AI Hub

UAV Helicopters; Now Giving Haircuts.

The reasons we don't have commercial autonomous aircraft are many;

These include everything from legal issues, such as who's to blame if there is an accident? (Same problem with Autonomous cars) to how to navigate in heavily used airspace.

Intelligent Walker Designed to Assist the Elderly and Those in Medical Rehabilit

A team of researchers from the Departments of Software, Automatic Control, Strength of MaMechanical Engineering, Materials and Structural Engineering at the Technical University of Catalonia (UPC), led by Ulises Cortés and Antonio B. Martínez, has designed an intelligent walker (i-Walker) that goes a step beyond conventional walkers as it can communicate with the user, think for itself and react to the environment.

The device can understand a set of voice commands and can be activated by means of simple verbal instructions given by the user (e.g., "take me to the kitchen"). To do this, it includes elements for independent movement and a personalized intelligent software agent.

Emulating brains: silicon dreams or the next big thing?

Anyone in the UK willing to go to London with an interest in emulating the Brain, should head over to Birkbeck College.

Election Day - Go Vote!

This news is not AI related at all, but it is extremely important!

For those of you in the United States, remember to exercise your right today and vote. Don't let it go to waste! I'm not going to plug any candidates or issues. Whoever you think would do the better job, get out and vote for them. This is the most important election in a long while and if you don't vote, you have no right to complain if things don't go the way you would like. People died to get this right in the past, and many people around the world still don't have this right, so make the most of it.

The UK Police, now with multiple eyes.

It is with some embarrassment that I admit something slipped under my nose, quite possibly because this is the sort of application of technology that doesn't get broadcast.

Don't Change that Dial....

The EU has recently decided to use part of the Radio spectrum to serve as a method of communication between other cars and traffic control facilities.

ckBot Can Walk, Crawl, and Rebuild Itself

A robot that reconstructs itself after exploding. It sounds like an unstoppable cyborg played by a certain state governor, but the ckBot has a long way to go before it can come close to exterminating the human race.

The ckBot is the brainchild of Mechanical Engineering professor Mark Yim and Computer Science professor C.J. Taylor. It is a robot that can walk, crawl and re-assemble itself. It can also rearrange itself to change how it moves.

Both Yim and Taylor said the ckBot has potential for planetary exploration and search and rescue work in the event of a building collapse.

UK University Holds Loebner Prize Turing Test

Computers argued, cracked jokes and parried trick questions Sunday, all part of an annual test of artificial intelligence carried out at the University of Reading.Typing away at split-screen terminals, a dozen volunteers carried out two conversations at once: one with a chat program, the other with a human. After five minutes, they were asked to say which was which. Some were not sure who — or what — they were talking to.

Lots Going On Here at the Hub

First and foremost, we have ditched the black and neon theme we have had for the past few months in favor of a lighter and simpler theme. It is much easier on the eyes. This comes after suggestions from several members here at the Hub. Please feel free to comment on the new theme so that we can modify it to fit you best.

Secondly, we have begin backing up the once popular aboutAI.net website. Articles from that site that are over five years old are being backed up in our articles section. You can check out what we've archived so far by clicking on 'Articles' in the site menu.

We thank all of the loyal member of the AI Hub, and will continue adding content and news to keep you satisfied.

Emotion-Reading Technology Could Spot Terrorists

One day far in the future, your facial expressions could get you flagged as a terrorism suspect as you stroll past a camera at the airport - or anywhere else.

If so, you could be detained and questioned, thanks to some sophisticated scientific work underway at Concordia University, in a developing science called biometrics.

A computer-imaging system being developed there has been attracting worldwide attention.