Free Republic

Florida GOP apologizes for warning Tallahassee, FL, Jul. 30 (UPI) -- The Florida GOP has apologized for sending out a flier contradicting the views of Republican Gov. Jeb Bush on the upcoming elections. The fliers were sent to Republican voters in southern and western Miami-Dade County advising them to use absentee ballots rather than trust the new touch-screen voting machines, The Miami Herald reported Friday. Bush and Secretary of State Glenda Hood have been reassuring voters for months that the new voting machines now used in the state's 15 larger counties are reliable.

Electronic skin could give machines a sophisticated sense of touch. A flexible friend: rubber polymers form the basis of an electronic skin.© Takao Someya Group Robots are about to get more feeling. An electronic skin as sensitive to touch as our own is being developed by scientists in Japan."Recognition of tactile information will be very important for future generations of robots," says Takao Someya at the University of Tokyo who developed the skin. A sense of touch would help them to identify objects, carry out delicate tasks and avoid collisions. But while a lot of effort has gone into vision...

Robots are about to get more feeling. An electronic skin as sensitive to touch as our own is being developed by scientists in Japan. "Recognition of tactile information will be very important for future generations of robots," says Takao Someya at the University of Tokyo who developed the skin. A sense of touch would help them to identify objects, carry out delicate tasks and avoid collisions. But while a lot of effort has gone into vision and voice recognition for robots, touch sensitivity is still fairly rudimentary. Our own skin contains a battery of touch receptors that produce nerve signals...

Less than two years after spending $17 million to replace Broward County's election system, county commissioners expressed growing apprehension Tuesday about electronic voting and decided to rethink what they had done. Commissioners ordered their staff to explore retrofitting the new touch-screen voting machines to print copies of each ballot or ditching the machinery in favor of paper ballots read by optical scanners. They want the study completed in the next couple of months so they can make any changes before next year's presidential elections. The ATM-style touch screens replaced the punch-card ballots that were banned in Florida after the 2000...