Monday, February 12, 2007

Building a Silicon Brain. prostoalex tips us to an article in MIT's Technology Review on a Stanford scientist's plan to replicate the processes inside the human brain with silicon. Quoting: "Kwabena Boahen, a neuroengineer at Stanford University, is planning the most ambitious neuromorphic project to date: creating a silicon model of the cortex. The first-generation design will be composed of a circuit board with 16 chips, each containing a 256-by-256 array of silicon neurons. Groups of neurons can be set to have different electrical properties, mimicking different types of cells in the cortex. Engineers can also program specific connections between the cells to model the architecture in different parts of the cortex."[Slashdot] 10:11:22 PM      Google It!.

Recognizing Scenes Like the Brain Does. Roland Piquepaille writes "Researchers at the MIT McGovern Institute for Brain Research have used a biological model to train a computer model to recognize objects, such as cars or people, in busy street scenes. Their innovative approach, which combines neuroscience and artificial intelligence with computer science, mimics how the brain functions to recognize objects in the real world. This versatile model could one day be used for automobile driver's assistance, visual search engines, biomedical imaging analysis, or robots with realistic vision. Here is the researchers' paper in PDF format." [Slashdot] 1:13:01 PM      Google It!.

Canadian Copyright Group Wants iPod Tax. An anonymous reader writes "Unable to define memory as a 'recording medium,' Canada's Private Copyright Collective goes directly after portable music player devices, memory cards, and anything else that can be used to make private copies. The PCC submitted a proposal to the country's Copyright Board that suggests levies of $5 (Canadian) on devices with up to 1GB of memory, $25 for 1-10 GB, $50 for 10-30 GB, and $75 for over 30 GB. If approved, this propoal would increase the price of a 30-GB iPod by 26%. These collections are intended to compensate artists and labels for the losses they suffer when people 'illegally' copy or transfer music. The PCC is also seeking a new $2 to $10 tax on memory cards. The backbone of digital photography has become tangled up in the fight for making sure music companies get every nickel and dime they feel that they deserve."[Slashdot] finding a tit on the cash cow -- it worked before with blank tape so the greed goes on  --BL 1:04:41 PM      Google It!.

EU Bans Sock-Puppet Blogs. PhilipMarlowe9000 writes in with news of a new EU directive that will take effect in the UK at the end of this year to ban "sock-puppet" reviews or websites, part of an EU-wide overhaul of consumer laws. From the article: "Businesses that write fake blog entries or create whole wesbites purporting to be created by customers will fall foul of a European directive banning them from 'falsely representing oneself as a consumer.' From December 31, when the change becomes law in the UK, they can be named and shamed by trading standards or taken to court. The Times has learnt that the new regulations also will apply to authors who praise their own books under a fake identity on websites such as Amazon."[Slashdot] 1:00:05 PM      Google It!.

Chinese lifespans to jump 13 years. Read full story for latest details.[CNN.com] 12:57:41 PM      Google It!.

Kurzweil: Biotech Will Drive Software Security. Software security will be even more important as humans become more of a hybrid of non-biological and biological technology and intelligence, said Ray Kurzweil in a keynote speech Wednesday at the RSA 2007 conference in San Francisco. This converg... [KurzweilAI.net Accelerating Intelligence News] 12:56:16 PM      Google It!.

The brain scan that can read people's intentions. A team of world-leading neuroscientists has developed a powerful technique that allows them to look deep inside a person's brain and read their intentions before they act. The team used high-resolution CT brain scans to identify patterns of activ... [KurzweilAI.net Accelerating Intelligence News] 12:55:12 PM      Google It!.