] ASIMO stands for Advanced Step in Innovative Mobility. It
] is 4 feet high and it can move a lot like we do, with 26
] degrees of freedom. That means being able to move
] different "joints" in different directions. It also means
] forward and backward maintaining balance at all times,
] and turning without the standard pivoting of early
] robots.

This was the 8th stop on the ASIMO North American Educational Tour. The next stop is Philadelphis, Sep 20-21, 2003. There is additional info at the Asimo web site: http://asimo.honda.com/

nbc4.com - Digital Edge - ASIMO

] A military reconnaissance robot being developed at a
] British lab can keep moving even if it gets damaged on
] the battlefield. When any of the snake-like robot's
] "muscle" segments are damaged, clever software "evolves"
] a different way for it to wriggle across any terrain.

It relearns how to slither, like Brooks' little bug-bots learn how to walk. These folks use a genetic algorithm for the learning.

New Scientist

] Republic is a strategy simulation game that puts you in
] the role of a budding revolutionary, out to overthrow a
] despotic and corrupt regime.
]
] Much of the artificial intelligence in the game is based
] on the book, Crowds and Power, by the 1981 Nobel Laureate
] in Literature.

Simulation based on the book, Crowds and Power, by the 1981 Nobel Laureate in Literature, Elias Canetti.

BBC NEWS | Technology | Game plays politics with your PC

] A workshop to explore the relation between Multi-Agent
] Based Simulation [MABS] models

Compares MABS models used to study social, biological, and artificial systems. This page contans links to papers presented at the workshop and a link to a closely related special issue of the Journal of Artificial Societies and Social Simulation (JASSS).

Model to Model Workshop

] The world has known about the small-world phenomenon
] since sociologist Stanley Milgram's 1967 study found that
] it took, on average, six exchanges among acquaintances to
] get a letter from a random correspondent in Omaha,
] Nebraska to a Boston recipient identified only by a brief
] description.
] ...
] Columbia University researchers have filled in the blanks
] by carrying out a larger, more detailed experiment over
] the Internet. The results match many of the broad
] conclusions of Milgram's work, but show that Milgram's
] conclusion about the importance of hubs -- people who
] have many connections -- may be off, at least in regards
] to social networks.
]

It turns out that social networks do not behave like the scale-free networks exhibited by web page linking. There is a cost to participation in a social network. Folks with fewer connections were more likely to pass on the message.

Email updates six degrees theory TRN 082703

I know this is lame, but after years of using unix machines this find exec syntax has never stuck in my brain. Recommending it to Memestreams will make it easy to find again.

Unix find - grep command

] Researchers at both SRI and Carnegie Mellon say it will
] take years of work before computer programs are capable
] of handling informational tasks as aptly as a human
] assistant.

Cognitive assistant work at CMU and SRI. The work at CMU appears to be a synthesis of a number of lines of research into an aggrate package that will actually be useful. The article implies that the SRI work is also an integration effort.

Researchers Push for Computers That Think

] SAN DIEGO, Calif., August 28 -- Chemists have developed
] minute grains of silicon, or "smart dust," that
] spontaneously assemble, orient and sense their local
] environment, a first step toward the development of
] robots the size of sand grains that could be used in
] medicine, bioterrorism surveillance and pollution
] monitoring.

Each grain of dust is a single "moving" part which aligns itself according to the material sensed. The self-assembly comes from a whole bunch of them doing the same thing and clumping together in the process.

'Smart Dust' Could Lead to Tiny Robots - Photonics.com Feature Articles

Ahoy maties! Make sure ye observe the fairest day! ARGH!

Talk Like A Pirate Day

Regarding "cognitive prosthesis":
] It's not a term that trips off the tongue. However, the
] concept behind the words inspires the work of the more
] than 50 scientists affiliated with the Institute for
] Human and Machine Cognition (IHMC) that Ford directs at
] the University of West Florida in Pensacola. In short, a
] cognitive prosthesis is a computational tool that
] amplifies or extends a person's thought and perception,
] much as eyeglasses are prostheses that improve vision.

A different approach to "artificial intelligence".

Mind-Expanding Machines: Science News Online, Aug. 30, 2003