Artificial Intelligence

2012-02-19 By Steve Lohr (The New York Times) Big Data is shorthand for advancing trends in technology that open the door to a new approach to understanding the world and making decisions. Data analysts help businesses make sense of an explosion of data - Web traffic and social network comments, as well as software and sensors that monitor shipments, suppliers and customers - to guide decisions, trim costs and lift sales. But the march of quantification, made possible by enormous new sources of data, will sweep through academia, business and government. The new megarich of Silicon Valley, at Google and Facebook, are masters at linking Web data- searches, posts and messages - with Internet advertising.

Dr. Fill is the creation of Matt Ginsberg, an artificial intelligence scientist and cruciverbalist, what you should fill in if you're ever starting at the clue: "a creator of crossword puzzles. " He set off on the project a little more than a year ago, in part because he felt Watson left the public with a false impression about the nature of artificial intelligence. That, plus improving artificial intelligence, lets us harness computers to solve increasingly complex problems.

Baycrest neuropsychologists have found that a smartphone training program, theory-driven and specifically designed for individuals with memory impairment, can result in robust improvements in day-to-day functioning, and boost independence and confidence levels. Two decades ago, Baycrest pioneered a theory-driven training program that tapped into preserved implicit memory systems in people with amnesia to teach them to use assistive memory devices. Implicit or procedural memory is a type of memory that supports learning but does not require conscious executive control. The Baycrest study involved 10 outpatients, 18 to 55 years of age, who had moderate-to-severe memory impairment, the result of non-neurodegenerative conditions including ruptured aneurysm, stroke, tumor, epilepsy, closed-head injury, or anoxia (insufficient oxygen to the brain) after a heart attack.

She is a Regents' Professor of Cognitive Science at the Georgia Institute of Technology with joint appointments in the Ivan Allen College of Liberal Arts School of Public Policy and the College of Computing School of Interactive Computing. Nersessian is one of the pioneers of the interdisciplinary field of cognitive studies of science and technology, which comprises psychologists, philosophers of science, artificial intelligence researchers and cognitive anthropologists. So, I was inspired to study math and physics, but in retrospect this was the beginning of my life as a philosopher and cognitive scientist. I was hooked I changed to a double major in physics and philosophy, and headed to graduate school to study the philosophy of physics.

Previous studies have tended to consider only how one learns from the consequences of ones own actions, called reinforcement learning, Mathewson said. These studies have found heightened activity in the basal ganglia, a set of brain structures known to be involved in the control of muscle movements, goals and learning. That's been pretty well studied and its been figured out that dopamine seems to carry the signal for learning about the outcome of our own actions, Mathewson said. Researchers call this type of learning belief learning.

The AI chat robot SimSimi has been making waves in Thailand over the past few weeks, being the latest craze for the smartphone savvy crowd. The AI does not know any Thai at all but it picked it up quickly and learned to chat quite proficiently in the matter of a few weeks thanks to early adopters. Parents were up in arms, complaining to the Ministry of Culture of the bad words that SimSimi was using to respond to their children. The ICT Minister actually contacted the developers telling them to ban bad words and stop insulting a certain former Prime Minister.

CAMBRIDGE, United Kingdom, Feb 07, 2012 (BUSINESS WIRE) -- Evi, a next-generation artificial intelligence (AI) now being launched via her own "conversational search" mobile app, has skyrocketed to the top of iOS and Android app popularity. Evi is an artificial intelligence that uses natural language processing and semantic search technology to infer the intent of your question, gather information from multiple sources, analyze them and return the most pertinent answer. As Evi's "father", AI entrepreneur Tunstall-Pedoe has designed Evi to draw upon what is now approaching one billion facts contained in the True Knowledge database. In addition to the database, Evi's pool of knowledge is extended through connections with popular APIs, such as Yelp.com, which will soon empower Evi to take immediate action related to your questions.

But a new video called Robot Readable World makes the argument for a slightly more complex form of robot vision. Robots and computers currently process the video that we give them using complicated algorithms, and that software is starting to give computers and robots their own distinct way of seeing. compiles over 30 different examples of video recognition technologies (all listed on the video's description), and puts them over an unnerving soundtrack (a song called Cold Summer Landscape by the band Blear Moon) to create a vision of how computers break complex forms and movement down into something they can understand. Seeing the kind of intense processing that it takes for a robot to do a simple task like turning a corner really drives home how, even as robots gain the ability to replicate more and more human actions, the machines were building are thinking in fundamentally different ways.

In a landmark step towards increased use of worldwide patent information on the internet, the Commissioner of the Japan Patent Office (JPO), Yoshiyuki Iwai, and the President of the European Patent Office (EPO), Benot Battistelli, have signed an agreement which will provide users of the patent system with better machine translations of patents from Japanese into English and then into German and French. In other words, the patent documents are very important not only for patent offices and applicants but also the public in the world and can contribute to global development of industry and economics. The significance of patent information has grown steadily with the creation of a global technology market reflected in a new record of 1.8 million patent filings worldwide in 2010.

Often your only option to make sense of the text is to use a machine translation service like Google Translate or Microsoft Translate. QTranslate registers several global hotkeys that let you translate text from any open program window. The two most important hotkeys are Ctrl-q, which displays a translation of the highlighted text in a popup window, or Ctrl-Ctrl which sends the highlighted text to the program window where it is then translated. The keyboard shortcut Ctrl-e furthermore uses text to speech synthesis to read the text out loud.

An opera hinging on Alan Turing's quest for artificial intelligence will begin touring in October The Turing Test, developed by mathematician and legendary wartime codebreaker Alan Turing to test a machine's ability to exhibit intelligent behaviour, is the subject of an opera by Scottish composer Julian Wagstaff, which will embark on a UK tour in October 2012. The Turing Test is set in the near future and tells the fictional story of a brilliant young PhD student named Stephanie, who is trapped in a bitter battle between two rival scientists racing to build the world's first truly intelligent computer. Turing suggested that if you are having an online chat via two separate computer terminals, one of which is linked to a human correspondent and the other to a computerised chat program, and if you cannot tell the difference between the computer and the human after chatting for an extended period of time, then the computer has passed the test and can legitimately be said to be intelligent.

Related Links The Norris Geyser Basin has spoken to Phil Dawson after he figured out how to use voice recognition software to decode "noisy" monitoring data gathered in 2003. "Who would have thought that voice recognition software could be applied to this kind of problem? " Voice recognition software has made a splash most recently in the new iPhone from Apple. Dawson, a geophysicist with the U.S. Geological Survey in California, said he happened by chance upon the discovery that voice recognition could be applied to seismic data.

Once upon a time, a very long time ago, in 1995 to be precise, a scholar named Eli Noam published an article in the prestigious journal Science under the title "Electronics and the Dim Future of the University". But, different though these responses were, all universities were agreed on one thing: in the end, students would have to come to them because only universities could give them the appropriate credentials. In behaving thus, universities put themselves in the role of the mythical frog in a saucepan of water that is being slowly heated on a hob. Some things have happened recently that make one think that perhaps the water might be reaching boiling point for traditional universities.

A couple of weeks ago I happened to read a column on the TSN website about the Montreal Canadiens. It was a machine translation, made by Google, of a column by Mario Tremblay that had appeared on the website of RDS, the network's sister site, in French. "The Director General of the Canadian, Pierre Gauthier, seller is present: " that's how the column began. (The general manager of the Canadiens, Pierre Gauthier, is now ready to sell.

Someone tried to mess around with the FaceUnlock application code from the Android SDK, and stumbled upon this code, which seems to include answers, as if given by a personal assistant or such. We've heard some rumors a few months back that Google may be working on a personal assistant as part of their Google X projects, and they've been doing this for years. These rumors came from someone who claimed he was involved with Google X, and he wanted to give a hint about what they've been working on: "This is in total violation of the NDA, but I don't care anymore. The central focus of Google X for the past few years has been a highly advanced artificial intelligence robot that leverages the underlying technology of many popular Google programs. ..."

The active learning algorithm is faster and more accurate in guessing the age of an individual than conventional algorithms. They have, for example, developed computer algorithms for facial age classification -- the automated assignment of individuals to predefined age groups based on their facial features as seen on video captures or still images. A person can teach a computer to make better guesses by running its algorithm through a large database of facial images of which the age is known using sets of labeled images, but acquiring such a database can be both time-consuming and expensive. The technology could find use, for example, in digital signage where the machine determines the age group of the viewer and displays targeted advertisements designed for those age groups, or in interactive games where the machine automatically presents different games based on the players' age range.

Allscripts has entered into a reseller and development agreement with M*Modal Inc., which calls for the integration of M*Modal's speech and language understanding technology into Allscripts' acute and ambulatory electronic health records (EHRs). M*Modal's technology, based on its Speech Understanding and Natural Language Understanding (NLU) platform, will help clinicians create voice-driven narrative patient documentation in Allscripts' EHRs. Michelson said adding M*Modal's technology will help Allscripts gain a competitive advantage over other EHR technologies on the market that don't incorporate speech recognition technology. M*Modal also recently announced a strategic agreement with Merge Healthcare to integrate its speech- and language-understanding technology across Merge's portfolio including its imaging and radiology offerings.

Last year, the Institute of Robotics and Mechatronics at the German Aerospace Center created the "Rollin' Justin" robot, a technical marvel that could catch a ball through a mix of precision, user input, and motion sensors. Huffington Post relayed video footage of the two robots in action, as each unit showed off their respective skills in a short game of catch. Luckily, Justin and Justin aren't equipped with any degree of artificial intelligence, because they could easily be throwing lethal objects through the air at unsuspecting humans. Either way, it seems like the next logical step will be a third "Justin" robot that can pitch catch a ball in one fluid motion.

Speech recognition trial uses DS consoles to help children with hearingdifficulties Nintendo is helping to implement the use of speech recognition software in Japanese schools, in partnership with telecom company NTT. As part a project currently being trialed, speech can be captured from a classroom teacher, and relayed as text on a students DS handheld console. Nintendos handheld console is no stranger to classrooms in Japan, with it already being used in educational settings for a variety of purposes. You can follow him on Twitter @midnightambler VentureBeat's Games channel covers stories about the evolving video game industry, from disruptive social game companies such as Zynga and CrowdStar, to the established giants such as Electronic Arts, Activision Blizzard, Microsoft, Sony, and Nintendo.......

DUBBED as an international promotional platform showcasing innovation, research and new technologies at the world stage, the Brussels Innova Exhibition has helped spread Malaysia's fame in research and innovation worldwide. Participated by representatives from 20 countries, the exhibition receives about 4,000 professional visitors and has almost 500 innovations entering the fray to bag coveted medals for the creator organisations or individuals. Associate Professor Dr Hussain Al-Kayeim bagged a gold, a bronze and a special award. While his Orthoptic Therapy Device was awarded a Bronze, his Artificial Neural Network for Boiler Trips, which was carried out with Dr Firas Basim Al-Niami as co-inventor, won gold. Dr Hussain Al-Kayeim also bagged the Prize of the Association of Polish Inventor and Rationalisers for his invention's ability to implement artificial intelligent code for diagnosis of six different types of steam boiler trips which helps in early detection of trips occurrence that can help avoid disasters or accidents.