What is Artificial Intelligence?

These are some of MeBot's gestures.

MeBot, a project, or a masterpiece should I say, from the Personal Robotics Group at MIT, is one of the most talked-about robots of today. Some might think that it is just one of those ordinary telepresence robots that we know. But what makes it unique is its ability to provide its user ways of communicating non-verbally.

The MeBot is like a robotic avatar which gives you a whole new different way of interaction through non-verbal channels with the help of phone and video conferencing. It is also able to communicate some body posture, head movements through its 3 DOF neck and very expressive hand gestures. The operator can also control the inter-personal distance.

The creation of MeBot aims to give people a face and an expressive presence even though they are far away and still have the same feeling as “being there”. According to the makers of Mebot:

“We conducted an experiment that evaluated how people perceived a robot-mediated operator differently when they used a static telerobot versus a physically embodied and expressive telerobot. Results showed that people felt more psychologically involved and more engaged in the interaction with their remote partners when they were embodied in a socially expressive way. People also reported much higher levels of cooperation both on their own part and their partners as well as a higher score for enjoyment in the interaction.”

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X-ray Full Body Scanners Back Scatter Detection System only show an outline of your body

After the attempted bombing incident of an airplane flying to Detroit last year in December, more American airline fares can anticipate to undergo a more sophisticated bomb detection system than metal detector units at security channels.

450 X-ray full body backscatter scanners are said to be installed in American Airports this month. The U.S. Congress has specifically allocated funds for this detection system that reveals metal objects concealed under garments.

These X-ray scanners, according to Joe Reiss, vice president of marketing at the American Science and Engineering (AS&E), in Billerica, Mass., which manufactures SmartCheck X-ray backscatter scanners, only shows the outline of the passenger's body, no more than that, as contrary to what rumors say.

These devices releases a tiny amount of ionized radiation less than 0.1 microsievert, which is equivalent to less than 10 microrem.

And a spokesperson from the Transportation Security Administration (TSA) Sarah Horowitz confirmed that the radiation level is safe for all ages, but airline passengers will still have the option to be patted down instead.

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A prototype brain implant that uses light to change the behavior of neurons in the brain is currently being developed by the researchers at Medtronic.

They based the device to the emerging science of opto-genetic neuro-modulation where brain cells are genetically engineered to respond to light.

According to Medtronic, the aim of developing such brain implant is to understand more how electrical therapies are used to treat Parkinson's and other disorders. They said that they will use their findings to improve their electrical stimulators. But they also hope to use optical therapy directly as treatments.

While academic scientist are on the process of developing new apparatus to bring light to the brain, Medtronic is working on optogenetically based brain implant for commercial use. Their module which has the size and shape of a small USB flash drive has a power management unit, a wireless data links, a microcontroller, and an optical stimulator. And it uses fiber-optic wire to target light from a green or blue LED at target neurons in the brain.

Medtronic plans to use the device for in-house research on the effects of DBS and advertise it to neuroscience researchers.

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The left brain indicates a normal state while the right brain indicates general intelligence correlated to IQ scores.

Recently, a study about mapping the human brain has been published in the the early edition of the Proceedings of the National Academy of Sciences.

A team of neuro-scientists from the California Institute of Technology (Caltech), the University of Iowa, the University of Southern California (USC), and the Autonomous University of Madrid collaborate to have successfully mapped the brain to measure general intelligence.

According to Ralph Adolphs, one of the authors, "general intelligence is also referred to as the Spearman's g-factor" but the underlying concepts are quite vague.

Using brain imaging techniques, the team examined a uniquely wide range of data set of 241 brain-lesion patients who all took the IQ tests.

Then, the scientists mapped the area of each patient's lesion in their brains, and correlated them with the patient's IQ score to produce a map of the brain regions that affect general intelligence.

During the examinations, the researchers were amazed to find out that, instead of living in a single structure, general intelligence is distinguished by a network of regions across both sides of the brain.

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NTU new supercomputer uses water-cooled technology to save on enery usage

New supercomputers nowadays compete each other not only in terms of speed and accuracy of memory data but also of efficiency in using energy.

A new supercomputer is well-anticipated to be released at the High Performance Computing (HPC) Center inside the campus of Nanyang Technology University or NTU to sustain the increasing international research profile and capacity of the university.

NTU's new supercomputer is prototyped on the first IBM System x iDataplex group in ASEAN and controlled by the Intel® Xeon® chip 5500 series. It decreases electricity consumption as it automatically regulates recognized energy usage levels and specified processing speeds.

This new supercomputer HPC system optimizes performance with an exceptional water-cooled technology, an IBM's Rear Door Heat eXchanger for the iDataplex Rack. This technology reduces the necessity for in-house computer air conditioners, allowing for room temperature processing.

After a laboratory trial, the result is a lessening in electrical utilization and saving more than 30% when compared with the typical accuracy cooling system available in most supercomputers.

NTU's new supercomputer is ranked 6th as most energy-efficient in the world on x86 computer architecture, and ranked 29th as the most energy-efficient system on the list of Green500 at 274.64 Mflops (millions of floating point operations per second) per watt.

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