technews @ kitt.co.za

Apparently, the end result can be altruistic behaviour among robots. A Swiss team (Ecole Polytechnique Fédérale de Lausanne and University of Lausanne) has applied Evolutionary theory to the development of robots, wherein the neural networks controlling the little buggers are combined using genetic algorithms over several generations. The results are rather surprising, with maze movement without collisions being solved in a hundred generations or so, and even altruistic behaviour coming to the fore for ‘genetically’ similar robots. It is a very insightful look at the applicability of mathematics to understanding human behaviour and evolution in general. More details here.

Campbell’s monkeys seem to combine calls in various syntactic forms to form a sort of rudimentary language. That’s what detailed studies conducted at the University of Rennes in France suggest. Details here… well worth reading through.

DARPA can’t be too chuffed – they recently unveiled the DARPA Network Challenge to offering $40,000 in prize money to the first team of participants to find 10 red weather balloons that were placed at various locations across the USA. What they didn’t count on were the enterprising chaps at MIT who ‘crowdsourced’ the campaign by offering a financial incentive – anyone who helped them find a balloon got a share of the prize money. Net result – all balloons found in 9 glorious hours :) Details here.

It was inevitable really ;) Google has showed off the details of its upcoming OS, and it is ENTIRELY cloud-centric. A radical move and one that with lots of potential in the future. More details to be found here: http://googleblog.blogspot.com/2009/07/introducing-google-chrome-os.html

An in-depth look at the implications of Google Chrome OS has been written up by Ars Technica and can be found here: http://arstechnica.com/gadgets/news/2009/07/googles-chrome-os-coming-to-netbooks-in-late-2010.ars

“Any sufficiently advanced technology is indistinguishable from magic.” – Arthur C. Clarke

Welcome to the new technews @ kitt.co.za blog. Here we will write about the latest and greatest in the world of magic… oops, I mean technology. :)