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Imagine being able to land a jumbo jet without ever taking c
Fri Dec 13 19:15:40 2002
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Imagine being able to land a jumbo jet without ever taking control of the stick
http://www.memes.org/modules.php?op=modload&name=News&file=article&sid=1377&mode=thread&order=0&thold=0

"Imagine being able to land a jumbo jet without ever taking control of the stick. NASA scientists recently demonstrated the ability to control a 757 passenger jet simulation, using only human muscle-nerve signals linked to a computer."

profile on a famous DARPA researcher: Hans P. Moravec - AI specialist is the piece from which the following is snipped:

Hans Moravec is a Principal Research Scientist in the Robotics Institute of Carnegie Mellon University. He has been thinking about machines thinking since he was a child in the 1950s, building his first robot, a construct of tin cans, batteries, lights and a motor, at age ten. In high school he won two science fair prizes for a light-following electronic turtle and a tape-controlled robot hand. As an undergraduate he designed a computer to control fancier robots, and experimented with learning and automatic programming on commercial machines. During his master's work he built a small robot with whiskers and photoelectric eyes controlled by a minicomputer, and wrote a thesis on a computer language for artificial intelligence. He received a PhD from Stanford University in 1980 for a TV-equipped robot, remote controlled by a large computer, that negotiated cluttered obstacle courses, taking about five hours. Since 1980 his Mobile Robot Lab at CMU has discovered more effective approaches for robot spatial representation, notably 3D occupancy grids, that, with newly available computer power, promise commercial free-ranging mobile robots within a decade. His books, Mind Children: the future of robot and human intelligence, 1988, and Robot: mere machine to transcendent mind, 1998, consider the implications of evolving robot intelligence. He has published many papers and articles in robotics, computer graphics, multiprocessors, space travel and other speculative areas.

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DARPA To Support Development Of Human Brain-Machine Interfaces is the piece from which the following is snipped:

Devices including "neuroprosthetic" limbs for paralyzed people and "neurorobots" controlled by brain signals from human operators could be the ultimate applications of brain-machine interface technologies developed under a $26 million contract to Duke University sponsored by the Defense Advanced Research Projects Agency (DARPA). The contract is part of DARPA's Brain-Machine Interfaces Program ( http://www.darpa.mil/dso/thrust/sp/bmi.htm ), which seeks to develop new technologies for augmenting human performance by accessing the brain in real time and integrating the information into external devices.

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the following is snipped from http://mirror.lcs.mit.edu/telecom-archives/archives/telcomine.e-zine/99-7

In a remarkable invention, US scientists have developed a biological computer made of leech neurons that can think for itself. The neuron computer works in a way similar to the human brain.

According to BBC, "Leechulator" as the device is known as, is the brainchild of Professor Bill Ditto, from the Georgia Institute of Technology.
According to him the silicon computer is a dumb machine whereas these biological computers powered with neurons will come to the correct answer by themselves based on the partial information provided to them.

At present, the computer is able to perform only simple mathematical functions, but the aim is to devise a new generation of fast and flexible computers that can work out for themselves on how to solve a problem. This approach to computing is particularly suited to pattern recognition tasks like reading handwriting, which would take enormous amounts of power on a conventional computer.

In this invention Leech neurons are used as leeches have been extensively studied and
understood and are known to form their own
connections from one to another. Each neuron has its own electrical activity and responds in its own way to an electrical stimuli. These features can be used to make each neuron represent a number. The neurons then inter-link to perform calculations.

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Kazerooni and his colleagues have made what may be the world's most advanced motorized exoskeleton. The Defense Advanced Research Projects Agency (DARPA) regards exoskeleton technology as promising enough to deserve a $50 million, 5-year commitment to fund Kazerooni's lab and others. This spring, the agency awarded first-year grants under the program.

is snipped from Dances with Robots

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Such positioning requires nanometer-scale precision, something beyond the sensitivities of lithography or other micro-positioning devices. Instead, the team is using chunks of biomolecules called peptides to latch onto specific sites of the neuron.

is snipped from Electronic Mind Over Gray Matter

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Imagine being able to land a jumbo jet without ever taking control of the stick. NASA scientists recently demonstrated the ability to control a 757 passenger jet simulation, using only human muscle-nerve signals linked to a computer.

is snipped from NASA SCIENTISTS USE HANDS-OFF APPROACH TO LAND PASSENGER JET

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The concept of the cyborg emerged out of the field of cybernetics. Cybernetics, a field of research and theory first defined by Norbert Wiener in 1948 (see Wiener 1962), is the study of the control and regulatory properties of complex systems. Wiener was clear from the beginning that cybernetics applied equally to both machines and living systems. Although he did address the social implications of cybernetics in his early work, he did not discuss the actual physical merger of machines and organisms. It took another decade before two NASA scientists named Manfred Clynes and Nathan Kline (1960) to coin the term "cyborg," and to suggest some of the advantages for space travel of altering the human body with machines.

is snipped from CYBORG CONSCIOUSNESS

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Covert military operations and space shuttle missions are both burdened by the fact that they rely on an inefficient, energy-wasting machine: the human body. Considering one of the biggest logistical problems planners face is getting power to equipment in remote places like Afghanistan or the moon, researchers are devoting their efforts to cut some of those losses through "energy harvesting" from the human body.

is snipped from http://www.space.com/businesstechnology/technology/body_power_011128-1.html

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August 9, 2001
Government will promote IT in Azad Jammu and Kashmir

September 12, 2001
China Will Help Pakistan In Setting Up of Technology Incubators

October 3, 2001
Atta Holds Meeting With Microsoft

Atta Holds Meeting With Microsoft

Islamabad the October 23, 2001

Federal Minister for Science & Technology Prof. Atta-ur-Rahman who is visiting Paris held a meeting today with Mr. Jawwad Rahman, Regional Head of Microsoft. Issues like Intellectual Property Rights Law, conversion of all computers to licensed copies of Office Software, opportunities offered by Pakistan Government to IT industry and Microsoft investment in Pakistan came under discussion.

Prof. Atta briefed the Microsoft people of incentives given by the government for IT industry. He asked them to invest in a major way in training the people and in developing software to widen Pakistan’s export base in Software. Prof. Atta asked Microsoft to participate substantially in large programmes on competitive basis so as to show a commitment to Pakistan’s development in IT. This could be on similar lines as has been done elsewhere (India, Mexico etc.). The benefits to Pakistan should be tangible and substantive, only then can Microsoft can exploit the market in Pakistan which will be their ultimate goal, said the Minister.

He said, the government is committed to drafting the new IT IPR laws. The process has been brought forward and a fast track plan is being considered. The work has been initiated and TORs (Terms of Reference) will be circulated in a 3 weeks time for the hiring of Legal Consultants for drafting the laws. He said companies like Microsoft will be involved in the process. Government would work with Microsoft in IPR implementation, education, PR and awareness campaigns across the country.

Meeting with Microsoft is part of a series of meetings which Prof. Atta has held with major players in the business. Earlier he held a meeting with Cisco head in USA and the head of Intel in Hong Kong and discussed extension of mutual cooperation in development of IT industry in Pakistan.

http://www.most.gov.pk/frames/press_releases/oct23.htm