Google computer works out how to spot cats

BBC News

Millions of images were used to train the neural network

A Google research team has trained a network of 1,000 computers wired up like a brain to recognise cats.

The team built a neural network, which mimics the working of a biological brain, that worked out how to spot pictures of cats in just three days.

The cat-spotting computer was created as part of a larger project to investigate machine learning.

Google is planning to use the learning system to help with its indexing systems and with language translation.

Clever computer

The computer system was put together by Google staff scientists from its X Labs division working with Prof Andrew Ng, head of the artificial intelligence lab at Stanford University, California.

Voice algorithms spot Parkinson’s disease

By Jane WakefieldTechnology reporter, TEDGlobal, Edinburgh

Mr Little wants to create a database of voices to help diagnose Parkinson’s

Parkinson’s is a devastating disease for those living with the condition and currently there is no cure.

Diagnosis can also be slow as there are no blood tests to detect it.

But now mathematician Max Little has come up with a non-invasive, cheap test which he hopes will offer a quick new way to identify the disease.

He will be kicking off the TEDGlobal conference in Edinburgh calling for volunteers to contribute to a huge voice database.

Mr Little has discovered that Parkinson’s symptoms can be detected by computer algorithms that analyse voice recordings.

In a blind test of voices, the system was able to spot those with Parkinson’s with an accuracy of 86%.

Mr Little was recently made a TED Fellow.

The non-profit organisation behind the TED (Technology, Entertainment and Design) conference creates 40 such fellowships each year. The programme aims to target innovators under the age of 40 and offers them free entry to conferences and other events.

Computer Graphics Pioneer Ivan Sutherland Wins Kyoto Prize

By Agam Shah, IDG News

Ivan Sutherland, widely considered to be the father of computer graphics, was awarded the Kyoto Prize in Advanced Technology by the Inamori Foundation on Friday for his contributions to the field.

Ivan Edward Sutherland

Sutherland changed the way computers are used, and his influence is being felt today in multiple fields, the Inamori Foundation, which is based in Kyoto, Japan, said in a statement. “Numerous computer graphic-based applications — ranging from films, games and virtual reality systems to educational materials, scientific and technological simulations, and other design aids for engineers — are descendants of Dr. Sutherland’s original work on Sketchpad,” the foundation said.

Sutherland, who is 74 and a scientist at Portland State University, made breakthrough contributions to graphical user interfaces used in most operating systems today, making computers, tablets and smartphones easier to use. His most recognized GUI contribution was through a computer program called Sketchpad, which allowed a pointing device to interact and manipulate visible objects on a computer screen. Sketchpad was submitted as part of Sutherland’s doctoral thesis at the Massachusetts Institute of Technology in 1963.

USC Engineers Create a Robot Finger That Beats Humans at Feeling Textures

By Kevin Lee, PCWorld    Jun 19, 2012 10:22 AM

A robot hand equipped with SynTouch’s BioTac sensors. [Credit: USC Viterbi School of Engineering]

We’ve seen more than a handful of research projects with the goal to make robots look and feelmore like us humans. A team of scientists from the University of Southern California’s Viterbi School of Engineering is aiming specifically to make just a single artificial finger sensor, called BioTac, that can detect textures even better than a human can.

BioTac is tactile sensor created by Biomedical Engineering Professor Gerald Loeb and recently graduated doctoral student Jeremy Fishel. The sensor is designed to mimic the human finger’s ability to feel motion, temperature, and even identify materials–like the difference between plastic and Gorilla Glass–by simply touching them. The technology could be implemented into robot hands or a new generation of artificial limbs.

BioTac does not only imitate a human’s ability to feel surfaces and materials, it’s also anatomically similar to a real human finger. The sensor’s outermost layer is made of a soft, flexible skin with its own fingerprints. There’s a liquid-filled layer under the skin followed by a hard, bone-like core.

Alan Turing: why the tech world’s hero should be a household name

By Vint CerfTuring Award winner / Chief internet evangelist, Google

Turing studied mathematics at King’s College, Cambridge before obtaining a PhD from Princeton University in the US

The life and achievements of Alan Turing – the mathematician, codebreaker, computer pioneer, artificial intelligence theoretician, and gay/cultural icon – are being celebrated to mark what would have been his 100th birthday on 23 June.

To mark the occasion the BBC has commissioned a series of essays to run across the week, starting with this overview of Turing’s legacy by Vint Cerf.

I’ve worked in computing, and more specifically computer networking, nearly all my life. It’s an industry in a constant state of innovation, always pushing beyond the limits of current capability.

It is sometimes said that “broadband” is whatever network speed you don’t have, yet!

Things we take for granted today were, not that long ago, huge technological breakthroughs.

Although I’ve been lucky enough in my career to be involved in the development of the internet, I’ve never lost sight of the role played by my predecessors, without whose pioneering labour, so much would not have been accomplished.

This year, in the centenary of his birth, there is one man in particular who is deservedly the focus of attention: Alan Turing.