| Is It or Isn’t It?
Business search company ZoomInfo launched what it's calling the first public semantic search engine. But is it? Sometimes referred to as a Web 3.0 technology, semantic search is considered the next generation of online search. It differs from conventional search by helping computers understand and organize information stored across the Internet, rather than just finding it. But search experts say semantic search is a gray area and means different things to different people. Trumpeting something as the first semantic search engine is like describing something as “the first energy-efficient automobile," since fuel efficiency is relative, says Doug Lenat, a semantic search expert who runs Cycorp, another semantic technology company. Experts also note that some companies already incorporate elements of semantic search in their search engines.
NASA Mars Exploration Opportunity: Investigating a Dark Streak
Opportunity is healthy and spent the last week investigating the dark material trailing north from "Victoria Crater." The plan this week included two brief robotic arm campaigns at different areas roughly 33 meters (108 feet) apart. Opportunity will collect a series of microscopic images and alpha particle X-ray spectrometer integrations on the soil along with other remote science observations. Sol-by-sol summary: Each sol starts with a panoramic camera tau and miniature thermal emission spectrometer mini sky and ground stare right after handing over from the previous sol's master sequence. At the end of each sol's plan, right before transitioning to the following sol, there is a navigation camera bitty cloud observation and a miniature thermal emission spectrometer mini sky and ground stare.
Robot crew to build support
It's as exciting as watching your high school team compete in a state football championship game, perhaps even more so. At least that's what scientific minds claim. "It's like watching the Green Bay Packers play in rival Chicago," Middleton physics teacher Bill Vasden said. "This is pretty cool." It's the 2007 FIRST (For Inspiration and Recognition of Science and Technology) competition, or basically a duel between robots. And, yeah, it's pretty cool if you're into things like interfaces and motherboards and transmission mounts. Earlier this month, a team of Middleton students and a few Hillsborough High students built a robot that won the FIRST regional competition in Duluth, Ga. The Minotaur Team 1369 robot, as it's called, basically beat the heck out of other robots at Rack N' Roll, a game involving inner tubes specifically created for this year's competition.
Robot 'leech' could treat hearts
A ROBOT 'leech' has been developed that can crawl across the surface of an ailing heart delivering treatment. A prototype of the device, called HeartLander, has been tested on pigs. The machine fitted pacemaker leads and injected dye into the animals' hearts. The inch-long robot has two sucker-like feet allowing it to crawl like a leech across a heart at up to 18cm a minute. Inserted below the ribcage by keyhole surgery, it attaches to the organ by means of a vacuum line to the suckers. It moves by shifting its two body segments backwards and forwards. Vessels Scientists hope it will avoid the need for open-heart surgery, which usually requires the heart to be stopped. It could be specially useful where surgeons are not able to reach the heart through blood vessels because of diseased tissue.
IBS launches Intelligent Inventory Management System
Intelligent Business Systems (IBS), the Artificial Intelligence (AI) based Business Competitiveness Solutions firm, today announced the launch of Shadow, its Intelligent Inventory Management System, providing small and medium enterprises with an efficient and secure way to manage their inventory. It is especially targeted at distributors, dealers, wholesalers, retailers, warehouse owners, traders and small scale manufacturers. Shadow would also work well in shopping malls, large department stores, or even small shops keen to professionalize inventory handling. Shadow from Intelligent Business Systems (IBS) enables a high level of decision automation, which ensures that inventory control is optimised for as positive impact on the bottom line. It also assists in the advance forecasting of sales, thus enabling effective inventory decisions on the basis of the probable lead time in obtaining items, and careful monitoring of dispatches in order to meet delivery deadlines—parameters that would be impossible to track manually with any reasonable degree of success.
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