Tag: Agents

Siri's Sibling Launches Intelligent Discovery Engine
Were all familiar with the standard search engines such as Google and Yahoo, but there is a new technology on the scene that does more than just search the web it discovers it. Trapit, which is a personalized discovery engine for the web thats powered by the same artificial intelligence technology behind Apples Siri, launched its public beta last week. Trapit, which was first unveiled in June, is a system that personalizes content for its users based on keywords, URLs and reading habits. Since its first unveiling this past June, more than 10,000 participants have been testing out Trapit and using it to find and trap content. (more)

Watchers, carers, and administrators: the smart homes of tomorrow
These technologies are almost synonymous with the smart home and so-called intelligent buildings in general, but there's little or no intelligence to them. For a home to be considered smart, it must in a sense become a robota machine capable of, if not true intelligence (and certainly not sentience), sensing data, processing it, drawing conclusions of its own accord, and then acting upon those conclusions. Pervasive computing goes beyond the idea of a personal computer in every home, or even in every pocketit's to do with chips and sensors in everyday objects and the Internet of Things. When computers are everywhere, ambient intelligence is what followsat least in theory: a soft network of computers and devices (sometimes visible and recognizable, sometimes not) watching, thinking, and communicating for the betterment of humankind. (more)

What Will Siri's Kids be Like? Chatty and Much Smarter
Siri may be able to tell you the capital of Kazakhstan and show you the citys weather forecast -- but her descendents will be able to book the flight that gets you there. Virtual assistant robots -- like Apples ( AAPL ) Siri, GoArmy.coms Sergeant Star or Jenn on alaskaair.com -- may soon be able to recognize and retain the tastes and preferences of users and extract context from conversations, emulating more of a two-sided dialogue. Siri may not be the first with this type of technology, but Apple raised peoples attention to artificial intelligence last year when it integrated Siri into the iPhone 4S. IBM ( IBM ) supercomputer Wilson, who beat former Jeopardy champions on live television last year, also contributed to the growing interest. (more)

Professor awarded nearly $1 million grant to study use of social networks
Professor awarded nearly $1 million grant to study use of social networks University of Hawaii at Mnoa Information and Computer Sciences Associate Professor Scott Robertson has been awarded a four-year, $948,537 grant from the National Science Foundation to study the use of social networks and new media in political deliberation, voter decision-making, and civic participation. Use of the Internet and social networking sites to get information about politics is increasing dramatically, especially among young people. This project examines a fast growing, but little understood new type of political participation: online information seeking, deliberation and decision making in the context of Web 2.0 technologies. Robertson serves as the director of the HawaiiComputer-HumanInteractionLab at UH Mnoa. (more)

Problem-Solving Robot Swarm Goes After Our Books
Problem-Solving Robot Swarm Goes After Our Books Teamwork in humans is inspiring. Teamwork in highly-coordinated robots is a bit eerie. Created by artificial intelligence researcher Marco Dorigo of Belgium's Universitibre de Bruxelles, the "Swarmanoid" is a team of specialized robots designed to work together to solve environmental problems. Two foot-bots snap onto the hand-bot, escort it to the bookshelf, and release it. (more)

Automation: Leading the way
Australia 's rapidly expanding multi-billion dollar mining technology and services industry is leading the drive for innovations to boost productivity and efficiency. As Australian mining exports increase, mining companies are investing significant resources into the development and implementation of remote automation and unmanned machinery to meet this demand. The isolated geographical locations of many Australian mines, in addition to safety considerations, make remote automation and unmanned machinery an attractive option for mining companies. While traditional automation and robotic technology in the mining industry has comprised standalone autonomous equipment managing a selected process, today it is possible to connect these discrete processes resulting in an integrated, productive mining environment. (more)

AGIRI 2006 Workshop Keynote Speaker: Dr. Stan Franklin (Dir. Institute for Intelligent Systems, University of Memphis) - A Cognitive Theory of Everything: The LIDA Technology as an Artificial General Intelligence.
"Implementing and fleshing out a number of psychological and neuroscience theories of cognition, the LIDA conceptual model aims at being a cognitive 'theory of everything.' With modules or processes for perception, working memory, episodic memories, 'consciousness,' procedural memory, action selection, perceptual learning, episodic learning, deliberation, volition, and non-routine problem solving, the LIDA model is ideally suited to provide a working ontology that would allow for the discussion, design, and comparison of AGI systems. The LIDA technology is based on the LIDA cognitive cycle, a sort of 'cognitive atom.' The more elementary cognitive modules play a role in each cognitive cycle. Higher-level processes are performed over multiple cycles. This talk will give a quick overview of the LIDA conceptual model, and its underlying computational technology." May 20, 2006. (more)

Exclusive interview with Peter Molyneux.
New Scientist's David Cohen interviews Peter Molyneux (Creative Director, Lionhead Studios)about why computer games need to incorporate AI and emotions. May 2007. (more)

Learning and Multiagent Reasoning for Autonomous Agents.
Computers & Thought lecture by Peter Stone at IJCAI07. Three parts plus Intro by Ron Brachman. 2007. (more)

Scientific American Frontiers with Alan Alda: "Alpha Wolf" segment from "The Intimate Machine" broadcast.
Researchers build artificial intelligence software modeled on the canine mind. October 22, 2002. (more)

Scientific American Frontiers with Alan Alda: Cars That Think.
3 segments: Part 1 - Watch the Road. Alan rides in a vehicle that recognizes road signs and hazards – and warns the driver to slow down. Part 2 - Hold the Phone! Alan 'drives' the Ford VIRTTEX simulator that researchers use to investigate how distractions like cell phone calls or drowsiness affect driver safety. Part 3 - Smart Passenger. A virtual smart passenger named Sally listens in to the driver's speech at all times and responds appropriately. January 26, 2005. (more)

SimAgent Demonstration Movies from The University of Birmingham School of Computer Science.
"This directory provides mpeg movies showing what can be done with the SimAgent toolkit running in the Poplog/Pop11 environment using the RCLIB 2-D graphical interface tools." 1994-2004. (more)

The Secure Wireless Agent Testbed.
This video presents a high-level overview of the Secure Wireless Agent Testbed, a multi-year project to study intelligent agent technologies in the context of network-centric and mobile ad hoc wireless systems for situation awareness. The project involved over 50 students and resulted in over two dozen live field trials of agent-based C4ISR. The SWAT platform has since been employed on a number of follow-on projects and products for the Department of Defense, Department of Justice and several commercial offerings. July 14, 2008. (more)

UK Future TV: Future Technology episode with Austin Tate.
"Austin Tate of the University of Edinburgh talks about artificial intelligence techniques and their use in emergency response centres." March 10, 2007. (more)

Washburn Lecture Series at the Museum of Science, Boston: "2001: A Space Odyssey. Are we there yet?" Lecture one (of three) - Human/Computer Conversation: HAL and Beyond, with Justine Cassell, Ph.D..
Justine Cassell's lecture, "Human/Computer Conversation: HAL and Beyond," was the first in the three speaker lecture series: "2001: A Space Odyssey. Are we there yet?" November 6, 2001. (more)