Jacky Zhen's paper Neuroevolution for Micromanagement in the Real-Time Strategy Game Starcraft: Brood War was nominated for Best Student paper at the 26th Australasian Joint Conference on Artificial Intelligence. AI Communications 25:19-48., has been published. The 2011 Computer Poker Competition was held at the AAAI-11 Twenty-Fifth Conference on Artificial Intelligence. Our case-based poker agent, Sartre, competed in all events this year. Once again, Sartre's performance improved since the previous year's competition, placing 2nd in four events, 4th in one event and achieving a 1st place finish in the multi-player, limit Hold'em competition.

If the battle between rival digital assistants can be summed up by the NBA championships, then Google's take would be the Golden State Warriors. That's assuming, of course, the record-setting Warriors beat the Cleveland Cavaliers to defend their NBA title. It's the analogy used by Google CEO Sundar Pichai, who characterized the competition as more friendly than bloody. "This is not like'Game of Thrones,'" he said Wednesday at Recode's Code conference in Ranchos Palos Verdes, California. Artificial intelligence is already a hot topic at the conference, and it's a big part of Google's future.

They sniff, wag their tails, fetch and run in packs. But no one minds if these canines stick their noses into some pretty dirty stuff. That's because they are robotic dogs, modified by engineering students at Yale University to sniff out toxic materials. Equipped with just about everything but a wet nose, the plastic and metallic-skinned robots have spurred toxic search projects in the United States, Europe and Australia. They are the brainchild of Natalie Jeremijenko, a lecturer in engineering at Yale and self-described technoartist.

Presented at Land-Information Systems: Developments for planning the sustainable use of land resources, Hanover 20-23 Nov. 1996 Proceedings to be published by European Commission. A paper presented at the Management Science/Operations Research Working Group Session at the SAF National Convention, Washington, D.C. Bare, B. and Mendoza, G. 1992. "Ecosystem analysis using fuzzy set theory." "Modelling management of agricultural ecosystems using fuzzy set theory: methodological issues." Paper presented at the joint meetings of the Western Agricultural Economics Association and the Canadian Agricultural Economics and Farm Management Society, 1993, Edmonton, Alberta. A rational method for assessing irrigation performance at farm level with the aid of fuzzy set theory.

The Calgary Police Service became the first force in Canada to start using facial recognition software to match suspects against a mug shot database this week, but it likely won't be the last. The use of facial recognition technology is growing not just in law enforcement and security fields but also in commerce. "One of the reasons face [recognition] is so popular is that face images exist of almost everybody," said Kevin Bowyer, an expert on biometrics and computer vision and chair of the department of computer science and engineering at the University of Notre Dame. Some cellphone apps use face recognition instead of passwords to give users access to devices. "You've got your driver's licence photos, you've got your identity badges wherever you work, so you've got this legacy of images that are easily accessible for everyone."

It organizes an annual conference, the first of which was held in 1996 in Hong Kong. Since then, 20 conferences have been held in Australia, China, Hong Kong, India, Japan, Korea, Malaysia, Singapore, Taiwan, and Thailand. The next conference, in 2015, will be held in Kyungpook National UniversityDaegu, Korea. The conferences provide an opportunity for teachers, students, researchers, and practitioners to meet each other and learn about the latest research in the field. The proceedings of the conferences are available both on line and in research libraries around the world.

National Australia Bank will begin using voice recognition technology to identify its phone customers in the latest move towards the use of biometric security among the big banks. The company said that the technology, which identifies a person by their speech, will cut waiting times for users and boost security. NAB said up to 40 per cent of customers forget their phone banking passwords. It comes a month after ANZ announced it was looking into retina and fingerprint scanning as part of a $1.5 billion investment to upgrade customer services. In early October, ANZ floated the idea of retina-scanning automatic teller machines and said it was considering using electronic fingerprints as part of an effort to beat rival banks in the realm of technology. NAB's executive general manager of enterprise transformation, Adam Bennett, said speech recognition would save customers "a combined 15 million minutes a year".

Robots may hold the key to preventing an industrial crisis in a country whose geography makes many key jobs undesirable. I knew Australia was big, but it didn't really hit me till I stood on a viewing platform hanging over a valley in the Blue Mountains. As I watched the land fall away below me, giving way to a valley of forest that stretched to the horizon, I could feel thousands of miles of silence sucking me in like a vacuum. Part of Australia's beauty is also its problem. Its untamed, uninhabited interior contains rich pickings, but there are few who want to go and get them.

Sleepiness and stress are perennial risks for the long distance lorry driver, and accidents are sadly too frequent. However, a radical new driverless truck being trialled by Daimler may offer a solution. Earlier this month, the automotive giant was granted the first licence ever to test such a vehicle on a public highway by the US state of Nevada. Using a combination of GPS, radar and video cameras, the Freightliner Inspiration can drive by itself on open stretches of road, freeing a driver to take breaks, check his emails and even watch DVDs. The catch is that a qualified person must remain in front of the wheel at all times so they can take control if something goes wrong.

Two-thirds of the earth is underwater. We glide over the surface of the oceans, but we still have very little idea what is going on even a few metres down. We spend billions sending craft and people into space, but we do not really know what happens under the waves. One man who finds that more than curious is Graham Hawkes, a beneath-the-sea maverick who has been working on underwater craft for most of his life. It is a lonely, driven quest, relying rather dangerously on the engagement and backing of a few wealthy enthusiasts. Born in London, Mr Hawkes learnt his engineering expertise in the defence industry, working initially on torpedoes in Norfolk, England.