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August 27, 2012 22:32 PM

Artificial Intelligence And Semantic Technology Conference In Kuching This September

KUALA LUMPUR, Aug 27 (Bernama) -- A conference which gathers famous researchers and scientists from all over the world to discuss artificial intelligence and semantic technology will be held in Kuching, Sarawak for five days from Sept 5.

Mimos Berhad (Mimos) Artificial Intelligence (AI) director Dr Dickson Lukose, the conference chairman, said organised by the Sarawak Convention Bureau (SCB), the conference would be held in conjunction with the 2012 Technological Knowledge Week.

"It is the biggest conference in the Asia-Pacific region, after the conference in Europe and the United States.

"Careful planning was needed because the researchers and scientists who will be attending the conference are so famous and busy that their attendance had to be confirmed two years before the conference," he said in a statement, Monday.

-- BERNAMA

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Malaysian National News Agency, Wisma BERNAMA,No 28, Jalan 1/65A, Off Jalan Tun Razak, 50400 Kuala Lumpur, Malaysia. Tel : 603-2693 9933 ( General Line ) E-mail : helpdesk@bernama.com

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Artificial Intelligence And Semantic Technology Conference In Kuching This September

PALO ALTO, Calif.--(BUSINESS WIRE)--

CEO and founder, Behrooz Rezvani, Ph.D, has launched Seyyer Inc., a cloud-based video software artificial intelligence company that offers users the first customized, cognitive video realization (CVR) platform built to easily create massive amounts of individualized, authentic video content, instantly and inexpensively. Seyyers interactive video personalization platform is targeted to online commercial producers, advertising agencies and other multimedia developers to create infinitely transformative video avatar content based on real people, in less time and at significantly lower cost than traditional filming and editing techniques.

Seyyers CVR platform applies artificial intelligence and machine learning to make computer-generated modifications to original video footage of a persons facial expressions, gestures and speech, resulting in a hyper-realistic, customizable and extensible avatar with authentic detail to be extremely convincing to the viewer. This is done though text-to-instant-video realization (TTV) that is both instant and inexpensive.

Until now, filming people for web commercials, online videos and other applications has been a time-intensive and expensive process that does not align with the fast-paced dynamics of advertising, mobile marketing and social commerce, said Rezvani. Our solution enables video to be super targeted, relevant and interactive while delivering massive amounts of customizable, authentic video content, faster and at significantly lower cost than any traditional methods available today.

Customer Applications

With Seyyers CVR platform, developers can create human video, then adapt, regenerate and extend content with its unique combination of gesture recognition, micro-expression and speech-modeling technology. To enhance the learning process, educational content can be generated using interactive, personalized video-based curricula. Advertisers can develop highly targeted and almost instantly updatable mobile and online marketing campaigns that drive deeper consumer engagement. Retailers using the latest social commerce engines can create advanced avatars to further augment and complement the consumer experience.

Seyyers interactive video platform could be a game-changer for our clients, said Dave Benton, Creative Director of Metajive, a full-service interactive and social media agency. At Metajive we look to create authentic messages that enable connections to the brand, leveraging interactive video to deliver content in the most direct, compelling and creative manner possible. Deploying Seyyers text to instant video realization capability gives us an extraordinary new tool for deeply engaging campaigns with extremely realistic interactive video avatars.

Rezvani is a repeat entrepreneur who also founded Ikanos Communications (VDSL, Very high speed Digital Subscriber Line) in 1999 to a successful IPO in 2005 and co-founded Quantenna Communications (Wi-Fi) in 2006. Seyyer is an angel-backed, cloud-based video software artificial intelligence company.

View Demo and Availability

Seyyer has provided a demonstration of the companys interactive video personalization platform at http://www.seyyer.com. The CVR platform is available today and the company is engaged with brands and companies across industries.

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Seyyer, Inc., The First to Develop Cognitive Video Realization, Launches Artificial Intelligence Company

With consumers increasingly grasping the idea of having computers carry out tasks reserved for humans, artificial intelligence is on the rise. Although conversing with a realistic robot creeps many out, AI has transcended from just merely mimicking the image and the way a person speaks to profoundly looking at human responses, logical reasoning and creativity.

The human brain is computer sciences Mt. Everest. Once also only a dream, weve seen how determined mountaineers were able to summit the highest peak in the planet. Could this be an indication that the impossibility that once loomed artificial intelligence can finally touch base with reality? The quest continues as big names walk the talk and gamble investments on AI.

Facebook Founders on AI Research

Good Ventures LLC, together with Facebook founders, PayPal, Napster mean serious artificial intelligence business as they put together a whopping $15 million to fund Vicarious search for the key to AI. A pretty hefty sum for a Union City startup, the money will not aid commercialization, but will heavily support R&D instead. Vicarious uses advanced computational principles to build and create software that has the human-like ability to think and learn. While they are going up against the big players that include HP, IBM, Google and Apple, some considers this local newbie to be a game-changer.

In the official press release, the investors expressed confidence in Vicarious and how they support the companys good cause:

The technology that Vicarious is developing has the potential to improve all lives and revolutionize every industry. Even the intermediate technologies Vicarious creates en route to artificial intelligence will be immensely impactful, said Mr. Moskovitz, who will be joining Vicariouss board of directors. Its essential that the right people bring this technology into the world, added Cari Tuna, president of the Good Ventures Foundation and Mr. Moskovitzs fiance. Scott and Dileep share our mission to help humanity thrive, and were deeply grateful for their efforts.

Early last year, the launch of Vicarious Systems has summoned attention as they presented a technology that was able to interpret photos and videos the way human beings do. In their Bloomberg interview, co-founders Scott Brown and Dileep George explained how they are planning to revolutionize not only the AI industry, but other sectors like healthcare, manufacturing and retail.

AI on Branches of Science

A $400,000 grant over a course of five years will be given to Computer Science Assistant Professor Matthew E. Taylor by the Faculty Early Career Development Program of the National Science Foundation (NSF) to support his artificial intelligence researches. Included in the award are travel privileges to expose his studies in the international scene. He will be supported by students in developing codes, running experiments and writing the papers.

From computer science to the laboratories artificial intelligence has been opening broader opportunities for geneticists to find solutions to old problems in genetic-related diseases. Scientists demonstrated a system that utilizes AI and avant-garde image processing to rapidly evaluate large numbers of nematodes. This AI-powered worm sorting scheme can identify genetic mutations without human intervention.

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AI On The Rise: Big Investments Pour for R&D as AI Turns Sci-Fi to Reality

By sylvia kronstadt - August 24, 2012 | Tickers: ACN, EMC, HPQ, INTC, IBM, TDC | 0 Comments

sylvia is a member of The Motley Fool Blog Network -- entries represent the personal opinions of our bloggers and are not formally edited.

Maybe you'd better Google yourself and find out if this crazy, grandiloquent, power-mad computer mastermind named Kalev Leetaru has targeted you yet. If not, just wait awhile.

He has posted an entire web page ABOUT ME, and the extent to which I pose a threat to Big Oil, even though all I ever do is sit here quietly, hating Big Oil. He claims I am "associated" with the Dalai Lama, Anderson Cooper, and Beyonce. I love that!

He swears his analysis of more than 10 billion people, places, things, and activities -- connected by over 100 trillion relationships -- enabled him to predict the "Arab Spring," as well as where Osama bin Laden would be found. So I bet he knows where you are!

He intends to learn everything about everybody, so he can forecast the future for his clients. But it only took me two days to find the fatal flaw in his mind-boggling machinations.

Big Data is not just a fact, which is piling up, unstoppably, all around us. It's also one big messy heap of an issue. The business media are filled with articles about how best to use the technologies, what sorts of horizontal and vertical alliances are prudent, how to get your juicy slab of the billions of dollars at stake, and to what extent privacy concerns will constrain the ever-bigger HUGENESS that makes the numbers people so ecstatic.

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BIG DATA: Is it Artificial Intelligence, or Authentic Stupidity?

ScienceDaily (Aug. 24, 2012) Researchers at the University of Southampton are investigating the application of artificial intelligence (AI) technology for controlling traffic lights.

The development of artificial intelligence-based approaches to junction control is one of many new and promising technologies that can make better use of existing urban and road capacity, while reducing the environmental impacts of road traffic.

The research carried out by the University of Southampton team has used computer games and simulations to investigate what makes good traffic control. This work has shown that -- given the right conditions -- humans are excellent at controlling the traffic and can perform significantly better than the existing urban traffic control computers in use today.

This was tested for the BBC's 'One Show' programme, where presenter Marty Jopson controlled a 'real traffic light junction at the InnovITS proving ground using a laptop, while 30 volunteer drivers tried to negotiate the junction.

Dr Simon Box of the University of Southampton Transportation Research Group adds: "The demonstration carried out at innovITS Advance indicates that the human brain, carefully employed, can be an extremely effective traffic control computer. In our research we aim to be able to emulate this approach in a new kind of software that can provide significant benefits in improving the efficiency of traffic flow, hence improving road space utilisation, reducing journey times and potentially, improving fuel efficiency."

The Southampton researchers have now developed 'machine learning' traffic control computers that can learn how to control the lights like a human would and even learn their own improved strategies through experience.

"In transport research we are always looking ahead, and we can consider a future where all vehicles are equipped with WiFi and GPS and can transmit their positions to signalized junctions," explains Dr Box. "This opens the way to the use of artificial intelligence approaches to traffic control such as machine learning."

The research was originally funded by the Engineering and Physical Sciences Research Council (EPSRC) and is currently continuing under Technology Strategy Board funding, with Siemens as an industrial partner.

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Scientists investigate using artificial intelligence for next-generation traffic control

Investor Dustin Moskovitz says Vicarious, which just closed a $15 million funding round, will "revolutionize every industry."

Photo courtesy Chris Devers

Kismet the robot at the MIT Museum.

Araya Diaz/Stringer/Getty

"The lesson learned is [founders should] set expectations higher [for themselves and their companies]." - says Dustin Moskovitz, Facebook co-founder and Vicarious investor

Artificial intelligence research start-up Vicarious announced today that it has received a $15 million Series A round led by Good Ventures. The funding values the company at more than $100 million.

"The technology that Vicarious is developing has the potential to improve all lives and revolutionize every industry," Dustin Moskovitz, Facebook co-founder and founder of Good Ventures, said in a sweeping statement to the press. Moskovitz also announced he will join Vicarious's board of directors.

Vicarious, co-founded in 2010 by Dileep George and D. Scott Phoenix, said the $15 million will be used exclusively for research and development of its Recursive Cortical Network, the company's flagship software that aims to "learn" like the human brain.

The first step in developing software comparable to human thinking is to master one sensory perception, Phoenix told Inc.

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Facebook Founders Fund Artificial Intelligence Start-up

BROSSARD, QUEBEC, CANADA--(Marketwire - Aug. 22, 2012) - DIAGNOS inc. ("DIAGNOS" or "the Corporation") (ADK.V), a leader in the use of artificial intelligence and advanced knowledge-extraction techniques, is pleased to announce the acquisition of 2,969 claims in the Plan Nord in the province of Quebec. Based on the press release dated October 25, 2011 with its Ontario partner for the analysis of the government of Quebec data, DIAGNOS started claiming in the month of July 2012.

DIAGNOS has used its proprietary Computer Aided Resource Detection System (CARDS) to target the mineral potential of the remote, sparsely staked northern portion of the province of Quebec. The work consisted of compiling, processing, and merging available geological, geochemical, geophysical, and topographical data as well as satellite imagery of the area. As stated on the official Plan Nord website; "Mining operations are a major component of the economy of Northern Quebec. Northern Quebec produces all of Quebec's nickel, cobalt, platinum group metals, zinc, iron ore and ilmenite, and accounts for a significant portion of gold production. Lithium, vanadium and rare-earth metals, used increasingly in numerous fields related to energy, transportation and high technology, are also found there".

"We have been working on this project for the last 8 months and are very pleased to have partnered with an organisation that values the opportunity of the Plan Nord. This is the largest data analysis contract we have ever done. It is our partner's ambition to become one of the largest land owner in the Plan Nord. Based on our agreement DIAGNOS has a 2% NSR on all targets generated for this project." noted Andre Larente, President and CEO of Diagnos.

About DIAGNOS

Founded in 1998, DIAGNOS is a publicly traded Canadian corporation (ADK.V), with a mission to commercialize technologies combining contextual imaging and traditional data mining thereby improving decision making processes. DIAGNOS offers products, services, and solutions to clients in a variety of fields including healthcare, natural resources, and entertainment.

Forward-looking information

This document contains forward-looking information. There can be no assurance that forward-looking information will prove to be accurate, as actual results and future events could differ materially from those anticipated in these statements.

For further information, please visit our website at http://www.diagnos.com or the SEDAR website at http://www.sedar.com

Neither the TSX Venture Exchange nor its Regulation Service Provider (as that term is defined in the policies of the TSX Venture Exchange) accepts responsibility for the adequacy or accuracy of this release.

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Diagnos Started a Large Claiming Program With Its Ontario Partner for the Plan Nord in the Province of Quebec

Advanced robotics systems and other technologies promise to reinvigorate U.S. manufacturing.

Michele Nash-Hoff, president, ElectroFab Sales

While the state of American manufacturing has been grim for the past decade, the reshoring trend and new technologies are making the outlook for the future of American manufacturing look brighter than it now appears.

In the past few years, the key factors for returning manufacturing to America have been quality problems, rising labor costs, intellectual property theft, rising shipping costs, long lead times for product delivery from Asia, and the cost of inventory for the larger lots you have to buy from Asia to get the cheaper prices.

Now, Harry Mosers Total Cost of Ownership worksheet calculator is helping companies quantify the hidden costs of doing business offshore, enabling more companies to make the decision to reshore manufacturing. According to Moser, founder of the Reshoring Initiative,about 10% of companies nationwide are bringing manufacturing back to America from Asia. It is a pleasure to read frequent stories about even large companies such as Dow Chemical, Caterpillar, GE, and Ford starting to move some manufacturing back to the U.S. from China.

But rising costs and political pressure arent whats going to rapidly change the equation. according to Vivek Wadhwa, Vice President of Academics and Innovation at Singularity University. The disruption will come from a set of technologies that are advancing at exponential rates and converging. These technologies include robotics, artificial intelligence (AI), 3D printing, and nanotechnology. These have been moving slowly so far, but are now beginning to advance exponentially just as computing does.

ROBOTICS: In the past, large American food product companies like General Mills and Kraft Foods, as well as the automotive industry, have been the biggest user of complex robotic systems. But, todays robots are smaller and cheaper they are really specialized electromechanical devices run by software and remote control designed to perform specific tasks in the manufacturing of products for a variety of industries. These robots, cost-effective for lower production volume than those used in the food and automotive industry, are enabling more companies to utilize this technology.

ARTIFICIAL INTELLIGENCE:AI is really the software that makes computers, robots, and even unmanned aircraft and space vehicles run in an intelligent manner. Unmanned vehicles have dominated the sky in the war on terror in Iraq and Afghanistan and are now being used to provide surveillance along our international border with Mexico. The unmanned rover, Curiosity, traversing the surface of Mars is an example of the latest AI technology.

ADDITIVE MANUFACTURING: Additivemanufacturingis the process of producing parts by successive melting of layers of material rather than removing material, as is the case with conventional machining. Each layer is melted to the exact geometry defined by a 3D CAD model. Additive Manufacturing allows for building parts with very complex geometries without any sort of tools or fixtures, and without producing any waste material, explains Arcam ABs website.

This process, also known as 3D printing, is turning product designs into reality for a fraction of the cost of past manufacturing technologies. The application of this technology started as a way to make prototypes faster and cheaper. What is great about parts made by this process is that they are not just the fragile prototype parts previously made by stereo lithography technology; parts made by 3D printing can function as production parts.

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New Technologies Offer Hope for American Manufacturing

'Babbage's beautiful monster, with all its banks of ante-digital data, is no more a self-starting entity than my laptop. Or my toaster' At a recent centenary-year conference on the life and work of the mathematician and logician Alan Turing – a pioneer in artificial intelligence (AI) – I found myself asking two questions: 1) what, pace The Stones, starts us up and gets us (or any kind of life ...

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Will Eaves: What I'm thinking about ... artificial intelligence

UNION CITY, CA--(Marketwire -08/21/12)- Vicarious, an artificial intelligence research company, today announced a $15M Series A round of financing led by Good Ventures LLC, a for-profit investment firm founded by Facebook and Asana co-founder Dustin Moskovitz that will donate all of its earnings to the Good Ventures Foundation. Also participating in the round are veteran institutional investors Founders Fund and Open Field Capital, as well as Vicarious angel investors Steve Brown and Zarco Investment Group.

Vicarious is developing machine learning software based on the computational principles of the human brain. Since its launch in February 2011, the company has developed a visual perception system that interprets the contents of photographs and videos in a manner similar to humans. Powering this technology is Vicarious' key innovation: a new computational paradigm called the Recursive Cortical Network. The research at Vicarious is expected to have broad implications for robotics, medical image analysis, image and video search, and many other fields.

"The technology that Vicarious is developing has the potential to improve all lives and revolutionize every industry. Even the intermediate technologies Vicarious creates en route to artificial intelligence will be immensely impactful," said Mr. Moskovitz, who will be joining Vicarious's board of directors. "It's essential that the right people bring this technology into the world," added Cari Tuna, president of the Good Ventures Foundation and Mr. Moskovitz's fiance. "Scott and Dileep share our mission to help humanity thrive, and we're deeply grateful for their efforts."

"Building machine intelligence is one of the most important and challenging problems humanity has ever faced. Advancements in neuroscience, probabilistic models, and computing power are enabling new strategies for AI research," said Vicarious co-founder Dr. Dileep George. "We are honored to pursue this long term goal with the support of investors who share our deepest values," added Vicarious co-founder D. Scott Phoenix.

"Vicarious is bringing us closer to a future where computers perceive, imagine, and reason just like humans. We are proud to support Vicarious in its quest," said Peter Thiel, partner at Founders Fund.

About VicariousVicarious FPC Inc is an artificial intelligence company that uses the computational principles of the brain to build software that can think and learn like a human. The company was founded in 2010 by D. Scott Phoenix and Dr. Dileep George. Before co-founding Vicarious, Mr. Phoenix was Entrepreneur in Residence at Founders Fund and CEO of Frogmetrics, a touchscreen analytics company he co-founded through the Y Combinator incubator program. Previously Dr. George was Chief Technology Officer at Numeta, a company he co-founded with Jeff Hawkins and Donna Dubinsky (PALM, HAND) while completing his PhD at Stanford University. For more information about Vicarious, please visit http://www.vicarious.com.

About Good VenturesGood Ventures LLC is a for-profit investment firm founded by Facebook and Asana co-founder Dustin Moskovitz that will donate all of its earnings to the Good Ventures Foundation. The Good Ventures Foundation is a philanthropic foundation created by Mr. Moskovitz and led by his fiance Cari Tuna. Its mission is to help humanity thrive. For more information about the foundation's activities, please visit http://www.goodventures.org.

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Vicarious Announces $15M Series A Funding Led by Good Ventures

ScienceDaily (Aug. 19, 2012) Research into the genetic factors behind certain disease mechanisms, illness progression and response to new drugs is frequently carried out using tiny multi-cellular animals such as nematodes, fruit flies or zebra fish. Often, progress relies on the microscopic visual examination of many individual animals to detect mutants worthy of further study.

Now, scientists have demonstrated an automated system that uses artificial intelligence and cutting-edge image processing to rapidly examine large numbers of individual Caenorhabditis elegans, a species of nematode widely used in biological research. Beyond replacing existing manual examination steps using microfluidics and automated hardware, the system's ability to detect subtle differences from worm-to-worm -- without human intervention -- can identify genetic mutations that might not have been detected otherwise.

By allowing thousands of worms to be examined autonomously in a fraction of the time required for conventional manual screening, the technique could change the way that high throughput genetic screening is carried out using C. elegans.

Details of the research were scheduled to be reported August 19th in the advance online publication of the journal Nature Methods. The research has been supported by the National Institutes of Health (NIH), the National Science Foundation (NSF) and the Alfred P. Sloan Foundation.

"While humans are very good at pattern recognition, computers are much better than humans at detecting subtle differences, such as small changes in the location of dots or slight variations in the brightness of an image," said Hang Lu, the project's lead researcher and an associate professor in the School of Chemical & Biomolecular Engineering at the Georgia Institute of Technology. "This technique found differences that would have been almost impossible to pick out by hand."

Lu's research team is studying genes that affect the formation and development of synapses in the worms, work that could have implications for understanding human brain development. The researchers use a model in which synapses of specific neurons are labeled by a fluorescent protein. Their research involves creating mutations in the genomes of thousands of worms and examining the resulting changes in the synapses. Mutant worms identified in this way are studied further to help understand what genes may have caused the changes in the synapses.

One aspect the researchers are studying is why synapses form in the wrong locations, or are of the wrong sizes or types. The differences between the mutants and the normal or "wild type" worms indicate inappropriate developmental patterns caused by the genetic mutations.

Because of the large number of possible genes involved in these developmental processes, the researchers must examine thousands of worms -- perhaps as many as 100,000 -- to exhaust the search. Lu and her research group had earlier developed a microfluidic "worm sorter" that speeds up the process of examining worms under a microscope, but until now, there were two options for detecting the mutants: a human had to look at each animal, or a simple heuristic algorithm was used to make the sorting decision. Neither option is objective or adaptable to new problems.

Lu's system, an optimized version of earlier work by her group, uses a camera to record three-dimensional images of each worm as it passes through the sorter. The system compares each image set against what it has been taught the "wild type" worms should look like. Worms that are even subtly different from normal can be sorted out for further study.

"We feed the program wild-type images, and it teaches itself to recognize what differentiates the wild type. It uses this information to determine what a mutant type may look like -- which is information we didn't provide to the system -- and sorts the worms based on that," explained Matthew Crane, a graduate student who performed the work. "We don't have to show the computer every possible mutant, and that is very powerful. And the computer never gets bored."

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Artificial intelligence allows automated worm sorting

Public release date: 19-Aug-2012 [ | E-mail | Share ]

Contact: John Toon jtoon@gatech.edu 404-894-6986 Georgia Institute of Technology Research News

Research into the genetic factors behind certain disease mechanisms, illness progression and response to new drugs is frequently carried out using tiny multi-cellular animals such as nematodes, fruit flies or zebra fish.

Often, progress relies on the microscopic visual examination of many individual animals to detect mutants worthy of further study.

Now, scientists have demonstrated an automated system that uses artificial intelligence and cutting-edge image processing to rapidly examine large numbers of individual Caenorhabditis elegans, a species of nematode widely used in biological research. Beyond replacing existing manual examination steps using microfluidics and automated hardware, the system's ability to detect subtle differences from worm-to-worm without human intervention can identify genetic mutations that might not have been detected otherwise.

By allowing thousands of worms to be examined autonomously in a fraction of the time required for conventional manual screening, the technique could change the way that high throughput genetic screening is carried out using C. elegans.

Details of the research were scheduled to be reported August 19th in the advance online publication of the journal Nature Methods. The research has been supported by the National Institutes of Health (NIH), the National Science Foundation (NSF) and the Alfred P. Sloan Foundation.

"While humans are very good at pattern recognition, computers are much better than humans at detecting subtle differences, such as small changes in the location of dots or slight variations in the brightness of an image," said Hang Lu, the project's lead researcher and an associate professor in the School of Chemical & Biomolecular Engineering at the Georgia Institute of Technology. "This technique found differences that would have been almost impossible to pick out by hand."

Lu's research team is studying genes that affect the formation and development of synapses in the worms, work that could have implications for understanding human brain development. The researchers use a model in which synapses of specific neurons are labeled by a fluorescent protein. Their research involves creating mutations in the genomes of thousands of worms and examining the resulting changes in the synapses. Mutant worms identified in this way are studied further to help understand what genes may have caused the changes in the synapses.

One aspect the researchers are studying is why synapses form in the wrong locations, or are of the wrong sizes or types. The differences between the mutants and the normal or "wild type" worms indicate inappropriate developmental patterns caused by the genetic mutations.

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Artificial intelligence helps detect subtle differences in mutant worms

"Dark Pools" is the title of a new book that describes the "flash crash" when the stock market imploded for a day on May 6, 2010. Some may recall that the stock market effectively shut down for the day as stocks like Procter & Gamble dropped from $32 a share to a few cents. For the 100 million of us with 401(k) and IRA accounts, what if the problem had persisted for more than just a day? Who, out there in cyberspace, is messing with our money?

Author Scott Patterson explains it all in his book that chronicles the rise of computerized artificial intelligence and the computerized trading that has come to dominate the stock market. How dominant? Patterson writes, "At the end of World War II, the average holding period for a stock was four years. By 2000, it was eight months. And by 2011, it was twenty-two seconds." One high frequency trading firm's average holding lasted for 11 seconds. High frequency traders now account for more than 70 percent of all stock trading volume.

Money management companies are using high-speed trading facilities coupled with artificial intelligence to capture profits of just fractions of a cent per share, but they do it millions of times on millions of shares -- like the firm whose average holding period is 11 seconds. Many of these firms are trading 24 hours a day throughout the world.

Rapid-trading firms using artificial intelligence to trade massive amounts of stock create two problems for the

To their credit, what they are doing is not illegal, and there is an argument that they have created more liquidity in the markets. What they also achieved, to their credit, was doing away with the pricing of stocks in one-eighth of-a-dollar increments. Pricing stocks down to the penny is what enables small differences in buy and sell positions to take place.

The second problem created by the denizens of the "dark pools" is that they so dominate the bulk of market trading today that they are trading largely against each other. There are no longer enough "dumb investors" like individual day traders and people trading individual stocks on a whim. High-speed traders can effectively fake each other out as they did in 2010. The flash crash occurred, we think, because all the algorithms were triggering a sell, and were then waiting for some signal to buy -- which never came.

After all, a company suddenly selling for half price looks like a great buy, except the computer judges that it (the computer) might be "catching a falling knife." The system freezes and voil -- we have the Flash Crash, and our mutual fund values drop to zero.

It may be reassuring to remember that the underlying companies we effectively own are still worth a lot of money. It's just that their stock can be temporarily worthless. It's the classic "disconnect" between the values of shares and the company values that they normally represent.

The system we depend on is based on so-called "marked to market" pricing. Every stock our mutual funds own is valued based on the relatively small handful selling on an exchange at the moment. So, a very small percentage of any company's shares are determining the value of all the rest. If those share prices are subject to artificial intelligence and computerized rapid trading that nobody fully understands, the volatility jeopardizes our security and our ability to save effectively for retirement.

I don't see any movement on the part of feckless regulators or legislators to correct this insidious cancer growing in the heart of our financial system. What would allow all of us to benefit from it, however, would be a very high income tax on short term capital gains -- like 75 percent. Who of us would care? The tax would not cost a cent to those of us with retirement money or who are buy-and-hold investors. Instead, it would pay back the American public for some of what we may be currently losing, and it would do an end run around government bureaucrats who stand to be gamed by people much smarter than they are.

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Butler: 'Dark Pools' are a threat to our future

REDWOOD SHORES, CA--(Marketwire -08/14/12)- Rocket Fuel Inc., the leading provider of artificial intelligence advertising solutions for digital marketers, today announced that Chief Executive Officer George John and Chief Financial Officer Peter Bardwick will present at the Canaccord Genuity 32nd Annual Growth Conference in Boston, MA on Wednesday, August 15, 2012, at 9:30 a.m. Eastern Time.

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About Rocket Fuel:

Rocket Fuel is the leading provider of artificial intelligence advertising solutions that transform digital media campaigns into self-optimizing engines that learn and adapt in real-time, and deliver outstanding results from awareness to sales. Recently awarded #22 in Forbes Most Promising Companies in America list, over 700 of the world's most successful marketers trust Rocket Fuel to power their advertising across display, video, mobile, and social media. Founded by online advertising veterans and rocket scientists from NASA, DoubleClick, IBM, and Salesforce.com, Rocket Fuel is based in Redwood Shores, California, and has offices in fifteen cities worldwide including New York, London, Toronto, and Hamburg.

2012 Rocket Fuel Inc. All rights reserved. Rocket Fuel Inc. is a registered trademark of Rocket Fuel Inc. in the U.S. and/or other countries. All other trademarks are the property of their respective owners.

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Rocket Fuel Executives George John and Peter Bardwick to Present at Canaccord Genuity 32nd Annual Growth Conference

REDWOOD SHORES, CA--(Marketwire -08/13/12)- Rocket Fuel Inc., the leading provider of artificial intelligence advertising solutions for digital marketers, today announced that Chief Executive Officer George John will present at the 15th Annual Oppenheimer Technology, Internet & Communications Conference in Boston, MA on Tuesday, August 14, 2012, at 11:45 a.m. ET.

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About Rocket Fuel:Rocket Fuel is the leading provider of artificial intelligence advertising solutions that transform digital media campaigns into self-optimizing engines that learn and adapt in real-time, and deliver outstanding results from awareness to sales. Recently awarded #22 in Forbes Most Promising Companies in America list, over 700 of the world's most successful marketers trust Rocket Fuel to power their advertising across display, video, mobile, and social media. Founded by online advertising veterans and rocket scientists from NASA, DoubleClick, IBM, and Salesforce.com, Rocket Fuel is based in Redwood Shores, California, and has offices in fifteen cities worldwide including New York, London, Toronto, and Hamburg.

2012 Rocket Fuel Inc. All rights reserved. Rocket Fuel Inc. is a registered trademark of Rocket Fuel Inc. in the U.S. and/or other countries. All other trademarks are the property of their respective owners.

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George John of Rocket Fuel to Present at the 15th Annual Oppenheimer Technology, Internet & Communications Conference

REDWOOD SHORES, CA--(Marketwire -08/10/12)- Rocket Fuel Inc., the leading provider of artificial intelligence advertising solutions for digital marketers, today announced that Chief Financial Officer Peter Bardwick will present at the 2012 Pacific Crest Global Leadership Technology Forum. The 14th annual event will take place August 12-14 at the Sonnenalp Resort in Vail, Colorado.

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About Rocket Fuel:Rocket Fuel is the leading provider of artificial intelligence advertising solutions that transform digital media campaigns into self-optimizing engines that learn and adapt in real-time, and deliver outstanding results from awareness to sales. Recently awarded #22 in Forbes Most Promising Companies in America list, over 700 of the world's most successful marketers trust Rocket Fuel to power their advertising across display, video, mobile, and social media. Founded by online advertising veterans and rocket scientists from NASA, DoubleClick, IBM, and Salesforce.com, Rocket Fuel is based in Redwood Shores, California, and has offices in fifteen cities worldwide including New York, London, Toronto, and Hamburg.

2012 Rocket Fuel Inc. All rights reserved. Rocket Fuel Inc. is a registered trademark of Rocket Fuel Inc. in the U.S. and/or other countries. All other trademarks are the property of their respective owners.

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Peter Bardwick of Rocket Fuel to Present at 2012 Pacific Crest Global Leadership Technology Forum

Editors note: As part of CNBCs 20 Under 20: Transforming Tomorrow TV documentary, we interviewed thought leaders and visionaries who have paved the way for the next generation of entrepreneurs. In a series of Q&As called 5 Minutes with a Visionary, we discover what has shaped and molded the careers of these innovators. The following interview was conducted via email.

Eliezer Yudkowsky is an artificial intelligence researcher focused on the singularity. Yudkowsky co-founded the nonprofit Singularity Institute for Artificial Intelligence in 2000, where he is currently employed as a full-time research fellow. He has no formal education, never having attended high school or college.

If you are a truly obsessed Harry Potter fan, its possible you have stumbled across Yudkowskys fan fiction story entitled, Harry Potter and the Methods of Rationality, in which he takes the original story and retells it in an attempt to explain Harry Potters wizardry through science. As Yudkowskys website states, he is a man who wears more than one hat.

Q: What do you consider to be your greatest success as a technology/science leader?

My successes already accomplished have mostly been taking existing science and getting people to apply it in their everyday lives. Thanks to LessWrong.com there is now an active, growing community of people interested in refining their epistemic and instrumental rationality through the study of the cognitive science of known bugs in human reasoning, and comprehending the mathematics of probability theory and decision theory.

Q: What innovation in the last 20 years has had the most positive impact on your life?

I can't honestly say that I believe in the standard trope that change is accelerating; keeping things to just the last 20 years seems very restrictive. The cognitive science that has had such a huge impact on my life had its beginnings in the 1970s. Bayes's Rule, the central theorem of probability theory, though it's just now beginning to get popular, is two and a half centuries old. There are exceptions, like Google

Q: What current challenge, when resolved, would do the most to change the world?

Anything that could give rise to smarter-than-human intelligencein the form of Artificial Intelligence, brain-computer interfaces, or neuroscience-based human intelligence enhancementwins hands down beyond contest as doing the most to change the world. Nothing else is even in the same league.

Q: If you had the world's intellectual elite all in one room, what thought-provoking questions would you pose for debate?

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5 Minutes With a Visionary: Eliezer Yudkowsky

Wilmington, DE (PRWEB) August 09, 2012

Spedia Inc. moves quickly to pick up NEO - Voice Recognition and Artificial Intelligence Technologies, and NEO DIRECTORY the futuristic assistant, directory and search platform. NEO and the NEO DIRECTORY are a personality, platform and technology originally conceived and created by Jerry Buys, CEO and Founder of Spedia Inc.

NEO began its early stages of development around 1995-99 when Jerry Buys conceived the idea for NEO and the NEO DIRECTORY. Jerry Buys was also the original creator, registrar and owner of the domains NEODIRECTORY.COM, NEODIRECTORY.NET, and NEODIRECTORY.ORG, where he originally planned to develop the technology, brand, and platforms and was able to revive the .net and .org domains. The official information website is http://www.neovt.com. Spedias strategy is an effort to retain the rights and technology to NEO and to build upon and grow the Spedia brand and bolster its position in the social media and high tech sectors.

Spedia will protect and defend the NEO name, platforms, and technologies and pick up development where the original company left off, says Jerry Buys. SIRI (referring to the Apple iPhone) and others are infants compared to what I envisioned with NEO way back in the 90s. Think Star Trek and beyond! NEO is the future of voice technology! PERIOD! NEO will also become a social assistant, security assistant, and life assistant.

With that in mind, I came to realize what a major mistake it would be if I let the name and technology slip completely out of my hands. I cant fathom the idea of allowing someone else to take NEO and capitalize on the name and technology that I am the original creator of, he says. Now that Spedia is my future and an up-and-coming brand to contend with, I have to put all my cards on the table. NEO will become just one of the many signature assets of Spedia that will help secure the future brand and success of Spedia Inc., he adds.

Recenly, on Bloomberg television, Dierdre Bolton asked an executive this question about technology Is there too much money and too few ideas? Obviously, she was talking with the wrong person. With Spedia, the scenario is that we have way too many ideas and not enough money. Even more so, we have too many ideas and no one to hear us out. If we could just find a venture capital firm or investor to listen and see what we have, wed be the next Google and Facebook.

Spedia is betting on its brand, strategy, and innovations to help the company quickly emerge as one of the major leading social media and high tech companies converging internet, mobile, social media, and other concepts and technologies.

Spedia is aggresively seeking venture capital and top ranked executive talent in its efforts to build a rock solid foundation to aid in the design, implentation, and develoopment of its concepts, innovations, and technologies. Spedia is driven with vision and focus on 21st Century innovations and technologies. Talk about a ground floor opportunity and being at the right place at the right time, this is it! says Mr. Buys.

Contact Info: Spedia Inc. PO Box 5205 Wilmington, DE 19808 (800) 855-4944

ABOUT SPEDIA Spedia is a new startup Social Media and Technology company driven with vision, passion and focus on 21st Century innovations. Spedia finds itself in a unique position for exponential growth based on strategy and concepts planned from its inception. Spedia is a brand quickly emerging as a world leader in the convergence and growth of the internet, social media, mobile, entertainment, and communications industries.

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Spedia Acquires “NEO” Ai and Voice Recognition Technologies

Here's one of the best, most visually compelling and most informative of the many stories, including my own, about how the markets have changed becuase of technology and why we should be worried about them. This one, titled "This is what Wall Street?s terrifying robot invasion looks like." is from Ray Kurzweil's blog, mostly about Artificial Intelligence, from one of the field's pioneers.

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HFT comes to dominate markets in five years, in living color

REDWOOD SHORES, CA--(Marketwire -08/09/12)- Rocket Fuel, the leading provider of artificial intelligence advertising solutions for digital marketers, today announced that the company has hired JoAnn Covington as General Counsel. With 19 years experience as a practicing lawyer in the technology industry, Covington joins Rocket Fuel from Electronic Arts, where she spent nearly 14 years in senior legal counsel roles.

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About Rocket Fuel:

Rocket Fuel is the leading provider of artificial intelligence advertising solutions that transform digital media campaigns into self-optimizing engines that learn and adapt in real-time, and deliver outstanding results from awareness to sales. Recently awarded #22 in Forbes Most Promising Companies in America list, over 700 of the world's most successful marketers trust Rocket Fuel to power their advertising across display, video, mobile, and social media. Founded by online advertising veterans and rocket scientists from NASA, DoubleClick, IBM, and Salesforce.com, Rocket Fuel is based in Redwood Shores, California, and has offices in fifteen cities worldwide including New York, London, Toronto, and Hamburg.

2012 Rocket Fuel Inc. All rights reserved. Rocket Fuel Inc. is a registered trademark of Rocket Fuel Inc. in the U.S. and/or other countries. All other trademarks are the property of their respective owners.

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Rocket Fuel Names JoAnn Covington as General Counsel