How Machine Intelligence Is Evolving

Marcus du Sautoy with one of Luc Steels's language-making robots. Photograph: Jodie Adams/BBC

AI Robot: How Machine Intelligence Is Evolving -- The Guardian

No computer can yet pass the 'Turing test' and be taken as human. But the hunt for artificial intelligence is moving in a different, exciting direction that involves creativity, language – and even jazz.

'I propose to consider the question "Can machines think?"' Not my question but the opening of Alan Turing's seminal 1950 paper which is generally regarded as the catalyst for the modern quest to create artificial intelligence. His question was inspired by a book he had been given at the age of 10: Natural Wonders Every Child Should Know by Edwin Tenney Brewster. The book was packed with nuggets that fired the young Turing's imagination including the following provocative statement:

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World's First Flexible E-Paper Display To Be Mass Manufactured

LG Display Begins Mass Production of World's First Plastic E-Paper Display

LG Begins Mass Production Of World's First Flexible E-Paper Display -- Hot Hardware

LG has officially begun the process of mass producing the world's first plastic electronic paper display (EPD) that is designed to be used in eBooks. LG's EPD measures 6 inches and offers a resolution of 1024x768. This display offers a paper-like reading experience on a plastic substrate that is as slim as cell phone protection film. The film is flexible and can be bent at a range of 40 degrees from the center of the screen. LG Display's plastic EPD is just 0.7mm thick, which is 1/3 slimmer than current glass EPDs. It weighs 14g, or about 0.49 ounces.

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My Comment: Impressive.

Oldest Surviving Musical Composition

Seikilos Epitaph - Song of Seikilos -- Diana Hsieh

The Seikilos epitaph is the oldest surviving example of a complete musical composition, including musical notation, from anywhere in the world. The song, the melody of which is recorded, alongside its lyrics, in the ancient Greek musical notation, was found engraved on a tombstone, near Aidin, Turkey (not far from Ephesus). The find has been dated variously from around 200 BC to around AD 100.

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My Comment: An incredible piece of music.

Human Ancestors Were Using Fire A Million Years Ago

Rock art in Wonderwerk cave 40km from Kuruman Northern Cape South Africa: Ash found in a layer dated at a million years old hints that inhabitants of the cave were using fire a million years ago

Human Ancestors Were Using Fire A Million Years Ago - 300,000 Years Earlier Than Previously Thought -- Daily Mail

* Ash found among bones and burned plants in South African cave
* Key moment in human evolution
* Hints that ancestors as early as homo erectus might have used fire

One of the turning points in human evolution occurred 300,000 years earlier than previously believed.

Traces of ash mixed with million-year-old bones and tools have been uncovered in the Wonderwerk Cave in South Africa.

Burned plants and bones were found in the cave, suggesting that its inhabitants cooked and perhaps even socialised around camp fires.

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My Comment: We were apparently more smarter than what we thought we were 1 million years ago.

The End Of America's Space Program

High Joblessness In The Home Of U.S. Space Flight -- CBS News 60 Minutes

CBS News) When the last space shuttle took off from the Kennedy Space Center in Florida in July -- when the crowds left and 7,000 space center workers lost their jobs -- what happened to Brevard County, Florida? Scott Pelley tells the story of a county struggling with the loss of its largest employer, and of former shuttle workers who miss both the paycheck and the deep pride they had in their work.

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My Comment: With the demise 0f America' space/industrial/infrastructure, my prediction is that it will be the military industrial infrastructure that will be next.

Who Is The Happiest In The World

Happiness Tops In Denmark, Lowest In Togo, Study Says -- L.A. Times

Are you happy? It's a question that economists and pollsters are asking all over the world, hoping to gain new insight into what brings us joy -- and why people answer differently in different countries.

Bhutan is leading an international meeting Monday at the United Nations, seeking to establish “next steps towards realizing the vision of a new well-being” that include gauging happiness in different nations. The Asian country already has a national happiness index, and is urging others to follow suit.

How happy is your country? In a report released for the meeting, economists John Helliwell, Richard Layard and Jeffrey Sachs round up what is known about happiness around the globe.

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Nuclear Powered Drones On The Horizon?

Reuters

US Draws Up Plans For Nuclear Drones -- The Guardian

Technology is designed to increase flying time 'from days to months', along with power available for weapons systems.

American scientists have drawn up plans for a new generation of nuclear-powered drones capable of flying over remote regions of the world for months on end without refuelling.

The blueprints for the new drones, which have been developed by Sandia National Laboratories – the US government's principal nuclear research and development agency – and defence contractor Northrop Grumman, were designed to increase flying time "from days to months" while making more power available for operating equipment, according to a project summary published by Sandia.

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My Comment: While the idea of having drones fly for days on end is appealing .... the fact that it would be a nuclear power source that will be used will .... to put it bluntly .... be enough to kill the program .... regardless of the merits.

New Widespread Internet Surveillance Laws To Be Proposed In England

Internet Activity 'To Be Monitored' Under New Laws -- The Ttelegraph

Ministers are preparing a major expansion of the Government's powers to monitor the email exchanges and website visits of every person in the UK, it was reported today.

Under legislation expected in next month's Queen's Speech, internet companies will be instructed to install hardware enabling GCHQ – the Government's electronic "listening" agency – to examine "on demand" any phone call made, text message and email sent, and website accessed in "real time", The Sunday Times reported.

A previous attempt to introduce a similar law was abandoned by the former Labour government in 2006 in the face of fierce opposition.

However ministers believe it is essential that the police and security services have access to such communications data in order to tackle terrorism and protect the public.

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Update: Police and MI5 get power to watch you on the web -- Independent

My Comment: So much for privacy in England.

Scanner Reveals Inner Workings Of How Our Brains Are Wired

Curvature in this image of a whole human brain turns out to be folding of 2D sheets of parallel neuronal fibers that cross paths at right angles

How Our Brains Are Wired: Scanner Reveals Inner Workings In Stunning New Detail -- The Brain

For a long time it was thought that the brain was a mass of tangled wires, but researchers recently found that its fibers are actually set up like a chess board, crossing at right-angles.

What’s more, this grid structure has now been revealed in amazing detail as part of a brain imaging study by a new state-of-the-art magnetic resonance imaging (MRI) scanner.

Van Wedeen, of Massachusetts General Hospital (MGH), who led study, said: ‘Far from being just a tangle of wires, the brain's connections turn out to be more like ribbon cables - folding 2D sheets of parallel neuronal fibers that cross paths at right angles, like the warp and weft of a fabric.

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My Comment: The above pic is an amazing image of the brain.

China: No Coup Rumors Please .... Or You Go To Jail

Hundreds of millions of Chinese people use social media websites, despite strict censorship. [Reuters]

China Arrests Over Coup Rumours -- BBC

Chinese police have arrested six people and shut 16 websites after rumours were spread that military vehicles were on the streets of Beijing, officials say.

The web posts were picked up last week by media outlets around the world, amid uncertainty caused by the ouster of top political leader Bo Xilai.

The State Internet Information Office (SIIO) said the rumours had a "very bad influence on the public".

Two popular microblogs have temporarily stopped users from posting comments.

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More News On China's Crackdown On Social Media Websites

China Clamps Down on Social Networking Over Online Rumors -- New York Times
China mounts online crackdown amid political crisis -- L.A. Times
China punishes popular social media and websites for coup rumors amid political scandal -- Washington Post/AP
China cracks down on websites allegedly spreading coup rumors -- CNN
China cracks down on Internet after coup rumours -- AFP
Websites shut amid China coup talk -- Press Association
China Punishes Websites Over 'Coup Rumours' -- Al Jazeera
China Arrests Six for Web Rumors; Microblogs Ban Comments -- Bloomberg

Stunning Post-Apocalyptic Images Of Cities Around The Globe

At World's End: Artists Reveal Stunning Post-Apocalyptic Images Of Cities Around The Globe -- Daily Mail

From New York City to Beijing, a team of artists are shedding light on what the world would be like at the end of humanity.

In Silent World, artists Lucie and Simon have taken the world's most familiar and populous cities and removed all but one or two people to create the illusion of a lonely world.

In the thought-provoking work, places like the normally bustling Times Square and Tiananmen Square appear absent of their crowds.

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My Comment: It does look very creepy.

Cassini Spacecraft Captures Striking Images Of Three Saturn Moons

The jets emanate from hot fissures known as "tiger stripes" at the south pole

Cassini Spacecraft Captures Saturn Moon Geyser Images -- BBC

The Cassini spacecraft has captured striking images from flying by three moons of Saturn, including new pictures of Enceladus's gushing geysers.

Cassini made its lowest pass yet over the south pole of Enceladus, at at an altitude of 74km (46 miles).

This allowed it to "taste" the jets of water vapour and ice that the moon spews forth into space.

The Nasa probe also made relatively close flypasts of two other Saturnian satellites: Dione and Janus.

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My Comment: The pics are awesome.

A History Of Breast Enlargements

A Brief History Of Breast Enlargements -- BBC

It is 50 years since the first breast enlargement using silicone implants. Today it rates as the second-most popular form of cosmetic surgery worldwide, undergone by 1.5 million women in 2010.

It was spring 1962 when Timmie Jean Lindsey, a mother-of-six lay down on the operating table at Jefferson Davis hospital in Houston, Texas.

Over the next two hours, she went from a B to a C cup, in an operation that made history.

"I thought they came out just perfect… They felt soft and just like real breasts," says Lindsey now aged 80.

"I don't think I got the full results of them until I went out in public and men on the street would whistle at me."

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Death Of A Data Haven

Sealand in all its rusty splendor

Death Of A Data Haven: Cypherpunks, WikiLeaks, And The World's Smallest Nation -- Ars Technica

A few weeks ago, Fox News breathlessly reported that the embattled WikiLeaks operation was looking to start a new life under on the sea. WikiLeaks, the article speculated, might try to escape its legal troubles by putting its servers on Sealand, a World War II anti-aircraft platform seven miles off the English coast in the North Sea, a place that calls itself an independent nation. It sounds perfect for WikiLeaks: a friendly, legally unassailable host with an anything-goes attitude.

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My Comment: Too bad that it did not take off the ground.

Calculating Your Odds To Win The $500 Million Jackpot

$500 Million Jackpot: Calculating Your Odds -- Forbes

The Mega Millions lottery drawing Friday night will deliver a jackpot estimated at $540 million. Your odds of picking the winning combo are 175.7 million to one. Divide one number by the other. That means a ticket is worth $3.07, right? Maybe you should buy as many as you can?

Not so fast. There’s a little more to the math here. You have to allow for not only the long odds that you’ll pick the right numbers but also the short odds that you will be sharing that jackpot.

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My Comment: 175.7 million to one are my odds.

Did Domestication Of Cattle Start 10,500 Years Ago?

This cow's ancestors can be traced back to a small number of wild aurochs, the ancestors of all domestic cattle. The find has implications for understanding the process of domestication, pointing to challenges in first domesticating cattle. Credit: iStockphoto

Origins Of Domestic Cattle Traced Back 10,500 Years -- Cosmos

LONDON: All cattle are descended from as few as 80 animals that were domesticated from wild ox in the Near East some 10,500 years ago, according to a new genetic study.

An international team of scientists were able to conduct the study by first extracting DNA from the bones of domestic cattle excavated in Iranian archaeological sites. These sites date to not long after the invention of farming and are in the region where cattle were first domesticated.

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My Comment: A sobering realization that all cattle 'genetically' comes from what is essentially 80 descendents.

Bee Collapse Linked To Controversial Pesticide

Image: Jack Wolf/Flickr

Controversial Pesticide Linked To Bee Collapse -- Wired Science

A controversial type of pesticide linked to declining global bee populations appears to scramble bees’ sense of direction, making it hard for them to find home. Starved of foragers and the pollen they carry, colonies produce fewer queens, and eventually collapse.

The phenomenon is described in two new studies published March 29 in Science. While they don’t conclusively explain global bee declines, which almost certainly involve a combination factors, they establish neonicotinoids as a prime suspect.

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With Google Earth No One Can Hide The Slums

With Google Earth, India Can No Longer Hide Its Shantytowns And "Slumdogs" -- Time/AP

SANGLI — Before Google Earth existed, the slums of Sangli, a city of 550,000 in southwestern India, was acknowledged on government maps by nothing more than some clumsily outlined, empty spaces. But then, from high in the sky, the eye of a satellite saw what no municipal geometer had taken the trouble to show: small islands of huts with dilapidated roofs spread throughout the city.

Thanks to the satellite images available on Google Earth, a full picture of these forgotten slums has emerged. They now have borders; they are mapped; they have an identity. And using these images, Shelter Associates, a Pune-based NGO, has begun rehabilitating the slums. For the first time in their lives, 3,900 families in Sangli are going to be moving into apartments.

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Faster Than 50 Million Laptops

The Cray Jaguar supercomputer can perform more than a million billion operations per second. It takes up more than 5,000 square feet at Oak Ridge National Laboratory in the United States. In 2009 it became the fastest computer in the world.

Faster Than 50 Million Laptops -- The Race To Go Exascale -- CNN

(CNN) -- A new era in computing that will see machines perform at least 1,000 times faster than today's most powerful supercomputers is almost upon us.

By the end of the decade, exaFLOP computers are predicted to go online heralding a new chapter in scientific discovery.

The United States, China, Japan, the European Union and Russia are all investing millions of dollars in supercomputer research. In February, the EU announced it was doubling investment in research to €1.2 billion ($1.6 billion).

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My Comment: Now that is fast.

A Billion Stars In One Picture

Earth sits just in the galactic plane which appears as a very dense but very long strip of stars arcing across the sky. The galactic centre and the surrounding bulge of stars is here pulled out to show more detail

Picture Captures A Billion Stars -- BBC

Scientists have produced a colossal picture of our Milky Way Galaxy, to reveal the detail of a billion stars.

It is built from thousands of individual images acquired by two UK-developed telescopes operating in Hawaii and in Chile.

Archived data from the project, known as the Vista Data Flow System, will be mined by astronomers to make new discoveries about the local cosmos.

But more simply, it represents a fabulous portrait of the night sky.

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Update #1: Milky Way as Never Seen Before -- Sci-News
Update #2: New Milky Way Photo Captures 1 Billion Stars -- Space.com

My Comment: Just a billion stars within our little part of the universe.