Out this week!

From WIRED:

In just over a day, a powerful computer program accomplished a feat that took physicists centuries to complete: extrapolating the laws of motion from a pendulum’s swings.

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Condensing rules from raw data has long been considered the province of human intuition, not machine intelligence. It could foreshadow an age in which scientists and programs work as equals to decipher datasets too complex for human analysis.

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Initially, the equations generated by the program failed to explain the data, but some failures were slightly less wrong than others. Using a genetic algorithm, the program modified the most promising failures, tested them again, chose the best, and repeated the process until a set of equations evolved to describe the systems. Turns out, some of these equations were very familiar: the law of conservation of momentum, and Newton’s second law of motion.

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Lipson likened the quest to a “detective story” — a hint of the changing role of researchers in hybridized computer-human science. Programs produce sets of equations — describing the role of rainfall on a desert plateau, or air pollution in triggering asthma, or multitasking on cognitive function. Researchers test the equations, determine whether they’re still incomplete or based on flawed data, use them to identify new questions, and apply them to messy reality.

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It was always about co-evolution.

thanks to bookhling for the tip-off!

From PhysOrg:

Below the soft silicon skin of one of Japan’s most sophisticated robots, processors record and evaluate information. The 130-cm (four-foot, four-inch) humanoid is designed to learn just like a human infant.

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The team is trying to teach the pint-sized android to think like a baby who evaluates its mother’s countless facial expressions and “clusters” them into basic categories, such as happiness and sadness.

Asada’s project brings together robotics engineers, brain specialists, psychologists and other experts, and is supported by the state-funded Japan Science and Technology Agency.

With 197 film-like pressure sensors under its light grey rubbery skin, CB2 can also recognise human touch, such as stroking of its head.

The robot can record emotional expressions using eye-cameras, then memorise and match them with physical sensations, and cluster them on its circuit boards, said Asada.

…In the two years since then, he said, CB2 has taught itself how to walk with the aid of a human and can now move its body through a room quite smoothly, using 51 “muscles” driven by air pressure.

In coming decades, Asada expects science will come up with a “robo species” that has learning abilities somewhere between those of a human and other primate species such as the chimpanzee.

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Thousands of humanoids could be working alongside humans in a decade or so, if that is what society wants, said Fumio Miyazaki, engineering science professor at the Toyonaka Campus of Osaka University.

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“Robots have hearts,” said Kokoro planning department manager Yuko Yokota.

“They don’t look human unless we put souls in them.

“When manufacturing a robot, there comes a moment when light flickers in its eyes. That’s when we know our work is done.”

thanks to lizbt for the tip-off!

(ganked from the horrible walled garden of Facebook)

Concept only, streamlined pylons dominate the future landscape:

Standing at between 17 and 32 metres tall, the height of each tower would vary according to its individual latitude and longitude. Arphenotype compare the concept to adaptability in nature, waxing lyrical about “evolution through phenotypes” and how the pylons are intended to be adaptable to specific landscapes in different locations:

Link and photos via environmentalgraffiti.com

Photo via imgfave.com.

The brings a set of unique features never before found in a low cost device. Embedded voice recognition software eliminates the need for a traditional full keypad. This gives the credit card size handset a large flat surface for brand identification, logos and personalized images. The phone’s software can be trained for the user’s voice and used in any language.

Many luxury product companies have branded mobile phones to suit the high fashion expectations of their customers. Now with the CARD Mobile Phone consumer companies can extend their brand, promote their products, and create exciting marketing incentives by putting their name and logo on a mobile phone. “The CARD Mobile Phone creates a new category” remarks Chief Executive Office, Owens Alexander, “the combination of form factor, unique operation, and value makes it perfect for corporate marketing initiatives and many specialized applications”.

Free 200 minutes in exchange for being advertised to? Maybe.

Words from realphonecard.com, link and photo via dvice.com.

From Gizmodo:

“Light Writer – POV Effect” by Laan Labs allows you to create text or image POV illusions with your phone. You just type in your message or select a piece of clipart, wave your arm in the air (night works best) and create “magic” that would have gotten you burned at the stake just a century ago.

from Salva López’s flickrstream

TB, or tuberculosis, requires a lengthy multi-drug treatment regimen which people might not finish. China has adpoted a scheme originally develeopled at MIT to combat this problem:

The scheme, originally developed by students at MIT, offers free top-ups to sufferers who send text messages to health care centres with a unique code proving they have taken their drugs.

TB sufferers are often prescribed a cocktail of 15-20 pills, which they must take every day for six months to overcome tuberculosis, but many fail to complete the course, allowing the disease to build resistance to conventional drugs.

The mobile phone incentive scheme works by patients conducting their own urine tests using test-strips which, if they have taken their medicine properly, reveal a unique code which they SMS to a healthcare centre.

Take your pills on time, get mobile phone credits. Simple. Easy.

Link via textually.org.