What is Artificial Intelligence?

Colors Blue and Red effect on cgnitive task performance

A recent study conducted at the University of British Columbia proved the color’s cognitive effect associated with blue and red to improve cognitive performance. But it does not tell that either has the greatest boost. What matters is the nature of task.

Co-author Juliet Zhu said, "Color enhance performance". Red is said to be effective in improving detail-oriented tasks, for instance, proofreading or memory recovery. Because of emergency vehicles’ red lights, stop signs and teachers’ red pen, we usually link red to errors, risk and caution. Our motivation to avoid these things makes us attentive thus, making us to do our task with careful attention.

While blue is great at enhancing our aptitude to think artistically. It is effective for creative tasks like brainstorming. With blue as the environmental background, participants are impelled to create twice as many artistic outputs because blue encourages us to think deeply.

These differences are the effect of distinct unconscious inspiration that red and blue activates thus, noting that color affects behavior and cognition through studied associations.

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TOPIO, the humanoid robot that plays table tennis, by TOSY

It is fairly obvious that computers and artificial intelligence will run our world tomorrow. The interface for the artificial intelligence to communicate outside its "box" is now wide-ranging. Artificial intelligence potentially has the choice to make more pleasing or scary to us to get the things it wants from us.

This may be a case where our animated children supersede the programming and perhaps that was the goal after all. We may be able to recognize a person even after twenty years because an image of the person, his mannerisms, voice etc may have been recorded in our brain and lay dormant for years.

This is the area where robotics and artificial intelligence play their role. We can recognize a person by sight, sound etc. This is done by images sent by the optic and olfactory nerves to the brain.

In fact this software can function as an assistant when the user wants to dictate some text. And even control their PC entirely by voice, saving time and boosting productivity with surprising accuracy in dictation, even with little or no training."

A humane touch along with a technological interface will play a major role in shaping the future.

On the whole it can be concluded that Artificial Intelligence applications will play a decisive role in providing real time solutions to various problems humans face.

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Dimmunix works like a human immune system

A team of computer scientists from Switzerland developed a new IT tool that will boost the immune system of computers for safety networking against malwares.

This cloud-based Immune System software is called "Dimmunix", created by the Dependable Systems Lab at EPFL in Switzerland. Dimmunix works by enabling programs in computers to avoid future recurrences of bugs on their own without any assistance from users or programmers.

Dimmunix uses an approach called "failure immunity". It works like a human immune system which allows the viruses or other foreign organisms to break into the body's natural defenses. In the process, the body builds immunity over this type of virus by recording the characteristics and functions of that specific virus. So the next time this type of virus attacks again, it could no longer create a disaster as it was the first time.

Similarly, at the second attack of the same type of malware, in this case, a virus, Dimmunix kills it by altering its execution so the program continues to run smoothly without any disruption of operation.

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Chris Li (left) and Dr. Peter Hall have developed a program that automatically life-like tree images. (Credit: Nic Delves-Broughton)

A new computer animation technique has been recently developed to aid animators in creating life-like objects automatically.

Dr. Peter Hall at the University of Bath explained: "rendering trees has always been a headache for animators. Trees move in irregular ways, and it's very hard to achieve natural-looking movement."

In many ways, several scientists have created algorithms to improve on this profession. However, the more the system gets sophisticated, the more it becomes expensive for film producers.

So, computer scientists Dr. Peter Hall and Chris Li, of the University's Department of Computer Science, created a software that will allow the computer "watch" actual video footage of a tree to enable it to make computer-animations automatically that mimic the way real branches and leaves move in the wind.

This new rendering technique uses an algorithm that copies these natural movement and uses this data to "grow" lots more trees that are individually unique.

Chris Li, who developed this system as part of his PhD at Bath, said "in the future we want to use this same technique to animate other objects like clouds, water, fire and smoke."

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airport security measures are strengthened through new intelligent system

An undergoing airport security system project, named HAMLeT, tracks down suspected terrorists-carrying hidden explosives through smell sensors in addition to surveillance cameras.

HAMLeT, which stands for Hazardous Material Localization and Person Tracking, will alert security personnel to suspicious individuals," says head of department Dr. Wolfgang Koch from the FKIE, Fraunhofer Institute for Communication, Information Processing and Ergonomics in Wachtberg.

The prototype was built in response to the increasing number of undetected suspicious individuals, going in and out of national airports carrying hidden explosives that are difficult to investigate especially during peak hours or seasons.

HAMLeT, highly sensitive smell sensors which consist of oscillating crystals on the sensor chips, and whenever chemical molecules are sniffed through the "electronic noses" their oscillation frequency changes. Oscillation frequencies are unique for a particular chemical or substance contained in an explosive.

The system also uses a second network - the sensor's data fusion function, that traces the explosive's trail and tracks down the carrier.

In a mock demonstration, HAMLeT proved effective in sniffing out hidden explosives and tracked down 5 "terrorists". Currently, the researchers are doing some refinements on the prototype's algorithms in order to reduce the false alarm rate.

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