intelligence

Life sounds sunny for Florida-based Pentaho, a leading open-source Business Intelligence vendor. The company just announced a string of big-name customer wins, including Delta Dental, Mozilla, and a $1 million deal with a "major European retailer."

The company also announced that Lars Nordwall, former head of Sales for SugarCRM, has joined as senior vice president of Business Development. I know and like Lars and think he'll be a great fit for Pentaho. It's also a chance for him to work on his tan this winter, since the Bay Area is so cold.... :-)

Lastly, Pentaho has … Read more

In the midst of the financial meltdown and a contentious upcoming election, you might think the U.S. government and taxpayers are just funding wars, bank bailouts, and bridges to nowhere or somewhere. But this is the same government that funded the Internet way back when and is also funding the next generation of technologies that will make the current Internet seem like a Model-T.

Over the last several years, the U.S. government--via DARPA (Defense Advanced Research Projects Agency) grants--has invested hundreds of millions of dollars in PAL, an acronym for "Personalized Assistant that Learns." Smarter software … Read more

If you're reading this while rubbing your hands together and blowing hot breath into them (remember, the wider your mouth when you blow, the warmer the heat), well you should probably turn on the radiator or put on some gloves. If you already have gloves on and are still rubbing your hands together, keep reading.

Aevex announced on Monday that its Intelligent Heat technology can now be found in winter gloves from Mountain Hardwear and Outdoor Research. Not to be confused with the Cooling Glove (not sure why you would be, but I just wanted to get that link … Read more

Google is publishing a series of brief articles during September by 10 of its top scientists on how the Internet will evolve in the next 10 years. In the first article, Alfred Spector, a vice president of engineering, and research scientist Franz Och, outline how Google's search engine will evolve over the next decade.

Traditionally, systems that solve complicated problems and queries have been called "intelligent", but compared to earlier approaches in the field of 'artificial intelligence', the path that we foresee has important new elements. First of all, this system will operate on an enormous scale … Read more

One might expect James Bond's MySpace page to list shaken martinis, Walther PPKs, and Aston Martins among his interests.

While that scenario is a bit far-fetched, agents for the CIA, FBI, and National Security Agency are testing a social-networking site designed for use by analysts within the 16 U.S. intelligence agencies, according to a report on CNN's Web site. Instead of posting thoughts on music and movies, the agents use the site--called A-Space--to share information on terrorist activities and troop movements around the world.

The social networking site has been undergoing testing for months and is expected … Read more

One of the bugbears for greenhorns taking their driving test is the grind of parking. Fail this, and you can kiss your license goodbye. Until the next test, that is.

The bad news is you still have to pass your parking to score a license. The good news is, once you do, you may never have to worry about parking again. You can get your own chauffeur--or Volkswagen is bringing its Tiguan to Singapore roads, joining the rarified car marques here like Toyota Estima Aeras in offering an intelligent parking system.

Volkswagen's 2-liter SUV will launch in early September in the Republic with its nifty auto-parking feature. But like the Toyota, this is extended as an option. So if you desire this functionality, factor in an additional amount (price to be revealed later) to the car's $74,425 sticker (with COE, for 150bhp turbo engine; $88,600 for the 200bhp version).

There's another catch: this only parallel parks and it isn't quite fully automatic. Volkswagen only recently showcased its second-gen auto-parking system that will do vertical lots and doesn't even require a warm body in the car while parking. … Read more

The tiny motors normally used to vibrate cell phones can provide researchers with a significantly more affordable option for building robots.

A team of students led by Alexis Johnson at the University of Southampton's electronics and computer science school realized the tiny motors intended for cell phone vibration are already designed and manufactured to be attached to circuit boards making them ideally suited for use in swarm robots.

Using those motors, the group designed a new type of robot platform that brought their material cost down to about $48 (24 pounds) per robot, according to a university announcement Wednesday.… Read more

Updated 1:17 p.m. to correct that Google ranked first in the machine-translation accuracy evaluation. Updated 10:50 a.m. PDT with Google's no-comment.

Google looks set to launch a beta test of a document translation service, a new move in the company's efforts to break down language barriers.

With the service, the company will connect people who need documents translated with humans who will be paid to do so, according to the Google Translation Center information page. The site was spotted by sharp eyes at the Google Blogoscoped blog.

"Google Translation Center is the fast … Read more

Is "emotional robot" an oxymoron? Not necessarily, say the creators of the Heart Robot.

This robot/puppet, which is made of soft, flexible plastic, appears to breathe, blink, flinch, and clench its fists in response to human encounters. Experts in the diverse fields of robotics, animatronics, street theater, puppetry, and Web design converged to design the bot, which is meant to evoke emotion in those who meet it.

Swathed in white Egyptian cotton, it looks like a slightly forlorn cousin of ET. Its nervous system is made up of five small computers that work together to produce reactions. … Read more