Jones built his first fortune in the early 1990s. A graduate of Indiana University, he was working as a research scientist at MIT's artificial intelligence lab when he met Greg Carr, a Harvard grad student. Carr believed that the 1984 breakup of Ma Bell would present some sort of opportunity, and the two 26-year-olds would just have to figure out what it might be. At a telecom conference in Atlanta, Jones saw the current state-of-the-art voicemail hardware: million-dollar refrigerator-sized machines invented in the early '80s. "I was coming out of MIT's AI lab, where everything was progressive, young, vibrant, energetic," says Jones with characteristic chutzpah.

According to www.ns-5.com, the world's first fully automated domestic assistant is about to go on sale. The Nestor Class 5 robot is six foot tall, looks vaguely human, and can do all sorts of housework, from washing-up to managing your finances. There's just one catch: the website promoting this amazing gadget is just a tease, a clever bit of advertising from 20th Century Fox to promote its movie, I, Robot, which is released in the UK next month. I, Robot is a sci-fi action thriller starring Will Smith, although the real star is the beautifully rendered NS-5 robot. Smith plays a detective investigating the murder of a famous scientist working for the fictional US Robotics company.

The application of Evolutionary Computation (EC) techniques for the development of creative systems is a new, exciting and significant area of research. There is a growing interest in the application of these techniques in fields such as: art and music generation, analysis and interpretation; architecture; and design. EvoMUSART 2006 is the third workshop of the EvoNet working group on Evolutionary Music and Art. Following the success of previous events, the main goal of EvoMUSART 2006 is to bring together researchers who are using Evolutionary Computation in this context, providing the opportunity to promote, present and discuss ongoing work in the area. The workshop will include an open panel for the discussion of the most relevant questions of the field.

The dawn of the 21st century has been called the decade of the drone. Unmanned aerial vehicles, remotely operated by pilots in the United States, rain Hellfire missiles on suspected insurgents in South Asia and the Middle East. Now a small group of scholars is grappling with what some believe could be the next generation of weaponry: lethal autonomous robots. At the center of the debate is Ronald C. Arkin, a Georgia Tech professor who has hypothesized lethal weapons systems that are ethically superior to human soldiers on the battlefield. A professor of robotics and ethics, he has devised algorithms for an "ethical governor" that he says could one day guide an aerial drone or ground robot to either shoot or hold its fire in accordance with internationally agreed-upon rules of war. But some scholars have dismissed Mr. Arkin's ethical governor as "vaporware," arguing that current technology is nowhere near the level of complexity that would be needed for a military robotic system to make life-and-death ethical judgments.

CAMBRIDGE - For all that it's called "Futurity,'' Brooklyn band the Lisps' new rock musical, which will have its world premiere Friday at Oberon, is a look back to the Civil War. Presented by the American Repertory Theater, it's a love story of sorts: Julian Munro meets Ada Lovelace and they find they have a lot in common. Julian is a Union soldier, a member of the Ohio 34th Infantry who, even as he's smashing Confederate railroad ties in Virginia, dreams of becoming an inventor. Ada is an English mathematician who's written about Charles Babbage's mechanical general-purpose computer. Ada might seem an unlikely figment of head Lisp César Alvarez's imagination, but in fact Lord Byron did have a daughter, Augusta Ada, who was a mathematician and who is sometimes considered the world's first computer programmer. What's not historical is Ada's meeting with Julian - partly because Julian is a figment of Alvarez's imagination, partly because Ada never visited America, and partly because she died in 1852, just 36 years old. But "Futurity'' is a science-fiction musical as well as a rock musical, so who's to say that Julian and Ada didn't hook up in a parallel universe?

We are using cookies to give you the best experience on our site. By continuing to use our site, you are agreeing to our use of cookies. It's time to close the gap between what leaders say and what they do ASEAN is 50, and it's come a long way. Here's why you should care Four things you should know about, from one of the region's most successful entrepreneurs Women worldwide are missing out. What lessons can we learn from the first wave of AI? Read our reports on the broad range of global issues we're seeking to address

We are using cookies to give you the best experience on our site. By continuing to use our site, you are agreeing to our use of cookies. ASEAN is 50, and it's come a long way. Here's why you should care Four things you should know about, from one of the region's most successful entrepreneurs Women worldwide are missing out. What lessons can we learn from the first wave of AI? Read our reports on the broad range of global issues we're seeking to address

Globe Expert has also been described and used in different papers published in magazines and journals.

Steven West steps into a remote enemy hideout clad in a 350-pound exoskeleton, sensors piercing the darkness and displaying digital info on his helmet visor, until a shock of static feedback knocks him to the dirty floor. A band of locals surround him with pipes and rebar. "The feedback stopped, leaving his ears ringing, and grainy video feed warped back into view as he was struck again. This scene isn't pulled from the latest Clancy-esque techno-thriller, but a short story written as part of a new Marine Corps exercise using science fiction to think about possible threats 15 to 30 years in the future. "Water's a Fightin' Word" recounts what happens when a squad of Marines on a humanitarian mission in Africa gets surrounded during a global freshwater shortage. The author slips in glimpses of military technology in its infancy today, such as the exoskeleton, electromagnetic pulse weapons, and combat-ready robots, and combines it with likely geopolitical scenarios, such as conflict over water and other environmental resources. Officers at the Marine Corps Warfighting Laboratory/Futures Directorate in Quantico, Va., came up with the idea last year to host a sci-fi contest to spur creativity, as well as get uniformed Marines to conceive of threats in a different way. A total of 84 entries were narrowed down to 18 finalists, who were paired with professional sci-fi writers--including "World War Z's" Max Brooks--during a workshop co-hosted by the Atlantic Council. After months of editing, the top three stories were collected in "Science Fiction Futures: Marine Corps Security Environment Forecast 2030-2045″ and published online [PDF].

Will skills be as vibrant as apps?