SIVO Python Distribution (SIVO-PyD)

IVO-PyD (from NASA) is a self-contained Python distribution that includes a set of Python related packages for scientific computing. It attempts to provide a simple and but robust alternative to the Enthought Python Distribution.  Find it @ https://modelingguru.nasa.gov/docs/DOC-2109.

Measuring Cyber-security Success at the Summit

From Center for Strategic and International Studies:


http://csis.org/publication/measuring-cybersecurity-success-summit

  

"If press reports are accurate, it is a welcome development that the United States and China (in response to the threat of sanctions) have begun ..."

NetLogo

NetLogo is a multi-agent programmable modeling environment. It is used by tens of thousands of students, teachers and researchers worldwide. It also powers HubNet participatory simulations. It is authored by Uri Wilensky and developed at the CCL. You can download it free of charge.   Find it @ https://ccl.northwestern.edu/netlogo/ 


The book "An Introduction to Agent-Based Modeling: Modeling Natural, Social, and Engineered Complex Systems with NetLogo" provides an introduction to one of the primary methodologies for research in this new field of knowledge and uses NetLogo in its exercises.

Military Applications of the Internet-of-Things

From the Centre for Strategic and International Studies (CSIS)

http://csis.org/publication/leveraging-internet-things-more-efficient-and-effective-military

4 Habits of Highly Employable Developers

http://sdtimes.com/code-watch-the-first-four-habits-of-highly-employable-developers/

Intimate robots on the march

BBC -- They do what you want, and they don't talk back

The idea that it will be possible to stop the development of sex robots seems fanciful, given the explosion in so-called 'adult' content on the internet, and all the rest of it.


Next week: Japanese company develops My Perfect Girlfriend, a robot that does not do sex and small talk, but irons her man's shirts, hoovers his flat, does the cooking/ washing, and never complains. If you get bored, you can re-programme My Perfect Girlfriend so that she may start arguments and cry at given times (e.g.: once every 12 hours). When it gets too much, unplug the machine and re-set it.

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A campaign has been launched calling for a ban on the development of robots that can be used for sex. Such a use of the technology is unnecessary and undesirable, said campaign leader Dr Kathleen Richardson. Sex dolls already on the market are becoming more sophisticated and some are now hoping to build artificial intelligence into their products.

 

Those working in the field say that there is a need for such robots.

Dr Richardson, a robot ethicist at De Montfort University in Leicester, wants to raise awareness of the issue and persuade those developing sex robots to rethink how their technology is used. [...]

http://www.bbc.co.uk/news/technology-34118482

Humanoid robots falling over

BBC

In the video-clip, one robot struggles to open a door and a few others fall over, which is somewhat reassuring: they are not quite there yet.
 
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http://www.bbc.co.uk/news/world-us-canada-33041149


Robots have been competing on a Pentagon obstacle course at the Los Angeles County Fairgrounds.

Team Kaist of South Korea defeated 22 others to win the top $2m (£1.3m) prize from the US Department of Defense's Darpa research unit with its DRC-Hubo humanoid robot. Just keeping upright seemed a challenge in itself for some of the metallic competitors, as BBC World TV reports.