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Expert unease over deadly flu virus 'created' in Dutch laboratory Friday 25 November 2011 Dutch scientists have created a flu virus which is so deadly there is doubt about whether the research should be published, the Volkskrant reports on Friday. The paper says American experts are worried detailed information could fall into the wrong hands and that terrorists could recreate the virus as a weapon. The fears are notable because the work was carried out on behalf of the National Institutes of Health in the US. The research team, led by Ron Fouchier, professor of virology at Erasmus teaching hospital,...

A debate on the future of the American economy and the role of intelligent computers and robots. Will rapid technological innovations aid American workers, or will it render large numbers of American workers obsolete?

Amnesty International issued a press release today. Israel-Hamas prisoner swap casts harsh light on detention practices of all sidesGilad Shalit was held captive for five years by Palestinian armed groups The prisoner exchange involving Israeli soldier Gilad Shalit and 477 Palestinian prisoners highlights the need for the humane treatment of all detainees in Israel and the Occupied Palestinian Territories (OPT), Amnesty International said today. Obviously it wants to show equivalence. God forbid it should criticize only Hamas. It was not a "prisoner exchange". It was an outrageous ransom paid for a hostage. It only mentions the 477 terrorists that were...

The study this story is based on is available online: http://hdl.handle.net/1957/22700CORVALLIS, Ore. – Computer scientists in the field of artificial intelligence have made an important advance that blends computer vision, machine learning and automated planning, and created a new system that may improve everything from factory efficiency to airport operation or nursing care.And it’s based on watching the Oregon State University Beavers play football.The idea is for a computer to observe a complex operation, learn how to do it, and then optimize those operations or accomplish other related tasks. In this project, the goal is for the computer to watch...

LONDON — Tony Blair was accused yesterday of undermining decades of British campaigning for international human rights by using the war on terror to give a “green light” to torture. Amnesty International will today launch an unprecedented global campaign against the British government after ministers admitted that they would use information gained by torture to prevent attacks on the United Kingdom. Mike Gapes, Labour chairman of the Commons Foreign Affairs Committee, reacted with anger after Ian Pearson, the Foreign Office minister responsible for human rights, said the government could not ignore evidence obtained under torture if it could prevent a...

What's the deal with these riots in Sydney? You switch on the television and there's scenes of urban conflagration and you think, "Hang on, I saw this story last month." But no. They were French riots. These are Australian riots. Entirely different. The French riots were perpetrated by - what's the word? - "youths". The Australian riots were perpetrated by "white youths". Same age cohort, but adjectivally enhanced. And, being "white youths", they thus offered "a chilling glimpse into the darker corners of Australian society", as Nick Squires put it last week, "with thousands of white youths rampaging through a...

From the High Level Logic (HLL) Open Source Project blog. When are we going to have AI, one survey asks? It's a question relevant to HLL because so much of the thought behind the HLL design comes from the history of AI research and current technology that has come from AI research. The answer to the question when, with reference to HLL, is now. (Or at least as soon as version 1.0 is ready.) And that's no reason to get worried. As the description of HLL claims, you don't even need a high-powered computer science background to build applications...

Chapter 1Chapter 2Prepare yourself for a surprise ending. Do that now to avoid confusion later. Around 1990, I met with an industrial engineering professor who had been working for years with artificial intelligence technology. We had a long chat about the possibility of completely automated factories. This was still a decade before frequent online purchasing and customer management systems. But it seemed reasonable to contemplate a future in which everything from initial customer contact, sales, accounting, instructions to the factory floor, robotic manufacturing on demand, packaging, right out to the shipping dock would be fully automated. Even if you've never...

The importance of issue #1. Configuration Files and Processing should not be underestimated. The configuration system is used to attach application components to the generic HLL processing system. It makes sense to create a powerful configuration system that is easy for application developers to use and quite flexible so that it does not impede creative development. And when the project begins building tools to further simplify the development process, they will (in part) simplify the construction of configuration files that, in effect, define HLL applications. A powerful configuration processing system will facilitate powerful but easy to use tools. (For...

(PhysOrg.com) -- A software developer has created a "chatbot" program for Twitter to automatically detect set phrases associated with arguments put forward by those skeptical of anthropogenic global warming, and to send automated replies of set phrases debunking their arguments. Nigel Leck’s creation is @AI_AGW (also known as Turing Test), and the script searches the Twitter site for hundreds of phrases he believes tend to be used by those who think global warming is not occurring, or who think it is occurring but is not anthropogenic or entirely anthropogenic. When the script finds one of the phrases it then "tweets"...

Link to Chapter 1I understood the differences between what application developers wanted to do and what the “artificial intelligence” technology of the late 1980s supported. They were not the sort of differences that one might use to contract to update a software application. What had been, in effect, a broad survey of application needs resulted in a snap-shot of a more basic set of technical requirements. This snap-shot taught me much about the path of development of software technology generally, decades into the future. Much of that future would evolve with or without me, as developers pushed to realize their...

As a young man, when I enjoyed idle time and my daydreams tended to wander in strange directions, I found myself considering a rather unimaginative question. As computer languages and tools have evolved to higher and higher levels - “bottom-up” - where will they eventually reach? Where's the top? To put this contemplation in perspective, the year was 1985. The computer under my desk was a first generation Texas Instruments PC with two floppy disk drives. Ethernet cables were being strung through our offices to network our computers for the first time, allowing messages to stream around the building...

Wouldn't it be nice if a comment on Service Oriented Architecture (SOA) would attract a lot of attention (for my blog, I'm thinking)? Thousands of people googling 'SOA' come right to my site and find out more about HLL. I can't expect that, because I'm provoked on this occasion to comment in response to a discussion that started in January of last year. VP and Research Director of The Burton Group, Anne Thomas Manes wrote an article entitled, SOA is Dead; Long Live Services. Burton Group surveys IT R&D and provides business consulting services. They have a particular interest...

Seth Shostak, a top astronomer at SETI has recently suggested that instead of trying to listen for standard transmissions from advanced alien biological lifeforms like ourselves, we should probably be listening for AI transmissions. This is based on our own experience, we as humans developed radio transmissions only a short while ago, considering the length of time our civilization has been advancing. And if we're any indication of the general route technologically capable life evolves, the galaxy is probably full of sentient AI collectives, not biological lifeforms. In an interview with the BBC, Dr Shostak said:"If you look at the...

IntroductionAn application programmer spends six months perfecting a set of components commonly needed in the large company that employs him. Some of the components were particularly tricky and key pieces required very high quality, reliable and complex exception handling. It has all been tuned to run quickly and efficiently. Thorough testing has demonstrated his success. Part of his idea of “perfection” was to build in a way that the software, even many of the individual components, could easily be reused. But it is surprisingly likely that no one outside of a small group within the project will ever hear of...

On Monday the head of Finland’s branch of Amnesty International, Frank Johansson, termed Israel a “scum state.” Writing in his blog, which appears on the Web site of Iltalehti, one of Finland’s largest newspapers, he based his characterization of Israel on his “own visit[s], which occurred during the 1970s and for the last time in the 1990s.” Johansson further justified his rhetoric toward Israel because he has previously invoked strong language against former Pres. George Bush on Finnish TV. He called Mr. Bush “the biggest executioner in the Western Hemisphere.” Turning Israel and the United States into whipping boys is...

Is Science Fiction About to Go Blind? - Aug 2004 - Google Books ResultPopular Science - Vol. 265, No. 2 - 112 pages - Magazine Perhaps he/it is refusing interviews for fear of failing the Turing test. ... SF story is like running a simulation with certain types of driving ground ...

Amnesty International may be best known to American audiences for bringing to light horror stories overseas such as the disappearance of political activists in Argentina or the abysmal conditions inside South African prisons under apartheid. But in a new report on pregnancy and childbirth care in the U.S., Amnesty details the maternal health care crisis in this country as part of a systemic violation of women's rights. The report, titled "Deadly Delivery," notes that the likelihood of a woman dying in childbirth in the U.S. is �ve times greater than in Greece, four times greater than in Germany, and three...

Here’s another beef I have against my local paper: they glorify robots. Haven’t you seen articles in your paper, usually from AP, that talk about robots as the next big thing? Or they’re already here--wow!! Here is a headline that actually appeared in the Norfolk paper: ROBOTMAKER BUILDS AN ARTIFICIAL BOY. This is complete nonsense. The fact is, we have wonderful industrial robots assembling cars, etc. We also have a lot of ingenious remote-controlled devices such as drone aircraft. Conceptually, however, these are much like radio-controlled toys. If by robots you mean something more or less like a human, they...

I'm not kidding. I think that's a very positive title. Senario, known to enthusiasts as the distributor of Pleo the baby dinosaur, is rolling out a new remote controlled robot with a price tag of about $10. This is interesting. Think about DARPA's strategy for ubiquitous robotics. It needs a broad range of developments in the consumer market to drive further development and bring prices down. We now see a full spectrum of prices and capabilities emerging. If you want the most advanced humanoid robot on the planet, you could go for a REEM-B with Brainstorm software. I expect...

Amnesty International has just suspended one of its senior officers, a woman named Gita Sahgal who until recently headed the organization's "gender unit." It's fairly easy to summarize her concern in her own words. "To be appearing on platforms with Britain's most famous supporter of the Taliban, whom we treat as a human rights defender," she wrote, "is a gross error of judgment." One might think that to be an uncontroversial statement, but it led to her immediate suspension. The background is also distressingly easy to summarize. Moazzem Begg, a British citizen, was arrested in Pakistan after fleeing Afghanistan in...

On Sunday, Gita Sahgal, head of the gender unit at Amnesty’s international secretariat, shared with the Times of London that Moazzam Begg, a former terrorist, inmate at Guantanamo Bay, and Britain's leading supporter of terrorism has strong ties with Amnesty International. In an email sent to Amnesty’s top bosses, she suggests the charity has mistakenly allied itself with Begg and his “jihadi” group, Cageprisoners, out of fear of being branded racist and Islamophobic. Sahgal describes Begg as “Britain’s most famous supporter of the Taliban”. He has championed the rights of jailed Al-Qaeda members and hate preachers, including Anwar al-Awlaki, the...

A senior Amnesty International official has been suspended after attacking the human rights charity for allying itself with 'Britain's most famous supporter of the Taliban'. Gita Sahgal, head of the organisation's gender unit, branded Amnesty's links to former Guantanamo Bay detainee Moazzam Begg a 'gross error of judgment'. She was removed from her post within a few hours of her criticism...and now a bitter war of words is raging between the activist and her employer. Both have angrily defended their position over Mr Begg, 42, a Briton held at Guantanamo for three years until 2005 because of suspected links to...

Thursday, March 12 PITTSFIELD — A woman who allegedly intended to artificially inseminate her wife with her brother's semen has been charged with domestic assault and battery. Pittsfield police responded to a call shortly before 4:30 p.m. Tuesday in the city's Morningside neighborhood, where the assault allegedly occurred. Stephanie K. Lighten, 26, was released on personal recognizance after denying the allegations in Central Berkshire District Court Wednesday morning. Jennifer A. Lighten, 33, told police that Stephanie Lighten, her wife, was "all liquored up" when she returned to their Lincoln Street apartment, where the defendant then allegedly tried to use a...

"EU funding 'Orwellian' artificial intelligence plan to monitor public for "abnormal behaviour" The European Union is spending millions of pounds developing "Orwellian" technologies designed to scour the internet and CCTV images for "abnormal behaviour"." SNIPPET: "A five-year research programme, called Project Indect, aims to develop computer programmes which act as "agents" to monitor and process information from web sites, discussion forums, file servers, peer-to-peer networks and even individual computers. Its main objectives include the "automatic detection of threats and abnormal behaviour or violence"." SNIPPET: "Project Indect, which received nearly £10 million in funding from the European Union, involves the Police...

A detailed, functional artificial human brain can be built within the next 10 years, a leading scientist has claimed. Henry Markram, director of the Blue Brain Project, has already simulated elements of a rat brain. He told the TED Global conference in Oxford that a synthetic human brain would be of particular use finding treatments for mental illnesses. Around two billion people are thought to suffer some kind of brain impairment, he said. "It is not impossible to build a human brain and we can do it in 10 years," he said. "And if we do succeed, we will send...

Amnesty International attacks Poland abortion policy New York City, N.Y., Jun 27, 2009 / 05:04 pm (CNA).- Amnesty International has continued its promotion of abortion with a report on the state of human rights which criticizes Poland for denying Polish women “access to abortion.” The organization’s actions could reflect its partnership with a pro-abortion group to redefine abortion as a “human right.” The Amnesty International (AI) 2009 report’s entry on Poland cites May 2008 criticism of its abortion policy by the Human Rights Council, the Catholic Family and Human Rights Institute (C-FAM) reports. Amnesty also criticized the Polish government for...

. For Ladyinred

American Idol contestant disqualified LOS ANGELES – One of the contestants on "American Idol" who made the top 36 has been disqualified. "American Idol" has issued a statement saying Joanna Pacitti of Philadelphia is ineligible to continue, but without saying why. Felicia Barton of Virginia Beach, Va., has replaced Pacitti in the top 36.

American Idol 2009 For Ladyinred

Institute of Robotics in Scandinavia (iRobis) has announced commercial availability of Brainstorm®, the world’s first “complete cognitive software system for robots”. The system turns robots into self-developing, adaptive, problem-solving, “thinking” machines. The system automatically writes control programs for any robot on which it is installed, dramatically shortening development time and cost. The same technology is used to allow robots to adapt to new circumstances and solve other problems while in operation. ... read more

Gothenburg - Institute of Robotics in Scandinavia (iRobis) has announced that the world’s first “complete cognitive software system for robotics” is ready for application. The system turns robots into self-developing, adaptive, problem-solving, “thinking” machines. http://mensnewsdaily.com/2007/05/16/robobusiness-robots-with-imagination/ Brainstorm automatically adapts to onboard sensors and actuators, immediately builds a model of any robot on which it is installed, and automatically writes control programs for the robot’s movements. It can then explore and model its environment. Through simulated interaction using these models, it solves problems and develops new behavior using “imagination.” Once it has “learned” to do something, it can use its imagination...

Stanford computer scientists have developed an artificial intelligence system that enables robotic helicopters to teach themselves to fly difficult stunts by watching other helicopters perform the same maneuvers. The result is an autonomous helicopter than can perform a complete airshow of complex tricks on its own. The stunts are "by far the most difficult aerobatic maneuvers flown by any computer controlled helicopter," said Andrew Ng, the professor directing the research of graduate students Pieter Abbeel, Adam Coates, Timothy Hunter and Morgan Quigley. The dazzling airshow is an important demonstration of "apprenticeship learning," in which robots learn by observing an expert,...

TROY, N.Y. - Edd Hifeng barely merits a second glance in "Second Life." A steel-gray robot with lanky limbs and linebacker shoulders, he looks like a typical avatar in the popular virtual world. But Edd is different. His actions are animated not by a person at a keyboard but by a computer. Edd is a creation of artificial intelligence, or AI, by researchers at Rensselaer Polytechnic Institute, who endowed him with a limited ability to converse and reason. It turns out "Second Life" is more than a place where pixelated avatars chat, interact and fly about. It's also a frontier...

Machines will achieve human-level artificial intelligence by 2029, a leading US inventor has predicted. Humanity is on the brink of advances that will see tiny robots implanted in people's brains to make them more intelligent said engineer Ray Kurzweil. He said machines and humans would eventually merge through devices implanted in the body to boost intelligence and health. "It's really part of our civilisation," Mr Kurzweil said. "But that's not going to be an alien invasion of intelligent machines to displace us." Machines were already doing hundreds of things humans used to do, at human levels of intelligence or better,...

When you ask a man on the street where revolutionary advanced robots are being developed, he is likely to name Japan and the United States. Japan is well known for such amazing mechanical creations as ASIMO and HRP, as well as robots that dance, engage in martial arts, transform, and play musical instruments. In the United States, the success of iRobot in both military and consumer markets is legendary. The DARPA Grand Challenge demonstrated advanced work on autonomous vehicles. GM has its own autonomous vehicle and expects driverless cars to be on the roads in a few years. (Lexus...

Amnesty International (AI) is sponsoring an event in Los Angeles under the title,“Human Rights in Iran: How to Move Forward” on February 22, 2008. Mr. Trita Parsi, president of National Iranian American Council (NIAC) an extremely dedicated activist for the establishment of normal and unconditional relations between the religious dictatorship in Iran and the U.S. [1] is one of the panelists in this event. This is not the first time NIAC has manipulated AI. On July 26, 2007, AI was one of the sponsors of an event organized by NIAC under the title, “Human Rights in Iran and U.S. Foreign...

Scientists Invent Robots That Lie, Real Bender Closer Than Ever Holy crap! The Age of The Machines is nigh: a bunch of scientists in Switzerland have created learning robots that can lie to each other. Okay, so they don't swill beer or put bends in girders—they just communicate to each other with benign flashing lights, thank goodness, instead of using lasers to destroy humans: The team at the Laboratory of Intelligent Systems at the Federal Institute of Technology created the little experimental learning devices to work in groups and hunt for "food" targets nearby while avoiding "poison." Imagine their surprise...

Do robots deserve rights? The question is less ridiculous than it sounds. As scientists develop ever more sophisticated robots, we are faced with an ethical dilemma: When does artificial intelligence demand humane treatment? In the last month, Japanese scientists have unveiled robots capable of serving food and even playing the violin and trumpet. These aren't self-aware robots – many scientists deride the notion of ever creating a robot capable of self-awareness – but self-awareness isn't the sole qualifier for rights. Certain severely brain-damaged human beings and newborns lack general self-awareness, but there is little doubt that they have rights, no...

Despite Pleas, Ontario Bishop Refuses to Direct Catholic School on Amnesty International Local branch of AI still meets regularly in St. Sault Marie Catholic High School Hilary White SAULT STE. MARIE, Ontario, September 7, 2007 (LifeSiteNews.com) - Despite ratifying its parent organization's decision to support abortion as a human right, the local branch of Amnesty International in Sault Ste. Marie, Ontario still meets regularly at St. Basil Secondary Catholic school.  Since the AI decision was announced this spring, two Catholic bishops in the UK have joined the Vatican in condemning the move. Cardinal Renato Martino, president of the Pontifical Council...

Abortion Fallout: Scottish Cardinal is 2nd Bishop to Quit Amnesty International EDINBURGH, August 28, 2007 - (CWNews.com/LifeSiteNews.com) - Cardinal Keith O'Brien of Edinburgh, Scotland, has become the latest Catholic leader to drop his membership in Amnesty International to protest the group's support for legal abortion. The Scottish cardinal wrote to Amnesty International leaders explaining that after 40 years of involvement he felt obliged to sever his links with the human-rights group. "As a matter of conscience and great sadness," he wrote, he could no longer support what he had long considered "this noble organization."

Bishops to Amnesty International: We work with orgs who "do not oppose the fundamental right to life" By John-Henry Westen WASHINGTON, D.C., August 27, 2007 (LifeSiteNews.com) - The US Conference of Catholic Bishops has decried Amnesty International's recent decision to - as the bishops put it - "promote worldwide access to abortion," telling the organization that the Bishops' Conference will work with other organizations rather than with Amnesty International (AI) to carry out the good ends which AI was traditionally associated with. Bishop William S. Skylstad, the President of the United States Conference of Catholic Bishops released a statement to...

On the last day of the RoboBusiness Conference in Boston, something wonderful happened. Institute of Robotics in Scandinavia (iRobis) introduced robotic imagination. I don’t mean imaginative robot designs. I mean; robots that imagine. And by imagine, I don’t mean simply creating images in a simulator. I mean imagination as part of reasoning and problem solving. This capability is part of a new software system, with the working title: Brainstorm™, that is set to be available to researchers and product developers this year. The presentation by iRobis co-founder Peter Nordin began with an extraordinary claim of work toward “A complete...

Iran: Arrests of peaceful demonstrators and activists continue Source: Amnesty International 4/21/07 Amnesty International is calling on the Iranian authorities to release immediately and unconditionally all those detained in connection with recent peaceful demonstrations by teachers, students and others, to halt all trial proceedings that could result in the imprisonment of prisoners of conscience and to cease harassment of those campaigning to uphold human rights, including trade union and political rights. The organization is concerned that such protestors have been increasingly targeted since Minister of Intelligence Gholam Hossein Mohseni Ejeie publicly accused the womens' movement and student campaigners of being...

BUDAPEST (Reuters) - Computers can beat some of the world's top chess players, but the most powerful machines have failed at the popular Asian board game "Go" in which human intuition has so far proven key. Two Hungarian scientists have now come up with an algorithm that helps computers pick the right move in Go, played by millions around the world, in which players must capture spaces by placing black and white marbles on a board in turn. "On a nine by nine board we are not far from reaching the level of a professional Go player," said Levente Kocsis...

Law and order is President Calderon's top priority Mexico's human rights record has been severely criticised in a new report by the rights group Amnesty International.The group says that arbitrary detention and torture are systematic and that it is Mexico's poor who suffer most. It also highlights the problem suffered by millions of indigenous peoples at the hands of the authorities. The government's use of soldiers to tackle drugs gangs is criticised but the Mexican government has said that it is working to clean up the abuses. 'Systematic abuses' Amnesty International cites case after case of people who it...

South Korean scientists are working on a new-generation robot resembling a human which will be able to walk the walk as well as talk the talk, one of the team said Thursday. The first walking "android" will make its debut within two to three years, said So Byung-Rok, one of the team of researchers at the Korea Institute of Industrial Technology. Androids present particular technological challenges in cramming complicated modules, motors and actuators into a life-size body. The team has already developed two android prototypes designed to look like a Korean woman in her early 20s, which can hold hold...