[tt] KurzweilAI.net Daily Newsletter

Mon Jan 21 16:14:40 UTC 2008

KURZWEILAI.NET NEWSLETTER

NEWS
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Misreading the mind
Los Angeles Times Jan. 20, 2008
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Some of the most exciting endeavors
in neuroscience right now are trying
to move beyond reductionism, says
Jonah Lehrer, an editor at large for
Seed magazine. The Blue Brain
Project, for example, a
collaboration between the Ecole
Polytechnique Federale in Lausanne,
Switzerland, and IBM, is in the
process of constructing a
biologically...
http://www.kurzweilai.net/email/newsRedirect.html?newsID=7856&m=37981

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Teleportation: The leap from fact
to fiction in new movie Jumper
Computerworld Jan. 17, 2008
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Fact met fiction when a Hollywood
actor Hayden Christensen, of Star
Wars fame, and director Doug Liman
sat down with two MIT physicists to
compare the reality of teleportation
to the special-effects version in
the upcoming movie...
http://www.kurzweilai.net/email/newsRedirect.html?newsID=7855&m=37981

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Google to Host Terabytes of
Open-Source Science Data
Wired Jan. 18, 2008
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Google plans to host terabytes of
open-source scientific datasets on
research.google.com. The storage
will be free to scientists and
access to the data will be free for
all. Two planned datasets are all
120 terabytes of Hubble Space
Telescope data and the images from
the Archimedes Palimpsest, the 10th
century manuscript that inspired the...
http://www.kurzweilai.net/email/newsRedirect.html?newsID=7854&m=37981

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Moon Stuck: Space leaders work to
replace lunar base with manned
asteroid missions
Spaceflight Now Jan. 18, 2008
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Some of the most influential
leaders of the space community are
quietly working to offer the next
U.S. president an alternative to
President Bush's "vision for space
exploration"--one that would delete
a lunar base and move instead toward
manned missions to asteroids,
starting in about 2025. Their goals
for a new array of missions also
include...
http://www.kurzweilai.net/email/newsRedirect.html?newsID=7853&m=37981

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Two AI Pioneers. Two Bizarre
Suicides. What Really Happened?
Wired Jan. 18, 2008
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Chris McKinstry created a database
called Mindpixel. Push Singh created
a database called Open Mind Common
Sense. Both believed their programs
could be used to develop machine
intelligence, using massive amounts
of commonsense data. Both committed...
http://www.kurzweilai.net/email/newsRedirect.html?newsID=7852&m=37981

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A Wii warm-up hones surgical skills
New Scientist news service Jan. 19, 2008
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Banner Good Samaritan Medical
Center researchers have found that
surgical residents performed better
during simulated surgery after
playing on the Wii console. They put
it down to the console's novel
"Wiimote" control system, which
allows players to direct on-screen
action using a wireless wand that
detects acceleration in three...
http://www.kurzweilai.net/email/newsRedirect.html?newsID=7851&m=37981

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CIA Says Hackers Have Cut Power
Grid
PC World Jan. 19, 2008
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Criminals have been able to hack
into computer systems via the
Internet and cut power to several
cities outside of the U.S., a CIA
analyst said. On Thursday, the
Federal Energy Regulatory Commission
(FERC) approved new mandatory
standards designed to improve...
http://www.kurzweilai.net/email/newsRedirect.html?newsID=7850&m=37981

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DOE awards record amount of
supercomputing power
Information Week Jan. 17, 2008
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The U.S. Department of Energy has
expanded its supercomputing
capacity, allowing scientists in
academia and industry to receive
more computing time. DOE will award
265 million supercomputing processor
hours to 55 research projects in
2008, the largest amount of
supercomputing power awarded in its
history and three times the amount
awarded last...
http://www.kurzweilai.net/email/newsRedirect.html?newsID=7849&m=37981

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'Mind-reading' car keeps drivers
focused
NewScientist.com news service Jan. 18, 2008
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Technical University of Berlin
researchers found they could speed
up drivers' reaction times by as
much as 100 milliseconds in real
driving conditions by monitoring
their EEG signals and reducing
distractions during periods of high
brain activity. A "smart" dashboard
that reduces the amount of
information displayed to drivers
during stressful...
http://www.kurzweilai.net/email/newsRedirect.html?newsID=7848&m=37981

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Tiny genetic differences have huge
consequences
PhysOrg.com Jan. 19, 2008
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McGill University researchers have
demonstrated that small differences
between individuals at the DNA level
can lead to dramatic differences in
the way genes produce proteins, and
these, in turn, are responsible for
the vast array of differences in
physical characteristics between
individuals. This study solves in
part the mystery of how a...
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Learning language with the
singalong neurons (Preview)
New Scientist Jan. 18, 2008
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The mirror neurons babies use to
imitate gestures may also be the
neurons babies use to learn
language. Researchers studying swamp
sparrows have found that the same
mirror-like neurons in the bird fire
when it sings and when it hears
another bird's...
http://www.kurzweilai.net/email/newsRedirect.html?newsID=7846&m=37981

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Ms. Pac-Man Plays Herself
Robot World News Jan. 19, 2008
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Eotvos University (Hungary)
researchers have taught AI agents to
play the video game Ms. Pac-Man and
sometime play it better than humans
can. The research shows that AI
agents can successfully be taught
how to strategize, using
reinforcement learning....
http://www.kurzweilai.net/email/newsRedirect.html?newsID=7845&m=37981

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