GDC 2011 organizers have revealed an initial set of Artificial Intelligence Summit talks for the February/March 2011 event, including talks from Rockstar, Double Fine, Electronic Arts and Blizzard notables.
The always-popular summit, taking place on February 28th and March 1st during Game Developers Conference 2011 at the Moscone Center in San Francisco, will feature panels and lectures from more than two dozen of the top game AI programmers in the industry.
Organized as a collective effort by the AI Game Programmers Guild, this event promises to “give you an inside look at key architectures and issues within successful commercial games, as well as let you eavesdrop on conversations, debates, and rants on how game AI can move forward.”
Advisors for the much-anticipated Summit include Intrinsic Algorithm’s Dave Mark, author of the book “Behavioral Mathematics for Game AI”, and Nintendo of America’s Steve Rabin.
With a final set of lectures to be announced soon, a number of major talks have been revealed on the Summit homepage and the AI Summit section of GDC’s Schedule Builder. Highlights include the following:
– ‘AI Unplugged: How Experienced Devs Think Through AI’ sees sequential microlectures from notables including Blizzard’s Brian Schwab, Double Fine’s Chris Jurney, Rockstar Leeds’ Brett Laming and more, building on the premise that “designing good AI depends upon analyzing the specific behavior or problem that needs to be addressed and decomposing it in such a way that it can be dealt with in the first place.”
In the panel, the Summit presents experienced game AI designers and programmers “with examples of typical (or odd!) game behaviors and watch as they walk through the process of tackling the problem — long before the programming suite is ever opened.”
– In ‘AI Pr0n: Maximum Exposure of Your Debug Info!’, developers, including Big Huge Games’ Michael Dawe and Electronic Arts/The Sims Division’s Rez Graham “will expose the creative and unique approaches they used to visualize the complexity of their AI for debugging and development.”
The speakers will deal with the “very difficult task” of debugging complex AI, with the description noting: “Often the best approach involves visualizing the data and the relationships instead of staring at code. After all, nothing is more revealing than getting a peek at all that private activity going on behind closed doors!”
– The session ‘People in Your Pocket: High-Quality AI on Mobile Devices’ sees discussion on “AI-driven people simulators with low-fi graphical fidelity but hi-fi behavioral fidelity”, featuring Black White/The Sims 3 AI designer Richard Evans, who is now working on “an unannounced text-based simulation”, as well as Ngmoco’s Andrew Stern (Touch Pets) and noted interactive fiction developer Emily Short.
More information on GDC 2011’s AI Summit — part of the UBM TechWeb Game Network, as is this website — which can be attended via All-Access or Summit-specific GDC 2011 passes, is available on its official webpage.
Every time I get to travel with a group to more exotic places, one of the inevitable questions asked is the location of the nearest flea market or place where – to use the vernacular – “”kabutingtings” (almost literally: knick-knacks or odds ends) can be found. The Saturday fleas markets of Rome and Amsterdam come to mind. But there was also this rather seedy open market right in the middle of a Hanoi square where I found a great selection of East bloc watches – sturdy rather than fancy – selling for only $2 – 5 each, and a gem of a Praktika German camera with a Zeiss lens no less. Of course, the original makers of Zeiss optics transferred to West Germany then, and I guess the factory left behind just went on making camera lenses using the venerable name.
But when it comes to gadgets, there is only one place in the world that has it all – the gadget heaven that is Akihabara in a northern section of Tokyo. In my first visit there sometime in the 60s, the place was a warren of shops with probably one or two larger buildings containing yet more shops. But the impression was one of total chaos, with all kinds of electronic doodads on sale, with a product-selection available to suit even the most discriminating or ridiculous demand or craving. It has been some time since I have had a chance to visit the place, and so, this early, I am planning on visiting the district again, but with a wiser agenda of spending more than just a day over there. Based on reports I have read, the place has grown by leaps and bounds, and has actually gone mainstream. Even respectable manufacturers find it an honor to have their products on display over there side by side with the inevitable funky or almost useless gadgets. Trust the Japanese inventiveness and imagination to come up with gadgets you never knew you needed – or maybe, didn’t need but bought anyhow because they were so “cute”.
Well-known electronics or consumer manufacturers often showcase their products in Akihabara first before foisting them on the general public. Maybe to test market reaction in one of the world’s most gadget-crazy environments, one whose buyers get bored real fast with a product or a technology and look immediately for the next trend.
Toshiba, for example, is ready with a line-up of Tablet PCs that seem to cover the three main operating systems: Android, Chrome, and Windows 7. Maybe they are still smarting over losing out to the Blue-Ray technology of Sony in another area, and don’t want to be left out in the cold this time. Meanwhile, Google is said to be bringing out a laptop (the CR-48) for testing the Chrome OS further, making this an exciting battle to see which system wins out in the end.
But if all you want is the latest in massage chairs, or a really good back-scratcher that does it all, or a gadget that can listen in to cellphone conversations – then you need not look any further. These and many more gadgets guaranteed to bust your wallet are available at a price.
You think I am kidding? Well, one product I saw featured in an online publication showcased the ultimate in fountain pens. Now, what does a fountain pen do other than write? Why, the inventors who drive Akihabara found that some people actually want a pen that can also double as a voice recorder, with MP3 playback available plus as much as 4G storage capacity. Bet you never thought of that particular use for a fountain pen, right? And we have to thank the wonderful people of Thanko, who also make spy pens and other similar gadgets, for this innovative pen. The Thanko voice recording pen is available right now – in Japan, but especially in Akihabara.
Now, I think I really want to get that spy pen instead….or will my choice be the device that will allow me to eavesdrop on cellphone conversations? Perhaps this latter one should be a gift to any number of gossip-mongers who inhabit coffee shops to exchange the latest in sordid tales.
Listen up, kids. Big Brother can’t tap your phones, but mom and dad can.
So said the state Court of Appeals in a legally groundbreaking opinion that uses a Knox County custody battle as the backdrop.
“The parties agree that this is an issue of first impression in Tennessee,” Appellate Judge Charles D. Susano Jr., wrote in a recently released opinion.
Since 1994, it has been a crime in the state of Tennessee to secretly record or eavesdrop on a phone call between two unsuspecting speakers.
That made tapping a cheating spouse’s phone, for instance, to garner proof of a liaison a legal no-no, punishable by both jail time and civil damages.
But what if mom secretly records a chat between dad and daughter and then uses it in a custody fight? Do children have a right to telephonic privacy?
Until now, the issue had never been tested. Enter Knox County parents Chris Lawrence and Leigh Ann Lawrence and their toddler daughter, then 30-months-old.
While father and daughter chatted on the phone in the spring of 2007, Leigh Ann Lawrence held up a tape recorder to a phone in another room and recorded the conversation. She later insisted she wasn’t trying to hide the taping from her daughter – just the recorder itself because the toddler “would have wanted to sing into the tape recorder or play with it,” the opinion noted.
Leigh Ann Lawrence then gave a copy of the tape to a psychologist who was conducting a custody evaluation as part of the Lawrences’ divorce case in Knox County Circuit Court, according to the opinion.
When Chris Lawrence found out about the tape, he sued under Tennessee’s wiretapping law.
His attorney, Andrew Fox, argued Leigh Ann Lawrence clearly violated the law because neither her daughter nor her estranged husband “consented” to the recording. Her lawyer, Deno Cole, countered that a parent doesn’t need a child’s permission to monitor or record the calls of his or her offspring.
The law itself is silent on the issue, so Circuit Judge Dale Workman plowed new legal ground when he ruled that the wiretapping law did not apply to children secretly recorded by parents. Chris Lawrence appealed.
Had Workman plowed too deep? Not according to the appellate court.
“A parent has a right to childrearing autonomy unless and until a showing is made of a substantial danger of harm to the child,” Susano wrote. “It is readily apparent to us that childrearing autonomy encompasses control of a 2 1/2-year-old child’s access to the telephone.
“The pertinent question in this case is whether the Legislature intended to subject a parent to criminal penalties and money damages for eavesdropping, from another telephone, on a 2 1/2-year-old child’s telephone conversation without the child’s knowledge,” he continued. “We do not believe the Legislature intended to invade the parent-child relationship (with the wiretapping law).”
Teenagers, take heart, however.
The court opined that a case involving a toddler was a bit of a no-brainer when deciding the level of a parent’s control over the phone. It left open the possibility of further legal debate should the wiretapping involve an older child.
“We are not, by this opinion, painting a bright line as to age,” Susano noted. “Since 2 1/2 is obviously an age at which a child is too young to give consent, we see no need to determine a bright line rule in this case.”
Jamie Satterfield may be reached at 865-342-6308. Follow her on Twitter at twitter.com/jamiescoop.
The inquiry had been prompted by an article in The New York Times Magazine in September that cited former News of the World journalists saying that Mr. Coulson, during his time as editor, had encouraged reporters to eavesdrop on messages belonging to public personalities.
Mr. Coulson, who carries broad powers as a member of Mr. Cameron’s inner policy circle, has denied the charges, and prosecutors said Friday that the witnesses they had interviewed “either refused to cooperate with the police investigation, provided short statements which did not advance matters or denied any knowledge of wrongdoing.”
The police said Friday that four of the witnesses had been interviewed “under caution,” meaning that any statement they made could be used against them in a possible prosecution, lawyers say. Other witnesses had been interviewed, the police said, without clarifying how many. Mr. Coulson was question by investigators last month.
Giving evidence in an unrelated case on Friday, Mr. Coulson reiterated his innocence, saying, “I had absolutely no knowledge of it. I certainly didn’t instruct anyone to do anything at the time or anything else which was untoward.”
Mr. Coulson was testifying as a witness in a separate case against Tommy Sheridan, a politician from Scotland, who faces perjury charges related to a libel case against The News of the World, which is part of Rupert Murdoch’s global media empire.
In the trial, it was alleged that during Mr. Coulson’s tenure as editor he had encouraged numerous reporters to make use of a private investigator to secure private phone material and that he asked Clive Goodman, a reporter, “to take the blame for the sake of the paper.”
After a police investigation, Mr. Goodman, The News of the World’s royal editor, and Glenn Mulcaire, the private investigator, were jailed in 2007. They pleaded guilty to illegally intercepting the telephone voice mail messages of Prince William and Prince Harry and their aides.
At the time, Mr. Coulson, who was appointed editor of The News of the World in 2003, said that he had no knowledge of the hacking and that it was an isolated case, but resigned from the paper in January 2007 after the two men were jailed.
Since then, The Guardian printed an article saying that hundreds of people might have been singled out by The News of the World and provided details about some of them, including Gordon Taylor, former chief executive of the Professional Footballers’ Association, who reached a settlement of £700,000, or about $1.1 million, with The News of the World over the hacking of his cellphone.
This year, a leading public relations executive, Max Clifford, who had brought a separate lawsuit, reached his own agreement with The News of the World. Several other civil cases were also initiated, through which more details of phone-hacking allegations might still emerge.
The Times Magazine article led British prosecutors to investigate again whether Mr. Coulson had encouraged such activities at The News of the World and whether the practice was widespread, not just carried out by Mr. Goodman.
In a statement, the Crown Prosecution Service said that the police had investigated the allegations of Sean Hoare, one of the journalists who figured prominently in the magazine story, interviewing him and others, but that they had either refused to cooperate or gave perfunctory statements.
“Against that background, there is no admissible evidence upon which” the Crown Prosecution Service “could properly advise the police to bring criminal charges,” the statement said.
The crown prosecution said that if additional information came to the fore, it would be taken into account. In that instance, prosecutors said, a joint panel would be convened of officials from the Metropolitan Police and the Crown Prosecution Service that would judge any further developments in the case.
Keir Starmer, the director of public prosecutions for the Crown Prosecution Service, said that “a criminal prosecution can only take place if those making allegations of wrongdoing are prepared to cooperate with a criminal investigation and to provide admissible evidence of the wrongdoing they allege.”
For Mr. Cameron, whose coalition government is already under siege because of its move to increase fees for university students, the decision represented a small measure of relief — easing the pressure on one of his more trusted advisers.
Paul Farrelly, an opposition member of Parliament, said, “There are still ongoing parliamentary investigations into this affair.”
Graham Bowley contributed reporting from New York.
A researcher at the University of Luxembourg has demonstrated a new type of attack against mobile phones at the security conference DeepSec in Vienna.
Using a base transceiver station – widely available for around $1,000 – he showed how common programming errors in cellphones’ communication stack can be exploited to gain control over the devices.
Ralf-Philipp Weinmann says he found ‘devastating’ flaws in a large percentage of cellular communication stacks. He says anyone sufficiently motivated would be able to exploit these to make an attacks – which would be almost undetectable.
The exploit would allow hackers to take over control of mobile phones anywhere within the range of the rogue transceiver – which Weinmann points out could mean hundreds of phones at a time in crowded urban areas.
They could then start racking up the cash by either dialling premium numbers or sending text messages to premium services.
Hackers could also use the technique to monitor the user’s complete communications, and could even eavesdrop on the owner by instructing the cellphone to pick up incoming calls automatically – without the user noticing.
The attacking transceiver needs to be online for just a couple of seconds to perform the attack.
Weinmann says he is working with a number of unnamed vendors of both cellular communication chips and cellphones to fix the security flaws and prevent similar problems in future.
