UMBC AgentNews vXnX http://agents.umbc.edu/v/n/ Thu Aug 15 12:02:06 2002 The past seven days of news from AgentWeb (http://agents.umbc.edu/). ------------------------------------------------------------------- QUOTE To subscribe, send any message to mailto:agentnews-subscribe@agents.umbc.edu, and to unsubscribe, to mailto:agentnews-unsubscribe@agents.umbc.edu. -- LATEST NEWS ITEMS ---------------------------------------------- Winged robot learns to fly -- Krister Wolff and Peter Nordin (Chalmers University) built a winged robot and set about testing whether it could learn to fly by itself, without any pre-programmed data on what flapping is or how to do it. (8/14) http://agents.umbc.edu/cgi-bin/raw?url=http://www.newscientist.com/news/news.jsp?id=ns99992673 Agentcities Agent Technology Competition -- Win up to 6000 Euros and other prizes for the best Agent infrastructure and application technology for open environments including special prizes for systems deployed in the Agentcities Agent network (http://www.agentcities.org). (8/13) http://agents.umbc.edu/cgi-bin/raw?url=http://www.agentcities.org/EUNET/Competition/ Man versus Machine, the sequel -- Gary Kasparov, the highest ranked human chess player, will play a series of games in early October against Israeli program Deep Junior. (8/13) http://agents.umbc.edu/cgi-bin/raw?url=http://www.kasparovchess.com/serve/templates/folders/show.asp?p_docID=22402&p_docLang=EN Gnutella bandwidth bandits -- "The file-trading network's developers are discovering that even their wide-open, free-for-all technology might need a little policing." (8/9) http://agents.umbc.edu/cgi-bin/raw?url=http://www.salon.com/tech/feature/2002/08/08/gnutella_developers/print.html AI in Japan -- An article on Artificial Intelligence in Japan, exploring the difficulty of getting people to agree on what the term means, large scale Japanese industry-academia collaborations, and Japanese AI startups. (8/6) http://agents.umbc.edu/cgi-bin/raw?url=http://www.japaninc.com/article.php?articleID=514 In an Ancient Game, Computing's Future -- In programming a computerized version of Go, an ancient Asian board game, the very limits of artificial intelligence are being tested. (8/5) http://agents.umbc.edu/cgi-bin/raw?url=http://www.nytimes.com/2002/08/01/technology/circuits/01GONE.html Cindy Smart is no Chatty Cathy -- The $99 Cindy Smart doll can speak, listen and see. (8/5) http://agents.umbc.edu/cgi-bin/raw?url=http://www.nytimes.com/2002/08/01/technology/circuits/01DOLL.html?8cir DARPA to fund all-terrain robot race -- is putting up $1 million to see if robotics experts can create a machine capable of traveling from Los Angeles to Las Vegas without human intervention. (8/5) http://agents.umbc.edu/cgi-bin/raw?url=http://www.upi.com/view.cfm?StoryID=20020802-123210-7410r Entrepreneur.com: Arguing Semantics -- "If the current Web is a marinara, then the Semantic Web is a much richer cream sauce. Don’t worry if you haven’t heard of it yet; you’re about to get a crash course. To start, combine a serving of data integration, a heap of developing technology and a helping of philosophy for flavor. Mix well. The future of the Web is starting to look very tasty. " (8/5) http://agents.umbc.edu/cgi-bin/raw?url=http://agents.umbc.edu/cgi-bin/raw?url=http://www.entrepreneur.com/Magazines/Copy_of_MA_SegArticle/0,4453,301563,00.html IM Gains More Virtual Agents -- "Proving that instant messaging (IM) can be used for more than finding out if a co-worker is done with a project, or if a customer is having a problem, a second company is entering the world of IM-based intelligent agents." (8/5) http://agents.umbc.edu/cgi-bin/raw?url=http://agents.umbc.edu/cgi-bin/raw?url=http://www.atnewyork.com/news/article.php/8471_990781 Faking Intelligence -- A sociable robot doesn't have to be smart, it just has to fool us into believing it is. (8/5) http://agents.umbc.edu/cgi-bin/raw?url=http://agents.umbc.edu/cgi-bin/raw?url=http://www.discover.com/aug_02/feattech.html New robot has basic social skills -- A group of scientists who set out to build a robot with human social skills may have actually improved on humanity: Their creation courteously steps aside for people, smiles during conversation and politely asks directions. (8/5) http://agents.umbc.edu/cgi-bin/raw?url=http://agents.umbc.edu/cgi-bin/raw?url=http://www.nj.com/newsflash/business/index.ssf?/cgi-free/getstory_ssf.cgi?f0015_BC_SociallySkilledRobot&&news&newsflash-financial Advances in prosody -- "Recent advances suggest that within five years, prosody software will perform tasks such as telling when a customer speaking to an automated telephone system is getting angry and respond accordingly -- by, say, transferring the call to a human." (8/5) http://agents.umbc.edu/cgi-bin/raw?url=http://agents.umbc.edu/cgi-bin/raw?url=http://www.technologyreview.com/articles/upstream0702.asp Game Theory for Real People -- "Our simple models are no longer sufficient to answer many of the questions we have raised. The very successes of game theory are forcing us to move on," said game theory pioneer Martin Shubik. (8/5) http://agents.umbc.edu/cgi-bin/raw?url=http://www.wired.com/news/business/0,1367,54131,00.html 2002 Trading Agents Competition finals -- In the final competition held at AAAI, Cornell won the trading agent competition with Southhampton, Essex and UMBC placing 2-4. (8/5) http://agents.umbc.edu/cgi-bin/raw?url=http://www.sics.se/tac/news.php -- LATEST DIRECTORY ADDITIONS ------------------------------------- Next generation data mining -- An NSF sponsored workshop on Next Generation Data Mining will be held in Baltimore USA on 1-3 Nov 2002. Focus topics include: data mining for (1) pervasive, distributed, and stream applications, (2) counter-terrorism, (3) scientific applications, and (4) the web. Papers and demonstration proposals should be submitted by 20 September 2002. (8/15) http://agents.umbc.edu/cgi-bin/raw?url=http://www.cs.umbc.edu/NGDM02/ RDFWeb -- RDFWeb explores some interconnected applications of the semantic web. It features a distributed RDF-indexed photo archive, the friend-of-a-friend information linking system, and various other fun things. Feel free to use the RDFWebWiki to add links and suggestions. (8/14) http://agents.umbc.edu/cgi-bin/raw?url=http://rdfweb.org/ Semantic Web Club -- (8/14) http://agents.umbc.edu/cgi-bin/raw?url=http://rdfweb.org/people/danbri/2001/11/semanticwebclub/ Affective Computing -- This web site by the MIT Media Lab's Affective Computing Research Group focuses on "creating personal computational systems endowed with the ability to sense, recognize, and understand human emotions, together with the skills to respond in an intelligent, sensitive, and respectful manner toward the user and his/her emotions." (8/14) http://agents.umbc.edu/cgi-bin/raw?url=http://affect.media.mit.edu/ Grand Coalition -- The Grand Coalition web site provides information and resources about research in cooperative and noncooperative game theory with an emphasis on coalition formation. (ACE News) (8/14) http://agents.umbc.edu/cgi-bin/raw?url=http://www.grandcoalition.com/ CommunityViz: GIS Software Products and Services for Today's Planner -- Researchers at PricewaterhouseCoopers Consulting have developed software called CommunityViz as an aid for community planning. with a core forecasting component implemented as an agent-based model to be tailored to the specifications of whatever community is under study. (ACE News) (8/14) http://agents.umbc.edu/cgi-bin/raw?url=http://communityviz.com/ Individual-Based Fish Modeling At Humboldt State University -- Researchers at Humboldt State University are working on the agent-based simulation of ecological systems, particularly of fish communities. This research is a collaboration of mathematicians, stream ecologists, fish biologists, environmental engineers, and software professionals. (ACE News) (8/14) http://agents.umbc.edu/cgi-bin/raw?url=http://math.humboldt.edu/~simsys/ Simulation software for Complex Adaptive Systems -- Robert Goldstone (Indiana University) maintains a site titled Software for Demonstrating Complex Adaptive Systems for an undergraduate course on complex adaptive systems. (ACE News) (8/14) http://agents.umbc.edu/cgi-bin/raw?url=http://cognitrn.psych.indiana.edu/rgoldsto/complex/ IGDA to develop standards for AI in games -- The IGDA's AI Interface Standards Committee is a joint effort of game AI developers, academics, middleware representatives and other relevant experts. The Committee will develop interface standards in such areas as pathfinding, steering, decision trees, finite state machines, rule-based systems, goal-oriented action planning and world interfacing. (8/14) http://agents.umbc.edu/cgi-bin/raw?url=http://www.igda.org/Committees/ai.htm Java Rule Engine API -- JSR 94 is an initial specification of a Java runtime api for rule engines whicn is being developed under the Java Community Process. (8/14) http://agents.umbc.edu/cgi-bin/raw?url=http://jcp.org/aboutJava/communityprocess/review/jsr094/ Does XML Suck? -- This site (http://xmlsucks.org/but_you_have_to_use_it_anyway/) has a slides prepared by Aaron Crane on the downsides of XML technology. The slides were prepared in XML. (8/14) http://agents.umbc.edu/cgi-bin/raw?url=http://xmlsucks.org/but_you_have_to_use_it_anyway/ Quicksilver agent simulation environment -- Quicksilver is an agent based simulation environment in Java and released under LGPL. (8/9) http://agents.umbc.edu/cgi-bin/raw?url=http://quicksilver.tigris.org/ Converging Technologies for Improving Human Performance -- Converging Technologies for Improving Human Performance: Nanotechnology, Biotechnology, Information Technology and Cognitive Science is a report of a NSF/DOC-sponsored workshiop from December 2001 which ranged from expanding human cognition and communication to improving human health to strengthening national security. (8/7) http://agents.umbc.edu/cgi-bin/raw?url=http://itri.loyola.edu/ConvergingTechnologies/ M.Sc. Intelligent and MAS (Westminster UK) -- A postgraduate programme of study offered by the University of Westminster, UK. This course gives an in-depth and comprehensive coverage of the fields of symbolic and non-symbolic artificial intelligence within the context of their application to agent-based systems. (8/6) http://agents.umbc.edu/cgi-bin/raw?url=http://www2.wmin.ac.uk/oreillyp/imas.html Virtual Conversational Characters: Applications, Methods, and Research Challenges -- HF2002 and OZCHI2002 Workshop: Virtual Conversational Characters - Applications, Methods, and Research Challenges. 29th November, 2002. Melbourne, Australia. This fullday workshop will bring both established and new researchers together to discuss the development, implementation and evaluation of VCC interface systems, the current VCC state-of-the-art and to create a vision for the future of VCC interface technology. Workshop papers are to be submitted by the 19th September. (8/6) http://agents.umbc.edu/cgi-bin/raw?url=http://www.vhml.org/workshops/HF2002/ The Semantic Grid -- "Our vision of the infrastructure that is needed to support the full richness of the e-Science vision draws on research and development in both the Grid and the Semantic Web, and adopts a service-oriented approach. We call it the Semantic Grid." (8/6) http://agents.umbc.edu/cgi-bin/raw?url=http://www.semanticgrid.org/ W3C publishes OWL web ontology drafts -- The W3C Web Ontology Working Group has released three first Working Drafts. The Feature Synopsis, Abstract Syntax and Language Reference describe the OWL Web Ontology Language 1.0 and its subset OWL Lite. (8/5) http://agents.umbc.edu/cgi-bin/raw?url=http://www.w3.org/2001/sw/news#x20020731a Top XML : RDF Schemas -- A chapter on RDF Schema from "Professional XML Meta Data", Wrox Press Limited, July 2001, ISBN 1861004516 (8/5) http://agents.umbc.edu/cgi-bin/raw?url=http://www.vbxml.com/rdf/articles/rdf_schemas/default.asp ACM: Ubiquity - Talking with Terry Winograd -- Terry Winograd is Professor of Computer Science at Stanford, where he directs the program on human-computer interaction. His SHRDLU program done at the MIT AI Lab was one of the early explorations in natural language understanding by computers. (8/5) http://agents.umbc.edu/cgi-bin/raw?url=http://agents.umbc.edu/cgi-bin/raw?url=http://www.acm.org/ubiquity/interviews/t_winograd_1.html Agentcities task force -- Agentcities task force was launched at the AAMAS conference in Bologna in July 2002. (8/5) http://agents.umbc.edu/cgi-bin/raw?url=http://agents.umbc.edu/cgi-bin/raw?url=http://www.agentcities.org/News/news_item_view.jsp?newsId=62 The electric meme -- The Electric Meme: A New Theory of How We Think, Robert Aunger, Free Press; ISBN: 0743201507, July 2002. (8/5) http://agents.umbc.edu/cgi-bin/raw?url=http://www.amazon.com/exec/obidos/ASIN/0743201507/instituteforgl07/102-8993583-9520143 Nexus: Small Worlds and the Groundbreaking Science of Networks -- Nexus: Small Worlds and the Groundbreaking Science of Networks, Mark Buchanan, W.W. Norton & Company; ISBN: 0393041530, May 2002. (8/5) http://agents.umbc.edu/cgi-bin/raw?url=http://www.amazon.com/exec/obidos/ASIN/0393041530/instituteforgl07/102-8993583-9520143 Java Internet Prolog -- JIP - Java Internet Prolog is a cross-platform PureJava100% prolog interpreter that allows to use the power of prolog language in any Java applet/application. By Its easy-to-use API you can call prolog predicates by any Java class without dealing with native code and you can invoke Java methods in any prolog programs in the same way you call predicates. (8/5) http://agents.umbc.edu/cgi-bin/raw?url=http://www.ugosweb.com/jiprolog/index.shtml An Abstract Agent Programmig Language -- 3APL is a programming language for implementing cognitive agents developed at Utrecht.. It provides programming constructs for implementing agent's beliefs, goals, basic capabilities such as belief updates or motor actions, and a set of practical reasoning rules through which agent's goals can be updated or revised. (8/5) http://agents.umbc.edu/cgi-bin/raw?url=http://www.cs.uu.nl/3apl/ Review of agent tookkits for teaching -- Agent toolkits: a general overview of the market and an assessment of instructor satisfaction with utilizing toolkits in the classroom, Alexander Serenko and Brian Detlor, McMaster University, Working Paper 455, July, 2002. (8/5) http://agents.umbc.edu/cgi-bin/raw?url=http://www.business.mcmaster.ca/msis/profs/detlorb/nserc/McMaster_Working_Paper_455.pdf -- AgentNews is an electronic newsletter published at the UMBC Lab for Advanced Information Technology and is edited by Tim Finin (mailto:finin@umbc.edu). It is automatically generated from AgentWeb (http://agents.umbc.edu/) using bk2site (http://bk2site.sourceforge.net/). Copies of material in this newsletter may be used provided they are attributed. Send inquiries, comments and news items to mailto:agentnews-owner@cs.umbc.edu. To subscribe, send any message to mailto:agentnews-subscribe@agents.umbc.edu, and to unsubscribe, to mailto:agentnews-unsubscribe@agents.umbc.edu. For archives and more information see http://agents.umbc.edu/agentnews/. Copyright 1996-2002, Timothy W. Finin. ISSN 1490-306.