Tech Thursday: Robot Cars!

Last week we talked briefly about computers that could read (well, we more talked about how surprised we were by the "blockbuster-ness" of some recent movies, and that MP is an idiot). Six months ago we talked about towel-folding robots. In between, we talked about a lot of other things. This week, we'll continue the robotics theme with Robot Cars! Monday saw Google unveil their self-driving car, which has driven an amazing "140,000 miles with only occasional human control." (1K with no human control). Not to be outdone, Germany's Freie University unveiled their self-driving taxi this morning. No word yet how many miles it's driven, but the video in the link is pretty awesome.

Image via NY Times.

Tech Thursday: A Reading Computer!

"Right Now A Computer Is Reading Online, Teaching Itself Language"

That's the title of a recent Gizmodo article that caught my eye. I have to say there's not much else they could have put in that title, nor much they could have changed that would have made me read the article any quicker. The concept of Artificial Intelligence (AI) has been around the block a few times, and has been the subject of a few Hollywood blockbusters over the past decade. While the title immediately caught my attention, I must admit that I have little-to-no knowledge of the topic other than that its probably really hard to develop a self-thinking, learning computer. That said, the Gizmodo piece points to one such project that has over an 80% success rate with learning facts (e.g. Pikes Peak is a mountain in Colorado) - that's insane!

Image via Wikipedia.