“Created under a U.S. Department of Defense contract by an MIT spinoff company called iRobot, Morticia is a military machine with a mission. Instead of carrying bombs, she carries eyes and ears, transmitting what she sees back over a wireless link. She is also a pioneer, showing us how robots are likely to be integrated into our jobs and our lives in the coming years.”
Morticia is a prototype of… read more
“A growing number of tech-savvy traders…[are creating] programs to make the computer a tool for making small-scale pricing decisions, the task traditionally performed by traders.”
Technologies to foil hijackers being considered include “onboard flight-control systems that could be programmed to prevent planes from heading into restricted areas; remote control from the ground that could not be overridden from the cockpit; and a panic button, also impossible to override, that has the plane direct itself to land at the nearest suitable field.”
However, these require adding expensive “fly-by-wire ” systems and improved computer, GPS, and communications… read more
“Californian company Evolution Robotics (ERI) plans to release an operating system that it claims will do for robotics what Microsoft did for the personal computer with DOS and Windows.
“The idea has two aims: to slash the time and cost involved in developing new robots, and to let people who buy robotic lawnmowers, beer gophers or vacuum cleaners reprogram them.”
Microsoft, I-Robot, and other competitors are pushing their own… read more
A Japanese supercomputer has recorded the world’s fastest floating point calculation speed at 35.61 teraflops — five times faster than IBM’s ASCI White’s 7.23 teraflops.
The supercomputer is installed in The Earth Simulator at the Marine Science and Technology Center in Kanagawa. It which simulates climate change using data collected by Earth-monitoring satellites.
According to an NEC spokesman, the supercomputer was tested using the Linpack benchmarking software.… read more
Researchers are using Transcranial Magnetic Stimulation (TMS) to temporarily shut down the left hemisphere of the brain, where speech and short-term memory are supported, to mimic temporarily the brain pattern of autistic savants and achieve very fast brain processing.
Some autism experts are skeptical.
Also see: TMS: Twilight Zone Science?
Scientists at the software giant’s Microsoft Cambridge U.K. researchers are developing picture editing tools that can “automatically trace outlines, seamlessly cover marks or blemishes, and fill in backgrounds when pieces of an image are removed. The researchers are also working on similar tools that automate the editing of video clips.”
One tool called “jetstream” automatically draws contours around the most likely edges of an image. Another tool called “patchwork”… read more
A number of 3-D displays currently being developed “open up a whole new world for medicine, science and other professions that rely on complex visualizations” as well as video games.
For example, the autostereoscopic display currently under development at NYU eliminates the need for glasses, can be seen from a variety of viewing angles, and allows users to see a unique picture depending on where they sit.
Self-organizing networks of devices, connecting to one another wirelessly and automatically, are becoming commercially available for industrial uses and later for offices and homes.
Nanobiotechnology researchers are producing a variety of tools with important implications for medicine and biotechnology, including faster and easier diagnosis of complex diseases and genetic disorders.
This is a “new class of devices that combine the ability of biological molecules to selectively bind with other molecules with the ability of nanoelectronics to instantly detect the slight electrical changes caused by such binding.”
JJX Capital plans to bring a supercomputer that is “the most powerful ever built for commercial use” online in June that can predict “the future price movements of every stock, bond and commodity traded in the United States.”
The 2 teraflops machine will use AI software that incorporates fuzzy logic, neural networks and genetic algorithm optimization to help predict the performance of an investment.
Sandia National Laboratories has launched a $2.5 million crash program to create an advanced sensor to track terrorists. The smart, golf ball-sized sensors, dropped in a city or in enemy territory, could communicate with one another to identify and track terrorists’ activities and report back.
Kurzweil’s Law of Accelerating Returns forsees faster growth in computational power over the next several decades than Moore’s Law predicts. Kurzweil said we can “expect the process to accelerate at a double exponential rate.”"The next paradigm, the sixth, will be three-dimensional molecular computing,” Kurzweil said. “In the past year, there have been major strides, for example, in creating three-dimensional carbon nanotube-based electronic circuits.”
Lucent Technologies and IBM have already… read more
Researchers believe they have solved the problem of growing the complex networks of blood vessels that artificial organs would need to sustain themselves within the body.
The idea, so far tested in rats, involves copying the blood vessel network of a real liver and using 3D fractal computer modelling and machining to mimic its construction.
The scinentists use the model to construct a silicon-mould scaffold. They then pump a… read more
Three of the special interest group meetings at Foresight’s Exploring the Edges: Spring 2002 Senior Associates Gathering, which begins Friday evening, April 26 in Palo Alto, will focus on the Singularity — a coming dramatic phase transition as technology accelerates over the next few decades and machines achieve superintelligence.
These include Brainstorms in Accelerating Change: Open Singularity Discussion, moderated by Ray Kurzweil; Exploring the Technological Singularity: Universal Trends… read more