Wednesday, July 19, 2006

AI celebrates its 50th anniversary

Artificial Intelligence (AI) was conceived in 1956 at a workshop held at Dartmouth College, NH. Celebrations of the event have been held at Ascona in Switzerland and in Boston, Mass.

The Neue Züricher Zeitung reported about the Ascona event on July 14, 2006 under the heading "Von Menschen und Würmern".

Wired News covered the Boston event in "AI reaches the Golden Years".

Both reports mention the difficulties of computers to develop common sense.

RAEM

Monday, July 10, 2006

1001 Inventions

Science Magazine , Vol 313, 7 July 2006, reports on p. 47 about the exhibition "1001 Inventions: Discover the Muslim Heritage of Our World".

The exhibition is shown until Sept. 3rd 2006 at the Museum of Science & Industry in Manchester. It is concerned with the contribution of the Muslim world to innovations in seven areas: home, school, market, hospital, town, world, and inverse. Innovations in agriculture make up a large part of the "Market"-section.

RAEM

Sunday, July 02, 2006

The power of networks

Much has been said in the past about the power of networks. The New York Times of July 2nd 2006 reports about a beautiful example of how the web empowers consumers: AOL made it difficult for a customer of the name Vincent Ferrari to cancel his subscription. The customer recorded the conversation, put the record on his blog, news spread through the web, and AOL is in a rather uncomfortable position.

RAEM