Science News!!!Your Brain On Androids!!!

ScienceDaily (July 15, 2011) — Ever get the heebie-jeebies at a wax museum? Feel uneasy with an anthropomorphic robot? What about playing a video game or watching an animated movie, where the human characters are pretty realistic but just not quite right and maybe a bit creepy? If yes, then you've probably been a visitor to what's called the "uncanny valley."
The phenomenon has been described anecdotally for years, but how and why this happens is still a subject of debate in robotics, computer graphics and neuroscience. Now an international team of researchers, led by Ayse Pinar Saygin of the University of California, San Diego, has taken a peek inside the brains of people viewing videos of an uncanny android (compared to videos of a human and a robot-looking robot).

Published in the Oxford University Press journal Social Cognitive and Affective Neuroscience, the functional MRI study suggests that what may be going on is due to a perceptual mismatch between appearance and motion.
The term "uncanny valley" refers to an artificial agent's drop in likeability when it becomes too humanlike. People respond positively to an agent that shares some characteristics with humans -- think dolls, cartoon animals, R2D2. As the agent becomes more human-like, it becomes more likeable. But at some point that upward trajectory stops and instead the agent is perceived as strange and disconcerting. Many viewers, for example, find the characters in the animated film "Polar Express" to be off-putting. And most modern androids, including the Japanese Repliee Q2 used in the study here, are also thought to fall into the uncanny valley.
Saygin and her colleagues set out to discover if what they call the "action perception system" in the human brain is tuned more to human appearance or human motion, with the general goal, they write, "of identifying the functional properties of brain systems that allow us to understand others' body movements and actions."
They tested 20 subjects aged 20 to 36 who had no experience working with robots and hadn't spent time in Japan, where there's potentially more cultural exposure to and acceptance of androids, or even had friends or family from Japan.
The subjects were shown 12 videos of Repliee Q2 performing such ordinary actions as waving, nodding, taking a drink of water and picking up a piece of paper from a table. They were also shown videos of the same actions performed by the human on whom the android was modeled and by a stripped version of the android -- skinned to its underlying metal joints and wiring, revealing its mechanics until it could no longer be mistaken for a human. That is, they set up three conditions: a human with biological appearance and movement; a robot with mechanical appearance and mechanical motion; and a human-seeming agent with the exact same mechanical movement as the robot.
At the start of the experiment, the subjects were shown each of the videos outside the fMRI scanner and were informed about which was a robot and which human.
The biggest difference in brain response the researchers noticed was during the android condition -- in the parietal cortex, on both sides of the brain, specifically in the areas that connect the part of the brain's visual cortex that processes bodily movements with the section of the motor cortex thought to contain mirror neurons (neurons also known as "monkey-see, monkey-do neurons" or "empathy neurons").
According to their interpretation of the fMRI results, the researchers say they saw, in essence, evidence of mismatch. The brain "lit up" when the human-like appearance of the android and its robotic motion "didn't compute."
"The brain doesn't seem tuned to care about either biological appearance or biological motion per se," said Saygin, an assistant professor of cognitive science at UC San Diego and alumna of the same department. "What it seems to be doing is looking for its expectations to be met -- for appearance and motion to be congruent."
In other words, if it looks human and moves likes a human, we are OK with that. If it looks like a robot and acts like a robot, we are OK with that, too; our brains have no difficulty processing the information. The trouble arises when -- contrary to a lifetime of expectations -- appearance and motion are at odds.
"As human-like artificial agents become more commonplace, perhaps our perceptual systems will be re-tuned to accommodate these new social partners," the researchers write. "Or perhaps, we will decide it is not a good idea to make them so closely in our image after all."
Saygin thinks it's "not so crazy to suggest we brain-test-drive robots or animated characters before spending millions of dollars on their development."
It's not too practical, though, to do these test-drives in expensive and hard-to-come-by fMRI scanners. So Saygin and her students are currently on the hunt for an analogous EEG signal. EEG technology is cheap enough that the electrode caps are being developed for home use.
The research was funded by the Kavli Institute for Brain and Mind at UC San Diego. Saygin was additionally supported by the California Institute of Telecommunication and Information Technology (Calit2) at UCSD.
Saygin's coauthors are Thierry Chaminade of Mediterranean Institute for Cognitive Neuroscience, France; Hiroshi Ishiguro of Osaka University and ATR, Japan; Jon Driver of University College London; and Chris Firth of University of Aarhus, Denmark.

DVD alloys help make computers that think like us

THE material that lets us record on DVDs has a far more tantalising property: it can mimic the nerve cells of the brain and the junctions between them. The discovery could lead to the development of brain-like computers that, crucially, operate at ultra-low power levels.

A brain-like computer is one that can learn and adapt without external programming. Such an ability would allow machines to become far better at tasks like face and speech recognition. They could also process and store data in the same location - just as nerve cells do. Conventional computing loses efficiency by keeping these functions separate.

Now two research groups have built artificial nerve cells, or neurons, and synapses - the junctions between them - using an alloy known as GST, an acronym of the symbols for its components: germanium, antimony and tellurium.

In the UK, David Wright and colleagues at the University of Exeter have created a GST neuron (Advanced Materials, DOI: 10.1002/adma.201101060), while at Stanford University in California, Philip Wong's group have created a nanoscale electronic synapse. The junction even mimics the way synapses can change their connection strength (Nano Letters, DOI: 10.1021/nl201040y).

GST is known as a "phase-change" alloy, because of its ability to change its molecular structure from a crystalline to a disordered amorphous "phase" when heated. In DVDs, this allows binary 0s and 1s to be recorded and then read by a laser.

But GST can do more than store two states. Different areas within a tiny spot of GST can be crystalline or amorphous to differing degrees, which means it can store information across a much wider range of values than simply 0 or 1. This is important because it is a build-up of input signals that makes a real neuron "fire" when it reaches a certain threshold.

Wright's neuron is able to mimic this threshold firing because GST's electrical resistance drops suddenly when it moves from its amorphous phase to the crystalline. So incoming signals in the form of pulses of current are applied to the artificial neuron - and it is deemed to have fired when its resistance plummets.

GST's talents don't end there. When a real neuron fires, the signal's importance to the next neuron it arrives at is set by the strength of the synapse connecting them. In nature, this strength is adjusted in a process called spike-timing-dependent plasticity (STDP): if the first neuron repeatedly fires before the second, the synapse's strength increases, but if the second fires first, its strength decreases.

Duygu Kuzum, a member of the Stanford team, says GST's ability to change its resistance has allowed them to program it to dynamically modify the strength of the nanoscale artificial synapses they have built - just like STDP. This lets them prioritise which neural signals are most important to any given task.

At just 75 nanometres across, the artificial synapse may offer the low power sought for brain-like computers, says Kuzum. The team's calculations suggest a system with 10¹⁰ synapses would consume just 10 watts - compared with the 1.4 megawatts needed by a supercomputer to simulate just 5 seconds of brain activity.

"Phase-change devices may indeed capture the right essence of the behaviour of the brain," says Steve Furber of the University of Manchester, UK, who is building a brain-like computer from conventional microprocessors. "But it has a very long way to go. I'll be interested when they can make 100 million of them on a chip for next to nothing."

Race to build an artificial brain

Phase-change materials are competing with at least three other approaches to brain-like computing.
In the Blue Brain Project, Henry Markram's group at the Swiss Institute for Technology in Lausanne aims to create a software model of brain biochemistry on a supercomputer.
And this week, the University of Manchester in the UK began building Spinnaker - a 1-billion-neuron computer - using smartphone microprocessors that model 18,000 neurons each. The connection strength between neurons is stored using on-chip memory.
"Memristors", too, can have their resistance "set" by applying a voltage across them, making them strong contenders for neurons or synapses.

Top 10 IT MNCs in India

Top 10 software companies in India

1. Tata Consultancy Services


The Indian software industry is set to keep up its growth rate despite the slowdown in the economy. The National Association of Software and Services Companies (Nasscom) has forecast a strong outlook for FY08-09 strong with software and services revenue seen growing by 21-24 per cent. The software and services exports are set to hit the $50 billion-mark. The software and services exports segment grew by 29 per cent (in USD) to register revenues of $40.4 billion in FY07-08, up from $31.4 billion in FY06-07. The domestic segment grew by 26 per cent (in INR) to register revenues of $ 11.6 billion in FY07-08. According to the latest Nasscom rankings, Tata Consultancy Services Ltd., Infosys Technologies Ltd. and Wipro Technologies Ltd are the top 3 revenue generators in India. Check out the top ten players in the Indian IT industry.
TCS
Founded in 1968, TCS is one of India's largest corporate houses. It is also India's largest IT employer with a staff strength of 111,000 employees.
The company began as a division of the Tata Group, called the Tata Computer Centre. Its main business was to offer computer services to other group companies. Soon the company was spun off as Tata Consultancy Services after it realised the huge potential of the booming IT services.
The company posted a consolidated net profit of Rs 1,290.61 crore (Rs 12.90 billion) for the first quarter ended June 30, 2008, an increase of 7.3 per cent compared to the year-ago period.
Its annual sales worldwide stands at $5.7 billion for the fiscal year ending March 2008. During the year 2007-08, TCS' consolidated revenues grew by 22 per cent to Rs 22,863 crore ($5.7 billion). S. Ramadorai, is the chief executive officer and managing director of TCS.
TCS is IDC-Dataquest IT best employer in IT services in 2007. TCS also topped DataQuest DQTop 20 list of IT service providers in 2007.
Image: Chief Executive Officer of Tata Consultancy Services (TCS) S Ramadorai .


2. Wipro

What started off as a hydrogenated cooking fat company, Wipro is today is a $5 billion revenue generating IT, BPO and R&D services organisation with presence in over 50 countries. Premji started Wipro with the 'idea of building an organisation which was deeply committed to values, in the firm belief that success in business would be its inevitable, eventual outcome'. The company has over 72,000 employees. Wipro's revenues grew by 33 per cent to Rs 19,957 crore (Rs 200 billion) for the year ended March 31, 2008. The net profit grew by 12 per cent to Rs. 3,283 crore (Rs. 32.83 billion). The revenues of the combined IT businesses was $4.3 billion with 43 per cent YoY growth.
Wipro was the only Indian company to be ranked among the top 10 global outsourcing providers in IAOP's 2006 Global Outsourcing 100 listing. Wipro has also won the International Institute for Software Testing's Software Testing Best Practice Award.
Image: Chairman of the Indian software giant Wipro Technologies Limited, Azim Premji is all smiles during a press conference in Bangalore.
3. Infosys

Infosys Technologies Ltd was started in 1981 by seven people with $250. Today, the company boasts of revenues of over $ 4 billion and 94,379 employees.

Under the leadership of N R Narayana Murthy, the company has become a global brand. The company is now headed by Kris Gopalakrishnan. The income for the quarter ended June 30 2008 was Rs 4,854 crore (Rs 48.54 billion). The net profit stood at Rs 1,302 crore (Rs 13.02 billion).
Forbes magazine named Infosys in its list of Global High Performers. Waters magazine rated Infosys as the Best Outsourcing Partner. The Banker magazine conferred two Banker Technology Awards on Infosys to acclaim its work in wholesale and capital markets in two categories - Payments and Treasury Services, and Offshoring and Outsourcing.
The International Association of Outsourcing Professionals (IAOP) ranked Infosys at No. 3 in its '2008 Global Outsourcing 100'.
Image: Founder and mentor of Infosys Technologies N.R.Narayana Murthy (C) with NASDAQ President & CEO Bob Greifeld (6th R) celebrate with Infosys officials during the NASDAQ Remote Opening Bell Ceremony in the Infosys campus in Mysore.

4. Satyam Computer Services

Established in 1987 by Ramalinga Raju, Satyam has a staff strength of 51,000 employees. In 2008, the company's revenues crossed the $ 2-billion mark.

'A simple, yet extensive management model to create value, which promotes entrepreneurship, a focus on the customer, and the constant pursuit of excellence,' is the company's mantra for success. In FY2008, its revenues saw a growth of 30.7 per cent to Rs 8,473.49 crore (Rs 84.73 billion) compared to fiscal 2007.
The net profit stood at Rs 1,687.89 crore (Rs 16.87 billion), a growth of 20.2 per cent over fiscal 2007. Satyam is among the youngest IT service companies to reach $1 billion in annual revenues. It is ranked No. 1 in the ASTD (American Society for Training and Development) BEST Award, 2007.
Image: Employees of Satyam group standing out side the city centre in Hyderabad

5. HCL Technologies

HCL is a leading global technology player with annual revenues of $4.9 billion. The HCL Enterprise comprises two companies listed in India, HCL Technologies and HCL Infosystems. Founded in 1976, HCL is one of 'India's original IT garage start ups'.
The HCL team comprises 53,000 professionals of diverse nationalities, operating across 18 countries. At a time when India had a total of 250 computers, Shiv Nadar led a young team which passionately believed in the growth of the IT industry.
Three decades later, he succeeded in creating a $ 4.9 billion global enterprise. The company has reported consolidated revenue of Rs 3017.5 crore (Rs 30.17 billion) during the quarter ended March 31, 2008. The profit after tax stood at Rs. 81.5 crore (Rs 815 million).
Image: Chairman and CEO of HCL Infosystems Ajai Chowdhry with the HCL Mileap laptop in New Delhi.

6. Tech Mahindra

Tech Mahindra was incorporated as a joint venture between Mahindra & Mahindra and BT plc in 1986 under the name of 'Mahindra-British Telecom'.
Later, the name was changed to 'Tech Mahindra', in order to reflect the diversification and growth of the client base and service offerings. The company was incorporated in 1986. Tech Mahindra is a global systems integrator and business transformation consulting firm focused on the communications industry. At the helm of the fast expanding organisation is Vineet Nayyar.
In a career spanning over 40 years, he has worked with the government, international multilateral agencies and the corporate sector. Tech Mahindra's net profit rose 8.57 per cent to Rs 196.4 crore (Rs 1.96 billion) on 6.09 per cent growth in net sale to Rs 911.6 crore (Rs 9.11 billion) in Q3 December 2007 over Q2 September 2007.
Image: Managing Director of Mahindra & Mahindra Anand Mahindra during a press conference to launch the Tech Mahindra foundation in Mumbai.

7. Patni Computer Systems

 Patni Computer Systems Ltd one of the leading global providers of information technology services and business solutions. The company has clients across the Americas, Europe and Asia-Pacific locations.
The company has serviced more than 400 Fortune 1000 companies, for over two decades. Patni Computer Systems Limited was incorporated on 10 February 1978 under the Companies Act, 1956. On 18 September 2003, the Company converted itself from a private limited company into a public limited company.
The company headed founded by Narendra K Patni by has a staff strength of over 14,000 professionals. The revenues for the quarter ended March 2008 stood at $ 176.4 million (Rs. 7,061.2 million) up 13.1% YoY from $ 156.0 million (Rs. 6,724.1 million). The net income for the quarter at US$ 18.1 million (Rs. 724.6 million) down 35.0 per cent YoY from $ 27.8 million (Rs. 1,200.3 million).Frost & Sullivan ranked Patni 1st among 'Top 5 Engineering Service Providers'.
Image: Model of a software park in Chennai.

8. i-flex Solutions

iflex started as a division of Citicorp (now Citigroup), wholly owned subsidiary called Citicorp Overseas Software Ltd. (COSL) in 1991. Later, a separate company Citicorp Information Technologies Industries Ltd. (CITIL) was formed and Rajesh Hukku was appointed as its head. CITIL started off with the universal banking product, MicroBanker which became very successful. In the mid-90s, CITIL developed Flexcube at its Bangalore development centre. After the launch of Flexcube, all of CITIL's transactional banking products were brought under a common brand umbrella. CITIL changed its name to i-flex solutions to reflect its growing independence from Citicorp and to strengthen its Flexcube brand.
In 2006, i-flex became a majority-owned subsidiary of Oracle Corporation i-flex posted a top line growth of 8 per cent QoQ with revenue for the quarter ended March 31, 2008 at Rs 672 crore (Rs 6.72 billion) as compared to Rs 601 crore (Rs 6.01 billion) for the corresponding quarter during the previous year representing a 12 per cent YoY growth.
The net income for quarter stood at Rs 185 crore (Rs 1.85 billion) representing 73 per cent growth QoQ. The revenue for the full year ended March 31, 2008 stood at Rs 2,380 crore (Rs 23.80 billion), up 15 per cent as compared to the previous year.
Image: Chairman and Managing Director of i-flex Solutions Limited, Rajesh Hukku.

9. MphasiS

 

MphasiS Limited was formed in June 2000 after the merger of the US-based IT consulting company MphasiS Corporation (founded in 1998) and the Indian IT services company BFL Software Limited (founded in 1993). Jeya Kumar is CEO of MphasiS, which has a staff strength of 27,000 people. For the year ended 31 March 2008, the MphasiS Group recorded revenues of Rs 2,423 crore (Rs 24.23 billion), a growth of Rs 662 crore, which is 38 per cent over the previous year.
The net profit increased by 42 per cent from Rs 180 crore (Rs 1.8 billion) to Rs 255 crore (Rs 2.55 billion) during the year ended 31 March 2008. MphasiS was named among amongst the Top 100 Companies in Global Outsourcing.
Image: IT sector grows despite slowdown.

10. L&T Infotech

L&T Infotech is a global IT services and solutions provider. It is a subsidiary company of is Larsen & Toubro Ltd. (L&T), an engineering, manufacturing and construction conglomerate, with global operations. A M Naik is the chairman of the company. Originally founded as L&T Information Technology Ltd (LTITL), a wholly-owned subsidiary of Larsen & Toubro Ltd (L&T), the company changed its name to L&T Infotech on 1st April, 1997. In 2004, it tied up with Fidelity Information Services, a division of Fidelity National Financial to provide banking solutions for the Indian banking industry. In 2007-08, L&T had recorded revenues of Rs 29,600 crore (Rs 296 billion).
Image: L&T Infotech building.

Computer engineering

Computer engineering, also called computer systems engineering, is a discipline that integrates several fields of electrical engineering and computer science required to develop computer systems. Computer engineers usually have training in electronic engineering, software design, and hardware-software integration instead of only software engineering or electronic engineering. Computer engineers are involved in many hardware and software aspects of computing, from the design of individual microprocessors, personal computers, and supercomputers, to circuit design. This field of engineering not only focuses on how computer systems themselves work, but also how they integrate into the larger picture.
Usual tasks involving computer engineers include writing software and firmware for embedded microcontrollers, designing VLSI chips, designing analog sensors, designing mixed signal circuit boards, and designing operating systems. Computer engineers are also suited for robotics research, which relies heavily on using digital systems to control and monitor electrical systems like motors, communications, and sensors.

The first accredited computer engineering degree program in the United States was established at Case Western Reserve University in 1971. As of October 2004^[update], there were 170 ABET-accredited computer engineering programs in the US. Due to increasing job requirements for engineers, who can concurrently design hardware, software, firmware, and manage all forms of computer systems used in industry, some tertiary institutions around the world offer a bachelor's degree generally called computer engineering. Both computer engineering and electronic engineering programs include analog and digital circuit design in their curricula. As with most engineering disciplines, having a sound knowledge of mathematics and sciences is necessary for computer engineers.
In many institutions, computer engineering students are allowed to choose areas of in-depth study in their junior and senior year, because the full breadth of knowledge used in the design and application of computers is beyond the scope of an undergraduate degree.
 From Wikipedia, the free encyclopedia

Electrical engineering

Electrical engineering is a field of engineering that generally deals with the study and application of electricity, electronics and electromagnetism. The field first became an identifiable occupation in the late nineteenth century after commercialization of the electric telegraph and electrical power supply. It now covers a range of subtopics including power, electronics, control systems, signal processing and telecommunications.
Electrical engineering may include electronic engineering. Where a distinction is made, usually outside of the United States, electrical engineering is considered to deal with the problems associated with large-scale electrical systems such as power transmission and motor control, whereas electronic engineering deals with the study of small-scale electronic systems including computers and integrated circuits.^[1] Alternatively, electrical engineers are usually concerned with using electricity to transmit energy, while electronic engineers are concerned with using electricity to process information. More recently, the distinction has become blurred by the growth of power electronics.

Chemical engineering

Chemical engineering is the branch of engineering that deals with the application of physical science (e.g., chemistry and physics), and life sciences (e.g., biology, microbiology and biochemistry) with mathematics and economics, to the process of converting raw materials or chemicals into more useful or valuable forms. In addition to producing useful materials, modern chemical engineering is also concerned with pioneering valuable new materials and techniques – such as nanotechnology, fuel cells and biomedical engineering.Chemical engineering largely involves the design, improvement and maintenance of processes involving chemical or biological transformations for large-scale manufacture. Chemical engineers ensure the processes are operated safely, sustainably and economically. Chemical engineers in this branch are usually employed under the title of process engineer. A related term with a wider definition is chemical technology. A person employed in this field is called a chemical engineer.

Telecommunication

Telecommunication is the transmission of information over significant distances to communicate. In earlier times, telecommunications involved the use of visual signals, such as beacons, smoke signals, semaphore telegraphs, signal flags, and optical heliographs, or audio messages via coded drumbeats, lung-blown horns, or sent by loud whistles, for example. In the modern age of electricity and electronics, telecommunications now also includes the use of electrical devices such as telegraphs, telephones, and teletypes, the use of radio and microwave communications, as well as fiber optics and their associated electronics, plus the use of the orbiting satellites and the Internet.
A revolution in wireless telecommunications began in the first decade of the 20th century, with Guglielmo Marconi winning the Nobel Prize in Physics in 1909 for his pioneering developments in wireless radio communications. Other highly notable pioneering inventors and developers in the field of electrical and electronic telecommunications include Charles Wheatstone and Samuel Morse (telegraph), Alexander Graham Bell (telephone), Nikola Tesla, Edwin Armstrong, and Lee de Forest (radio), as well as John Logie Baird and Philo Farnsworth (television).

Telecommunications play an important role in the world economy and the worldwide telecommunication industry's revenue was estimated to be $3.85 trillion in 2008.The service revenue of the global telecommunications industry was estimated to be $1.7 trillion in 2008, and is expected to touch $2.7 trillion by 2013.