KurzweilAI.net Daily Newsletter

Monday July 12, 2010 Daily edition News and Blog Headlines Ray Kurzweil's Music Revolution Animated 3D models extracted from single-camera video Until Cryonics Do Us Part Students, Meet Your New Teacher, Mr. Robot YouTube Leanback: YouTube That Looks Like TV YouTube now supports 4k-resolution videos The Creativity Crisis Terahertz remote sensing detects hidden explosives Resveratrol-activated enzyme may boost memory and learning ability Robot Taught to Fetch Beer from Fridge The proton shrinks in size Latest News Ray Kurzweil's Music Revolution July 12, 2010 Source Link: IEEE Spectrum In the decade ahead, music education software will become very effective at teaching music and playing skills and will have the ability to intelligently assess and address areas of strength and weakness, says Ray Kurzweil. "It will become routine to learn keyboard and other skills using intelligent computer assisted music instruction. "At Kurzweil Music (now a subsidiary of Hyundai), we're working on software along these lines. 'Easy play' software will involve more than just preprogrammed patterns that the user needs to follow. Rather the instrument will follow the user. Intelligent software programs that understand music theory will instantly interpret and even predict the creator's intentions, and adjust the composition to ensure it's in key and follows inherent musical rules. "There will be applications that will be able to gather all… more Animated 3D models extracted from single-camera video July 12, 2010 Source Link: New Scientist Tech There's no need for expensive animation systems to bring characters to life in 3D. You can do it with your own video footage and some software developed by Texas A&M University researchers. Until Cryonics Do Us Part July 12, 2010 Source Link: New York Times The men who want to be cryonically preserved — Robin Hanson, an associate professor of economics at George Mason University, and the women who sometimes find it hard to be married to them. Students, Meet Your New Teacher, Mr. Robot July 12, 2010 Source Link: New York Times Computer scientists are developing highly programmed machines that can engage people and teach them simple skills, including household tasks, vocabulary or, as in the case of the boy, playing, elementary imitation and taking turns. The most advanced models are fully autonomous, guided by artificial intelligence software like motion tracking and speech recognition, which can make them just engaging enough to rival humans at some teaching tasks. Researchers say the pace of innovation is such that these machines should begin to learn as they teach, becoming the sort of infinitely patient, highly informed instructors that would be effective in subjects like foreign language or in repetitive therapies used to treat developmental problems like autism. Video YouTube Leanback: YouTube That Looks Like TV July 12, 2010 Source Link: Bloomberg BusinessWeek Google's new YouTube Leanback serice aims to become a fixture on your television by letting you watch an uninterrupted stream of full-screen YouTube videos in high definition, using your keyboard's directional arrows and the return key to navigate through the new service. The beta service decides what to show you based on your YouTube account preferences, and you can use Leanback to watch your YouTube movie rentals obtained through the new YouTube Store.  YouTube now supports 4k-resolution videos July 12, 2010 Source Link: CNET News/Web Crawler YouTube has announced that its player now supports 4k, a standard resolution for films that measures 4096×3072 pixels (requiring special equipment to view). As YouTube Engineer Ramesh Sarukkai explained in the announcement on YouTube's official blog, "4K is nearly four times the size of 1080p," and it dwarfs even Imax, which projects films in the slightly smaller 2k format, with its 2048?1080-pixel resolution. The Creativity Crisis July 12, 2010 Source Link: Newsweek American creativity scores have been falling since 1990, College of William & Mary researchers have discovered. One likely culprit is the number of hours kids now spend in front of the TV and playing videogames rather than engaging in creative activities. Another is the lack of creativity development in our schools. Meanwhile, other countries — in Europe and China especially — are making creativity development a national priority. The good news is that creativity training that aligns with the new science works surprisingly well. The University of Oklahoma, the University of Georgia, and Taiwan's National Chengchi University each independently conducted a large-scale analysis of such programs. All three teams of scholars concluded that creativity training can have a strong effect. Terahertz remote sensing detects hidden explosives July 12, 2010 A breakthrough in remote wave sensing by a team of Rensselaer Polytechnic Institute researchers uses unique terahertz (THz) "fingerprints" to identify hidden explosives, chemical, biological agents, and illegal drugs from a distance of 20 meters. The new all-optical system has great potential for homeland security and military uses because it can "see through" clothing and packaging materials. Dr. Zhang, the J. Erik Jonsson Professor of Science at Rensselaer, is lead author of a paper to be published next week in the journal Nature Photonics. Titled "Broadband terahertz wave remote sensing using coherent manipulation of fluorescence from asymmetrically ionized gases," the paper describes the new system in detail. Crossing laser beams generates "laser induced fluorescence" to identify materials The "all optical" technique for remote THz sensing uses laser… more Resveratrol-activated enzyme may boost memory and learning ability July 12, 2010 The same molecular mechanism that increases life span through calorie restriction may help boost memory and brainpower, researchers at MIT's Picower Institute for Learning and Memory report in the July 11 issue of Nature. Resveratrol, found in wine, has been touted as a life-span enhancer because it activates a group of enzymes known as sirtuins, which have gained fame in recent years for their ability to slow the aging process. Now MIT researchers report that Sirtuin1 — a protein that in humans is encoded by the SIRT1 gene — also promotes memory and brain flexibility. The work may lead to new drugs for Alzheimer's disease and other debilitating neurological diseases. In addition to helping neurons survive, SIRT1 also has a direct role in regulating normal brain function, demonstrating… more Robot Taught to Fetch Beer from Fridge July 12, 2010 It's finally happened. Willow Garage's PR2 has been trained to open a refrigerator, scan for the correct brand of beer, using image recognition software, and bring it to a human. It can even open the bottle. Nerdvana has officially arrived. The proton shrinks in size July 11, 2010 Source Link: Nature News The proton seems to be 0.00000000000003 millimeters (4 percent) smaller than researchers previously thought, according to work published in today's issue of Nature. The new measurements could mean that there is a gap in existing theories of quantum mechanics. Something is wrong. The most intriguing possibility is that previously undetected particles are changing the interaction of the muon (used to measure the proton's size) and the proton. Such particles could be the "superpartners" of existing particles, as predicted by a theory known as supersymmetry, which seeks to unite all of the fundamental forces of physics, except gravity. Pohl, R. et al. Nature 466, 213-217 (2010). Visit KurzweilAI.net