You're always an optimist. Why don't you predict some disaster for a change? :p

When I watched that Nokia movie, at the point where that fly landed on the apple, I was sure the machine is going to turn into some slapping unit and swat the fly to death. I wonder if whoever made that movie also thought of that.

lol.
There you go, Fly Swatter, another mobile phone function yet to be included! :p

Incidently, I do love the animation style they used for it.

The flying Manta-ray


And Airships, on Dark Roasted Blend.
http://www.festo.com/INetDomino/coor...d000462418.htm

I lol at this design! :D
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=ne5VfpqurAw


This one is VERY cool :D
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=gDvoe091tk4


Pneumatic muscles are AWESOME!
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=liicZ_pvGiQ

A bit more too - such fluid movement :)
http://video.google.com/googleplayer...28031301&hl=pl

Flight of the navigator style indeed.

Very elegant, if the power use is low enough for solar cells, I can imagine many uses for it.

Very neat.
But they musnt make the mistake of thinking simulateing the brain hardware is the hard problem.
The "hard" problem is simulateing the software of the human brain, or, rather, the states and actions of a constantly changeing set of nurons.
Getting the machine able to run it is half the problem.

I guess though, once the machine is working, purhapes you could use a type of nural net learning to predict a humans actions in all ways...rewarding correct guess's, and punishing wrong ones. Study a human for long/fast enough and maybe you make a virtual clone of them?

This gives me a wacked idea:
DNA code. What if we suceed to create a computer that can host and dycepher a DNA code to such extent that it would process the entire thing into a human being? That would include brain, and everything. Right now it takes biological womb to do it, but what if we learn how the womb works?

And then it would be, a real human being, only not 'physical'. A "ghost in the machine".

Your assuming nurture plays no part whatsoever.
IMHO, it plays quite a huge role.

To make a human being, you need the DNA, but also the environment of its upbringing.

Then, I guess we'd have to simulate the environment.

Indeed.
Allthough I think the more realistic way (if your aiming for a human, rather then merely "inteligent life"), is to bring the nural net into the real enviroment.
Else the enviroment wont be complex enough.

Well Darkflame, the whole idea of that brain, was to precisely simulate how a neuron works, and they did a draconic job to do just that. Once they had it, they multiplied them, and to their amazement the "emulated" piece of brain started to work just like a real one would. So their focus wasn't really hardware, they rarely mention it at all ;). It was mostly about creating an emulation of a neuron with all it's details, in an emulated "brain environment".

Also, in one of the latest Ted talks, there is a man who programs DNA to do specific tasks, so I guess we could do a biological machine, capable of sequencing DNA to store data. I wonder what would be faster, that, or a quantum computer. Probably the latter.

EDIT:
Sorry bout that first paragraph... looks a bit patronising...

Thats what I meant by hardware :p
I wasnt talking the wire's and such.

I meant, that even an exact biological copy of the brain...magicaly replicated or something...wouldnt be alive. It would be a lump of meat. So they have (almost) replicated that lump of meat.

It needs the "software". Not talking about a soul or anything, just that it needs the nurons to not online exist, but to be constantly self-stimulateing and stimulated from the enviroment in all manor of complex ways. Not to mention is also needs the equilivent of the stored bio-chemical states that give rise to how our memory works.

Not saying this isnt cool...it is.
But its still the equilivent of making a pc and expecting the OS to appear by itself.

Depends on the task I would think.

Well, the software, is in fact the hardware in this case... They say the minute they networked the neurons, they started communicating, creating pathways and such.

And I guess that would be really the way nature does things. The way the brain works, comes out of the way it's constructed, maybe there is no need for a "software", maybe it will create itself, as the body that will be supplied with information the brain will learn of it's surroundings and create neural pathways that will become it's software.

That's the principle of a neural network. I've attended a conference on artificial neural networks at school last month (ANN).

It's amazing what they can do with a simplistic neural model on a common processor. (those are specific tasks like driving a car, or recognizing the different sections of a newspaper page). They just need to experiment to find the right number of layers and the right number of neurones in each layer to perform the specified task efficiently, and then they just teach the network, and it works like this. It's not like there's some kind of software to supervise the work. It's self-constructing.

On Blue Brain, they have the technology to simulate a neurone far closer to the biological neurone than the ANNs' neurones, and they can run an accurate neural network. Using the precise map of the brain we've build over time, they can reproduce the structure of the human brain, so there's basically nothing missing to get this to work. No need for some sort of software. Just an environment for this brain. I think that a lot depends on the environment, for example, some people can fly a plane with a rat's brain (http://www.hoise.com/vmw/04/articles...-11-04-29.html). That proves that the neurones are adapting automatically to the environment and interface they are given.

Our brain has a structure that is given by our DNA, but it's quite the same structure from a person to another, the DNA is here to allow evolution. There are slights differences between a person and another that allow to test new structures. This mechanism changes the brain structure to be more efficient over a long period of time. It's a slow process.

Anyway, we've got the general structure of the current human brain, and we've got the technology to build an accurate neural network model, so let's wait and see :)

Simple question: What does "quantum computer" mean? (no sarcasm or so intended, I just don't quite get it)

Darkflame: I've already got the software! In every cell of my body.

So if we make a computer that operates on neurons, yes. Yes this is it. We'll be able to create life, and not "artificial intelligence", natural intelligence - only the platform will be artificial. Future computers will work on neurons :)

They already do work on neurons, at least some of them...

Hmz..I'm not explaining myself clearly.

Saying you have the "software" at this stage is like saying you have "software" if you put a random current into a random chip and it starts to send that current in random other ways. Nural networks most certainly learn and adapt. But they dont start from nothing.

Nural networks have to be trained, their pathways have to be weighted so things flow one way and not the other. (or, bits one way and more bits the other, if its an analogue system).

Also, again, nurons fireing dont give rise to memorys. At least, not long term.
I think its safe to say that essential to making a human.
Its the interaction between the thinking and the memory that gives arrise to inteligence.
(allthough I daresay nurons alone deal with shortterm).


Mostly, yes.
But theres certainly some things come pre-packaged.
If this was a sci-fi, youd call it "genetic memory", but that goes too far.
In this case we call it "instinct".
From basic things like "make heart beat"/"breath" and probably to the instinct to freeze when theres danger. Purhapes 95% is learned, but theres certainly many human things that somehow get transfered without needing to learn.

I also would say, allthough I'm not certain, I think some areas of the brain are more suitable to some tasks then others. And I dont think this is learned. I think its more that the brain has varying abilitys, and it learns how to use itself the best.

Then they lied. :p
Nothing happens without some stimulation.

I think what they did was, purhapes, give it some random "noise" in the simulated nural net, and some organisation happened from that.

They cant make up their mind themselves have the time :p

Basically, its taking advantage of the fact that particles (or electrons) in a certain conditions can be in many states at the same time.
In theory they can thus do many processing operations at the same time too, and thus be very very quick.

Now, depending on what you want to believe, you can view a quantum computer as being a regular computer in many alternative universe's at once.
OR you can take the more mundane view that its just a non-binary system with the electrons in different phase's that don't interfere with each other.

For a lot of tasks it would help, but not all.

Liner processing tasks (like, calculating PI), normal machines would be better at.

Also, anything where the solution cant be tested easily, yet needs to be certainly correct.
Problem with neural nets you can get to the answer, but have no idea how :D

http://www.bornrich.org/entry/skies-...th-airshipone/

I love airships.
I like airships + plane hybrids even more.
Because it's a hybrid, it's speed is 120mph, it does not take as much gas as a normal airship, therefore it needs engines to stay aloft, however, very little energy is consumed in the process, so the entire thing can run on electricity and solar power. It can also hover, does not need any mooring masts, ropes and ground crews to keep it on the ground.

They're better then ships, are not affected by weather, and can take big loads and are relatively fast.

Lovely vehicles.

No fucking way.

...

Seriously, can someone please confirm this is a mean mean joke?!

*checks*
We're still in March...

This is no joke. I've heard of it a long time ago. I didn't know it was about to be ready though.

The collider will do main important things for science, almost certainly dissproving many different (string) theorys. Dissprove, of course, being just as important as proof.

Id also buy that its probably one of the most complex things mankind as built, requireing both scale and precision.

The link to "time travel", however, is very very weak.
Theres been just as much "time travel" happening by spinning watchs around, taking atomic clocks on airplanes, and (purhapes most interesting) with lazers.
Closed-time-like curves as they like to put it should be able to be generated with high-voltage lazers and enable you to see the same set of photons twice at the same time.
(arg...cant find a good link on it, was in the new scientist years ago, and on a bbc program too).

The biggest thing the UHL will do hopefully is find the Higgs Boson...the partical that carries mass..(if it exists).
Now, lets all hope this dosnt tern out like the last eppisode of Lexx.
Where finding the Higgs Boson caused a black hole destroying the earth. (or, would have done, if it wasnt already destroyed)

Big Dog robot;
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=W1czBcnX1Ww
(like Mule)

Oh, and have you seen this revolutionary 3d engine?
xcelengine
Very impressive stuff!


oh, and not high-tech as such, but fun;
http://minhaselecao.blogspot.com/200...in-zurich.html
Some of googles new offices.