Blog: Google's Search Algorithm Challenged

Google's Search Algorithm Challenged
IDG News Service (11/19/11) Philip Willan

Padua University professor Massimo Marchiori is leading the development of Volunia, a new search engine that could challenge Google's search algorithm and lead to radically different search engines in the future. "It's not just Google plus 10 percent. It's a different perspective," says Marchiori, who contributed to the development of Google's search algorithm. "It's a new radical view of what a search engine of the future could be." Volunia's Web site allows visitors to sign up for a chance to test the beta version of the search engine, which will be launched in 12 languages by the end of the year. "If I didn't think it was something big, capable of competing with the giants of online search, I would never have got involved," Marchiori says. The project is headquartered in Padua, with funding being supplied by Sardinian entrepreneur Mariano Pireddu. "The difference of our search engine is what will enable us to emerge," Marchiori says. Pireddu says the Volunia researchers are not attempting to build a better search engine than Google's, but rather they are trying to create a different kind of search engine that can work alongside Google's.

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Blog: Smart Swarms of Bacteria Inspire Robotics Researchers

Smart Swarms of Bacteria Inspire Robotics Researchers
American Friends of Tel Aviv University (11/17/11)

Tel Aviv University (TAU) researchers have developed a computational model that describes how bacteria move in a swarm, a discovery they say could be applied to computers, artificial intelligence, and robotics. The model shows how bacteria collectively gather information about their environment and find an optimal plan for growth. The research could enable scientists to design smart robots that can form intelligent swarms, help in the development of medical micro-robots, or de-code social network systems to find information on consumer preferences. "When an individual bacterium finds a more beneficial path, it pays less attention to the signals from the other cells, [and] since each of the cells adopts the same strategy, the group as a whole is able to find an optimal trajectory in an extremely complex terrain," says TAU Ph.D. student Adi Shklarsh. The model shows how a swarm can perform optimally with only simple computational abilities and short term memory, Shklarsh says. He notes that understanding the secrets of bacteria swarms can provide crucial hints toward the design of robots that are programmed to perform adjustable interactions without needing as much data or memory.

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Blog: Squishybots: Soft, Bendy and Smarter Than Ever

Squishybots: Soft, Bendy and Smarter Than Ever
New Scientist (11/16/11) Justin Mullins

A squishy, tentacled configuration may be an accurate design model for future robots, as a rigid humanoid shape is proving impractical for many of the tasks people want robots to perform. A key element of such designs is morphological computing, a discipline that holds that a robot's intelligence can be enhanced through the optimization of its body's interaction with its environment. This represents an inversion of conventional thinking, which dictates that an organism has a central processing capability where intelligence in housed, and its body's interaction with its surroundings demonstrates that intelligence. Using the embodied intelligence approach, researchers in Pisa, Italy, are building a soft, rubbery robot octopus equipped with appendages whose grasping ability exceeds that of the most advanced robots. Another speculative application of morphological computing principles is a soft robot surgeon concept that Kings College London researchers are studying. The robot would enter the body through a natural orifice or incision, pass soft tissues and organs without impediment, and harden once in place. The advantage of the embodied intelligence strategy is that the robots will be ideally suited for the job at hand.

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Blog: Mimicking the Brain, in Silicon

Mimicking the Brain, in Silicon
MIT News (11/15/11) Anne Trafton

Massachusetts Institute of Technology (MIT) researchers have designed a computer chip that mimics how the brain's neurons adapt in response to new information. The chip uses about 400 transistors to simulate the activity of a single brain synapse, helping neuroscientists learn more about how the brain works, according to MIT researcher Chi-Sang Poon. The researchers designed the chip so that the transistors could emulate the activity of different ion channels. Although most chips operate in a binary system, the new chip functions in an analog fashion. "We now have a way to capture each and every ionic process that's going on in a neuron," Poon says. The new chip represents a "significant advance in the efforts to incorporate what we know about the biology of neurons and synaptic plasticity onto [complementary metal-oxide-semiconductor] chips," says University of California, Los Angeles professor Dean Buonomano. The researchers plan to use the chip to develop systems that model specific neural functions, such as the visual processing system. The chips also could be used to interface with biological systems.

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Blog: Walls Have Eyes: How Researchers Are Studying You on Facebook

Walls Have Eyes: How Researchers Are Studying You on Facebook
Time (11/14/11) Sonia van Gilder Cooke

Facebook's trove of personal information is so encyclopedic that researchers are using the site's advertising tool to pinpoint their desired demographic with scientific accuracy, according to a recent Demos report. The report focused on European right-wing extremist groups, and used Facebook's data to find 500,000 fans of right-wing groups across Europe. The researchers linked these Facebook users to a survey that asked questions about their education level, attitudes toward violence, and optimism about their own future. Demos' research is just one example of how Facebook is becoming a popular tool among scientists. There are currently more than 800 million active users adding an average of three pieces of content daily, driving the number of academic papers with the Facebook's name in the title up almost 800 percent over the past five years. Researchers say Facebook's data also could be used to address social health problems. For example, a University of Wisconsin-Madison study found that undergraduates who discussed their drunken exploits on Facebook were significantly more likely to have a drinking problem than those students who did not discuss the topic online.

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Blog: HTML5: A Look Behind the Technology Changing the Web

HTML5: A Look Behind the Technology Changing the Web
Wall Street Journal (11/11/11) Don Clark

HTML5 is catching on as the online community embraces it. The programming standard allows data to be stored on a user's computer or mobile device so that Web apps can function without an Internet link. HTML5 also enables Web pages to boast jazzier images and effects, while objects can move on Web pages and respond to cursor movements. Audio is played without a plug-in on HTML5, and interactive three-dimensional effects can be created using a computer's graphics processor via WebGL technology. In addition, video can be embedded in a Web page without a plug-in, and interactive games can operate with just a Web browser without installing other software or plug-ins. Silicon Valley investor Roger McNamee projects that HTML5 will enable artists, media firms, and advertisers to differentiate their Web offerings in ways that were previously impractical. Binvisions.com reports that about one-third of the 100 most popular Web sites used HTML5 in the quarter that ended in September. Google, Microsoft, the Mozilla Foundation, and Opera Software are adding momentum to HTML5 by building support for the standard into their latest Web browsers.

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Blog: Stanford Joins BrainGate Team Developing Brain-Computer Interface to Aid People With Paralysis

Stanford Joins BrainGate Team Developing Brain-Computer Interface to Aid People With Paralysis
Stanford University (11/11/11) Tanya Lewis

Stanford University researchers have joined the BrainGate research project, which is investigating the feasibility of people with paralysis using a technology that interfaces directly with the brain to control computer cursors, robotic arms, and other assistive devices. The project is based on technology developed by researchers at Brown and Harvard universities, Massachusetts General Hospital, and the Providence Veterans Affairs Medical Center. BrainGate is a hardware/software-based system that senses electrical signals in the brain that control movement. Computer algorithms translate the signals into instructions that enable users with paralysis to control external devices. "One of the biggest contributions that Stanford can offer is our expertise in algorithms to decode what the brain is doing and turn it into action," says Stanford's Jaimie Henderson. He is working with Stanford professor Krishna Shenoy, who is focusing on understanding how the brain controls movement and translating that knowledge into neural prosthetic systems controlled by software. "The BrainGate program has been a model of innovation and teamwork as it has taken the first giant steps toward turning potentially life-changing technology into a reality," Shenoy says. The researchers recently showed that the system allowed a patient to control a computer cursor more than 1,000 days after implementation.

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Blog: Technology-induced medical errors: the wave of the future?

Technology-induced medical errors: the wave of the future?

By Denise Amrich, RN | November 9, 2011, 4:45am PST

Summary: Tuesday’s federal report addresses the strong need for safety in health IT without irresponsibly discouraging progress.

Electronic healthcare management is a really fascinating, promising topic, and most of the time, you hear people focusing on the improvements in patient care, as well as cost and time savings, partly because it helps make a case to get healthcare organizations on board with change.

The dark side of the topic is, of course, the less-often discussed and more threatening aspect of safety and security. Sometimes these fears are inflated for shock and horror or PR value. Sometimes they are glossed over. Rarely are they given credence or discussed in a detailed, productive manner. Scant attention has been paid to what harm may come from the widespread IT-ing of healthcare.

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Blog: Major Breakthrough Improves Software Reliability and Security

Major Breakthrough Improves Software Reliability and Security
Columbia University (11/02/11)

Columbia University researchers have developed Peregrine, software designed to improve the reliability and security of multithreaded computer programs. "Our main finding in developing Peregrine is that we can make threads deterministic in an efficient and stable way: Peregrine can compute a plan for allowing when and where a thread can 'change lanes' and can then place barriers between the lanes, allowing threads to change lanes only at fixed locations, following a fixed order," says Columbia professor Junfeng Yang. "Once Peregrine computes a good plan without collisions for one group of threads, it can reuse the plan on subsequent groups to avoid the cost of computing a new plan for each new group." The researchers say the program gets at the root cause of software problems, enabling Peregrine to address all of the issues that are caused by nondeterminism. They note that Peregrine can handle data races or bugs, is very fast, and works with current hardware and programming languages.

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Blog: Socialbots Used by Researchers to 'Steal' Facebook Data

Socialbots Used by Researchers to 'Steal' Facebook Data
BBC News (11/02/11)

University of British Columbia (UBC) researchers were able to collect 46,500 email addresses and 14,500 home addresses from Facebook by using socialbots. Socialbots are a social networking adaptation of botnets that criminals can use to send out spam. The malware takes control of a social networking profile and performs basic activities such as posting messages and sending requests. Over the course of eight weeks, the UBC team used 102 socialbots and one botmaster to attempt to make friends with 8,570 Facebook users, and 3,055 accepted the friendships. Facebook users with the most friends were more likely to accept a socialbot as a friend. The team had the socialbots send only 25 requests a day to keep from triggering Facebook's fraud detection software. "As socialbots infiltrate a targeted online social network, they can further harvest private users' data, such as email addresses, phone numbers, and other personal data that have monetary value," the researchers say.

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Blog: Researchers Defeat CAPTCHA on Popular Websites

Researchers Defeat CAPTCHA on Popular Websites
IDG News Service (11/01/11) Lucian Constantin

Stanford University researchers have developed an automated tool that can decipher Completely Automated Public Turing tests to tell Computers and Humans Apart (CAPTCHAs), which are used by many Web sites as an anti-spam test. The Stanford team, led by researchers Elie Bursztein, Matthieu Martin, and John C. Mitchel, developed various methods of cleaning up purposefully introduced background noise and breaking text strings into individual characters for easier recognition. Some of the CAPTCHA-breaking algorithms are based on tools used by robots to orient themselves in new environments. The researchers created Decaptcha, which was run against CAPTCHAs used by 15 high-profile Web sites. The only tested site that could not be broken was Google. The researchers also developed several recommendations to improve CAPTCHA security, including randomizing the length of the text string, randomizing the character size, applying a wave-like effect to the output, and using collapsing or lines in the background.

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