AI 53: Human and Machine Intelligence will start to blur by 2012

At the IDF event in San Francisco, Intel CTO Justin Rattner said that the chip maker's research labs are working on human-machine interfaces and looking to foster big changes in robotics and in the ability of computers to interact with humans.

Rattner said. "There is speculation that we may be approaching an inflection point where the rate of technology advancements is accelerating at an exponential rate, and machines could even overtake humans in their ability to reason in the not-so-distant future."

Rattner says as early as 2012, the lines between human and machine intelligence will begin to blur.

Intel researchers are working to figure out how to harness millions of miniature robots, called catoms, so they could function as shape-shifting swarms.

Ratner stated "What if those machines had a small amount of intelligence, and they could assemble themselves into various shapes and were capable of movement or locomotion? If you had enough of them, you could create arbitrary shapes and have the assembly of machines that could take on any form and move in arbitrary ways." (Please refer to AI 51).

AI 52: Intel develops mobile device for Virtual Worlds

Intel shows the flexibility and power of the Atom processor by demonstrating the use of a Virtual World on a small low cost laptop.

‘Atom is the coolest processor Intel has ever made’ said Anand Chandrasekher, Intel Senior Vice President and General Manager of Intel Corporation's Ultra Mobility Group.

As Virtual Worlds will be used for the universal application of ai it is not a surprise that Intel want to take the high ground mass deployment of smart devices.

AI 51: Intel increase ai investments as key to their future

Intel is investing in artificial intelligence as Web 4.0 AI Complementing Humans and Web 5.0 AI Supplanting Humans steps closer to reality.

Intel's chief technology officer, Justin Rattner, believes ai will outsmart humans some day as part of his keynote speech at the Intel Developer Forum this week in San Francisco.

Rattner believes that advancements in technology have surpassed predictions and that in the not-so-distant future machines could surpass humans in intelligence.

Rattner touched on the idea of technological singularity, or rapid progress, championed by innovator and artificial-intelligence expert Ray Kurzweil.

Through a video discussion at the forum, Kurzweil from the Singularity Institute for Artificial Intelligence said machines are talking to each other at billions of bits per second.

Rattner talked about Intel's research in ai that includes working on their own version of transformers like those that transform a moving vehicle to a speaking robot. Intel is investigating how tiny robots dubbed "catoms" (see diagram of 3D catoms connecting with each other) can make devices change form.

According to Intel, these catoms can change a computer to a pocket-sized computer and then into the shape of an earpiece when used as a mobile phone, and could also be large and flat with a keyboard for browsing the Internet or viewing a movie.

And then there are the robots. Rattner showed two robot prototypes developed at Intel that use perception, manipulation and artificial intelligence.

Rattner demonstrated how one robot can feel objects before touching them.

Another demonstration showed a robot that recognizes faces, understands commands, and executes those commands.

Rattner said the research is still in its early stages. Refer to diagram of an Intel ai hand.

AI 50: Google’s Virtual World for social networking flounders

The Economist reported that Google wanted to bring 3-D virtual worlds to the masses by making them accessible through a web browser.

Though millions of people log into virtual worlds such as World of Warcraft (gaming) and Second Life (social networking) every day, they do require special client software to be downloaded making it daunting to newcomers.

The Google virtual world is called Lively but remains lifeless, hosting a dwindling number of users and prompting a string of negative reviews.

Lively is a simple environment, amounting to little more than a series of 3-D chat rooms.

To enter, you must first download and install a plug-in for your web-browser.

You can then choose from a list of rooms, the most popular of which are (inevitably) themed around sex and dating.

And although some popular rooms—“Love Sweet Love” and “Sexy Babes Club”—have had thousands of visitors, the number quickly drops into the double digits further down the list. Hardly anyone is using Lively.

Why has it been such a flop?

“There’s nothing to do in Lively if you’re not talking to someone,” says Greg Lastowka, an expert on virtual worlds at Rutgers School of Law in New Jersey. Second Life, he says, offers “commerce and creativity”, and Club Penguin (a popular virtual world for children, owned by Disney) has lots of built-in games.

Google denies that it is beaten yet.

Mark Young, a member of the Google Lively team, admits that it has a lot of problems: crashes, log-in difficulties and hard-to-read text. When asked what he hopes to tweak, he says: “Everything. Much of the user interface is not as complete or polished as planned in designs.”

AI 49: Smart Medical Devices Supported by the Cloud

Zuni is a smart pill alert system connected to the Cloud that sends patients reminders to take their medications and records their compliance, which users and, if they choose, their doctors can track.

The Zuri's maker, Zume Life Inc., a San Jose, Calif., start-up, and has started beta tests.

Zuri downloads from the Health Cloud the medication schedule on into the device. The device beeps when medication needs to be taken and by pressing a button, the user can confirm whether or not they have taken the pill.

Zume Life's product is one of a number of "self-care" tools that companies including Intel Corp. and Microsoft Corp. are developing to help people monitor their own health and receive feedback from caregivers.
Uses include supporting preoperative care and the management of chronic conditions.

The Market is Huge

Over 125 million Americans had at least one chronic disease, such as diabetes or high blood pressure, and by 2020 the figure is expected to reach almost 160 million, according to research by the Johns Hopkins Bloomberg School of Public Health.

The medical costs for chronic diseases in the USA is already in excess of $500 billion and by 2020 it is expected to top $1 trillion.

These technologies have the potential to lower health-care costs by making the delivery of services more efficient and by empowering consumers to take a more-active role in their own care.

Intel Health Device Services

"With more people living with chronic diseases, we believe care can be increasingly moved outside of the hospital to the home," said Louis Burns, vice president and general manager of Intel's Digital Health Group.

The Intel in-home patient device collects readings from specific models of wired and wireless medical devices, such as blood-pressure monitors and glucose meters. It then displays the data for the patient on a touch screen and sends the readings to a secure host server, where health-care professionals can review the information and provide feedback via video conferencing and email.

Patients also can monitor their health status, communicate with care teams and learn about their medical conditions, according to Intel.

Intel is launching these services in 2009 in the U.S. and U.K.

Microsoft Health Device Services

Microsoft is working with 3rd parties to integrate vital-signs data into HealthVault, an online service the software company recently launched that allow consumers to store and manage and selectively share medical data.

HealthVault account holders can add data from 50 devices, including heart-rate monitors and blood-pressure machines from nine manufacturers, to their personal health records.

Users can then share the data with several applications, such as the American Heart Association's blood-pressure manager.

"We're looking to add more device categories, such as fitness equipment, and finding new applications to support the data from the devices," said Bert Van Hoof, director of partner development at the Microsoft Health Solutions Group.

As predicted, robotic health services will be linked to Cloud Services and set a foundation for artificial intelligence (please refer to AI 4).

AI 50: New Middleware for Avatar Emotions

Artificial Technology has launched middleware for implanting emotion into virtual characters.

Known as EKI One, enables virtual world developers to give their characters intelligent and emotional behaviour.

Artificial Technology was founded in Puchheim, in Germany.

AI 48: Web 3.0 semantic search – too little, too late?

John Davies, head of next generation web research at BT, was Web 3.0 semantic search is gaining momentum.

Now the RDF and OWL ontology languages have been firmly established by industry body the World Wide Web Consortium (W3C) we ought to see better search applications.

Yahoo is supporting Web 3.0 semantic web with a new project called Search Monkey. The search giant will be asking web site providers to make available more structured data so that the firm can present it in a less random way.

According to Davies in trials search enhanced by this technology recorded a 15 per cent increase in relevancy.

The question is whether a 15% improvement is enough to worry Google.

Furthermore, will it matter as the foundation for web 4.0 using Virtual Worlds gather momentum?

Remember, Virtual Worlds are closed systems and cannot be accessed by external search engines! (please refer to AI 15).

AI 47: Artificial Artificial Intelligence finds a new application for old books being digitised

In a paper published recently in the journal Science, computer-science professor Luis von Ahn describes a way that people have been used to decipher messy text from digital copies taken of old books.

The system is the latest incarnation of Artificial Artificial Intelligence which is a network human brains focused upon solving problems computers still can't handle.

Luis von Ahn is an assistant professor of computer science at Carnegie Mellon University, helped develop the original twisted-word security technique, known as CAPTCHA - a slightly fractured acronym for Completely Automated Public Turing test to tell Computers and Humans Apart. (The "Turing test" refers to mathematician Alan Turing, who in 1950 proposed a simple way to measure the success of artificial intelligence in computers.)

Since appearing on the Alta Vista search engine in 1997, the technique has become nearly ubiquitous on the Web; according to von Ahn's Science paper, people solve about 100 million captchas per day.

He and his team devised an elegant system for collecting troublesome words, turning them into captchas, and getting them solved. Books are scanned twice and the two text streams are compared; any mismatched words become captchas. The mystery words are paired with known words on normal website security checks, and the user is asked to solve both words. If the user is right about the known word, his or her answer for the mystery word is kept and compared to solutions offered by others. Von Ahn finds that the system correctly decodes mystery words more than 99 percent of the time - results nearly identical to that of the scanning projects' human reviewers.

According to the Science article, this system, dubbed "reCAPTCHA," is now used on some 40,000 websites, where it has solved some 44 million words in one year of operation - the equivalent of about 17,600 books in von Ahn's estimation.

Ethan Zuckerman, a fellow at Harvard's Berkman Center for Internet & Society, shares von Ahn's conviction that human computation offers a useful approach to problems that bedevil computers.

"Computer scientists - understandably - are more interested in solving problems with algorithms than by figuring out clever ways to slice them into small pieces and let humans solve them," he wrote in an e-mail last week. Among the things we do better than computers, he said, is human language itself, and translation in particular.

The above is an extract from an article called ‘Click to translate’ written by Matthew Battles

AI 46: US$345m invested in virtual worlds this year as foundation for web 4.0 gains momentum

USD 161 million has been invested into 16 virtual worlds companies during the second quarter of 2008, bringing this year's total investment up to USD 345 million, according to figures from Virtual World Management.

Realtime Worlds was the biggest beneficiary, having secured USD 50 million in Series B funding, last March.

The investment came from Maverick Capital, New Enterprise Associates and WPP.

Turbine, the developers of the Lord of the Rings Online MMO, was the next largest, securing USD 40 million in financing led by Time Warner and GGV Capital, last month.

21 other virtual worlds-related companies benefited from investment this quarter, some of which were developing MMOs and other were technology companies working on supporting software and hardware.

AI 45: Demo Virtual Worlds for US $60k

Disney is developing virtual worlds that cost millions of dollars instead of hundreds of millions.

“Most people either need to sell [a virtual world] internally or need something to show investors or sponsors that will fund the development, which is usually a costly process,” explained Metaversatility Founder and CEO Peter Haik.

“We are filling that gap with a new service offering of getting a standalone virtual world up in 6-to-8 weeks on a more modest budget--between $40,000 and $60,000.”

The demo worlds are built on the Multiverse platform, and designed with standard tools and practices. If the project is picked up, the assets created for the demo can then be transferred to the final build and vice versa.
“Since it’s based on the professional tools and 3D models, they can use assets they already have,” said Haik. “Maybe building plans or other content they’ve created, because 3D is a pretty common thing. We can use some of the content, and any content we create for these worlds can be portable to other worlds because they are standard 3D models.”

AI 44: Bartle attacks traditional academia for not embracing Virtual Worlds

Richard Bartle, MUD co-creator, criticizes universities who are resistant to change — while 'modern' universities (ones who developed from polytechnics or institutes, at least in the UK) are more willing to lead the way with creative courses, older institutions are less likely to follow suit.

Bartle received a Ph.D. in artificial intelligence from the University of Essex, which is where he created MUD along with Roy Trubshaw, in 1978.

He lectured at Essex until 1987, when he left to work full time on MUD (known as MUD2 in its present version). Recently he has returned to the university as a part-time professor and principal teaching fellow in the Department of Computing and Electronic Systems, supervising courses on computer game design as part of the department's degree course on computer game development.

In 2003, he wrote Designing Virtual Worlds, a book about the history, ethics, structure, and technology of massively multiplayer games.

Bartle is also a contributing editor to Terra Nova, a collaborative blog that deals with virtual world issues.

AI 43: Virtual Worlds are growing fast as the foundation for Web 4.0 gains traction

Gary Hayes, Director of the Laboratory for Advanced Media Production in Sydney, has produced a short video that covers 50 virtual worlds that do not include gaming worlds.

This is worth watching as it shows the way Virtual Worlds are evolving that already are attracting 300 million people worldwide.

Just remember these Virtual Worlds cannot be accessed by search-engines and are the foundation to Web 4.0 Artificial Intelligence Complementing Humans.

Please go to link http://virtualworlds.nmc.org/2008/08/06/50-virtual-worlds/

AI 42: Study says 30% of US army to be robots by 2020; in reality bots could outnumber solders by 2012

Doug Few and Bill Smart of Washington University have produced a new report that states by 2020, robots could well account for 30 per cent of the US army. They have under estimated the probable outcome by a long way!

Bill Smart says the term robot' means:

"When the military says 'robot' they mean everything from self-driving trucks up to what you would conventionally think of as a robot. You would more accurately call them autonomous systems rather than robots."

The pair also go on to say that while robot use will increase, fully autonomous systems would not use weapons: "It's a chain of command thing. You don't want to give autonomy to a weapons delivery system," said Smart

"You want to have a human hit the button," says Smart. "You don't want the robot to make the wrong decision. You want to have a human to make all of the important decisions."

This study does not factor in the notion of software ai agents where each one is a subject matter expert. If this happens the number of bots will out number the number of solders by 2012.

The picture shows an existing robotic dog that could be connected to the military cloud and used to converse with people through links with ai agents covering any subject. The technology is readily available today – it simply needs the military to be more open minded about AI scenarios that can be delivered fast.

AI 41: AI research states ‘control the robots, control the world’

University of Sheffield's Professor Noel Sharkey, a leading expert in Artificial Intelligence has suggested that the people that control the robots will control the world in the 21st century.

This was a conclusion from a report commissioned by Warner to mark the DVD release of Terminator: The Sarah Connor Chronicles. The report concluded that robots probably won't take over the world, but they will be the tools for the people who do.

"The robots themselves will not be super-intelligent and will not be motivated to take over themselves, but those who control the robots will control society," he said.

"But this report, based on existing research and current technological developments, suggests that robots will play a much bigger role in society … than previously anticipated”.

AI 40 Leading expert says virtual worlds are critical to AI

Ben Goertzel (refer to AI 39) says,

‘I think virtual worlds are going to be absolutely critical to the development of Artificial General Intelligence.’

As well as

‘Right now connecting AI’s to virtual worlds is probably the best way to get an AI to have a general human-like embodied experience.’

AI 39 Leading expert says Artificial General Intelligence will not be achieved by mimicking the brain

Ben Goertzel is a noted scientist, author, futurist and pioneer in the field of Artificial Intelligence.

Ben states that the human mind does not qualify as a completely ‘General Intelligence’ but lies somewhere on the spectrum between Artificial General Intelligence (AGI) on one end and ‘Narrow AI’ on the other. Therefore, his studies have confirmed our own work that black-box AI will not deliver AGI by mimicking the workings of the human brain (please refer to AI 10).

Ben’s studies show how our brains fool us into believing that we understand our actions and decisions when we don’t. This is one of his reasons to why modelling an AI too closely on the human brain might make it too, vulnerable to false notions.

AI 38 Omnicom likely to use virtual worlds for health services

The giant agency Omnicom believes virtual worlds are no longer a niche play, but have become a global category defined by hundreds of millions of users in reach.

Omnicom have already taken a major stake in the digital agency Millions of Us that specializes in virtual worlds. (Please refer to AI 35 for further details).

The Omnicom investment for an undisclosed amount was made by Diversified Agency Services, which is a unit of Omnicom Group.

Diversified Agency Services (DAS) contains an influential global healthcare franchise with six healthcare communications companies ranked in the top 25.

It is inevitable that Omnicom will start to fuse virtual worlds with health services.

AI 37: Researchers turn to Virtual World to Conduct Studies

The Virtual World is attracting heath researches.

Health care researchers also are starting to use Virtual Worlds for research, education and data collection.

Two recent initiatives cover chronic illnesses schizophrenia and obesity.

Peter Yellowlees, a psychiatrist at the University of California-Davis Medical Center, created a "virtual psychosis" environment on the Second Life Web site to help students and health care professionals understand the types of hallucinations that people with schizophrenia and other mental disorders have.

The University of Houston's Texas The Virtual World is attracting heath researches.

Health care researchers also are starting to use Virtual Worlds for research, education and data collection.

Two recent initiatives cover chronic illnesses schizophrenia and obesity.

Peter Yellowlees, a psychiatrist at the University of California-Davis Medical Center, created a "virtual psychosis" environment on the Second Life Web site to help students and health care professionals understand the types of hallucinations that people with schizophrenia and other mental disorders have.

The University of Houston's Texas Virtual World is attracting heath researches.

Health care researchers also are starting to use Virtual Worlds for research, education and data collection.

Two recent initiatives cover chronic illnesses schizophrenia and obesity.

Peter Yellowlees, a psychiatrist at the University of California-Davis Medical Center, created a "virtual psychosis" environment on the Second Life Web site to help students and health care professionals understand the types of hallucinations that people with schizophrenia and other mental disorders have.

The University of Houston's Texas CThe Virtual World is attracting heath researches.

Health care researchers also are starting to use Virtual Worlds for research, education and data collection.

Two recent initiatives cover chronic illnesses schizophrenia and obesity.

Peter Yellowlees, a psychiatrist at the University of California-Davis Medical Center, created a "virtual psychosis" environment on the Second Life Web site to help students and health care professionals understand the types of hallucinations that people with schizophrenia and other mental disorders have.

The University of Houston's Texas Obesity Research Center plans to recruit 500 participants from different countries for an obesity study that will reward users' online characters, or avatars, for healthy dietary habits and increased physical activity. Participants will be monitored online and will report their weight and activity to help researchers determine if participating in the virtual world encourages individuals to lose weight and practice healthy behaviours themselves.

"What we're seeing in Second Life is the beginning of serious interest on the part of health care professionals," stated John Lester, Boston operations director for Linden Lab.

Research is just one area of health attracted to Virtual Worlds (please refer to AI 33 and AI 34).
Research Center plans to recruit 500 participants from different countries for an obesity study that will reward users' online characters, or avatars, for healthy dietary habits and increased physical activity. Participants will be monitored online and will report their weight and activity to help researchers determine if participating in the virtual world encourages individuals to lose weight and practice healthy behaviours themselves.

"What we're seeing in Second Life is the beginning of serious interest on the part of health care professionals," stated John Lester, Boston operations director for Linden Lab.

Research is just one area of health attracted to Virtual Worlds (please refer to AI 33 and AI 34).
Research Center plans to recruit 500 participants from different countries for an obesity study that will reward users' online characters, or avatars, for healthy dietary habits and increased physical activity. Participants will be monitored online and will report their weight and activity to help researchers determine if participating in the virtual world encourages individuals to lose weight and practice healthy behaviours themselves.

"What we're seeing in Second Life is the beginning of serious interest on the part of health care professionals," stated John Lester, Boston operations director for Linden Lab.

Research is just one area of health attracted to Virtual Worlds (please refer to AI 33 and AI 34).
Research Center plans to recruit 500 participants from different countries for an obesity study that will reward users' online characters, or avatars, for healthy dietary habits and increased physical activity. Participants will be monitored online and will report their weight and activity to help researchers determine if participating in the virtual world encourages individuals to lose weight and practice healthy behaviours themselves.

"What we're seeing in Second Life is the beginning of serious interest on the part of health care professionals," stated John Lester, Boston operations director for Linden Lab.

Research is just one area of health attracted to Virtual Worlds (please refer to AI 33 and AI 34).

AI 36: Gartner says virtual worlds are to grow exponentially

By 2012, Gartner estimates that 70 per cent of organisations will have established their own private virtual worlds and predicts that these internal worlds will have greater success due to lower expectations, clearer objectives and better constraints."

Gartner also believe that “80 percent of active Internet users (and Fortune 500 companies) will have a ‘second life’, but not necessarily in Second Life” by 2011.

Health is likely to be a major player in the Virtual Worlds (refer to AI 33 and AI 34).

AI 35: Millions of Us LLC launches Virtual Greats

Virtual Greats Enters $1.5 Billion Virtual Goods Market.

Company Launches First Venture in Partnership with Elvis Presley Enterprises, Inc., Justin Timberlake and Gaia Online.

Millions of Us LLC, an agency specializing in virtual worlds and large online communities, today announced that it has launched a new company, "Virtual Greats," to take advantage of the rapidly growing market for virtual goods. In connection with today's launch announcement, Millions of Us also announced that Virtual Greats will have distribution rights for virtual goods associated with the legendary icon Elvis Presley and superstar Justin Timberlake.

In addition, Virtual Greats will feature Tila Tequila, Snoop Dogg, Paris Hilton, Raven Symone and Marvel's The Incredible Hulk and She-Hulk, across multiple media platforms.

"The inspiration for Virtual Greats came when I realized that this was a $1.5 billion market without any high-value copyrighted material," said Reuben Steiger, CEO, Millions of Us.

"Defining the market and acquiring these rights and distribution has been enormously rewarding."

AI 34: IBM uses a health virtual world to promote lose-lose or win-win scenarios for health sector

IBM has launched its newest island in Second Life: IBM Virtual Healthcare Island. This follows using the virtual world trend to focus on health (please refer to AI: 33).


The island is a unique, three-dimensional representation of the challenges facing today’s healthcare industry and the role information technology will play in transforming global healthcare-delivery to meet patient needs.

The island supports the strategic healthcare vision that IBM released in October 2006, entitled, Healthcare 2015: Win-Win or Lose-Lose, A Portrait and a Path to Successful Transformation.

The paper paints a picture of a Healthcare Industry in crisis – of health systems in the United States and many other countries that will become unsustainable by the year 2015.

To avoid “lose-lose” scenarios in which global healthcare systems “hit the wall” and require immediate and forced restructuring, IBM calls for what it defines as a “win-win” option: new levels of accountability, tough decisions, hard work and focus on the consumer.

The IBM Virtual Healthcare Island is designed with a futuristic atmosphere and provides visitors with an interactive demonstration of IBM’s open-standards-based Health Information Exchange (HIE) architecture. Working with project leads in the U.S., the island was designed and built by an all-IBM-India team.

Starting from the patient’s home, they create their own Personal Health Records (PHRs) in a secure and private environment and watch as it is incorporated into an array of Electronic Medical Record (EMR) systems that can be used at various medical facilities. As they move from one island station to the next, they experience how the development of a totally integrated and interoperable longitudinal Electronic Health Record (EHR) is used within a highly secured network that allows access only by patient-authorized providers and family members.

Patient avatars arrive and are welcomed at the Central Park and then visit a Central Information Hub, where IBM’s view of the healthcare industry and the power of information technology to transform it are presented.

An amphitheater on the Hub’s second floor provides an area that can support virtual meetings, complete with a large video screen and accompanying slide presentation on IBM’s HIE architecture and the positive impact that this technology can have in the transformation of the Healthcare Industry.

Visitors can then walk, fly or use transporters to visit the various island stations:

The Patient’s Home: In the secure environment of a private home, patient avatars can initiate a PHR and populate it with their personal health characteristics and clinical history, accessed and downloaded from physician EMR data. They can also establish privacy and security preferences as well as health directives. The ground floor demonstrates secure messaging with providers and activates the initial PHR. Using a transporter to move upstairs, patients use home health devices to take weight, blood pressure and blood sugar readings in the privacy of a bedroom, further incorporating this information into the PHR, which is shown on presentation screens.

The Laboratory: This stop offers laboratory and radiology suites to help avatars extend their understanding of the benefits of HIE. Here, patients can check in at a Patient Kiosk and have blood work and radiology tests performed. The use of EHRs – revealing only appropriate portions of the PHRs -- shows how consumers can also benefit through cost and time savings.

The Clinic: Patient avatars transport or walk from the Lab to the Clinic, where a welcome from their primary-care physician awaits. A combination of scripting and information screens supports simulation of a patient exam, after which an electronic prescription is generated, and the continued development of the EHR is explained on nearby screens.

The Pharmacy: Here, avatars can check in at a Patient Kiosk that simulates the verifying of drug information. They then receive their prescriptions and update their PHRs/EHRs with new medication data. The HIE architecture demonstrates how use of PHR/EHR technology can prevent consumers from purchasing medications that are contra-indicated given the medicines they presently require, as well as alerting them about potential drug-to-drug interactions. The PHR/EHR is again updated.

The Hospital: In this futuristic, three story structure, avatars arrive for a scheduled visit with a specialist. Physicians’ offices, patient rooms and exam rooms are all simulated here.

The Emergency Room: Avatars can chose to experience a virtual emergency by “touching” a specially scripted control. This engages a medical episode and a ride on a fast gurney directly into the private and secure emergency treatment area, where a special screen is programmed to reveal the full incorporation of the PHR to ensure proper treatment.

IBM’s Healthcare & Life Sciences (HCLS) Industry will continue to develop the new island in months to come. The island can perform as a virtually “always on” demonstration tool for IBM’s sales personnel. A video version of the island is also under production.

AI 33: Virtual Hospital represents Future Real Hospital in Second Life

Cisco, Millions of Us, and Palomar Pomerado Health are working to open the hospital of the future at Palomar West in Souther California, but that won't be opening until 2011. To show off the idea beforehand, the two worked with Millions of Us to build a simulation in Second Life.

The Virtual Palomar West simulator will demo both Palomar's medical technology, like robots, 3D imaging, and patient tracking, as well as Cisco's Connected Hospital technologies, like TelePresence for HD video "in-person experiences, medical grade network communication technologies, and Unified Communications to sync up PDAs, phones, and more across the hospital.

The hospital island will also show off proposed architecture, outdoor spaces, and applications to develop feedback as the real-world hospital is finalized.


Visitors will also be able to experience Connected Hospital technologies that will be delivered in the real hospital by Cisco.

Highlights of the virtual Palomar West include:

• Cisco TelePresence. Visitors are welcomed to Palomar West in “Second Life” by a virtual receptionist appearing via Cisco TelePresence, a new technology that uses high-definition video and spatial audio to create unique ”in person” experiences via the network.

• Advanced Robotics. The simulation shows Palomar West’s operating rooms, which include advanced robotics and functional imaging systems capable of supporting medical procedures spanning interventional radiology, cardiovascular surgery, urology and gastroenterology. An advanced surgical cockpit, from where a surgeon can manipulate robotic systems remotely while viewing vital signs and functional imaging information in real time, is also featured.

• Communication and Collaboration. The simulation shows how the Cisco Unified Communications system facilitates smooth patient and clinician communication. For example, a radiologist can locate specialists, contact them on their phones, laptops or PDAs, and initiate a desktop collaboration session to review and consult on patient scan images thanks to the network that links picture archiving systems with communications tools.

• 3D Holographic Medical Imaging. Palomar West will feature mobile, remote-controlled, 3D holographic whole-body multimodality medical imaging systems that can be directed into any patient room.

• Connected Real Estate. In the real Palomar West, all building, communication, IT, and clinical systems will be converged onto a single Cisco Medical-Grade Network. The simulation shows how nearly all aspects of a patient’s stay (including ventilation, air conditioning, lighting, security, fire and life safety, digital devices, and signage) will be monitored and managed via applications running on a single network, freeing up clinicians to focus on providing the very best care.

• Visibility and Tracking Solutions. Visitors are guided through Palomar West by radio frequency-enabled sensors that enhance security and safety through patient tracking, and that protect hospital property by tracking equipment in real time.

I 32: The future AI will move to conversation but not a 'natural language' solution

Damian Isla an AI expert from Bungie Studios addressed the 2008 Developer Conference and Expo about AI advancements since Halo 3. He described the future direction of AI as the one he is ‘really excited about’ and that is AI conversation. He said it will not be based on natural language as that does not work. The solution is not known to him but may need to be a symbolic language.

AI 31: AI used for multilingual text-to-speech solution

An Irish technology firm and a Polish text-to-speech specialist have successfully integrated their technologies in a multilingual solution. Voxpilot, which is headquartered in Paris but with its R&D activities based in Dublin, has teamed up with Ivona of Gdynia to harmonise their software.
Voxpilot is a specialist in interactive voice and video response platforms, while IVO Software focuses on text-to-speech solutions based on artificial intelligence (AI) algorithms.

The result of integrating Ivona Text-To-Speech (TTS) with Voxpilot's Open Media Platform (OMP) is Ivona Telecom Text-To-Speech, a solution designed for developing systems such as contact centre IVR and voice self services. It comes with a command line interface together with compliance with the Microsoft Speech API and MRCP standard. Ivona TTS currently supports US English, Romanian and Polish voices.

Ivona TTS analyses and interprets text using proprietary algorithms based on artificial intelligence and "reads" it out loud in a natural, human-like way. The synthesised text can be sent directly to a telephone line or saved to a file. Its architecture means Ivona Telecom can handle over 100 channels using single core processor power.

Integrating with the Voxpilot OMP through MRCP, the Ivona TTS solution provides text-to-speech resources to the distributed call control and VoiceXML-based media processing platform. The technology uses a combination of advanced PSTN features and IMS-ready VoIP capabilities to rapidly deliver high quality interactive telecommunications with DTMF, speech recognition, text-to-speech and multimedia services is possible all on a single platform.

AI 30 A robust consumer health diagnostics service could take another 20+ years!!!!

Datamonitor believes software to aid the diagnosis and treatment of patients, are set to fundamentally change the way medicine is practiced.

The report, "Clinical Decision Support in Healthcare: One Step Closer to the Omniscient Clinician", expects clinical intelligence solutions to be the next major trend in support tools, followed by patient-centric diagnostics. However, the report points out that medical culture will be the major obstacle to overcome the provisioning of consumer self-service.


New Zealand Health Ministry chief clinical adviser Sandy Dawson says converting clinical expertise into a form that can be reliably dispensed through software is a "mammoth task" that will require a progressive effort over the next 20 years, like a Wiki.

Datamonitor says the culture of the medical profession is the biggest obstacle to uptake of the technology.

"The idea that a computer could be more accurate than a physician is difficult for providers to accept, despite numerous studies which have shown that algorithms and computers do outperform most doctors on some tasks."

Christine Chang, a healthcare analyst who helped produce the report, says:

"Critics of clinical decision support maintain a computer cannot understand the nuances of medicine even when the technologies have been shown to improve efficiencies and outcomes. While a fundamental shift in culture is not impossible, it will take time as well as an increase in provider education and pressure from patients, payers and 'C-level' hospital executives."

Datamonitor says healthcare providers themselves are not easily able to tell if they are treating patients effectively.

"The minority, if any, are able to measure the mid-to- long-term outcomes of the patients they treat, the number of incorrect diagnoses or what procedures are most cost- effective."

AI 29: Japan and USA robotic wars: dialogue to be or not to be

Japan built Wakamaru and the USA built Roomba (please refer to refer to AI 6), which are two household helper robots with very different capabilities.

Wakamaru was built with basic dialogue and failed.

Roomba was built without dialogue and succeeded.

Wakamaru fom Mitsubishi Heavy Industries, is a waist-high bot with a canary yellow exterior and limpid eyes. It can recognize 10,000 Japanese words, identify eight family members by face or voice, remind you to make an appointment or take your meds and, if somebody breaks into your house, send photographs of the intruder to your mobile phone. It cost $15,000 and filed in the market.

Roomba, by contrast, looks more like an appliance than a robotic friend but with a starting price of $130 has sold over 3m machines.

The Japanese, who have long been fascinated by the robot as android, are concentrating on making machines that look and act like human beings.

U.S. firms, on the other hand, have eschewed the flashier android approach and instead are emphasizing products that, like Roomba, are narrowly targeted to specific tasks like mowing lawns, cleaning pools and taking patients' vital signs.

The stakes are high (please refer to AI 1) with the market being worth US$182 by 2018.

A low cost dialogue delivery capability designed to add material value is likely to become a big differentiator in the robotic wars.

AI 28: OpenSimulator aims to accelerate the deployment of Virtual Worlds

The OpenSimulator Project is Virtual Worlds Server which can be used for creating and deploying 3D Virtual Environments.

It has been developed through an open-source model.

Out of the box, the OpenSimulator can be used to create a Second Life(tm) like environment, able to run in a standalone mode or connected to other OpenSimulator instances through built in cloud technology.

It can also easily be extended to produce more specialized 3D interactive applications.

OpenSimulator is written in C#, and can run under Mono or the Microsoft .NET runtimes.

Due to its clean modular nature it is possible to significantly extend functionality yourself via plug-in modules to suit your application.

OpenSimulator is currently considered to be alpha level code (please refer to AI 27).

OpenSimulator is working with Linden Labs on Virtual World interoperability.

AI 27: Avatars to travel across different virtual worlds

The future direction is set that will enable avatars to be transported to different virtual worlds managed by 3rd parties.

This move to virtual-world interoperability is now being tested between Second Life and other independent virtual worlds, thanks to the launch of Linden Lab's Open Grid Beta, a program designed for developers to test new functionality.

The beta program will allow avatars powered by users to move between Second Life and other non-Linden Lab clouds.

We are still early in the game. The point of the beta is to give the rest of the development community the chance to try the protocols themselves," says Joe Miller, Linden Lab's vice president of platform and development. More than 200 users have signed up for the beta program, and currently 15 worlds have been connected.

AI 26 New Imaging of the Brain shows Strings

We are all familiar with the image of the human brain that consists of a muted gray rendering easily distinguished by a series of convoluted folds.

But according to Van Wedeen, a neuroscientist at Massachusetts General Hospital, in Boston, that image is just a shadow of the real brain.

By using Diffusion spectrum imaging (DSI) you can now see the brain as a collection of neural strings called axons. Scientists can use these diffusion measurements to map the strings creating a detailed blueprint of the brain's connectivity.


Why should we be surprise at this latest revolution that string theory is also applied to the greatest natural computer the human brain?

For a reminder about the complexity of the human brain please go to AI 10: After two AI Winters it is now the time for AI to succeed.

NB The credit for the picture goes to George Day, Ruopeng Wang, Jeremy Schmahmann, Van Wedeen, Massachusetts General Hospital