Archive for the 'Rise of the Machines' Category
An Autonomous Flying Robot with a Honey Bee Brain
October 10th, 2012Via: University of Sheffield: Scientists at the Universities of Sheffield and Sussex are embarking on an ambitious project to produce the first accurate computer models of a honey bee brain in a bid to advance our understanding of Artificial Intelligence (AI), and how animals think. The team will build models of the systems in the […]
High Frequency Traders Trying to Create Arbitrage Opportunities by Flooding Market Systems Bogus Quotes
October 9th, 2012Via: CNBC: Translation: the ultimate goal of many of these programs is to gum up the system so it slows down the quote feed to others and allows the computer traders (with their co-located servers at the exchanges) to gain a money-making arbitrage opportunity.
Autonomous Killer Robots More Ethical Than Human Soldiers
October 2nd, 2012Oh sure. Via: CBS News: Drones could soon operate without the help of humans. Agence France-Presse is reporting that the Pentagon wants its drones to be more autonomous, so that they can run with little to no assistance from people. “Before they were blind, deaf and dumb,” Mark Maybury, chief scientist for the U.S. Air […]
White House Secret Meetings to Consider Unilateral Military Strikes in North Africa
October 2nd, 2012Via: Washington Post: The White House has held a series of secret meetings in recent months to examine the threat posed by al-Qaeda’s franchise in North Africa and consider for the first time whether to prepare for unilateral strikes, U.S. officials said.
Living Under Drones
September 26th, 2012Via: Guardian: The CIA’s programme of “targeted” drone killings in Pakistan’s tribal heartlands is politically counterproductive, kills large numbers of civilians and undermines respect for international law, according to a report by US academics. More: Living Under Drones
Autonomous Vehicles Coming to Callfornia
September 26th, 2012Via: Google: California Governor Edmund G. “Jerry” Brown Jr. is visiting Google Headquarters today to sign SB1298, a bill that creates a legal framework and operational safety standards for the testing and operation of autonomous vehicles on state roads and highways.
For More And More Companies, The Hiring Boss Is An Algorithm
September 21st, 2012Via: Wall Street Journal: When looking for workers to staff its call centers, Xerox Corp. used to pay lots of attention to applicants who had done the job before. Then, a computer program told the printer and outsourcing company that experience doesn’t matter. The software said that what does matter in a good call-center worker—one […]
Rethink Robotics
September 20th, 2012Via: IEEE: Whereas traditional industrial robots perform one specific task with superhuman speed and precision, Baxter is neither particularly fast nor particularly precise. But it excels at just about any job that involves picking stuff up and putting it down somewhere else while simultaneously adapting to changes in its environment, like a misplaced part or […]
DARPA’s Mentats: EEG Data Used for Threat Detection
September 20th, 2012During a recent email conversation about a related technology with a friend of mine, who, shall we say, knows more than a little about this subject, he wrote something that you might find interesting: Interesting approach. It sounds like they’ve given up on computers processing images and instead they’re trying to create a mentat. Maybe […]
‘Britons must work harder if the country is to compete with China and India’
September 18th, 2012I didn’t watch the piece, but one of my filters found this comment by Guardian reader, DivineColours: Via: Guardian: Britons must work harder if the country is to compete with China and India. Oh my aching sides. Currently under development is a robot which can work a sewing machine. Pretty soon the garment industry will […]
