Google Wants to Create Robots That Think

 

 Google says it is working on a "quantum" computer chip.  The goal, stated Google researchers, is to, one day, have machines think like humans.

Researcher John Martinis and his team at the University of California, Santa Barbara, has begun to work with the Quantum Artificial Intelligence team at Google.

Thise new pairing is part of Google's "hardware initiative" to design and build chips operating on sub-atomic levels in ways making them exponentially faster than processors currently used in computers today.

Now with an integrated hardware team, the blended Quantum AI team will now make it possible to implement and test new designs.

Recently, Google's artificial intelligence lab, partnered with NASA space agency on quantum computing research.

The complete Business insider article is HERE

Google's View of Future Data/comm

In this killer demo of the future of what can only be called total immersion data/communications, Google is experimenting with what they call Project Glass and they released the video featured below. Here is what they say about Project Glass

• We believe technology should work for you — to be there when you need it and get out of your way when you don't.
• A team within our Google[x] group started Project Glass to build this kind of technology, one that helps you explore and share your world, putting you back in the moment.

Check out Project Glass here

Self Driving Car Test

I first saw this short demo and they titled it, Car for a Blind Man. Now that was most likely a bit of shock value because what this film really shows is a test of the Google self driving car. The fact that they put a blind man behind the wheel is a bit of theater in my mind, but you CAN see the value in the argument, however the self same argument can be said to work just as well on riding the public transport bus. Still and all, you have technology here that even though you see it working, there is still that wow factor one that makes it difficult too get it straight in your mind.

Check out this piece.

Google Robot Car Crashes?!

Well it was bound to happen sooner or later. After 160,000 miles, Google's test-bed Toyota Prius crashed near Google HQ in Mountain View. Witnesses to the accident reported that the crash caused a five-car pile-up.

Google has been testing out the cars in California and Nevada and this was the first time one has had an accident. The bizarre accident occurred when Google’s car rear-ended another Prius that hit a Honda Accord, which struck another Accord that hit another Prius. The truly bizarre part of the accident witnesses are claiming the crash was the fault of a human at the car’s controls!

From the article:

• It’s not yet proven that a human was driving but experts say the car’s sensors, cameras and lasers would have avoided a collision.

Ironically here is Sebastian Thrun expounding on the future of robotic cars




Read complete story from the DailyMail online here

Get Live Images of Mars - From Google?!

Google has updated it's Google Mars service to show more details of present day Mars. Users can access the latest images from the Themis camera on the Mars Odyssey. Users will also be able to do virtual fly-bys.

You can start your experience by going to google.com/mars/ and maneuvering from there. Also if you use Google Earth you can view the terain in 3D. Initial maps available are a color coded elevation map, Visible light map and infrared.

Users can select different Martian regions, like mountains, canyons or craters or you can explore the areas where man made space craft have landed.

Frank Herbert's Helstrom Hive preview?

Cool! well, lets bring you up to speed - it seems, according to our friends over at SF Signal that Google will let you embed previews of certain books on your blog. Now these are supposed to be "page limited" but it would seem that the whole book is here for our enjoyment!

<- complete SF Signal story ->

Google Wants Server Farms on the High Seas?!

From IO9: The New York Times' Ashlee Vance [reported] that Google has taken out a patent to create "water based datacenters," which are essentially barges that house cargo container-sized server farms.

I just started hearing about these container/server farms. Microsoft has a huge network of them. Each one is pack with rack after rack of servers already networked together. All you do when they arrive is hook up your network connection, power and air conditioning. You NEVER enter the container which is sealed by the manufacturer. When enough of the servers in the container fail the whole thing is swapped out. One of these things is whacked enough, but the picture from Redmond was ACRES of these things stacked several units high. I was impressed by IL&M's server group until I saw what a REAL farm was. And now Google wants to up that ante with offshore barges full of containers? WTFUWT? Some suggestions are that these barges could go where the data is needed, like if a city needed emergency computer power these barges could be moved in complete and ready to go. Other more suspicious persons view data as some view account information and the need for places like the Swiss to give them security. These barges would not be under the control of any one country so in theory, the information would be secure....Still, its a weird world

<- more ->
graphic from io9 article

How to Win the Google Lunar X Prize and Beat NASA to the Moon

The year is 2012. A quarter-million miles from Earth, a small spacecraft is nearing the surface of the moon. When the unmanned craft touches down in a cloud of rocket-blown dust, it becomes the first man-made object to arrive intact on the lunar surface in 32 years. But the logo on the side of the spacecraft doesn't belong to NASA or any other government space agency. Instead the spacecraft reveal a familiar multicolored corporate logo: Google's.

David Noland writing for Popular Mechanics in the June 2008 issue weaves a scenario reminiscent of biblical David and Goliath, where the common man could conceivably take on corporate and governmental giants to be the first private person to land a craft on another world. Click the article title to go to the Popular Mechanic's article

Illustration is PM’s vision of a lunar lander on arrival. (Illustration by Jeremy Cook)

10 teams sign up to land rovers on the Moon

According to Dvice:

10 teams are fully registered to send their robotic space ships to the moon.

As you have read earlier, Google is sponsoring an X-Prize type of competition that will award the first team to land, remotely control and complete a series of specific activities, a rover type device on the Moon. The first team to do so will take home the lion share of 20 million dollars.

The Dvice article goes on to say:

(A) spider-like lunar rover (is) proposed by Team Italia ( pictured above), another team plans to send a toaster-sized ‘bot to the surface, with a cell phone-sized rover inside to take that 500-meter jaunt across the lunar surface. Meanwhile, a team from Carnegie Mellon vows to visit the landing site of Apollo 11.

More

Arthur C. Clarke comments on the Google Xprize!

Are you up for a rip rousing speech from the father of the communications satellite? Well here ya go! Arthur C. Clarke comments on Google's plans to offer 20 million in total prizes to the first private enterprise to land a craft of robotic nature on the surface of the moon and do useful science while there. Clarke comments, that he never thought he would live to see men on the moon and never imagined he would live to see the end. Here is his video speech and I hope you find it as extrodinarily moving as I did!

Thanks to SF Signals blog for the heads up!