Remember the Blue Brain project? Henry Markram, director of the Blue Brain project spoke at TED and it has received lot of press coverage (see BBC). The attention was focused on Markram’s claim: “It is not impossible to build a brain, and we can do it in 10 years”. What do you think?

Remember when researchers have proven the existence of a fourth fundamental circuit element in electrical engineering? The memristor can generate voltage from a current (like a resistor), but in a more complex, dynamic manner - with the ability to “remember” previous currents.

Now researchers have developed a memristic device that they claim behaves like a neural synapse. Read about the future of artificial intelligence (newscientist.com).

Watch the lecture of Dr. Paul Cohen, Professor and Head of Computer Science, at the University of Arizona.

Halfway through its first century, artificial intelligence has delivered some astonishing successes on narrowly defined tasks: cars that drive themselves, airline reservation systems you can talk to, search engines for the Web. Yet these accomplishments have failed to match the general, flexible, adaptive mind of a two-year-old child. By understanding the differences between childlike and computer intelligence, we set the stage for the development of really intelligent computers. (via YouTube)

Zurich, Switzerland – July 15, 2009 – Semantic system ag announced  today that it signed an exclusive agreement with Xtentus Ltd. that will allow Xtentus the rights to develop, use, and market TRATEK, a financial trading platform that is based on semantic system’s ai-one™ powered Graphalizer product.

Walter Diggelmann, CEO of semantic system ag said that he is “very excited about having a partner that can help take this product to the next level with Xtentus’ proven experience in financial systems and computational models.”

TRATEK enables financial experts to supplement their trading platforms by allowing them to look at developing relationships in a real time scenario that will extrapolate from existing data in order to create more accurate and effective financial models.

About Xtentus
Xtentus Ltd. is an independent Swiss-based alternative investment asset management firm that specializes in Fund Management and global Portfolio Account Management for institutions and high net worth individuals. Xtentus is fully licensed and regulated as a member of the FQA (Financial Services Quality Assurances Association, No. 12370), which is the largest official self-regulation organization created in accordance with the Swiss Federal Financial Administration acknowledged GwG (Money Laundering Law).

To view the entire press release please click here: Press Release July 15 2009 – semantic system signs agreement with Xtentus Ltd.

Any toddler can do it: navigate through a cluttered room to find a toy. So trivial this skill seems to be, its hard for computers to master. 

European researchers have developed a robot that can cross a crowded room guided only by what it “sees” through its twin video cameras.

Read about the robotic vision system that mimics key visual function of the brain (technologyreview.com).

Humans excel at pattern recognition, but computers are not so smart at identifying images. This may change: According to Google, it has developed a technology which allows computers to quickly indentify images of more than 50′000 world landmarks with 80% accuracy. (via cnet.com)

And the researchers at Boston College have developed a computer technique that lets computers “see” objects as fleeting as a butterfly with nearly double the accuracy. (via sciendaily.com)