In today’s IEEE Spectrum: Imagine if you could conjure up a key piece of knowledge you had forgotten by having a computer summon everything you were seeing, hearing, and doing at the time to help jog your memory. Researchers in Illinois are now developing such technology, which will help people relive the past to search for lost data. The aim of the software, called YouPivot, currently in beta [but expected to be released for Google’s Chrome Web browser in spring 2012], is to find digital information by tapping into how human memory works.   “I like giving the example of searching for your car keys,” says computer scientist Joshua Hailpern […]

White House Office of Science and Technology Policy (OSTP) Deputy Director Tom Kalil and Senior Advisor Kumar Garg have highlighted the role of fundamental computing research in many of the breakthrough technologies we now use on a daily basis — using as an example Siri, the powerful new tool that Apple has deployed in its latest handset, the iPhone 4S: Apple earlier this month announced that a virtual personal assistant called Siri would be the premier feature of the new iPhone 4S. People will be able to ask Siri to book a table at a nearby restaurant, make an appointment with a friend or colleague or answer a question using the information from multiple […]

Interbots’ consumer robot for autism therapy took the top prize last Thursday at the nation’s first-ever next-generation robotics venture competition. The event, called RoboBowl Pittsburgh (it was held at Carnegie Mellon University), was co-sponsored by the Robotics Technology Consortium and Innovation Accelerator, and sought “to find and foster startup and early-stage companies seeking to develop products and services that address unmet and underserved market needs” in the healthcare sector. Interbots — selected out of five finalists by a panel of judges that included leading roboticists and healthcare professionals from around the country — will receive $20,000 for its top finish. According to the official entry description, Interbots has leveraged recent research findings to create an affordable consumer robot […]

Stanford University professor Sebastian Thrun and Google engineer Chris Urmson — the brains behind Google’s autonomous vehicle project — explained how the self-driving cars work and showed off videos of successful road tests during a recent keynote at the 2011 IEEE/RSJ International Conference on Intelligent Robots and Systems in San Francisco. According to IEEE Spectrum, which has complete coverage of the keynote: Google’s fleet of robotic Toyota Priuses has now logged more than 190,000 miles (about 300,000 kilometers), driving in city traffic, busy highways, and mountainous roads with only occasional human intervention. The project is still far from becoming commercially viable, but Google has set up a demonstration system on its campus, using driverless golf […]

A Science Nation story published today describes a public-private partnership funded in part by the National Science Foundation (NSF) that is attempting to link mind and machine to ultimately improve the living conditions of those with “locked-in syndrome” — a malady in which people with normal cognitive brain activity suffer severe paralysis, often from injuries or an illness such as Lou Gehrig’s disease. From the Science Nation article (see a video after the jump!):

Last month, the President announced plans to develop a National Bioeconomy Blueprint, describing government-wide steps “to harness biological research innovations to address national challenges in health, food, energy, and the environment.” And earlier this month, the White House Office of Science and Technology Policy (OSTP) issued a Request for Information (RFI), seeking input on how best to develop such a blueprint, including: strategies to meet grand challenges in lean budget times; commercialization and entrepreneurship opportunities to open new markets; research and development investments in areas that will provide the foundation for the bioeconomy; enhancements of workforce training to prepare the next generation of scientists and engineers for the bioeconomy jobs of the […]