Satellite Mapping Imagery Gets More Detailed

The US government is to allow mapping sites to use more detailed satellite images. It could lead to more disputes about personal and corporate privacy and national security. Until now, companies using satellites could only publish pictures at a resolution that meant items or features had to be at least 50 centimeters across to be […]


Turing Test ‘Pass’ Doesn’t Convince All

A Russian computer program is said to have become the first to pass the “Turing Test” for artificial intelligence. Whether that’s the case is a question of interpretation. The Turing test is named after computer pioneer Alan Turing, whose 1950 paper “Computing Machinery and Intelligence” examined whether computers can think. He said such a question […]

Self-driving Cars Get Test City

The University of Michigan is building a 32-acre model city for testing self-driving cars. The Mobile Transformation Facility will include both a city centre with the traditional grid model and a four-lane highway. Realistic features will include “merge lanes, stoplights, intersections, roundabouts, road signs, a railroad crossing, building facades, construction barrels and eventually a mechanical […]

Skype To Get Live Translation

Microsoft has demonstrated Skype carrying out voice translation almost instantaneously. It plans to roll out the feature to the public starting later this year. Voice translation has been around for several years, with varying degrees of success. In 2010, Google unveiled a voice feature in Google Translate that — in theory at least — allowed […]

Student-Created Robot Throws Out First Pitch at MLB Game [VIDEO]

Last week, I brought you video of a T-Rex throwing the first pitch a Major League Baseball game. This week, I bring you a robot. Students in the S.T.E.M. program at Paradise Valley High School in Phoenix, Arizona, created this robot that threw out the first pitch at an Arizona Diamondbacks game on May 14. [via Arizona Sports]