A lifelike baby girl projected on the screen looks wonderingly, her large eyes focused on the man facing her. When he smiles, she does too, although it’s not clear why she’s imitating him. The virtual infant dubbed Baby X is a brainchild of Mark Sagar, director of the Laboratory for…
Read more
Last year, the Smithsonian opened a virtual museum. With Smithsonian X 3D Explorerusers can take a virtual tour of (and even 3D print) high-definition digital models of artifacts like Lincoln’s life mask or the Wright Brother’s plane. It’s a brilliant concept. Once digital, artifacts can be easily accessed and explored in detail by researchers,…
Read more
Ellie the virtual human “medical screener” Virtual human “Ellie” gave participants a sense of anonymity, making them more willing to disclose personal information in a private setting without fear of criticism. Patients are more willing to disclose personal information to virtual humans than to actual ones, likely because computers don’t…
Read more
Look out overpaid TV stars – here is the news… with an ANDROID! World’s first robotic broadcasters are so lifelike they can read reports without stumbling. In a dystopian future, the rise of our robot overlords may be far stealthier than you might expect. Far from being Terminator-like machines, these…
Read more
What does it mean to be human? That’s the question being asked in a thought-provoking new exhibition of stunningly lifelike androids, which also suggests that maybe the singularity could be closer than we think. On June 25, the National Museum of Emerging Science and Innovation, more commonly known as the Miraikan, will…
Read more
In addition to the promise of flying cars and jetpacks, science fiction has taught us that we should have artificial intelligence by now. Sadly, the best we can do is a virtual 13-year-old that was able to fool a number of high-profile researchers (and Robert Llewellyn who played a robot…
Read more
The recent movie, Her, chronicles the romantic relationship between a man, Theodore Twombly, and an intelligent operating system named Samantha in the year 2025. Samantha is not just smart, she’s empathetic. She’s not static, she’s adaptive. Samantha, in short, is strong artificial intelligence in every sense. But there’s a problem, says Ray Kurzweil, the…
Read more
We have gone from primarily using a keyboard and mouse to interface with our computers to adding voice, touch and a bit of gesture-recognition to the mix. And while there will always be a special place in my heart for bunch cards, switches and other more primitive interactions, we’re about…
Read more
A researcher is looking to give exercise enthusiasts the extra nudge they need during a workout, and her latest research shows that a cyber buddy can help. The study is the first to indicate that although a human partner is still a better motivator during exercise, a software-generated partner also…
Read more
A tabletop display with personal screens made from a curtain of mist that allow users to move images around and push through the fog-screens and onto the display, will be unveiled at an international conference later this month. The research paper, to be presented at one of the world’s most…
Read more