February 20, 2012

Good Morning,

Sweden creates a computer that is a cut above the rest when it comes to numbers. This smart computer can recognize multiple number patterns, and it scores 150 on a Math IQ test, where average computers usually score under 100. Check out the details in the first article.

Until Next Time,
Erin

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Computer program ups its math 'IQ'

GOTHENBURG, Sweden - Computer scientists in Sweden say they've created a computer program that can score 150 on IQ tests where the average human scores 100.IQ tests measure success on two types of problems: progressive matrices, which test the ability to see patterns in pictures, and number sequences, which test the ability to see patterns in numbers. The most common math computer programs score below 100 on IQ tests with number sequences, but researchers at the University of Gothenburg said they thought they could come up with a smarter program. "We're trying to make programs that can discover the same types of patterns that humans can see," researcher Claes Strannegard said. Psychology is as important as mathematics in such tests, he said. "1, 2, ... what comes next? Most people would say 3, but it could also be a repeating sequence like 1, 2, 1 or a doubling sequence like 1, 2, 4," he said. "Neither of these alternatives is more mathematically correct than the others. What it comes down to is that most people have learned the 1-2-3 pattern." The researchers said they included a psychological model of human patterns in their computer programs to create a mathematical model that mimics human-like problem solving. "Our programs are beating the conventional math programs because we are combining mathematics and psychology," Strannegard said in a university release.


Study: Cellphones make users selfish

COLLEGE PARK, Md. - A U.S. study found that cellphone use is linked to selfish behavior and may make users less socially minded, researchers said. Marketing researchers at the University of Maryland conducted a series of experiments involving test groups of cellphone users. They found after a short period of cellphone use subjects were less inclined to volunteer for a community service activity when asked, compared with a counterpart control group, a university release said. The cellphone users were also less persistent in solving word problems even when told their answers would translate to a monetary donation to charity, the researchers said. They said previous studies suggest an explanation of their findings. "The cellphone directly evokes feelings of connectivity to others, thereby fulfilling the basic human need to belong," resulting in reducing one's desire to connect with others or to engage in empathic and prosocial behavior, they said. Although the study involved college student subjects, both men and women generally in their early 20s, researchers said the results were likely to be universal. "We would expect a similar pattern of effects with people from other age groups," researcher Rosellina Ferraro said. "Given the increasing pervasiveness of cellphones, it does have the potential to have broad social implications."


Phone app can guide user around buildings

CAMBRIDGE, Mass. - A smartphone app may soon guide people through unfamiliar buildings by shining lighted arrows on the ground before them to show the way, U.S. researchers say. The Guiding Light app, developed at the Massachusetts Institute of Technology, consists of a wearable badge with magnetic sensors and software that makes use of a projector built into many Samsung smartphones to project the arrows onto the ground. The system relies on a map of the building based on fluctuations in its magnetic field created by the presence of steel in the walls, floor and ceiling, an MIT release said. The map is created by walking through a building wearing a badge that contains four magnetic sensors, which record changes in the magnetic field at each point in the building.The map is then loaded onto a phone. To navigate around the building, a user must wear a similar badge that "talks" to the map on the phone, confirming their position. A specific location can be keyed into the app and Guiding Light will continuously project an arrow onto the floor ahead to take the user to that location. Similar indoor positioning systems using WiFi nodes or Bluetooth sensors embedded in walls require the user to stare at maps on their phones to see where they are headed, researcher Jaewoo Chung said. Guiding Light does not, he said. "We wanted people's eyes to be on their environment," Chung said.


Tiny birds tracked on epic migrations

LONDON - Tiny songbirds have been tracked in epic migrations as they travel 18,640 miles from sub-Saharan Africa to their arctic breeding grounds, researchers say. Miniature tracking devices have revealed the impressive migration of the diminutive bird, known as the northern wheatear, which weighs 0.8 ounces, or 25 grams. Each tracking device weighs 1.4 grams. "Scaled for body size," researchers report in the British Royal Society journal Biology Letters, "this is the one of the longest round-trip migratory journeys of any bird in the world." Researchers tagged the wheatears in Alaska and Canada with the tracking devices that recorded the bird's position twice a day for 90 days. Four trackers the researchers retrieved revealed that individual wheatears spent the winter in northern parts of sub-Saharan Africa. "Think of something smaller than an [American] robin, but a little larger than a finch, raising young in the arctic tundra and then a few months later foraging for food in Africa for the winter," researcher Ryan Norris from the University of Guelph in Ontario, Canada, told the BBC. The birds were tracked almost 9,000 miles each way, crossing Siberia and the Arabian Desert, and traveling an average of 180 miles a day. "It seems that bird migration is limited [only] by the size of the Earth," research team member Heiko Schmaljohann, from the Institute of Avian Research in Wilhelmshaven, Germany, said. "If the planet was larger, they would probably migrate even further."

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