Toggle light / dark theme

A complete cognitive architecture to implement systems that are self-aware and capable of intentional mutations. Now available at mecasapiens.com.

HALIFAX, CANADA, February 16, 2016 (Newswire.com) — Monterège Design Inc. is pleased to announce the publication of a cognitive architecture to implement synthetic consciousness. The systems based on this architecture will be fully autonomous, self-aware and capable of intentional mutations. The architecture, published under the title The Meca Sapiens Blueprint, is complete and ready for design and implementation. It can be purchased on line at mecasapiens.com.

Read more

Researchers have developed a functioning miniature replica of the human brain, composed of neurons and glial cells, to help study and better understand neurological diseases.

A tiny ball of brain cells may help researchers alleviate or treat neurological diseases.

These small cellular balls act like miniature versions of the human brain, mimicking various aspects of the actual brain that include sending pulses of electric signals akin to what happens in a thinking mind. This research was reported at the annual meeting of the American Association for the Advancement of Science in Washington.

Read more

What would it mean if you lost all of your personal documents, such as your family photos, research or business records? How much would you pay to get them back? There’s a burgeoning form of cybercrime that hinges on the answers to these questions.

You have probably heard of viruses and malware. These dangerous pieces of software can make their way into your computer and wreak havoc. Malware authors are intent on stealing your data and disrupting the proper functioning of your digital devices.

Then there is ransomware. This is crafted by cyber-criminals for extorting data from innocent users, and is rapidly becoming a threat to individuals, small business and corporate users alike.

Read more

How robotics is making live music a more enriching experience.


Scientists have developed a ‘smart’ wearable robotic limb that responds to human gestures and the music it hears, allowing drummers to play with three arms.

The two-foot long robotic arm can be attached to a musician’s shoulder, and knows what to play by listening to the music in the room. It improvises based on the beat and rhythm. For instance, if the musician plays slowly, the arm slows the tempo. If the drummer speeds up, it plays faster.

Another aspect of its intelligence is knowing where it is located at all times, where the drums are, and the direction and proximity of the human arms.

The facts about the CRISPR Patent.


Xconomy San Francisco —

If you ask people who don’t follow biotech too closely what they know about CRISPR, you might get two answers: genetic editing and a big patent fight.

But a new CRISPR patent highlights a lower-profile potential use for the biotechnology: genetic detection and analysis.

New insights on GBM resistance markers.


A research team, with the participation of the University of Granada (UGR), has made some progress in determining the causes for glioblastoma multiforme (GBM), one of the most aggressive brain tumors known, to be resistant to the drugs currently used, which is one of the main limitations of its treatment. The results have been recently published in two articles in PlosOne magazine.

The researchers have proven that proteoglycans (the cells’ structural elements), called decorin (DCN) and lumican (LUM), could be decisive in the behavior and development of a resistance to the drugs used for treating glioblastoma multiforme, such as temozolamide (TMZ). In the other hand, they have laid bare that the inhibition of the transcription of some of the sub-units belonging to the mismatch-repair (MMR) complex, a system that analyzes and repairs DNA, could be responsible of the failure of current therapies against this kind of tumor.

This is a scientific breakthrough that could be useful for the search of new resistance markers in GBM as well as for the development of new therapeutic strategies which avoid the resistance to drugs that these tumors possess.

Actors and Actresses will never have to worry about reading through pages of scripts to decide whether or not the role is worth their time; AI will do the work for you.


A version of this story first appeared in the Feb. 26 issue of The Hollywood Reporter magazine. To receive the magazine, click here to subscribe.

During his 12 years in UTA’s story department, Scott Foster estimates he read about 5,500 screenplays. “Even if it was the worst script ever, I had to read it cover to cover,” he says. So when Foster left the agency in 2013, he teamed with Portland, Ore.-based techie Brian Austin to create ScriptHop, an artificial intelligence system that manages the volume of screenplays that every agency and studio houses. “When I took over [at UTA], we were managing hundreds of thousands of scripts on a Word document,” says Foster, who also worked at Endeavor and Handprint before UTA. “The program began to eat itself and become corrupt because there was too much information to handle.” ScriptHop can read a script and do a complete character breakdown in four seconds, versus the roughly four man hours required of a reader. The tool, which launches Feb. 16 is free, and is a sample of the overall platform coming later in 2016 that will recommend screenplays as well as store and manage a company’s library for a subscription fee of $29.99 a month per user.

As for how exactly it works, Austin is staying mum. “There’s a lot of sauce in the secret sauce,” he says. Foster and Austin aren’t the first to create AI to analyze scripts. ScriptBook launched in 2015 as an algorithmic assessment to determine a script’s box-office potential. By contrast, ScriptHop is more akin to a Dewey Decimal System for film and TV. Say a manager needs to find a project for a 29-year-old male client who is 5 feet tall, ScriptHop will spit out the options quickly. “If you’re an agent looking for roles for minority clients, it’s hugely helpful,” says Foster. There’s also an emotional response dynamic (i.e., Oscar bait) that charts a character’s cathartic peaks and valleys as well as screen time and shooting days. So Meryl Streep instantly can find the best way to spend a one month window between studio gigs. Either way, it appears that A.I. script reading is the future. The only question is what would ScriptHop make of Ex Machina’s Ava? “That would be an interesting character breakdown,” jokes Foster.

Read more