Positive Technology Journal

From Emerging Technology Trends 

Researchers from Illinois and Florida are developing a networking system which will create virtual representations of real people to improve our knowledge. They will use artificial intelligence and natural language processing software to enable us to interact with these avatars. The goal of the project, sponsored by the National Science Foundation (NSF), is to give us the possibility to interact with these virtual representations as if they were the actual person, complete with the ability to understand and answer questions. We should see the results at the beginning of 2008 - if the researchers succeed.

From Future-Making Serious Games

 
Cognitive Informatics investigates usability and training effectiveness of a game-based training application in the domain of cyber-security education. They conducted a usability evaluation and described cognitive principles that may be used as part of a systematic process to design more effective serious games as resources in education and training. 

From Cognitive Informatics website

Cognitive Informatics is the multidisciplinary study of cognition and information sciences, which investigates human information processing mechanisms and processes and their engineering applications in computing:

From Technology Review

Via IFTF's Future Now

Korean entrepreneurs are developing location-based services that are designed for people who actually live in an area:

Deliverymen from DHL and FedEx around the world keep records of their courier services in company-provided PDAs. From next month, South Korean laundry stores could keep records of laundry orders and delivery through the mobile Web by using mobile phones

SK Telecom, which is trying hard to find new business models in the lack of new voice users, says it has also developed similar services for other industries. Insurance salespeople, construction engineers and utility company service forces could all use cell phones instead of relying on specially-designed PDAs to get access to corporate Intranet to process customer data while they are on the go. SK hopes the new handsets will help Korean companies to take advantage of the country’s wireless broadband networks to free up their employees from their desks.

 

Full post at BusinessWeek Asia Online

An efficient P300-based brain-computer interface for disabled subjects.

J Neurosci Methods. 2007 Mar 13;

Authors: Hoffmann U, Vesin JM, Ebrahimi T, Diserens K

A brain-computer interface (BCI) is a communication system that translates brain-activity into commands for a computer or other devices. In other words, a BCI allows users to act on their environment by using only brain-activity, without using peripheral nerves and muscles. In this paper, we present a BCI that achieves high classification accuracy and high bitrates for both disabled and able-bodied subjects. The system is based on the P300 evoked potential and is tested with five severely disabled and four able-bodied subjects. For four of the disabled subjects classification accuracies of 100% are obtained. The bitrates obtained for the disabled subjects range between 10 and 25bits/min. The effect of different electrode configurations and machine learning algorithms on classification accuracy is tested. Further factors that are possibly important for obtaining good classification accuracy in P300-based BCI systems for disabled subjects are discussed.

Seventh International Conference on Epigenetic Robotics: Modeling Cognitive Development in Robotic Systems

Call for Papers: Epigenetic Robotics 2007

5-7 November 2007, Piscataway, NJ, USA

Location: Rutgers, The State University of New Jersey, Piscataway, NJ, USA

Frankfurt Institute for Advanced Studies (FIAS) 

Applications are invited for a three-week summer workshop that will be held in Frankfurt, Germany from Saturday, August 4 to Sunday, August 26, 2007.

The application deadline is Monday, April 30.