Carnegie Mellon’s Chimp robot is reporting for duty, sir

Carnegie Mellon's Chimp robot is reporting for duty, sir

See that guy? He’s for real. He’s also from Pittsburgh. A team of wizards from Carnegie Mellon University’s National Robotics Engineering Center is presently building a new “human-scale” robot in order to compete in DARPA‘s Robotics Challenge. Part of its charm revolves around the rubberized tracks on its feet as well as on the extremities of each of its four limbs — not surprisingly, these are engineered to help it maneuver in some pretty sticky situations.

According to the institution, it’ll move much link a tank, but it’ll also be able to chug along on the treads of just two limbs when needed, such as when it must use one or more limbs to open a valve, or to operate power tools. Oh, and in case you’re curious, CMU has affirmed that it’ll “be able to perform complex, physically challenging tasks through supervised autonomy,” which sounds precisely like the kind of vague description an ill-willed robot would explain to its master before completely taking over his / her life. Just sayin’.

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Via: Technabob, Geekosystem

Source: Carnegie Mellon

Microsoft boosts SkyDrive with six month Office 365 University test drive, ad campaign

Microsoft boosts Skydrive with six month Office 365 University test drive, ad campaign

Office 365 University is already pretty cheap, but to get you hooked on the software while also promoting SkyDrive‘s collaboration tools, Microsoft’s giving up to six months worth of free access to US college attendees. It’s promoting the grab using Parks & Recreation’s Aubrey Plaza, who shows a trio of students in one YouTube video (after the break) how they can work together using the Office 365 / SkyDrive combo while staying in their own “creepy dorm” and “unicorn stable” instead of bugging her. Takers will get an extra 20GB of SkyDrive storage and three months of access to the suite, which can be extended to six by sharing the offer on Facebook. If Microsoft decides to include Aubrey and her pithy putdowns in place of Clippy, we’d actually be okay with that, too.

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Source: Microsoft

IBM’s Watson heading to its first university

IBM‘s infamous Watson supercomputer is making its way to the classroom after appearing on Jeopardy! a while back. IBM announced today that they’ll be building another Watson supercomputer and will be giving it to the Rensselaer Polytechnic Institute to be the first university to receive a Watson supercomputer. Other universities are planned to get one in the future.

Jeopardy_watson_IBM

Rensselaer will receive the Watson system thanks to a grant that allows the university to invest more resources to research and development of big data, analytics, and cognitive computing. However, in return, IBM is asking the university to send its findings their way so that they can improve Watson even more.

Rensselaer’s private Watson supercomputer will have 15 terabytes of storage, which is actually more than even the Jeopardy! version had. Plus, the room that Watson will be stored in will allow 20 people at a time to work inside, including faculty, graduate students, and a few undergraduate students.

So what will the supercomputer be used for at the university? Artificial intelligence researchers at Rensselaer want to improve Watson’s mathematical ability and help it figure out the meaning of newer words. They also want to improve the computer’s ability to analyze all of the images, videos, and emails floating around on the internet, something that will prove to be no easy task for the folks at the university.


IBM’s Watson heading to its first university is written by Craig Lloyd & originally posted on SlashGear.
© 2005 – 2012, SlashGear. All right reserved.

Universities to offer free online courses with credit, let us try before we learn

Universities to offer free online courses with credit, let us try before we learn

It’s not really practical to give universities a meaningful test drive. Not without ample amounts of money and time to throw at a practice semester, at least. It’s about to become comparatively trivial. Arizona State, the University of Cincinnati and 38 other institutions are teaming up with Academic Partnerships to offer the first course from certain online degrees for free — and, more importantly, to make it count as credit. Money only matters to participants (and Academic Partnerships) if they move on to the full program. Prospective students will have to wait until the spring to sign up for what’s ultimately a freemium education, but patience could be a virtue if it means understanding the workload before committing to what may be years of higher learning.

[Image credit: Dave Herholz, Flickr]

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Via: New York Times

Source: MOOC2Degree

Cambridge University starts Doomwatch unit, hires Skype co-founder to fight the future

Cambridge University starts Doomwatch unit, hires Skype cofounder to fight the future

Despite warnings to the contrary, Cyberdyne, SkyNet and Demon Seed are technological terrors that currently exist. No matter, as we’ve now got someone leading the fightback — Skype co-founder Jaan Tallinn. He’s part of a team of scientists, engineers and philosophers at Cambridge University’s newly-minted Centre for the Study of Existential Risk. Aping the plot of beloved ’70s TV series Doomwatch, the unit will investigate the fringes of science fact, including biotechnology, artificial intelligence and climate change. He’ll be joined by Huw Price and Baron Martin Rees, who we hope will travel around the country in a minivan and fight ghosts, just like these guys.

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Via: Today (Twitter)

Source: Cambridge University, CSER

Proportional VR experiment shrinks man down to rat size, lets us play games with rodents

Proportional VR experiment shrinks man down to rat size, lets us play games with rodents

Sure, you can always play catch with the dog, but what kind of game can you play with a caged rodent? Well, “find the poster,” apparently. A team of researchers from Universities in Spain, Germany, Austria, England and the US have put together a virtual reality system designed to let humans interact with rats at the rodent’s scale, challenging human participants to find and lead the rodent to a unmarked goal. According to a paper published in PLoS One participants were “beamed” into the rat’s environment by linking a head-mounted display and joystick to a rat-sized telepresence robot. Human players were then treated to a proportionally accurate representation of the game arena. The rat was there too, tracked with an overhead camera and represented by a human avatar.

Participants were tasked with coaxing their opponent in front one of three posters in attempt to sleuth out which one represents the “winning” position. When both players are in front of the correct mystery poster, a bell sounds and the game ends. The game was primarily created to test a scaled immersive virtual reality teleoperator system, but researchers are optimistic the technology could be used to observe animal behavior from a new perspective. Check out the setup in action after the break, or read on through to the source link below for a detailed description of how mankind and some of nature’s smaller creatures can get along in a virtual space.

Continue reading Proportional VR experiment shrinks man down to rat size, lets us play games with rodents

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Proportional VR experiment shrinks man down to rat size, lets us play games with rodents originally appeared on Engadget on Sun, 04 Nov 2012 14:36:00 EDT. Please see our terms for use of feeds.

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Microsoft launches four-year, $80 Office 365 University subscription for students

DNP Microsoft launches $80 Office 365 University fouryear subscription for highereducation students

Microsoft’s given Xbox love to PC-buying students recently, and it’s just announced that it’ll carry on that tradition with Office 365 University, by offering a special four-year, $80 subscription to higher-education students. For that sum, you’ll get four years of Word, PowerPoint, Excel, OneNote, Outlook, Publisher and Access if you’re seeking a sheepskin scroll, which Redmond says works out to $1.67 per month. Also included are 60 Skype world minutes per month and 27GB of Premium SkyDrive storage, along with free upgrades and the ability to install on two separate computers, to boot. That should take some of the sting out of those scholarly expenses if you need a copy, so check the source to see how to grab it.

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Microsoft launches four-year, $80 Office 365 University subscription for students originally appeared on Engadget on Fri, 19 Oct 2012 10:01:00 EDT. Please see our terms for use of feeds.

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Engadget’s $50,000 back to school sweepstakes: just 24 hours to go!

Have you entered our back to school giveaway yet? If you’ve already commented on each of 15 eligible posts, you’re all set — you can only vote once on each article (15 times in all), so hang in there and wait for us to randomly select the winners. The rest of you, however, need to get a move on! There’s only 24 hours remaining in the contest period, so be sure to get all 15 entries in before the clock strikes noon tomorrow. Good luck!

Continue reading Engadget’s $50,000 back to school sweepstakes: just 24 hours to go!

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Engadget’s $50,000 back to school sweepstakes: just 24 hours to go! originally appeared on Engadget on Thu, 06 Sep 2012 12:00:00 EDT. Please see our terms for use of feeds.

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There are just four days left to enter our back to school sweepstakes with nearly $50,000 in prizes!

During the month of August, we published 14 back to school guides, covering product categories ranging from cameras and printers, to smartphones and ultraportables. With each post, we offered a selection of gadget must-haves, but we also gave you an opportunity to enter our massive back to school giveaway, including 15 identical bags stuffed to the brim (and far beyond) with some of the hottest devices of the season. You want these gadgets, and we want to help! The contest runs through noon (ET) on Friday, September 7th, so there’s still plenty of time to enter — simply leave a comment at each of our category pages, along with the giveaway post, to secure 15 chances to win. And to make things even easier, we’re including links to all of our posts just below. Good luck, and have a fantastic semester!

Continue reading There are just four days left to enter our back to school sweepstakes with nearly $50,000 in prizes!

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There are just four days left to enter our back to school sweepstakes with nearly $50,000 in prizes! originally appeared on Engadget on Mon, 03 Sep 2012 12:00:00 EDT. Please see our terms for use of feeds.

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Engadget’s back to school 2012 sweepstakes: win one of 15 gadget-filled bags!

Engadget's back to school 2012 sweepstakes win one of 15 gadgetfilled bags!

Ready to pack away the swim trunks and sunscreen and head back to school? If you’re a lucky winner of our annual back to school sweepstakes, you’ll surely be itching to make the return to campus. With last year’s contest deemed an incredible success, we’re stepping up the offering for 2012, adding higher-end devices in almost every category. There’s an Ultrabook from HP, Sony’s new mirrorless camera and a Samsung Galaxy S III, just to name a few. If your name is drawn, we’ll be shipping you an overstuffed Engadget-branded Timbuk2 messenger bag, filled with prizes worth more than $3,000 in all. And to increase your chances of winning, we’ll be giving away a total of 15 identical bags! That means 15 laptops, 15 cameras, 15 smartphones and 15 very happy Engadget readers. So what are you waiting for? Jump past the break to see the prizes, and be sure to enter in the comments below, and another 14 times on each of our back to school category pages, launching throughout the month.

Continue reading Engadget’s back to school 2012 sweepstakes: win one of 15 gadget-filled bags!

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Engadget’s back to school 2012 sweepstakes: win one of 15 gadget-filled bags! originally appeared on Engadget on Mon, 06 Aug 2012 12:00:00 EDT. Please see our terms for use of feeds.

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