Laptops as Earthquake Sensors

Earthquake researchers in California will use the motion sensors built into laptops to provide an earthquake-sensing network that will collect information on major quakes and possibly provide an early warning system. The Quake Catcher Network is beta testing a distributed computing network of several hundred laptops. Initially, the network will focus on the quake-prone San Francisco Bay and Greater Los Angeles Basin areas of California. Stanford earthquake seismologist and project participant Jesse Lawrence says the goal is not to predict earthquakes, but to measure them very quickly and get the information out before any damage is done. California already has hundreds of sophisticated seismometers placed throughout the state, but they are spaced relatively far apart. Read More

DARPA Pushes Machine Learning with Legged LittleDog Robot

DARPA's LittleDog project is an effort to build an autonomous legged robot that is aware of its environment and capable of deliberately placing its feet to avoid falling. The software used in LittleDog determines the robot's route and its cameras and leg sensors help it detect obstacles to avoid missteps. DAPRA wants LittleDog, a follow-up to its BigDog project, to be able to move across progressively more difficult terrain at increased speeds. "BigDog and LittleDog are related in that they are both focused on solving the problems that will enable legged robots to accompany war fighters as they cross complex terrain," says DARPA's Tom Wagner. Phase three of LittleDog's development process is scheduled to begin this summer. Phase one challenged six teams of roboticists to improve on the basic robot platform developed for BigDog. Successful completion of phase one required each team's LittleDog to move at a rate of at least a half inch per second over terrain that included obstacles 1.9 inches high. Read More

CERN GRID - 10,000 times faster than broadband

he European Centre for Nuclear Research (CERN) is working on a new super fast Internet infrastructure called Grid. CERN, the particle physics center based in Geneva that created the web, has built “the grid,” a replacement for the Internet is expected to be 10,000 times faster than the regular broadband speed.

The Grid is a service for sharing computer power and data storage capacity over the Internet. The Grid goes well beyond simple communication between computers, and aims ultimately to turn the global network of computers into one vast computational resource.

The institutions behind the grid for the Large Hadron Collider (LHC) successfully completed a challenge to sustain a continuous data flow of on average 600MB per second for 10 days between the CERN and seven sites in Europe and North America. ReadMore

Soccer robots compete for the title

Robot soccer is an ambitious high-tech competition for universities, research institutes and industry. Several major tournaments are planned for 2008, the biggest of which is the ‘RoboCup German Open’. From April 21-25, over 80 teams of researchers from more than 15 countries are expected to face off in Hall 25 at the Hannover Messe. Read More

IBM Math Algorithms Aim to Transform Management of Natural Disasters

IBM's 'stochastic optimization model' was developed by IBM math scientists from IBM Research Labs in New York and India working with business experts from IBM's Global Business Services and directly with clients to arm government bodies, relief agencies and companies with tools for strategic planning for more effective allocation of resources for natural disaster management and mitigation. Read More

Report by World's Leading Computer Systems Researchers and Designers Claims Human Values Key to Successful Innovation

LONDON — 2 April 2008 — A new report launched today looks at how emerging computer technologies will change our lives by 2020. "Being Human: Human-Computer Interaction in the Year 2020" details the findings of a Microsoft Research-hosted conference that gathered together 45 leading human-computer interaction (HCI) specialists from around the world in March 2007. The conference in Seville, Spain, addressed the question, "What will human-computer interaction look like in the year 2020?" The report explores new technologies and examines their potential impact, both positive and negative, on human behaviour and environments. "Being Human" makes clear recommendations that aim to set human experience at the heart of progress to ensure that the computer's increasing influence in society is a positive one. Read More