] Inside the Movement for Posthuman Rights -- When the World
] Transhumanist Association met for a conference at Yale last
] month, they discussed the future rights of those who will be
] half-man, half-machine. Erik Baard looks at uploading
] consciousness, bio-Luddites, and that nagging question: Who
] are we?

Cogent discussion of the ethical issues involved.

The Village Voice: Features: Cyborg Liberation Front by Erik Baard

] But "the big feature of human-level intelligence is not
] what it does when it works but what it does when it's
] stuck," Minsky said. When faced with novelty, Minsky
] claims, human intelligence applies "reasoning by analogy"
] to make the most direct tap into the cognitive glue that
] fuses knowledge domains.

With Doug Lenat, Minsky proposes that common sense is the missing factor in developing human-level AI, and that reasoning by analogy is the essential element in common-sense reasoning.

EE Times - A veritable cognitive mind

] TinyOS:
] An operating system for
] Networked Sensors

Original home page for TinyOS at Berkeley. Moved to http://webs.cs.berkeley.edu/tos/

TinyOS An operating system for Networked Sensors

] Samuel Madden, a researcher at the University of
] California Berkeley, and Wei Hong, a researcher at the
] Intel Research Laboratory at UC Berkeley, are
] co-developing TinyDB technology, which obtains
] information from a network of tiny wireless sensors.

TinyOS to control the sensors (also at Berkeley) and now TinyDB to accumulate the data. The page for the whole collection of projects is http://webs.cs.berkeley.edu/

Silicon Valley Biz Ink :: Spotlight

] But fear not -- this is not a new incarnation of Clippy
] the paperclip, Microsoft's much maligned "helper
] application."

More on Chris Forsythe's work at Sandia.

Wired News: Machine Thinks, Therefore It Is

Rattle wrote:
] ] CNET News.com caught up to Mann at his home lab in
] ] Toronto, where he was planning a pair of "DECONism"
] ] events, featuring music controlled in part by brain
] ] waves. An electrode attached at the base of a
] ] participant's skull reads electrical impulses, which a PC
] ] can use to alter audio characteristics such as volume or
] ] tempo.
]
] Declan McCullagh catches up with Steve Mann.

Includes a discussion of Steve's difficulties of passing through airport security.

RE: CNET | Cyborgs unite!

] Richard Samson, author of the forthcoming book called
] “The Human Edge”, is convinced we are teetering on the
] precipice of an employment revolution for only the
] second time in modern history. According to Samson,
] where the industrial revolution provided the means to
] automate hard manual labour, the electronics revolution
] is threatening to replace human brain-power.

The author of this piece in Electronics News combines Samson's assertions with those of several other thinkers to consider a scenario for "an apocalyptic future" where humans become "cyborgs in an automated world." The article is not very compelling but Samson's book might be interesting.

Rise of the machines

] Sensor networks promise a mammoth extension of the
] Internet. To date, the Web has been a showcase for the
] human brain. It specializes in the words, numbers, music,
] and images that mankind produces. With sensors, the
] network stretches to the far vaster field of global
] activity. This means such networks can cover every single
] thing that moves, grows, makes noise, or heats up.
] Potentially, much of the world will be bugged. Moreover,
] those bugs will be doing most of the work. "Most of the
] data traffic won't be between human beings this time
] around but between these silicon cockroaches,"

Fusing the data into a coherent picture sill still be a challenge.

BW Online | August 25, 2003 | Tech Wave 2: The Sensor Revolution

] PITTSBURGH -- Picture a robot that sets the table, serves
] dinner and clears everything away when the family is
] finished eating. Or a washing machine that not only
] cleans clothes but also presses and folds them -- and
] sews missing buttons. Or an obedient shopping cart that
] lugs groceries up the stairs.
]
] These scenarios may seem to be straight out of Star Wars
] or The Jetsons. But in labs around the globe, researchers
] are devising a slacker's paradise in which loyal servants
] and other brainy machines tackle mundane chores, freeing
] us up for more fulfilling activities.

Soft story, but the folks referenced or quoted in the article are doing signifincant work. Google on "RoboCup", "Maja Mataric", or "Manuela Veloso" to get to the source.

Robot science puts on a friendly face 'Jetsons' future faces obstacles

] Researchers at the Universities of Essex and Bristol will
] soon be launching a ground-breaking project to develop a
] 'conscious' robot.
]
] The aim of the project, which involves computer
] scientists and neuropsychologists, is to advance the
] technology of intelligent machines, while also extending
] the understanding of human consciousness,

Press release announcing the project.

University of Essex news release