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Ride to work on a roller coaster
TECHNOLOGY
Ride to work on a roller coaster A Japanese train based on a theme park ride could make travel quieter, cleaner – and a lot more fun works in the exactly the same way as a theme park roller coaster. By turning potential energy into kinetic energy, it coasts along its tubular tracks without an engine. The train’s speed is controlled by aerodynamics and by “vertical curves”, sections of track that form the transition between two sloping segments. The Eco-Ride is set in motion and slowed at stations via rotating wheels between the rails that catch a fin underneath the train. When fully installed, Eco-Ride would ply a route, ideally circular, at speeds of up to 60 kilometres per hour. The idea is that Eco-Ride will use its own inertia to get up most slopes but may on occasion need to be winched up steeper inclines. If it was first lifted to a
THE green-and-white door slides shut and a man in a blue cap and beige overalls mutters into his walkie-talkie. He raises a bluegloved hand to signal departure and we’re off. The train’s two carriages stutter into motion, trundling along the elevated rails before speeding up as they roll down the gently undulating track. The journey is short, smooth and almost silent – it’s a mere 100 metres between “stations”. The Eco-Ride train feels like a ride on a roller coaster – and that’s pretty much what it is. In a few years’ time, this cheap and energy-efficient train could be ferrying passengers around areas of Japan devastated by last year’s tsunami. Developed at Tokyo University’s “Eco-Ride is probably the ultimate energy-saving Institute of Industrial Science transport system, ideal for (IIS), with the help of amusement earthquake-hit towns” ride firm Senyo Kogyo, Eco-Ride
Storytelling software learns how to spin a yarn “MY, WHAT a big mouth you have, Grandma,” says Little Red Riding Hood, with just a hint of suspicion. The wolf sneezes. “Bless you,” says the little girl. Sound odd? That’s because this snippet of Little Red Riding Hood was written not by a person but by a piece of software called Xapagy. It may not seem like much, but it demonstrates a first step towards computers that 22 | NewScientist | 8 December 2012
can invent stories. It also signals a new approach to designing a more human-like artificial intelligence. Lotzi Bölöni of the University of Central Florida first fed Xapagy stories, which had been manually translated into a language the system can understand. But instead of using these stories to build rigid logic rules for future actions, as most AI systems would, Xapagy keeps them just as they are – a series of interconnected events. When it comes across words in new stories, it looks for familiar connections in its memory. If it finds any, it uses them to predict what will
height of 10 metres, the train could comfortably cover a distance of 400 metres, says its developer, Yoshihiro Suda, director of the IIS Advanced Mobility Research Center. The lack of any engine makes carriages extremely light, so the energy required to propel them is small and the emissions low. Plus there is no need for the expensive, bulky infrastructure that usually accompanies the building of new train tracks. “This is probably the ultimate energy-saving transportation
happen next and then tells the story. The trick is that each word can have many different associations in Xapagy’s memory, depending on the stories it has read. When it doesn’t find any clear connections, it just substitutes in its own word that makes grammatical sense, like the sneezing wolf, and continues the story in a way that makes narrative sense (arxiv.org/abs/1211.5643). “The idea of an architecture based on narrative is clever,” says Stan Franklin of the University of Memphis, who developed the famous AI system LIDA. “It might lead to learning about narrative, an
system,” says Suda. A number of municipalities in Japan have shown an interest in the system, including communities hit by last year’s devastating earthquake and tsunami in the Tohoku region in the north-east, he says. Other uses could be feeder routes between other transportation networks, or communities and college campuses located beyond what might be considered a reasonable walking distance, he added. Suda expects the first Eco-Ride to be in operation sometime in 2014. The prototypes that scuttle john lund/getty
Rob Gilhooly, Chiba, Japan
–What happens next?–
ne Per Cent
skyscrapers and above the cars and pedestrians below (see left). That might seem a bit far off but Eco-Ride would be perfect for the area around Tohoku, hit hard by last’s year tsunami, says Masao Kuwahara at the university there. “Tohoku is a largely undulating region and with many residential areas being relocated to higher ground while workplaces are near the sea, a transport system that relies on gravity is perfectly suited to the topographical conditions,” he says. Yet, there are those who believe there is still some way to go before the system will be trundled out for real. “In terms of its simplicity and eco-friendliness, I think the idea of using a roller-coaster-like vehicle to transport people is –All aboard the eco-train– remarkable,” says Takayuki Morikawa at Nagoya University. down the track at the leafy “However, recently there are suburban test facility in Chiba trains that are able to regenerate already look good to go, and energy when braking or travelling efforts have been made to create a along downhill gradients, so I genuine travel experience. Having think it is necessary to scrutinise climbed up the steps to the which of the two is more efficient.” makeshift platform I hand in my But for others, the simple fact Eco-Ride ticket – on it are printed that they are riding a roller the date and time of departure coaster – albeit a slower one – and a request to be ready to board gives Eco-Ride instant glamour. 5 minutes prior to departure. “Imagine having a roller coaster A poster at the station explains ride as part of your commute to various technical aspects of the work,” says sales account manager system and includes a computerYumi Ito, who tried Eco-Ride at a generated image of an Eco-Ride recent open day. “Now that would winding its way among city brighten up your day.” n
important topic in cognition.” Xapagy works in a mix of English and a computer language called Xapi, which allows for easier communication between the two. The sentence, “My, what a big mouth you have Grandma” translates as “mouth – of – ‘Grandma’/ wh is-a / big?” in Xapi. Currently, Bölöni must translate all material for Xapagy to learn by hand, a major bottleneck in giving it a big enough memory to be able to tell rich, interesting stories. Once it can build up a large enough back catalogue of stories, Bölöni expects Xapagy will be able to think up entirely new stories on its own.
AI researcher Andrew Nuxoll at the University of Portland in Oregon says Xapagy is “entirely unique”. Most AI systems form rigid logical rules based on their observations of the world. This can be limiting, as it prevents robots and computers from tackling unfamiliar tasks. “If Bölöni is successful, it would result in a much more flexible way of learning,” Nuxoll says. Bölöni’s work is a step towards human-like AI, Nuxoll adds. “I am confident that when we do create such a brain it will have a capacity to remember, learn and re-learn from its past.” Hal Hodson n
princeton university
photograph by Robert Gilhooly
O
For more technology stories, visit newscientist.com/technology
3D print a chair, piece by piece If you believe the hype, 3D printing means that no one is ever going to need to buy a spatula or laundry basket again. But there’s a problem: the size of the objects you can print is limited by the size of your 3D printer. Now a software tool called Chopper, developed by Linjie Luo at Princeton University, can automatically break up large 3D models into components that are the right size to go through a smaller printer, adding connectors to clip it together. It was presented at Siggraph Asia in Singapore last week.
“The restoration was achieved just as quickly and neatly as the outage: like a switch being thrown” James Cowie of internet traffic analyst Renesys describes the sudden return of Syria’s internet after a two-day blackout. Rebels blame Bashar al-Assad’s government for cutting online access.
Robo-subs learn to dive free It’s time to let the robo-subs off the leash. Robot submarines still need a helpful human to guide them through twisting underwater ravines and channels. But a guidance system developed by Sarah Houts at Stanford University, California, lets such robo-subs compute paths around and through underwater obstacles. It will let them snap photos along even the most treacherous reaches of sea floor – all without human intervention.
Solving a soggy problem OK, so it’s not one of the world’s biggest problems, but a lack of hand-dryers in public washrooms can be a pain. So Dyson, which already makes the Airblade hand dryer, has patented taps that dry your hands after you have washed them. A sensor detects your hands when placed underneath air ducts that form part of the tap and which blow hot air over them.
For breaking tech news go to: newscientist.com/onepercent
8 December 2012 | NewScientist | 23
Ride to work on a roller coaster A Japanese train based on a theme park ride could make travel quieter, cleaner – and a lot more fun works in the exactly the same way as a theme park roller coaster. By turning potential energy into kinetic energy, it coasts along its tubular tracks without an engine. The train’s speed is controlled by aerodynamics and by “vertical curves”, sections of track that form the transition between two sloping segments. The Eco-Ride is set in motion and slowed at stations via rotating wheels between the rails that catch a fin underneath the train. When fully installed, Eco-Ride would ply a route, ideally circular, at speeds of up to 60 kilometres per hour. The idea is that Eco-Ride will use its own inertia to get up most slopes but may on occasion need to be winched up steeper inclines. If it was first lifted to a
THE green-and-white door slides shut and a man in a blue cap and beige overalls mutters into his walkie-talkie. He raises a bluegloved hand to signal departure and we’re off. The train’s two carriages stutter into motion, trundling along the elevated rails before speeding up as they roll down the gently undulating track. The journey is short, smooth and almost silent – it’s a mere 100 metres between “stations”. The Eco-Ride train feels like a ride on a roller coaster – and that’s pretty much what it is. In a few years’ time, this cheap and energy-efficient train could be ferrying passengers around areas of Japan devastated by last year’s tsunami. Developed at Tokyo University’s “Eco-Ride is probably the ultimate energy-saving Institute of Industrial Science transport system, ideal for (IIS), with the help of amusement earthquake-hit towns” ride firm Senyo Kogyo, Eco-Ride
Storytelling software learns how to spin a yarn “MY, WHAT a big mouth you have, Grandma,” says Little Red Riding Hood, with just a hint of suspicion. The wolf sneezes. “Bless you,” says the little girl. Sound odd? That’s because this snippet of Little Red Riding Hood was written not by a person but by a piece of software called Xapagy. It may not seem like much, but it demonstrates a first step towards computers that 22 | NewScientist | 8 December 2012
can invent stories. It also signals a new approach to designing a more human-like artificial intelligence. Lotzi Bölöni of the University of Central Florida first fed Xapagy stories, which had been manually translated into a language the system can understand. But instead of using these stories to build rigid logic rules for future actions, as most AI systems would, Xapagy keeps them just as they are – a series of interconnected events. When it comes across words in new stories, it looks for familiar connections in its memory. If it finds any, it uses them to predict what will
height of 10 metres, the train could comfortably cover a distance of 400 metres, says its developer, Yoshihiro Suda, director of the IIS Advanced Mobility Research Center. The lack of any engine makes carriages extremely light, so the energy required to propel them is small and the emissions low. Plus there is no need for the expensive, bulky infrastructure that usually accompanies the building of new train tracks. “This is probably the ultimate energy-saving transportation
happen next and then tells the story. The trick is that each word can have many different associations in Xapagy’s memory, depending on the stories it has read. When it doesn’t find any clear connections, it just substitutes in its own word that makes grammatical sense, like the sneezing wolf, and continues the story in a way that makes narrative sense (arxiv.org/abs/1211.5643). “The idea of an architecture based on narrative is clever,” says Stan Franklin of the University of Memphis, who developed the famous AI system LIDA. “It might lead to learning about narrative, an
system,” says Suda. A number of municipalities in Japan have shown an interest in the system, including communities hit by last year’s devastating earthquake and tsunami in the Tohoku region in the north-east, he says. Other uses could be feeder routes between other transportation networks, or communities and college campuses located beyond what might be considered a reasonable walking distance, he added. Suda expects the first Eco-Ride to be in operation sometime in 2014. The prototypes that scuttle john lund/getty
Rob Gilhooly, Chiba, Japan
–What happens next?–
ne Per Cent
skyscrapers and above the cars and pedestrians below (see left). That might seem a bit far off but Eco-Ride would be perfect for the area around Tohoku, hit hard by last’s year tsunami, says Masao Kuwahara at the university there. “Tohoku is a largely undulating region and with many residential areas being relocated to higher ground while workplaces are near the sea, a transport system that relies on gravity is perfectly suited to the topographical conditions,” he says. Yet, there are those who believe there is still some way to go before the system will be trundled out for real. “In terms of its simplicity and eco-friendliness, I think the idea of using a roller-coaster-like vehicle to transport people is –All aboard the eco-train– remarkable,” says Takayuki Morikawa at Nagoya University. down the track at the leafy “However, recently there are suburban test facility in Chiba trains that are able to regenerate already look good to go, and energy when braking or travelling efforts have been made to create a along downhill gradients, so I genuine travel experience. Having think it is necessary to scrutinise climbed up the steps to the which of the two is more efficient.” makeshift platform I hand in my But for others, the simple fact Eco-Ride ticket – on it are printed that they are riding a roller the date and time of departure coaster – albeit a slower one – and a request to be ready to board gives Eco-Ride instant glamour. 5 minutes prior to departure. “Imagine having a roller coaster A poster at the station explains ride as part of your commute to various technical aspects of the work,” says sales account manager system and includes a computerYumi Ito, who tried Eco-Ride at a generated image of an Eco-Ride recent open day. “Now that would winding its way among city brighten up your day.” n
important topic in cognition.” Xapagy works in a mix of English and a computer language called Xapi, which allows for easier communication between the two. The sentence, “My, what a big mouth you have Grandma” translates as “mouth – of – ‘Grandma’/ wh is-a / big?” in Xapi. Currently, Bölöni must translate all material for Xapagy to learn by hand, a major bottleneck in giving it a big enough memory to be able to tell rich, interesting stories. Once it can build up a large enough back catalogue of stories, Bölöni expects Xapagy will be able to think up entirely new stories on its own.
AI researcher Andrew Nuxoll at the University of Portland in Oregon says Xapagy is “entirely unique”. Most AI systems form rigid logical rules based on their observations of the world. This can be limiting, as it prevents robots and computers from tackling unfamiliar tasks. “If Bölöni is successful, it would result in a much more flexible way of learning,” Nuxoll says. Bölöni’s work is a step towards human-like AI, Nuxoll adds. “I am confident that when we do create such a brain it will have a capacity to remember, learn and re-learn from its past.” Hal Hodson n
princeton university
photograph by Robert Gilhooly
O
For more technology stories, visit newscientist.com/technology
3D print a chair, piece by piece If you believe the hype, 3D printing means that no one is ever going to need to buy a spatula or laundry basket again. But there’s a problem: the size of the objects you can print is limited by the size of your 3D printer. Now a software tool called Chopper, developed by Linjie Luo at Princeton University, can automatically break up large 3D models into components that are the right size to go through a smaller printer, adding connectors to clip it together. It was presented at Siggraph Asia in Singapore last week.
“The restoration was achieved just as quickly and neatly as the outage: like a switch being thrown” James Cowie of internet traffic analyst Renesys describes the sudden return of Syria’s internet after a two-day blackout. Rebels blame Bashar al-Assad’s government for cutting online access.
Robo-subs learn to dive free It’s time to let the robo-subs off the leash. Robot submarines still need a helpful human to guide them through twisting underwater ravines and channels. But a guidance system developed by Sarah Houts at Stanford University, California, lets such robo-subs compute paths around and through underwater obstacles. It will let them snap photos along even the most treacherous reaches of sea floor – all without human intervention.
Solving a soggy problem OK, so it’s not one of the world’s biggest problems, but a lack of hand-dryers in public washrooms can be a pain. So Dyson, which already makes the Airblade hand dryer, has patented taps that dry your hands after you have washed them. A sensor detects your hands when placed underneath air ducts that form part of the tap and which blow hot air over them.
For breaking tech news go to: newscientist.com/onepercent
8 December 2012 | NewScientist | 23