Robust artificial creativity systems are an important step towards the ultimate commodity: a mass-producable product that in turn produces solutions and ideas on demand. Think how this could add to our capacity for problem solving. The idea is as exciting as the challenges involved in realizing it. Many questions remain unanswered:

Not only do we lack understanding of our own creative mechanisms, but the basics of computer programs seem to oppose the idea of achieving unbound originality. Here’s a look at that important, fundamental problem when implementing creativity. In easy digest format, no less.

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With the the oncoming flood of powerful devices such as the iPhone, it’s almost certain that we’re about to make the leap into an augmented reality. I’ve predicted we’ll have common-place AR apps in early 2009. My guess is that Google will introduce a Maps-based application; possibly one that displays landmark-labels.

UPDATE, 2009: I was right that a public consumer AR Maps application would debut around early 2009: the Wikitude AR Travel App displays hovering labels over buildings and landmarks when you point your phone at them. I was almost right about Google’s part; it runs on Google Android phones—but was created by independent developers.

Here’s a video giving us a taste of what’s possible—an iPhone app capable of displaying 10 frames per second in live-video realtime tracking. It was made using version 4.4 of the ARToolkit, created by ARToolworks.

Gizmodo mentions that this won’t be found in the Appstore anytime soon, and quotes the creators:

It’s running slowly, but once Apple releases a video [API for the iPhone] SDK, performance should get to 20-30 frames/second. We’ve all seen the awesome 3D games that can run on the iPhone, so fast AR applications will also be possible in the future, with all that multi-touch goodness thrown in as well.

I’m thinking there must be someone already brewing AR apps of some sort. Evernote is close, letting you take a picture of text (e.g. a poster or DVD cover, etc.) and making the text searchable. Location-based social applications are also on a roll, displaying people in your area and what they’re up to.

With the iPhone’s 3G version there’s nothing that stands in the way; there’s bandwidth, GPS location and then the phone’s accelerometer. These combined could be used to make a label-application like I mentioned above: The accelerometer could track which way you’re facing and when you turn, the GPS where you are and the 3G could provide a fast and live connection to something like Google’s maps.

I doubt AR is an area that Apple hasn’t considered conquering. Even though it currently seems they’d rather want to use the phone’s accelerometer to make lightsaber sounds.

We’ll now be able to maintain better visual and personalized presence around Think Artificial. After some CSS struggling due to discrepancies between Firefox and Safari page rendering, I’ve finished implementing Gravatars on the site! (I’m sorry IE6 users, I don’t have time to test and accommodate a broken browser — please get Firefox).

If your comment shows up with a gray person like the third comment above, it means you’ll have to get yourself a Gravatar. If you haven’t heard of Gravatars, or Globally Recognized Avatars, they’re a service that allows you to upload and associate an avatar with your e-mail address. Since they’re in use by many popular websites, it’ll spare you some time when commenting or creating accounts there—all you’ll have to do is enter your email address and they’ll pop up automatically (email encrypted via the MD5 algorithm). For the record, the people on the pic with me above are Gnorb and Esther — both of which run great blogs.

See you around.

A subscriber of Think Artificial wrote to ask me about games and AI. In short, DF asked what my thougths are on AI in games and which ones I think are the most intelligent.

To answer this bluntly: Game AI is very different from it’s non-game counterpart, and it’s not my field of study. I’ve only compared modern games through a window. However, Alex of AIGameDev has superb coverage of AI in games and the top AI games of 2007, by community vote. The top of the line are Half-Life-2.ep.2 and BioShock.

But regarding Game AI in general: modern games are horribly void of intelligence. It depends on where you set the bar, certainly. There’s tons of AI in modern games compared to 5 years ago. But the first thing to note is that Game AI is not the same as AI. It’s a subset of it. Just like discrete mathematics are a subset of mathematics. And moreover, Game AI is a very specialized subset—it has well defined goals, models for construction and limitations.

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On May 27th 2007 I launched ThinkArtificial.org, a symbolic step up from my earlier blog that I’d been running for some months.

Following that step I was faced with whether I should flag the number of subscribers on the site. To set myself a goal I decided I wouldn’t reveal the number until it reached 300. And now it has happened.

Subscribers to TA have been holding at around 300 for about a month now—subscribers being people that are either subscribed to the site’s RSS feed or via email. Not counting those that visit the site regularly.

My thanks to everyone who’s been reading. You’re the reason I’m still at it.

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Check out this really amazing animation artwork done through a web interface to the ContextFree.js library created by Aza Raskin, a port of the open source application by Chris Coyn. It provides means of creating beautiful generative art with minuscule amounts of code. Make sure you watch it to the end where the Sierpiński triangle is generated with 3 lines of code.

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UPDATE-1: The issue has been resolved.

The site’s feed has been having some trouble since June 13th which may coincide with a software update I did around that time. The bug caused the site to stop generating an RSS feed.

It seem I’ve resolved the issue. If anyone has still not received updates since the post “Reaper UAV Used Against Enemy Targets” I’d appreciate that you report it.

THE HAPPENING

• Director/Writer: M. Night Shyamalan / M. Night Shyamalan
• Release Date: 11 June 2008
• Plot outline: A paranoid thriller about people on the run in a natural crisis that presents a large-scale threat to humanity.
• Freebase entry.

[UPDATE] See the conclusion in the comments below.

And now for a look at science fiction: I watched Shyamalan’s The Happening last night and, you know, this may have just been the most interesting movie this year. No really: simply because I can’t wrap my head around it. What the hell was that? Why the bad acting, why the goofy protagonist? Is there a puzzle in there somewhere? Read on for a brief rant.

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I’ve been tagged by my blog buddy in-arms Tim Stevens to write seven random (and not so random) facts about myself. (Yes, blog memes are still alive and well.) So it’s about time to shake things up with something personal.

The rules are:

1. Link to your tagger and post these rules on your blog.
2. Share 7 facts about yourself on your blog, some random, some weird.
3. Tag 7 people at the end of your post by leaving their names as well as links to their blogs.
4. Let them know they are tagged by leaving a comment on their blog.
5. Present an image of martial discord from whatever period or situation you’d like.

You must excuse that I thought about what I should write due to a failure in my random-thought function. But the following are selected facts from a brainstorm.

The se7en random facts

1. Six years ago I underwent brain surgery. I had a tumor the size of a large chicken egg pushing on my cerebellum. Keen eyes can spot the tumor on the online 3D model of my brain.
2. Since I left kindergarten all friends I’ve made have been older than I am.
3. I’m an agnostic atheist. My mother fears I’ll go to hell.
4. I read Snow Crash in English when I was 10 years old. My teacher couldn’t believe I understood it and questioned me about its content. (Remember that I’m Icelandic)
5. I take pride in that last fact and sometimes mention it in vain.
6. I recently started doing Zen-flavored meditation.
7. The lovely summer of 2006, a baby raven with a crooked leg landed in my lap. I fixed his leg with braces and raised him for a year. (that’s him in the header pic). He’s living in the wild now. I miss that crazy bird dearly.

And then to name the next seven minds (in no specific order):

• Norbert Cartagena
• Nils Geylen
• John P.
• Eli James
• Josh
• Jason Ellis
• David Seah
• Aasemoon

Hat’s off to the tagged!

The UK controlled Skynet 5C satellite was launched from the Kourou spaceport in French Guiana yesterday. It’s purpose is to allow various parts of the military to increase data transmission rates and pass two 2.5 times the current amount of data between command centers worldwide. One of the things utilizing these comlinks is the Reaper unmanned aerial vehicle, which reportedly has- and is being used in combat against enemy targets.

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