ghetto boundary condition
At M.I.T.’s Computer Science and Artificial Intelligence Laboratory, which is housed in a visually spectacular, kooky and expensive building by Frank Gehry that only half of the residents hate, researchers are striving both to improve existing approaches to robotics and to make great leaps forward, to come up with what Dr. Roy called the field’s equivalent of a “killer app.”
some of the potential benefits of autonomous fighting robots. For one thing, they can be designed without an instinct for self-preservation and, as a result, no tendency to lash out in fear. They can be built without anger or recklessness, Dr. Arkin wrote, and they can be made invulnerable to what he called “the psychological problem of ‘scenario fulfillment,’ ” which causes people to absorb new information more easily if it agrees with their pre-existing ideas.
gamentia... $200 robot dogs with more computing power than the entire lunar landing program...
Like paint, the composite can be sprayed onto other materials and used as portable electricity. A sweater coated in the material could power a cell phone or other wireless devices.
The National Renewable Energy Laboratory, part of the U.S. Department of Energy, and the Institute of Electrical Engineering, part of the Chinese Academy of Sciences, signed an agreement to share technology over the weekend. Under the deal, the two countries will share photovoltaic power-generating technologies.
crude oil prices are falling again and analysts suggesting European subsidies for alternative energy may be cut back.