T14:57:00.000-05:00

Google developing a translator for smartphones

It's hard enough for machines to translate text; harder to translate spoken language; and harder still to do it in real time. But tech behemoth Google is working on technology to do exactly that.

"Head of translation services at Google, Franz Och, said he believed almost instant speech-to-speech translation should be possible if the accuracy of voice recognition and machine translation can be improved. He said Google is working on this, and he expected the technology to “work reasonably well” in a few years. There has been a great deal of progress in voice recognition and machine translation in recent years, especially the latter, thanks to funding from the U.S. Defense Advanced Research Projects Agency (DARPA)."

Robots will replace all workers in 25 years

2010-02-18T14:49:00.000-05:00

Cisco Systems Futurist Dave Evan has no shortage of shocking projections about the future of technology and the human race. Among them:

artificial brain implants
data created at a rate of 92 million Libraries of Congress per year
cost of storage dropping below $10 per petabyte (at that price, you could create a high def video of every second of your entire life for less than $100, assuming you don't live past 130!)
instantaneous language translation
intelligent machines with feelings

See more at itWorld Canada

Programming methods for multicore

2010-02-13T21:26:00.002-05:00

There have been many advances in programming paradigms (functional, object-oriented) and programming methodologies (agile, extreme); but much development is still done with a single or a small number of processors in mind. This has to change in order to take advantage of the power of multicore machines. Researchers at Berkeley are aiming to change this by developing new parallel methodologies.

Using [their] approach, one team created a program that reduced the time needed to create an MRI image from one hour to one minute. The code is already being used at a local children's hospital.
In another example, the approach reduced the time to handle object recognition from 222 seconds on an Intel Nehalem processor to 1.8 seconds on a massively parallel Nvidia GTX 280 chip. Other efforts in areas including speech recognition, option trading and machine learning showed results ranging from 11 to 100-fold performance gains.

See more on Berkeley's progress in parallel programming.

Will Keyboards give way to Brain Control Interfaces?

2010-02-13T15:38:00.002-05:00

Mind Over Matter... ExtremeTech

I remember sitting in typing class back in high school, wondering "when in the world am I ever going to use this skill?" I couldn't have envisioned how computers would change things.

Despite the rapid advancement of computers, a few elements have remained near universal: display screen, keyboard, pointing device. These components have been such an integral part of computing since early days that it's hard to imagine a computer without them. Prediction: this is certainly going to change. Some new input technology will come along and keyboards will go the way of rotary-dialed phones. We don't know yet what that new technology will be, but it's coming.

An intriguing possibility: direct brain interfaces. If we could master two-way neural/electronic interfaces, we could get rid of all three: keyboard, mouse, AND monitor.

"The ability to influence the physical world merely by thought has been a dream of mankind for many years. Now researchers are making real progress in letting people control a PC simply by thinking, and the first crop of consumer Brain Control Interface (BCI) headsets has arrived. Right now these are being used only for simple games, and hardware and applications to support the technology are scarce. But this still represents a major advance that could significantly change how we all interact with computers."

As the story goes on to describe, a natural application of brain control interfaces (BCIs) is to replace lost functionality in people who have suffered loss of motor control. Once BCIs can be used replace lost functionality, it's almost inevitable that they will be used to introduce new functionality -- built-in GPS, anyone? Human calculators? Eidetic memory? Why not control the world around you with a mere thought? Turn lights on and off. Set the thermostat. Change the channels. Sounds spurious? Maybe. But how many of today's conveniences would have sounded the same to earlier generations?

Donate your computing power to map the Milky Way

2010-02-12T19:39:00.001-05:00

PCs Around the World Unite To Map the Milky Way

"At this very moment, tens of thousands of home computers around the world are quietly working together to solve the largest and most basic mysteries of our galaxy.

"Enthusiastic and inquisitive volunteers from Africa to Australia are donating the computing power of everything from decade-old desktops to sleek new netbooks to help computer scientists and astronomers at Rensselaer Polytechnic Institute map the shape of our Milky Way galaxy. Now, just this month, the collected computing power of these humble home computers has surpassed one petaflop, a computing speed that surpasses the world’s second fastest supercomputer."

This "crowd-sourcing" approach was used by the Search for Extra-Terrestrial Intelligence early on, and more recently was responsible for finding a new largest Mersenne Prime.

Image credit: NASA/JPL/Caltech/R. Hurt (SSC)

First chess, now Jeopardy?

2010-02-12T19:24:00.000-05:00

IBM is working on a Jeopardy-playing computer that can beat human contestants. Though it can't yet beat the best human players, it's pretty amazing that it can do everything it needs to do. Consider:

Without being connected to the Internet, the computer has to understand natural language, determine the answer to a question (or, in the case of Jeopardy, the question to an answer), and then calculate the odds that its answer is correct in order to decide whether it is worth buzzing in.

The fear of getting a question wrong and losing money prevents many a wrong answer from a human Jeopardy contestant. At the same time, humans often instinctively know they know the answer to a question, even if it doesn't pop into their heads right away. So a human Jeopardy player will often click the buzzer upon hearing the question, and then spend the next several seconds pulling the answer out of the memory bank. To compete on Jeopardy, a computer must determine whether it knows the correct response within seconds.

See the original story at IBM's Jeopardy-playing machine can now beat human contestants

The Emotional Computer

2010-02-11T10:31:00.001-05:00

Can your computer make you happy?

Researchers in the Affective Computing Group at the MIT Media Lab are trying to improve your computer by giving it emotions -- or rather, the ability to detect them. Plenty of people get mad at their computers. What if the computer could sense that, and respond by changing the way it worked?

"We're not talking about handing a global missile defence system over to a PC with a lot of feelings, but we are talking about improving the interface between humans and computers by making computers easier and more intuitive to interact with. For example, computers that sense when a user is getting frustrated could try a different way of explaining how to troubleshoot the internet connection. Cars that can tell when a driver is about to fall asleep could sound an alarm."

"The laboratory for Affective Computing at The Massachusetts Institute of Technology puts it like this: "Emotion is fundamental to human experience, influencing cognition, perception, and everyday tasks such as learning, communication, and even rational decision-making. However, technologists have largely ignored emotion and created an often-frustrating experience for people, in part because affect has been misunderstood and is hard to measure."

At some point in the future, will your computer get mad at you for the way you're acting? We'll have to wait and see.

Can we trust computers to drive our cars?

2010-02-06T13:26:00.002-05:00

The Electronic Systems That Make Modern Cars Go (and Stop)

We don't have to look to the future to see the rise of autonomous vehicles; computers have already taken over many of the low-level functions of cars.

"The electronic systems in modern cars and trucks — under new scrutiny as regulators continue to raise concerns about Toyota vehicles — are packed with up to 100 million lines of computer code, more than in some jet fighters."

"Even basic vehicles have at least 30 of these microprocessor-controlled devices, known as electronic control units, and some luxury cars have as many as 100.

"These electronic brains control dozens of functions, including brake and cruise control and entertainment systems. Software in each unit is also made to work with others. So, for example, when a driver pushes a button on a key fob to unlock the doors, a module in the trunk might rouse separate computers to unlock all four doors.

Will faulty brake controllers cause us to reject computer-controlled components? Not a chance! For better or worse, our society regularly determines acceptable levels of risk. As long as computer-controlled devices provide sufficient value to outweigh the risks, we will accept them. In most cases, computer-controlled devices actually reduce risks when compared to fallible human controllers.

For more on this topic, see this NPR story entitled Despite Glitches, Electronics Make Cars Safer.

IBM Preps Carbon Transistors

2010-02-03T23:14:00.000-05:00

Carbon Transistors for Post-Silicon Era

Moore's law may be running out of steam for silicon-based semiconductors, but IBM is working on the next big thing. Other alternatives might include DNA-based or liquid chemical computers.

"IBM Research demonstrated a carbon-based transistor technology that could make obsolete silicon-based CMOS chips over the next decade."
Graphene solves the No. 1 problem with today's silicon chips: Namely, that as we make them smaller and faster, they generate more and more heat. Carbon, on the other hand, harnesses quantum effects to reverse that trend, consuming less and less power as chips are made increasingly smaller and faster.
Graphene sheets also have higher carrier mobilities (the speed at which electrons are propelled by a given voltage). Carrier mobilities that are hundreds of times larger than silicon chips should translate into equally faster chip speeds for graphene.

Mind-reading in consumer devices

2010-02-03T17:12:00.000-05:00

Mind-control mobile-phone games Anyone ready for a driect brain interface?

"Mobile-games researcher Dr Paul Coulton and PhD student Will Bamford of InfoLab21 recently unveiled their new game ‘Brain Maze’, in which players use ‘tilt’ controls and a brain-wave reading headset to progress a marble around a course.

"At key checkpoints around the maze, the accelerometer-equipped phone picks up electromagnetic waves from the player’s brain - ‘Brain Maze’ uses alpha waves, which are associated with a meditative state, and beta waves, which are associated with an attentive state, to control access through the ‘mind gates’ that form part of the game."

The game is controlled by NeuroSky’s MindSet brainwave-interface headset, which retails for just $199.

'Smart dust' to explore planets

2010-02-03T12:39:00.000-05:00

'Smart dust' to explore planets

Space exploration is a perfect place for using smart dust and other nanotech. Rather than sending huge, expensive, complex devices to other planets (think Mars Rovers, which nevertheless are pretty cool) why not send a swarm of nanodevices that can be dispersed over a large portion of the planet. This approach could be much more robust -- half the sensors could fail, and we'd still receive plenty of interesting info. BBC News reports:

"Tiny 'smart' devices that can be borne on the wind like dust particles could be carried in space probes to explore other planets, UK engineers say. The devices would consist of a computer chip covered by a plastic sheath that can change shape when a voltage is applied, enabling it to be steered.

Even better, use nanotech von Neumann probes (devices that are capable of self-replication). In theory, we could send a couple hundred such probes to a place like Europa, and they would use the raw materials found there to replicate themselves, resulting in massive coverage from a small initial payload.

Human Augmentation and Future Soldiers

2010-02-03T11:11:00.001-05:00

Future Soldiers: Brain Boosters, Exoskeletons and Digital Buddies

Today's technologies to replace lost functions (cochlear implants, vision implants, advanced prosthetics) will inevitably lead to technologies that add new functions that we've never had (Human GPS? Night vision? Super strength? Thought-controlled robots?).

"The soldiers of the future might controversially boost their brains with drugs and prosthetics, augment their strength with mechanical exoskeletons, and have artificially intelligent 'digital buddies' at their beck and call, according to the U.S. Army's Future Soldier Initiative.

"The project is the latest attempt from the U.S. Army research lab in Natick, Mass., to brainstorm what soldiers might carry into the battlefield of tomorrow. A special emphasis of its concept is augmenting mental performance."