universityofalberta
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IBM's AI can predict schizophrenia by looking at the brain's blood flow
Schizophrenia is not a particularly common mental health disorder in America, affecting just 1.2 percent of the population (around 3.2 million people), but its effects can be debilitating. However, pioneering research conducted by IBM and the University of Alberta could soon help doctors diagnose the onset of the disease and the severity of its symptoms using a simple MRI scan and a neural network built to look at blood flow within the brain.
Google's next DeepMind AI research lab opens in Canada
Google's DeepMind artificial intelligence team has been based in the UK ever since it was acquired in 2014. However, it's finally ready to branch out -- just not to the US. DeepMind has announced that its first international research lab is coming to the Canadian prairie city of Edmonton, Alberta later in July. A trio of University of Alberta computer science professors (Richard Sutton, Michael Bowling and Patrick Pilarski) will lead the group, which includes seven more AI veterans. But why not an American outpost?
AI program can beat any human in a poker game
A team of software developers and poker researchers from the University of Alberta have developed a program that can completely demolish their fellow humans in a game of Texas Hold 'em. They named the artificial intelligence "Cepheus," and it's so good, the developers say you could play against it your whole life and never win. Even if you win, "it [still] cannot be beaten with statistical significance in a lifetime," according to the paper Science has just published. Well, that is if you're playing the two-player version (which is also the simplest one) called "heads-up limit hold 'em," because poker's apparently an extremely complicated game. The team has been working on developing an AI poker expert for the past ten years, though it only took them two months to "train" Cepheus.
Autodesk researchers develop 'magic finger' that reads gestures from any surface (video)
By combining a camera that detects surfaces with one that perceives motion, Canadian university researchers and Autodesk have made a sensor that reads finger gestures based on which part of your body you swipe. The first camera can detect pre-programmed materials like clothing, which would allow finger movements made across your pants or or shirt to activate commands that call specific people or compose an email, for instance. Autodesk sees this type of input as a possible compliment to smartphones or Google Glasses (which lack a useful input device), though it says the motion detection camera isn't accurate enough yet to replace a mouse. Anyway, if you wanted that kind of device for your digits, it already exists -- in spades.
Canadian AI plays "perfect" game of checkers
A team of researchers at the University of Alberta in Canada claim to have "solved" the game of checkers, using a computer program named Chinook which has been playing matches against itself for the past 18 years. The program played 500 billion billion possible positions in the 5,000-year-old game, also known as draughts, before concluding that perfect play by both sides leads to a draw (a concept which grandmaster players have apparently hypothesized for years). One of the researchers said in a statement that he believes they have "Raised the bar... in terms of what can be achieved in computer technology and artificial intelligence." Next up, Chinook is to be renamed W.O.P.R., and then will begin playing a series of tic-tac-toe games against itself.
