Still laughing at Sarah Conner? Then check out the latest developments below. Guerras Machinas Apocalyptica is coming.
Developing the computer brain: Researchers at IBM have developed their parallel cortical simulator, known as C2, to 4.5% the cerebral cortex capacity of a human brain, significantly higher than that of a cat. The complexity is at a point where they are struggling to figure out what the computer brain is actually “thinking”.
The groundwork for cyber control: Security firm McAfee recently released a report saying that we are at the dawn of cyber warfare, with the US, UK, Germany, France, China and North Korea already in the game. Through the internet, a country’s infrastructure – electricity, communications, business, production – can be disrupted.
And, of course, the robot killing machines: The Laboratory of Intelligent Systems in the Ecole Polytechnique Fédérale of Lausanne, Switzerland created a 1,000 robots that competed against each other in two groups for food. The machines were able to find hidden food sources, lie, detect liars, and pass on information to other bots.
Boston Dynamics, a robotics design company, developed The BigDog robot with funding from DARPA, an agency of the US Defense Department. It can carry 340 loads over all terrain types and walked 12.8 miles without stopping or refueling, a record for legged travel. It’s other project is Petman – a bipedal bot that sweats, stimulates human body temperature, and walks almost human-like.
Judging from how my cats act, I’m not too impressed by a computer cat brain.
I think the state of cyber warfare is much worse than implied: what about Russia and Eastern Europe as hotbeds of malware crime syndicates?