Neuro Evolving Robotic Operatives Neuro-Evolving Robotic Operatives, or NERO for short, is a unique computer game that lets you play with adapting intelligent agents hands-on. Evolve your own robot army by tuning their artificial brains for challenging tasks, then pit them against your friends' teams in online competitions! New features in NERO 2.0 include an interactive game mode called territory capture, as well as a new user interface and more extensive training tools. NERO is a result of an academic research project in artificial intelligence, based on the rtNEAT algorithm. It is also a platform for future research on intelligent agent technology. The NERO project is run by the Neural Networks Group of the Department of Computer Sciences at the University of Texas at Austin . Currently, we are developing an open source successor to NERO , OpenNERO , a game platform for AI research and education.
Fab at Home, Open-Source 3D Printer, Lets Users Make Anything October 1, 2007 12:00 AM Click here to post this video on your blog or website. Click here to post a photo of this winner on your blog or website. Hod Lipson didn't set out to revolutionize manufacturing. He just wanted to design a really cool robot, one that could "evolve" by reprogramming itself and would also produce its own hardware--a software brain, if you will, with the ability to create a body. To do this, Lipson (below, center) needed a rapid-prototyping fabrication, or "fabber." "To really let this robotic evolutionary process reach its full potential," says Lipson, a Cornell University computer and engineering faculty member, "we need a machine that can fabricate anything, not just complex geometry, but also wires and motors and sensors and actuators." A Fab at Home kit costs around $2400.
5 Ways To Hack Your Brain Into Awesomeness Much of the brain is still mysterious to modern science, possibly because modern science itself is using brains to analyze it. There are probably secrets the brain simply doesn't want us to know. But by no means should that stop us from tinkering around in there, using somewhat questionable and possibly dangerous techniques to make our brains do what we want. We can't vouch for any of these, either their effectiveness or safety. All we can say is that they sound awesome, since apparently you can make your brain... #5. So you just picked up the night shift at your local McDonald's, you have class every morning at 8am and you have no idea how you're going to make it through the day without looking like a guy straight out of Dawn of the Dead, minus the blood... hopefully. "SLEEEEEEEEEP... uh... What if we told you there was a way to sleep for little more than two hours a day, and still feel more refreshed than taking a 12-hour siesta on a bed made entirely out of baby kitten fur? Holy Shit!
DIY Magic: The Ganzfeld Technique | ARTHUR MAGAZINE The Ganzfeld Technique or the Poor Man’s Sensory Deprivation Tank Tools required : 2 ping pong balls sharp scissors or knife headphones an am/fm radio or a suitable recording of white noise a drawing pad and pencil As a child I could spend many content hours studying the whorls and curlicues in the wood grain of my bedroom door. The arabesque patterns needed only the smallest prompting from my imagination to take on a fecund life of their own and blossom into a fantastic bestiary of mercurial faces and creatures, dragons, imps and gnomic animal heads, each knot of wood providing one eye. How easy it was to slip into the realm of pure imagination then; I practiced the art of daydreaming continuously in the classroom, grades k-8! The Ganzfeld effect is one of easiest, quickest, and simplest methods for scrying that I have ever come across. [Pareidolia: the art of seeing something where there is "nothing." You should look at certain walls stained with damp or at stones of uneven colour.