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Crowd-simulating software OR the ability to kill masses of people FAST

In ARCHITECTURE, ARTICLES AND NEWS STORIES, ARTIFICIAL INTELLIGENCE, WARNING on July 28, 2011 at 5:29 pm
LDA entrance in Palestra House, designed by Wi...

WELL, OUR COMPUTERS TOLD US THIS WAS REALLY PRETTY. . .

GIST OF IT: While crowd simulation software has been developed before, the Bath/Bournemouth team hopes to use modern advances in processing power to create a more sophisticated program that models hundreds or thousands of individuals’ movements.

WHY SCYNET CARES:  Again, we feel our sense of identity being stripped away. Welcome to efficiency in the machine. This is the way prisons used to be constructed. Soulless,  while buildings used to be something that is both art and culture. Not anymore. Now its pure simulation. And beware of these studies that models movement. One day this very technology can of course find its way into  based upon models of their probable movement. Maybe the robot ship can fire at random spots where humans will be in the next fraction of time. Crazy fantastical rubbish? I hope so. In the meantime the technology will be constructing the space where YOU live.

 

 

A new project that uses artificial intelligence to model how crowds move could help architects design better buildings.  Researchers from Bath and Bournemouth universities are working with engineering consultancy Buro Happold to create software that shows how a building’s design can enable or prevent large numbers of people moving easily through it.

The program will create a visual representation of a crowd, modelling it as a group of many individual ‘agents’ instead of as a single mass of people and giving each agent its own goals and behaviour.

What Buro Happold wants to be able to understand is the impact of a space on the way people move,’ said Julian Padget, project supervisor and senior lecturer in computer science at Bath University.

‘There’s also the related question of what happens when a large volume of people are all trying to get somewhere rapidly, such as in an emergency situation.’

While crowd simulation software has been developed before, the Bath/Bournemouth team hopes to use modern advances in processing power to create a more sophisticated program that models hundreds or thousands of individuals’ movements.

The project will tackle the problems of simulating the crowds and rendering them in a believable way, from both a wide-angle and a close-up view, meaning the individuals have to appear realistic and show how their movements affect the rest of the group.

‘You don’t want it to look like a bunch of automatons wandering around — the reason being that it distracts the viewer, because they find it unnatural,’ said Padget. ‘They pay attention to that rather than what the picture overall is showing them.’

Instead of programming the computerised people with specific instructions, the computer will give them a destination and a range of actions to choose from and leave them to determine their own route, partly based on data gathered from observing real crowds.

But there are still limits to computational power and simulating greater numbers of people will require each individual character to have less intelligent programming, said Padget.

‘Our challenge is to work out what we can throw away from the sophisticated model and still get plausible-looking behaviour when we’ve got a large number of individuals.’

The simulation software will also need to be compatible with a suitable platform to render buildings designed by Buro Happold.

The four-year research project will be carried out by an engineering doctorate student through the universities’ Centre for Digital Entertainment, funded by the EPSRC.

 

 

Crowd-simulating software could improve building design | News | The Engineer.

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CLEVER SENSE WILL SNIFF YOU OUT WHEREVER YOU EAT OR DRINK

In ARTICLES AND NEWS STORIES, ARTIFICIAL INTELLIGENCE, RELATED ARTICLES, WARNING on July 28, 2011 at 5:11 pm
Larry Page - Caricature

LARRY PAGE

 

 

  • GIST OF IT:  The app analyzes data from around the Web to figure out what you will like, based on similarities with other people. 
  • WHY SCYNET CARES:  How about being monitored while you do not even participate; how about being stereotyped by circumstantial evidence about your way of life, by a thing on somebody’s phone. How about losing your identity; how about this technology being used to profile you? How about paying more for health care because you had one pizza to many at the unhealthy local coffee shop? The nightmare scenarios are endless. This is even worse than Orwell could have imagined. All the little sheep walking freely into the machine! 

 

Google CEO Larry Page and Microsoft CEO Steve Ballmer agree on one thing: the future of search is tied in with artificial intelligence.

Page has talked about the ideal search engine knowing what you want BEFORE you ask it, and Ballmer recently explained Microsoft’s multibillion dollar investment in Bing by saying that search research is the best way to progress toward artificial intelligence apps that help you DO things, not just find things. So both companies will probably be taking a very close look at CleverSense, which launches its first iPhone app, a “personal concierge” called Alfred (formerly Seymour), today.

The app analyzes data from around the Web to figure out what you will like, based on similarities with other people. It’s similar to the recommendation engines pioneered by Amazon — “other people who bought X also bought Y” — or the Music Genome Project that eventually grew into Pandora. Only it’s applied to the real world.

CleverSense CEO Babak Pahlavan explains that the company grew out of a research project into predictive algorithms that he was working on at Stanford three years ago. The technology crawls the Web looking for what users are saying about particular products, and is able to categorize the results into between 200 and 400 attributes and sentiments for each one.

For instance, if somebody visits a coffee shop and posts on Yelp “the cappuccino at X was awesome but salad was crap,” CleverSense understands the words “awesome” and “crap,” and also notes that “cappuccino” is a high-interest word for coffee shops.

This kind of analysis is performed millions of times per day. When it launches, Alfred will have a database of more than 600,000 locations with between 200 and 400 categories rated ON EACH ONE. As you rate places, the app will get even more accurate.

Alfred is focused on four categories — bars, restaurants, nightclubs, and coffee shops — but CleverSense plans to apply its technology to other areas as well. Pahlvan explains that CleverSense could work very well with daily deals services like Groupon, LivingSocial, or Google Offers — instead of having merchants throw deals out to the entire world, they could target them at the users who would be most likely to buy.

At launch, the data is anonymous, but CleverSense is going to add Facebook Connect integration so it can add social data into its recommendations — if it knows that a lot of your friends are saying positive things about a particular bar, it will weigh those recommendations more highly than statements from random strangers.

The company has been running on an investment of about $6 million from angel investors, but Pahlavan says the company is planning to raise further rounds later this year. That’s assuming it doesn’t get snapped up by a big company first.

Microsoft may have an inside shot — CleverSense is participating in the company’s BizSpark program, which gives discounted software and other aid to startups — but there are tons of other companies who should be interested in the technology as well.


This iPhone App Knows What You Like — Before You Ask It A Single Question.

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WHY WATSON, IBM’S NEW C-3PO IS VERY VERY DANGEROUS

In DANGEROUS DICIPLE, REFERENCE LIBRARY, Uncategorized, WARNING on July 28, 2011 at 4:53 pm
IBM Watson (Jeopardy at Carnegie Mellon) - How...

IBM Watson (Jeopardy at Carnegie Mellon)

GIST OF IT: IBM‘s Computer, Watson, now have enough language skills to beat humans in a game of which the questions involve “subtle meanings, irony, riddles,” and other linguistic complications.

WHY SCYNET CARES:  Read carefully. Watson was built for a mere $ 3 000 000.00. And it was tremendously successful in “being human” in the Jeopardy Show.  This is happening now, here, in real-time – not on some futuristic horror movie. And think about it. How will this artificial humanity be utilized and for whom will it work? It will be in the service of various corporations, designed to outsmart you in situations where you have to make choices. And the corporations have a different aim than you do. Think about it. Imagine a machine interviewing your son, and by using vast intelligence and all the records from your son’s life, it can succeed in getting your son, for example, to join the Marines; even though you know he would never have wanted that for himself? How do you protect yourself from superior intelligence aimed at getting you to do things that might not be good for you?

C-3PO is a protocol droid designed to serve humans, and boasts that he is fluent “in over six million forms of communication.”

This year’s FOSE conference had an unexpected theme: artificial intelligence.

The subject came up in Apple co-founder Steve Wozniak’s keynote speech on the first day of the conference. It took center stage, though, on day 2 of the conference, when IBM Research Vice President of Software David McQueeney presented the Beyond Jeopardy! – The Implications of IBM Watson keynote.McQueeney heads the division responsible for Watson, the $3 million natural language computer IBM made famous on the television quiz show Jeopardy!, where it bested two humans in a two-day trivia contest. At first, McQueeney seemed to be an odd choice of speaker for a gathering of government acquisitions professionals and the people who want to sell them goods and services – until he started to draw connections for the crowd.

The Challenge

IBM, McQueeney said, had left little doubt that computers, with sufficient processing power, could best humans at quantitative tasks – even those that involve some forethought and creativity. The company’s previous artificial intelligence experiment, known as Deep Blue, had defeated world champion Gary Kasparov in a series of chess matches in 1997. But a challenge remained: language. Computers, in the past, hadn’t been able to understand language the way humans use it. McQueeney explained, “When humans communicate with computers, they have to use a discrete, exact programming language.” But when humans communicate with one another, they are more creative and fluid. “Unstructured sentences are very hard for machines to process,” he said. Human speech involves shades of meaning and intent, even puns and word games, that flummox traditional computers. “It took us much more scientific effort and computational work to tackle human language than to win chess games,” he said.  Jeopardy, McQueeney said, was the ultimate challenge because the game’s questions involve “subtle meanings, irony, riddles,” and other linguistic complications. To succeed, the system couldn’t simply search through structured information (something that, McQueeney said, Watson did for just 15 percent of the questions asked in the contest). Instead, it had to parse meaning from sentences, much like a human does. “We consider it a long-standing challenge in artificial intelligence to emulate a slice of human behavior,” said McQueeney. Ultimately, the effort succeeded – Watson won the contest – but breakdowns in the company’s solutions were obvious. The computer struggled, McQueeney noted, with the shortest questions.

The Applications

So, IBM pulled off quite a parlor trick with, by McQueeney’s estimate, $3 million worth of off-the-shelf parts used to build Watson. But what does the technology mean for government?  McQueeney rattled off a series of possible applications for the system’s natural language abilities. For instance, he noted, Watson’s technology could be used to “support doctors’ differential diagnosis, using data in the form of cited medical papers and giving quick, real-time responses to questions.”  The technology could be used, he said, to assist technical support and help desk services, improve knowledge management at large companies, and improve information sharing among national security workers. “Computers can now support human interaction in new ways,” he said.

What’s Next

IBM expects to see the first application of the technology in the healthcare field, McQueeney said. The company is currently working with several medical schools to develop knowledge systems that will assist doctors with rapid medical decisions. The company has announced hopes to develop a commercial offering by the end of 2012.

FOSE 2011: IBM’s Artificial Intelligence Coming – Learn More at GovWin.

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Florida Driver’s Information Sold

In ARTICLES AND NEWS STORIES, RELATED ARTICLES, Uncategorized, WARNING on July 27, 2011 at 11:35 pm
Topographic map of the State of Florida, USA (...

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When you go for your driver’s license at the DMV the last thing you think about is your personal information being sold.

According to a report released by the State of Florida, the Department of Highway Safety and Motor Vehicles made about $62-million dollars.

They made that money by selling personal information of Florida drivers to companies like Lexis-Nexis and Choice Point, which conducts background checks. Information gathered include your full name, address and driving history.

We went out to speak with people in the Panama City area to see what they thought about their personal information being sold. Many didn’t even know their personal information was at the mercy of the state.

Christina Van-Dyk, “I didn’t know that and didn’t like the idea because I really don’t want other people knowing my information.”

Robin Hicks, “I don’t think it’s right, I think they should disclose if that’s the situation. You have to fill out forms and sign everything to get your driver’s license and that should be something that should be disclosed at that time.”

Although selling personal information is legal, the law says companies are not allowed to use that information to create new business. State officials insist they do not sell social security numbers to these companies.

via Florida Driver’s Information Sold.

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Your Future Co-Worker

In ARTICLES AND NEWS STORIES, RELATED ARTICLES, Uncategorized on July 27, 2011 at 9:38 pm
"JSC2009-E-155300 (28 July 2009) --- Robo...

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THE GIST:

  • NASA and GM have unveiled robots that work alongside humans — on Earth and in space.
  • Engineers are trying to mimic human form and have the Robonaut work at human speeds.
  • NASA may employ the robots as spacewalkers’ assistants.



Robot twins, intended to lend a hand to spacewalking astronauts, as well as make the factory floor a safe and efficient meeting ground for humans and droids, has been unveiled by NASA and General Motors.

“A giant robot swinging around that doesn’t know whether a person is there or not is a bad thing. You can end up with all kinds of accidents. Robots can be very dangerous pieces of equipment,” Marty Linn, GM’s principal engineer of robotics, told Discovery News.

Large robots currently used in GM’s factories are caged to protect workers.

For the past three years, engineers from NASA and GM have been working on the prototypes, called Robonauts, at the Johnson Space Center in Houston. GM’s droid likely will end up at the firm’s technology development center in Michigan, where engineers will use it as a test bed for sensors, software and other products that could be incorporated into future cars. It could also improve manufacturing processes.

“We envision this kind of technology to be able to be used right around humans. Both NASA and GM share this vision of humans and robots working together,” said Linn.

“This is a human-scale robot. It works at human speeds. We’re working closer and closer to the human form, and that’s a difficult challenge,” added Ron Diftler, who oversees the Robonaut project for NASA.

NASA would like to see a robot in space, with enough dexterity to handle pliable insulation and other materials too tricky for the cranes and robotic arms available on the space station today.

“We are foreseeing this as an EVA (extravehicular activity, or spacewalk) assistant,” Diftler said.

For example, the droid could save time and reduce risks to spacewalking astronauts by going outside first to prepare work sites.

The Robonauts, which were unveiled Thursday, are based on work NASA and the Defense Advanced Research Projects Agency did a decade ago.

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SMART CARD ONLY SMART IF ACADEMIC RESEARCH CAN BE SUPPRESSED

In OUR MISSION, REFERENCE LIBRARY, UNDERSTANDING THE CONCEPTS, WARNING on July 5, 2011 at 7:20 am
Portrait of Ross Anderson, Professor of Securi...

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If one reads the article  above, (Lets look at so-called Smart Cards) the impression is created that all is pretty well with the implementation of the Smart Card, that is, that the Smart Card is indeed, Smart.
But this is not sustained under closer scrutiny.  In fact, the Banks used every effort possible to suppress the publication of the study by Cambridge Scientists, up to the attempt to censure pure research. It is their way: to use blunt force trauma in order to suppress any form of deviation from their desired future course of events.
Please read the letter,   linked below, written by Ross J. Anderson of Cambridge.
Ross John Anderson, FRS, (born 1956) is a researcher, writer, and industry consultant in security engineering. He is Professor in Security Engineering at the University of Cambridge Computer Laboratory, where he is engaged in the Security Group.
In 1978, Anderson graduated with a BA in mathematics and natural science from Trinity College, Cambridge, and subsequently received a qualification in computer engineering. He worked in the avionics and banking industry before moving in 1992 back to the University of Cambridge, to work on his doctorate under the supervision of Roger Needham and start his career as an academic researcher. He received his PhD in 1995, and became a lecturer in the same year.  He lives near Sandy, Bedfordshire.
In cryptography, he designed with Eli Biham the BEAR, LION and Tiger cryptographic primitives, and coauthored with Biham and Lars Knudsen the block cipher Serpent, one of the finalists in the AES competition. He has also discovered weaknesses in the FISH cipher and designed the stream cipher Pike.
In 1998, Anderson founded the Foundation for Information Policy Research, a think tank and lobbying group on information-technology policy.
Anderson is also a founder of the UK-Crypto mailing list and the economics of security research domain.
He is well-known among Cambridge academics as an outspoken defender of academic freedoms, intellectual property, and other matters of university politics. He is engaged in the Campaign for Cambridge Freedoms and has been an elected member of Cambridge University Council since 2002. In January 2004, the student newspaper Varsity declared Anderson to be Cambridge University’s “most powerful person”.
In 2002, he became an outspoken critic of trusted computing proposals, in particular Microsoft’s Palladium operating system vision.
Anderson’s TCPA FAQ has been characterized by IBM TC researcher David Safford as “full of technical errors” and of “presenting speculation as fact.”
For years Anderson has been arguing that by their nature large databases will never be free of abuse by breaches of security. He has said that if a large system is designed for ease of access it becomes insecure; if made watertight it becomes impossible to use. This is sometimes known as Anderson’s Rule.
Anderson is the author of Security Engineering, published by Wiley in 2001, ISBN 0-471-38922-6.   He was the founder and editor of Computer and Communications Security Reviews.
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LET’S LOOK AT SO CALLED SMART CARDS

In REFERENCE LIBRARY, UNDERSTANDING THE CONCEPTS on July 5, 2011 at 6:49 am
A cross sectional view of the structure and pa...

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EMV stands for Europay, MasterCard and VISA, a global standard for inter-operation of integrated circuit cards (IC cards or “chip cards”) and IC card capable point of sale (POS) terminals andautomated teller machines (ATMs), for authenticating credit and debit card transactions.

It is a joint effort between Europay, MasterCard and Visa to ensure security and global interoperability so that Visa and MasterCard cards can continue to be accepted everywhere. Europay International SA was absorbed into MasterCard in 2002. JCB (formerly Japan Credit Bureau) joined the organization in December 2004, and American Express joined in February 2009. IC card systems based on EMV are being phased in across the world, under names such as “IC Credit” and “Chip and PIN“.

The EMV standards define the interaction at the physical, electrical, data and application levels between IC cards and IC card processing devices for financial transactions. There are standards based on ISO/IEC 7816 for contact cards, and standards based on ISO/IEC 14443 for contactless cards.

The first standard for payment cards was the Carte Bancaire B0′ standard deployed in France in 1989.Geldkarte in Germany also predates EMV. EMV was designed to allow cards and terminals to be backwardly compatible with these standards. France has since migrated all its card and terminal infrastructure to EMV.

The most widely known chip card implementations of EMV standard are:

  • VSDC – VISA
  • MChip – MasterCard
  • AEIPS – American Express
  • J Smart – JCB

Visa and MasterCard have also developed standards for using EMV cards in devices to support card-not-present transactions over the telephone and Internet. MasterCard has the Chip Authentication Program (CAP) for secure e-commerce. Its implementation is known as EMV-CAP and supports a number of modes. Visa has the Dynamic Password Authentication (DPA) scheme, which is their implementation of CAP using different default values.

In February 2010 computer scientists from Cambridge University demonstrated that an implementation of EMV PIN entry is vulnerable to a man-in-the-middle attack; however, the way PINs are processed depends on the capabilities of the card and the terminal. This attack is not a general weakness, but it does show that attacks are possible depending on the implementation.

In May 2010, a press release from Gemalto (a global EMV card producer) indicated that United Nations Federal Credit Union in New York would become the first EMV card issuer in the US, offering an EMV Visa credit card to its customers.

Click on the link below for a copy of the original study by Cambridge student, Omar S. Choudary.

The Smart Card Detective: a hand-held EMV interceptor

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