ScienceDaily: Computers & Math News

Computers using digital footprints are better judges of personality than friends and family Posted: 12 Jan 2015 12:44 PM PST Researchers have found that, based on enough Facebook Likes, computers can judge your personality traits better than your friends, family and even your partner. Using a new algorithm, researchers have calculated the average number of Likes artificial intelligence (AI) needs to draw personality inferences about you as accurately as your partner or parents.

3-D printed Shelby Cobra Posted: 12 Jan 2015 11:12 AM PST A new 3-D printed vehicle pays homage to the classic Shelby Cobra in celebration of the racing car’s 50th anniversary.

From the bottom up: Manipulating nanoribbons at the molecular level Posted: 12 Jan 2015 10:39 AM PST Researchers have developed a new precision approach for synthesizing graphene nanoribbons from pre-designed molecular building blocks. Using this process the researchers have built nanoribbons that have enhanced properties--such as position-dependent, tunable bandgaps--that are potentially very useful for next-generation electronic circuitry.

Vision system for household robots Posted: 12 Jan 2015 08:07 AM PST For household robots ever to be practical, they'll need to be able to recognize the objects they're supposed to manipulate. But while object recognition is one of the most widely studied topics in artificial intelligence, even the best object detectors still fail much of the time. A new algorithm could enable household robots to better identify objects in cluttered environments.

Virtual reality brain training game can detect mild cognitive impairment, a condition that often predates Alzheimer’s disease Posted: 12 Jan 2015 08:04 AM PST Researchers have demonstrated the potential of a virtual supermarket cognitive training game as a screening tool for patients with mild cognitive impairment (MCI) among a sample of older adults. MCI is a condition that often predates Alzheimer's disease (AD) and is characterized by memory loss and inability to execute complex activities such as financial planning.

Social media could impact on quality of conference presentations Posted: 12 Jan 2015 06:32 AM PST A new pilot study into the impact of Twitter on conferences suggests that social media may impact on quality of presentations as speakers receive real-time feedback.

Robot cameras monitor deep sea ecosystems Posted: 12 Jan 2015 06:31 AM PST Advanced photographic tools in an unmanned Autonomous Underwater Vehicle (AUV) have been used to make major advancements in estimating deep-sea ecosystem diversity at ‘landscape’ scales, researchers report. By using a camera on the Autosub6000 AUV to take a continuous stream of high resolution photographs of life on the sea floor, this new method revealed a tenfold increase in the precision of deep sea ecosystem diversity estimates relative to the use of scientific trawling.

'Batman' leads way to extremely fast and precise data storage Posted: 12 Jan 2015 05:29 AM PST Researchers have succeeded in switching tiny, magnetic structures using laser light and tracking the change over time. In the process, a nanometer-sized area bizarrely reminiscent of the Batman logo appeared. The research results could render data storage on hard drives faster, more compact and more efficient.