September 2011
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June 2011
5 posts
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The Agreeableness of Robotic Vacuum Cleaners →
What would be the ideal ‘personality’ for a robotic vacuum cleaner? Via Presurfer
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May 2011
11 posts
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If you show people's faces to a computer, it does... →
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Scientists Give a Computer Schizophrenia; →
Computer immediately takes responsibility for a terrorist plot.
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Send a friend request to your computer, introduce it to friendship.
April 2011
25 posts
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One Step Closer to a Synthetic Brain →
In the future, the applications of a synthetic brain include facial recognitions, vision for autonomous vehicles, robotic rescue missions and treatment for brain trauma.
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Medical ethicist Harvey Fineberg shows us three paths forward for the ever-evolving human species: to stop evolving completely, to evolve naturally — or to control the next steps of human evolution, using genetic modification, to make ourselves smarter, faster, better. Neo-evolution is within our grasp. What will we do with it?
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The amount of digital data generated by instruments such as DNA sequencers,...
– from Data-Intensive Supercomputing.
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Functioning Synapse Created Using Carbon Nanotubes →
Well, this happened. Engineering researchers the University of Southern California have made an insanely major breakthrough in the use of nanotechnologies for the construction of a synthetic brain; they’ve built a carbon nanotube synapse. The circuit’s behavior (in tests) reproduces the function of a neuron, the building block of the brain. Although replacing biological neurons in our...
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Has your computer been introduced to sound?
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What might a game for robots look like? That’s more interesting. We get to...
– Frank Swain, from What Games Would a Robot Play?
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Bot Shows Signs of Consciousness →
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March 2011
65 posts
First Plastic Microprocessor Developed →
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Stretchy, rubbery “muscles” can be used to power a motor with very few parts, no gears, and no cogs. The muscles themselves are electroactive structures made up of layers of carbon grease separated by an insulating polymer film — these “Electro-Active Polymers” (EAPs) can stretch by over 300 percent.
When a voltage is applied, the configuration behaves like a...
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Move Over Einstein, Machines Will Take it From... →
What can take scientists years to figure out can take a computer just one day — and so researchers at Cornell University have developed an evolutionary computing algorithm called Eureqa that allows the laws of nature to be extracted from data at unheard of rates. This is a huge departure from the normal scientific method, in which a hypothesis is proposed to explain an existing observation....