ai articles
May 7, 2013
There’s a theory that human intelligence stems from a single algorithm. The idea arises from experiments suggesting that the portion of your brain dedicated to processing sound from your ears could also handle sight for your eyes. This is possible only while your brain is in the earliest stages of development, but it implies that [...]
December 5, 2012
Three years ago, Jian-Wei Pan brought a bit of Star Trek to the Great Wall of China. From a site near the base of the wall in the hills north of Beijing, he and his team of physicists from the University of Science and Technology of China (USTC) in Hefei aimed a laser at a [...]
November 27, 2012
Google’s driver-less cars are already street-legal in three states, California, Florida, and Nevada, and some day similar devices may not just be possible but mandatory. Eventually (though not yet) automated vehicles will be able to drive better, and more safely than you can; no drinking, no distraction, better reflexes, and better awareness (via networking) of [...]
November 26, 2012
A centre for ‘terminator studies’, where leading academics will study the threat that robots pose to humanity, is set to open at Cambridge University. Its purpose will be to study the four greatest threats to the human species – artificial intelligence, climate change, nuclear war and rogue biotechnology. The Centre for the Study of Existential [...]
November 24, 2012
Using an artificial intelligence technique inspired by theories about how the brain recognizes patterns, technology companies are reporting startling gains in fields as diverse as computer vision, speech recognition and the identification of promising new molecules for designing drugs. The advances have led to widespread enthusiasm among researchers who design software to perform human activities [...]
November 14, 2012
Fog is an atmospheric phenomenon that afflicts millions of drivers every day, impairing visibility and increasing the risk of an accident. The ways people respond to conditions of reduced visibility is a central topic in vision research. It has been shown that people tend to underestimate speeds when visibility is reduced equally at all distances, [...]
October 19, 2012
Virginia M. Rometty, the chief executive and newly appointed chairman of I.B.M., answered a mysterious and pressing question on Tuesday: Where is Watson? Watson is the room-size computer that defeated its human rivals to become a “Jeopardy!” champion. The answer, Ms. Rometty said at Fortune’s Most Powerful Women summit, is that Watson is in medical [...]
October 12, 2012
At a launch event for the school’s new wireless technology research center, MIT PhD student Swarun Kumar presented technology for a new autonomous vehicle that recognizes when it may be in danger of striking other cars and pedestrians. Several other autonomous cars have been developed elsewhere, most famously by Google, and they are generally capable [...]
October 9, 2012
Two researchers received the Nobel Prize in physics today for their work in manipulating single particles of light or matter — advancements that could help build a new type of super-fast computer based on quantum physics. Serge Haroche of France and David J. Wineland of the United States independently developed methods for measuring and manipulating [...]
October 9, 2012
An artificially intelligent virtual gamer created by computer scientists at The University of Texas at Austin has won the BotPrize by convincing a panel of judges that it was more human-like than half the humans it competed against. The competition was sponsored by 2K Games and was set inside the virtual world of “Unreal Tournament [...]