What is Artificial Intelligence?

Epoc Headset Brainwave Controller by Emotiv Systems

A new technology has been launched lately to make gaming experience a 'more real' adventure and fun. Imagine playing a video game and seeing all your reactions and expressions being mimicked by characters in the game, in real time! How cool is that?

Emotiv Systems have developed the revolutionary Epoc Headset Brainwave Controller that is especially created to augment virtual gaming experience. Emotiv EPOC is a high resolution, neuro-signal acquisition and processing wireless neuroheadset. It uses a set of sensors to capture the brains electric signals to detect thoughts, emotions and expressions of the player and connects wirelessly to most PCs via Bluetooth.

The Emotive Systems call it the "revolutionary new personal interface for human computer interaction".

The Epoc Headset takes advantage of three detection suites which are included in the package. The Affectiv™ Suite monitors emotional states of the player in real-time. It provides an extra dimension in game interaction by allowing the characters in the game to respond to the player's emotions. Characters can transform in response to the player's feeling.

Cognitiv™ Suite reads and interprets a player's conscious thoughts and intent. Gamers can take full control over virtual objects using only thoughts! While Expressiv™ Suite uses the signals measured by the neuroheadset to interpret player facial expressions in real-time. The Epoc Headset only costs $299.

Click here to read more about Epoc Headset Brainwave Controller.

captcha technology is continually evolving to outstmart robot hackers

"Humans have a very special skill that computer bots have not yet been able to master," says Prof. Cohen-Or leader of a research project of the Tel Aviv University's Blavatnik School of Computer Sciences.

CAPTCHAs were first developed to prevent bots from adding URLs to the search engine. The idea was contextualized in 1997 by Andrei Broder, Martin Abadi, Krishna Bharat, and Mark Lillibridge, who used images resistant to OCR (Optical Character Recognition).

CAPTCHAs are specifically designed as tasks that only humans can perform. Several researchers attempted to create a reliable 'captcha' application. A few of these applications like computer character recognition, voice or sound and image recognition are still widely used today.

Adding to the list is another 'emergence technology' which is being developed at Tel Aviv University's Blavatnik School of Computer Sciences to better outsmart computer bots.

The team demonstrated how a video captcha code may be harder to outsmart. Using a technology called an 'emergence image', an object is only recognizable when it's moving, and a person can identify this image in a matter of seconds.

In a recent research paper, Dr. Cohen-Or, co-authored by colleagues in Taiwan, Saudi Arabia and India, described a "synthesis technique" that involves generating images of 3-D objects, like a running man or a flying airplane that will enable security developers to generate an infinite number of moving "emergence" images that will be virtually impossible for any computer algorithm to decode.

Click here to read more about Emergence Technology, Synthesis Technique.

A Day With Keats, painting by William James Neatby (1860-1910)

A painting masterpiece is an art. But how does a typical computer interprets it? This is quite difficult to do when we talk of high-level concepts of classification, like how, we, humans use our perception abilities and unique taste in art.

But a group of researchers from the University of Girona and the Max Planck Institute in Germany has shown a schematic evidence that a computer can now understand how paintings are done and classified.

They developed mathematical algorithms that provide clues about the artistic style of a painting. How the painter made his brush strokes create a masterpiece that stands to astound many people. The unique composition of colors or certain aesthetic measurements can already be quantified by a computer, but machines are still far from being able to interpret art in the way that people do.

Using low-level classification, the researchers were able to show that their artificial vision algorithms can be programmed to "understand" pictures and compare between artistic strokes.

Lady with flowers by Edmund H. Garrett (1853-1929)

The artificial vision algorithms makes use of low-level pictorial information to determine an artist's brush thickness, the type of material used and the composition of the palette of colors. Although the researchers admit that it's absolutely difficult to copy how humans interpret art, but, according to them "they can look for trends".

Click here to read more about Understanding Art Through Computer, Artificial Vision Algorithms.

ICub, the toddler robot moves and talks like a child

One of the most challenging tasks for robot engineers is to make a robot that can interact with its environment through perceptions. There has already been several projects attempting to create human-like robots, however, engineers and scientists alike, continue to find ways in order to increase their adaptivity and interaction with humans.

In Manchester University, a todder-like robot was shown to the public in a Symposium on Humanoid Robotics, showcasing its childlike abilities of recognizing objects for the first time, crawling, reacting to objects and shapes, making many facial expressions and talking to its human friend. The robot-toddler is popularly known today as the ICub.

The prototype, which is 100cm tall and weighs 23kg, is being developed by the RobotCub Consortium in Italy, which is a group of several European universities. The goal of the £7.5million, five-year project is to develop a highly dexterous humanoid child robot.

One of the most interesting aspect of the ICub project is that it is an open systems platform. Users and developers are given the freedom to contribute their expertise, from psychology, through to cognitive neuroscience, to developmental robotics, to customize ICub.

Click here to read more about ICub Project, RobotCub Consortium, ICub

Kevin at work with controlling a robot with his arm's nerves

Remember Kevin Warwick, the scientist who controlled a two-wheeled robot with live brain neurons of a rat? Well he is back and this time, he wants more control, by connecting to a remote computer in New York City’s Columbia University, while he is inside his lab.

You might think he is out of his mind, but this professor from the University of Reading is just not contented with making robots with little or no sense at all. He is really serious with what he is currently experimenting on. His own nerves to control the robotic systems through a remote server in New York.

In his own lab, he connected several electrodes to the nerves of his forearm. The actions that his arm is producing, is being fed to a remote server located inside the campus lab of Columbia University, in New York. The server is then networked to the robotic system, Warwick created in his lab, in the University of Reading. Interestingly, his experiment was a complete success.

Kevin is serious about those wires

Now, he is planning to have a sensor implanted on his own brain by 2015, even if he medically doesn't need one. Just for experimental purposes again, Kevin Warwick is straightforward with his intentions for the sensor that will allow him to send signals across a computer network.

Click here to read more about Cybernetic Man, Kevin Warwick