The Never Ending Image Learner (NEIL) program is being run at Carnegie Mellon University in the United States.

The work is being funded by the US Department of Defense’s Office of Naval Research and Google.

Since July, the NEIL program has looked at three million images. As a result it has managed to identify 1,500 objects in half a million images and 1,200 scenes in hundreds of thousands of images as … Read More → "Computer uses images to teach itself common sense"

Just like a real turtle, U-CAT has four independently-driven flippers that allow it to move up and down, forward and backward, and to pivot on the spot. Propellers would let it do those same things, although they’d also churn up much more visibility-limiting silt in the process.

U-CAT is autonomous, so it doesn’t require a control cable that could get snagged or tangled. It also has an onboard video camera, which records video … Read More → "U-CAT robotic sea turtle set to explore shipwrecks"

16th century German soldiery sure understood how to strike terror into their enemies’ hearts: the rooster-headed armored visor (ca 1530) must have been a sight to behold.
via Boing Boing

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According to new findings that were presented at a meeting of the Royal Society in London last week, ancient Humans and Neanderthals weren’t the only two humanoid species walking around and breeding with each other at the same time. Updated genome sequencing suggests that there was a third species — and we don’t know anything about it.

At the meeting, which was about ancient DNA, … Read More → "Ancient humans bred with a different species that we know nothing about"

Lucid Stead is a near-invisible desert shack located in southeastern California’s Joshua Tree national park. Alternating mirrored slats in artist Phillip K. Smith’s installation reflect the sand, bushes, and hills of the surrounding desert, contrasting against the gnarled and worn wood that makes the framework of the 70-year-old homesteader cabin.
via Read More → "Artist builds a near-invisible shack in the Californian desert"

It seems logical that if you’re designing a flying robot, you might borrow a few ideas from Mother Nature’s airborne repertoire. But researchers at NYU instead too their inspiration from under the sea for this unusual robotic craft that flies through the air the same way a jellyfish moves through the ocean.

Read More → "Four-winged robot flies like a jellyfish"

Facebook. Twitter. Google+. Those are just three of the many social networks out there these days, and it’s a daunting task to reply to everyone who engages you in the digital world. Google’s latest patent might just be the solution you need to keep up — it claims a technology that analyzes how you go about your social networking business and automatically makes personalized response suggestions to posts sent your way.

< … Read More → "Google patent takes the social out of social networking: technology writes ‘personalized reactions’ for you"

A new study from the University of Tokyo sheds some light on cat’s understanding of the human voice. A team led by Atsuko Saito studied 20 house cats over eight months in their natural habitat: at home with their owners. They found that 50 to 70 percent of cats would turn their heads when they heard a human voice, regardless of who it was. Their reaction was more intense if the voice was their owner’s. This … Read More → "Cats hear you; don’t care"

If you opened a 101-year-old time capsule and found a mysterious package addressed to the descendants of an unknown man, would you open it? That’s the question a church in Michigan now faces after they recently cracked open a time capsule from 1912, and found something they couldn’t quite explain.

The Lansing State Journal</ … Read More → "Mysterious package found in century-old time capsule"

You’ve read millions of good books, so what do you recommend when people ask you, “Uhh, what should I put in my brain next?” A new website, Just One Book, hosts a collection of such recommendations from interesting people.

Founded by Gizmodo alums  … Read More → "Get great book recommendations from interesting people"