Monthly MultiAgent.com news for Tue Nov 15 10:17:10 2005


Latest news and new additions
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DEC-POMDP
Over the past couple of years there has been growning interest in
formal models for coordination among multipe agents. We study one such
model, the decentralized partially observable Markov decision process
(DEC-POMDP). This web site was created to provide information about
the model and the algorithms used to solve DEC-POMDPs.
<http://rbr.cs.umass.edu/~camato/decpomdp/>

Turing's Cathedral
by George Dyson. My visit to Google? Despite the whimsical
furniture and other toys, I felt I was entering a 14th-century
cathedral not in the 14th century but in the 12th century, while it
was being built. Everyone was busy carving one stone here and another
stone there, with some invisible architect getting everything to
fit. The mood was playful, yet there was a palpable reverence in the
air. "We are not scanning all those books to be read by people,"
explained one of my hosts after my talk. "We are scanning them to be
read by an AI."
<http://www.edge.org/3rd_culture/dyson05/dyson05_index.html>

Chimera Agents
Chimera is a wonderfully uncomplicated, yet deeply powerful agent
development and deployment tool for WIN-PROLOG. Using Chimera, you can
write sophisticated multi-agent applications which can run on multiple
machines across any TCP/IP network, from a small home setup to the
entire Internet. Chimera combines the heuristic intelligence modelling
of logic programming, enhancing the standard relational nature of
Prolog with an intuitive system of raising and responding to events,
both locally and across network connetions.
<http://www.lpa.co.uk/chi.htm>

More MEMS
You will also see MEMS in neural probes, artificial organs, and in
pressure sensors for devices that treat heart disease. MEMS will be a
great enabler for pervasive monitoring in all sorts of applications.
Before long, you will have cell phones with MEMS pressure sensors and
magnetic sensors for location, orientation, and altitude.
<http://www.designnews.com/index.asp?layout=articlePrint&articleID=CA6275344>

Outfoxed
Outfoxed is the tip of the next phase of searching. Instead of
blindly assuming that every link on the web is an endorsment placed
there in good faith, it allows for explicit assesments of quality to
be given. These assesments are not all treated equally, but
preference is given to those that are closer to the searcher within a
[sort of*] social network. People closer to the searcher are more
likely to share the searchers values. This system alows for high
quality sites to shine, and poor quality sites to be weeded out. (By
using the unique properties of small-world networks.)
<http://getoutfoxed.com/>

AAAI
AAAI 06 is to be held 16-20 July 2006 in Boston, MA. Papers due 21
February 2006. AAAI has a senior member papers track, a nectar papers
track (for papers already published at other major conferences), and
abstracts and posters submissions.
<http://aaai.org/Conferences/National/2006/aaai06.html>

DARPA Grand Challenge
Stanly, the autonomous driving vehicle from Stanford, won the
$2million Darpa grand challenge prize, with an average speed of 19.1
mph. Videos are available at the website.
<http://www.grandchallenge.org/>

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News from the www.MultiAgent.com website.
Edited by Jose M. Vidal.