I work in the IT space and I just saw last week some amasing things that leads me to believe the computers on Startrek are near where we will be able to just talk to it.
Articles from :Peter Spinks
February 6, 2012
Bloody briliant. It is near.HAL 9000 - a computer that possessed artificial intelligence in the movie 2001: A Space Odyssey.
THIS is Alan Turing year, marking the centenary of the birth of the great British mathematician, computer scientist and World War II code-breaker.
He is perhaps best remembered as the originator of the Turing test, published in 1950 in a paper entitled "Computing Machinery and Intelligence". The test requires a human judge to converse separately with a person and a computer — not knowing which is which. If the judge cannot tell the two apart, the machine is deemed to have passed with flying colours.
The computer HAL 9000, depicted in Arthur C. Clarke's 1968 epic novel 2001: A Space Odyssey, was one of the first fictional machines to have passed the test. Now, it seems, a few real-life robots may not be far off doing so. With a plethora of tests and challenges planned, might 2012 be the year that roboticists' holy grail is attained?
Cool.Computers have been getting progressively more complex. And when such systems reach a certain threshold of complexity, they sometimes — abruptly and quite spontaneously — display new and unexpected properties. This year this column will doubtless report on these and other advances in artificial intelligence. In addition to reviewing developments in areas as diverse as biochemistry, botany, zoology and palaeontology, we shall investigate at least seven promising areas of science.
They include breakthroughs in stem-cell research, new investigations of Mars, novel strategies for finding planets outside our solar system, the decision on where to host the world's biggest radio telescope, research on groundwater and coal-seam technologies and efforts to learn more about neutrinos and the elusive Higgs boson.
Back from extinction
Enormous strides have been made in biotechnology since DNA — "life's blueprint" — was discovered. A range of developments, from genetically modified food to cloning, have begun transforming many aspects of life.
A key advance in biotechnology has been the refinement of a process for making any adult cell behave like a stem cell obtained from an embryo a few days old. Called induced pluripotent stem cells, these have been used in mice to produce a whole animal.
Now scientists are trying to enlist these cells to produce healthy live offspring. "In this way a complete animal could be generated from skin cells recovered from an adult animal," says biotechnologist Rajneesh Verma of the Monash Institute of Medical Research. "If we happen to get any type of live adult cell from mammoths or Tasmanian tigers, for example, then such technology may have the potential to resurrect these extinct animals in future."
Excellent. I look forward to a park to see them all. What was that movie called?
Next stop Mars
Millions of years ago, a huge body smacked into the fourth rock from the sun and sent fragments hurtling into space. Last year, after a long journey through the solar system, a handful of those fragments arrived on Earth, courtesy of a rare meteorite fall in North Africa.
This Martian debris weighed about seven kilograms, with the biggest chunk more than one kilogram. Although the rocks fetch about 10 times more per ounce than gold, they are unlikely to yield vital clues as to whether or not life once existed on the Red Planet.
Such clues — if they exist — are more likely to be found later this year when NASA's Curiosity rover is scheduled to land on Mars. Like the previous rovers Sojourner, Spirit and Opportunity, Curiosity will be searching for indirect evidence that life might once have existed there.
Let's go visit.
Other worlds
Scientists recently reported details of the smallest exoplanet found in the habitable zone of a sun-like star, where the temperature is neither too high nor too low to sustain life as we know it.
The planet, called Kepler 22b, was detected using NASA's Kepler space telescope, which measured its presence from the slight dimming of the light each time the planet moved across the star's face.
Sydney University astrophysicists Dennis Stello and Tim Bedding worked with NASA to pin down the size of the star and planet. They used "star quakes" to determine the interior structure of the star and found that it was almost identical to our sun. Expect even more dramatic findings this year.
I cannot wait.
Scope for success
It won't be long now. By next month, the final decision will have been taken on where to build the world's biggest radio telescope, the Square Kilometre Array (SKA). Australia-New Zealand and South Africa are the two contenders for the $2 billion project.
Key advantages of basing the huge instrument here include: its radio-quietness, underpinned by a very low population density, a 5000-kilometre maximum baseline with existing broadband connectivity across Australia and New Zealand, low risks because of political stability and ease of doing business between Australia, New Zealand and the rest of the world.
The final decision resides chiefly with the SKA Site Advisory Committee, an external body of independent experts. "Then, the SKA board of directors receives the final report and recommendation, and makes the site decision — but not necessarily the one recommended by the committee," says Curtin University astrophysicist Robert Soria.
River of doubt
Now that Australia's Murray-Darling Basin plan has been released, its implementation is shaping up to be one of the biggest challenges Australia has faced in recent times.
Vast quantities of groundwater and surface water need to be returned to the system and it's going to be very challenging to recoup those allocations while avoiding economic and social impacts, says hydrogeologist Ryan Vogwill of the University of Western Australia. "Frankly, if the climate-change predictions are right, then this water won't be there for future use anyway. This is balancing the triple bottom line on an incredible scale."
Climate change and water supply issues will continue to be important throughout 2012, Professor Vogwill says, and more groundwater science is needed with only some under way.
"Better understanding of the effects of episodic and extreme events, such as the Queensland floods, on groundwater resources is urgently required. This needs to be linked to better assessments of the impacts of anthropogenic, carbon-induced climate change. This also relates to public health and food security."
Having grown up in the MIA, I can see why we need to get this sorted.
Fossil fuels versus groundwater
Exploitation of coal-seam and tight-shale gas and the impact this has on groundwater resources is bound to be an increasingly sensitive issue. "There are huge pressures for these projects to go ahead — but better regulation and knowledge about their potential impact on our precious groundwater resources is urgently needed to ensure they won't be adversely affected," Professor Vogwill notes.
The 34th International Geological Congress is due to take place this year, as is the 40th International Association of Hydrogeologists Congress in Perth. At the latter, results will be announced of Australia's Hydrogeological Wonders competition showcasing the nation's major groundwater assets.
Speed trap
Chargeless and almost massless, yet undeniably there, fundamental particles known as neutrinos set the physics world agog last year when they showed signs of having broken nature's ultimate speed limit.
Scientists at an Italian research facility in Gran Sasso reported that neutrinos had travelled 730 kilometres from the Large Hadron Collider (LHC), the huge particle accelerator at CERN straddling the Swiss-French border, 60 nanoseconds faster than light speed.
The team tried sending more particles, but in tighter bunches, along the same route to establish whether the results could be reproduced. Although the jury is still out, this might be the year when the highly controversial find is either upheld or laughed out of town. Watch this hyperspace.
Faster than light here we come.
What an exciting year for science.
Higgs, show yourself
Late last year, two teams at the LHC reported tentative signs of a lightweight version of the Higgs boson, the hypothetical force-carrying particle believed to give matter particles their mass. Those signs have yet to be translated into indisputable evidence.
Such a find, if it is going to happen, will probably occur this year as the huge accelerator smashes together particles at almost the speed of light, producing a superheated plasma of quarks and gluons, the fundamental building blocks of protons and neutrons.
This year the LHC might also provide tantalising evidence for something called M-theory, a fundamental model of physics invoking no less than 11 dimensions.
A major particle physics conference to be held in Melbourne in July will review these and other exciting developments — as will Science. Stay tuned.
Read more: http://www.theage.com.au/national/educa ... z1laPOLisY
You don't need the NBN white elephant.