| Boss Is A Robotic Vehicle
Boss, the self-driving SUV of Carnegie Mellon University's Tartan Racing team, can already negotiate some city streets and intersections. And after two months of testing in Arizona, Boss is beginning to master another challenging environment — the parking lot. Finding a spot, parking legally and then leaving the lot without a fender bender is a task Boss will need to perform this fall in the Urban Challenge, a 60-mile competition for autonomous vehicles sponsored by the Defense Advanced Research Projects Agency (DARPA). The Tartan Racing team made great progress on developing this skill, as well as learning how to cope with stop-and-go traffic and to pass stopped vehicles, during a testing stint at General Motors' Desert Proving Ground in Mesa, Ariz. The team left Arizona March 26 bound for Pittsburgh, with planned stops along the way in Peoria, Ill., and Detroit to visit three of the team's sponsors — General Motors, Caterpillar and Continental AG.
Saturday Night Live Introduces Dick Cheney's ‘Torboto: The Robot ...
“Saturday Night Live" on April 21 introduced a new cartoon character named “Torboto: The Robot That Tortures People" (video available here, h/t Ian). In the animated segment, Torboto is a creation of Vice President Dick Cheney's. In order to get around Geneva Convention regulations preventing humans from torturing humans, Cheney's scientists created a robot that does it for them. As the scene moved to Guantanamo Bay, Cuba, Cheney brought President George W. Bush to the detention center to demonstrate how his new toy works. Bush asked, “I thought we were earmarking this money for body armor?" Cheney replied: “Ah, nope. Not this money" Bush queried, “Walter Reed?" Cheney responded, “Ah, next money," as he presented to the president “Freedom's friend," a robot that can “shave, shock, and humiliate a man's genitals in three seconds flat." Yikes.
DEBKAfile Exclusive: Al Qaeda-Palestine hits first major American ...
A large band of masked men broke into the American International School in the northern Gaza town of Beit Lahiya at dawn Saturday, April 21. After overpowering and tying up the Palestinian guards, they detonated three powerful bombs in two empty buildings, first pouring gasoline around them. This was the Islamist groups first major attack on a US target since kidnapping two Fox News journalists last August and forcing them to publicly convert to Islam for their freedom. Earlier this week, al Qaeda-Palestine blew up a Christian Library and two Internet cafes in Gaza. Together with Hamas and the Popular Resistance Committees, al Qaeda-Palestinian holds the BBC correspondent Alan Johnston hostage, along with the Israeli soldier Gilead Shalit. The American International School was founded in 1995.
Aussie firm develops online chat clone
An Australian company has found a way for bloggers to chat with their friends online without having to be anywhere near a computer or communications device. Sydney-based outfit MyCyberTwin.com has developed an application that uses artificial intelligence (AI) technology to simulate intelligent conversations. While such applications, known as chatterbots, have been around for a couple of decades now, MyCyberTwin is one of the first programs to allow users to actively educate their online personas to best suit their own. The online clone can chat on a user's behalf through social networks such as MySpace, blogs, dating sites and MSN instant messaging. For some, it's the online equivalent of the sort of autopilot conversations people have when they've been asked the same question a million times over.
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