Video: Japan Gets Robotic Guide Dog

Production of Sony's AIBO, probably the world's most famous robotic dog, may have been discontinued in 2006, but that didn't stop other Japanese companies to keep on developing similar robots. 12 years after AIBO saw the light of day, Tokyo-based NSK took the wraps off a more advanced (nameless) robo-dog [JP]. Unlike AIBO, the NSK robot is designed to actually fulfill a purpose one day: serving as a guide dog for blind people. Work on the robot started in 2005, and the newest model is able to walk at 3.8km/h. Judging by the first videos (see below), the robot is pretty slow, so real animals still have a role for the time being.

Source: http://feedproxy.google.com/~r/Techcrunch/~3/xCxTTWp4-5s/

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We must ask big brain questions, says neuroscientist

To solve the big problems in neuroscience you need to ask the right questions, says John Stein ? and he knows what they are

You and your team have drawn up a list of the most important questions in neuroscience. Why did you do it?
We're following in the tracks of David Hilbert, the German mathematician who in 1900 drew up what he thought were the 23 most important problems of mathematics. Hilbert's work arguably led to the development of computing. I daren't hope that anything like that might happen [from our work], but we would like something spectacular to come out of it just by posing the right questions.

Why does neuroscience need this list?
Many of us who are looking at how the whole brain works, as opposed to how little bits of it work, worry that reductionism has taken over. We know a ...

Source: http://feeds.newscientist.com/c/749/f/10897/s/19c2caac/l/0L0Snewscientist0N0Carticle0Cmg212283650B70A0A0Ewe0Emust0Eask0Ebig0Ebrain0Equestions0Esays0Eneuroscientist0Bhtml0DDCMP0FOTC0Erss0Gnsref0Fonline0Enews/story01.htm

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AP source: Big East to invite Boise St, 5 others

PHILADELPHIA (AP) ? The Big East is ready to start adding members after spending the last month and a half losing them.

A person familiar with the decision told The Associated Press the Big East will invite Boise State, Navy and Air Force for football only and SMU, Houston and Central Florida for all sports in upcoming days. The person spoke on condition of anonymity because the conference was not ready to announce its plan.

Commissioner John Marinatto declined to elaborate on the Big East's next moves after meeting with the league's presidents at a Philadelphia hotel Tuesday. He said he expected the targeted schools to accept, but details still must be worked out with each.

"As we've learned over the last two months, don't believe anything anybody tells you. Nothing's done until it is over. So I'm obviously being very cautious and that's why I'm reluctant to say names of schools," he said.

Marinatto did acknowledge the league intends to expand west.

Boise State and Air Force, both in the Mountain West Conference, and SMU and Houston, members of Conference USA, would be in the Big East's western division, along with Louisville and Cincinnati. Navy, an independent, and UCF, also from CUSA, would be part of the league's eastern division with Connecticut, South Florida, Rutgers and another school. The league would then likely play a conference championship game.

The Big East has been working on a plan to add those six schools and reconfigure as a 12-team football conference since not long after Syracuse and Pittsburgh announced Sept. 18 they would be leaving for the Atlantic Coast Conference.

"We got reaffirmation from our members that that was the way we wanted to go," Marinatto said. "It was probably a very small part of our meeting today, where they just reaffirmed everything we had been talking about and authorized me to move forward with formal discussions to get this all wrapped up as soon as possible."

Exactly when was unclear.

"We have not received an invitation from the Big East. However, we understand the things are moving in that direction," UCF spokesman Grant Heston said.

Navy athletic director Chet Gladchuk said Tuesday he had not yet heard from any Big East officials.

A couple weeks after the Big East found out about Pitt and Syracuse, TCU announced it was backing out of a commitment to join the league next year and instead accepted an invite to the Big 12.

Then last week West Virginia accepted an invitation to the Big 12, stripping the Big East of its most successful football member in recent years. So even with the six potential new members, the Big East still needs another school to get to 12 for the long term.

"We didn't get into the discussion of specifically replacing West Virginia," Marinatto said.

Temple and Memphis are being considered, the person with knowledge of the Big East's decision said.

Temple AD Bill Bradshaw declined comment.

Marinatto said again that the Big East intends to enforce the league's 27-month notification period and will hold Pitt, Syracuse and West Virginia in the conference until July 2014.

The ACC has said it will not challenge the Big East's rules, but the Big 12 needs 10 teams to fulfill its television contracts in 2012 and has said it expects West Virginia to replace Missouri and join the league next year. Missouri is expected to leave for the Southeastern Conference soon.

West Virginia filed a lawsuit Monday challenging the Big East's waiting period and asking the court to speed the school's divorce from the league.

"I quite frankly was stunned when I heard the news that they were filing a lawsuit," Marinatto said. "I couldn't understand under what grounds."

Even with new members ready to commit, the Big East might not have enough football teams next season without Syracuse, Pittsburgh and West Virginia.

According to Conference USA bylaws, UCF, SMU and Houston would not be able to compete in the Big East until 2013, CUSA spokeswoman Courtney Archer said. Those teams would also have to pay a $500,000 exit fee and relinquish about $6.13 million in television revenue.

Mountain West bylaws won't stand in the way of Boise State or Air Force leaving immediately, but they would have to relinquish this year's revenue, plus pay either $5 million or double the revenue, whichever is greater.

If Boise State makes it to the Bowl Championship Series this season, it could cost as much as $21 million for the Broncos to jump to the Big East in 2012. But getting access to an automatic BCS bid, something neither the MWC nor CUSA has, is what Boise State and most schools are chasing these days.

The MWC and CUSA have announced a football merger they hope will land it BCS automatic bid.

The Big East has that, at least through the 2013 season, and hopes its latest incarnation can keep it ? and be attractive enough to television networks to land a billion-dollar deal similar to what the other automatic-qualifying BCS leagues have signed in recent years.

"(Former Commissioner) Mike Tranghese reinvented the conference in 1990 by creating a football element in order to service its members at the time," Marinatto said. "We reinvented it again in 2003 and created the biggest and most diverse conference in the country. And now because of all these circumstances, we're reinventing it a fourth time."

____

AP Sports Writers Dan Gelston in Philadelphia and Associated Press writer Kyle Hightower in Orlando, Fla., contributed to this report.

___

Follow Ralph D. Russo at www.Twitter.com/ralphDrussoAP

Associated Press

Source: http://hosted2.ap.org/APDEFAULT/347875155d53465d95cec892aeb06419/Article_2011-11-01-FBC-Big-East-Expansion/id-8c62ae60445a4c4d8790eb6461950f6e

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Perry Yeatman: It's Not Easy but Businesses Can Benefit From Public-Private Partnerships (PPPs)

[unable to retrieve full-text content]PPPs are all the rage these days. And with good reason. Done right, they are probably the best chance we have for tackling some of the toughest societal issues we're facing.

Source: http://www.huffingtonpost.com/perry-yeatman/its-not-easy-but-business_b_1066253.html

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Senate passes $182B spending bill (AP)

WASHINGTON ? The Senate has approved must-do legislation to fund the day-to-day budgets of five Cabinet agencies, kick-starting long overdue work to add the details to budget limits agreed to by President Barack Obama and congressional Republicans this summer.

The bipartisan 69-30 vote came on a $182 billion bundle of three bills to fund programs including transportation, space exploration, housing subsidies and the FBI for the 2012 budget year that started a month ago.

Under the budget pact enacted in August, lawmakers have to cut about $7 billion ? or less than 1 percent ? from the more than $1 trillion budgeted last year for the daily operations of federal agencies. Such cuts are too small for tea party conservatives but would come in addition to savings from benefit programs like farm subsidies and Medicare expected from a deficit "supercommittee" later this month.

The budget limits, however, mean large cuts to programs like community development grants to local governments and subsidies for cities and towns for new equipment and less for the hiring of additional police officers. Highway funding would be held at last year's levels, save for $1.9 billion in emergency help for states to rebuild from natural disasters.

Overall, the legislation holds agency budgets like the FBI and the U.S. Marshals Service mostly flat relative to last year. The retirement of the Space Shuttle allowed NASA to absorb a cut of $509 million, or 3 percent, while Section 8 housing subsidies for the poor would get a $663 million increase, or about 2 percent.

Tuesday's vote was a step forward for the moribund appropriations process on Capitol Hill.

While the so-called deficit supercommittee is deadlocked over taxes, the once-powerful appropriators on Capitol Hill ? responsible for everything from funding the Pentagon to making sure the Department of Agriculture has enough meat inspectors ? have been stuck as well, victims of a tea party revolt and disputes among congressional leaders.

At issue are 12 annual spending bills that used to consume months of lawmakers' time. Instead, not a single one has been completed and signed into law a month into the 2012 budget year. House leaders have pulled the plug after passing six of the 12 bills; The Senate's passage of three bills bundled into one will bring that chamber's total to four completed measures.

Top lawmakers admit that the original goal of wrapping things up by Thanksgiving isn't going to happen. The new goal is to complete Congress' work by Christmas, but even that goal could prove difficult. It'll take a stopgap spending measure in coming weeks to buy more time.

The 2012 bills follow up a hard-fought compromise between Obama and House Republicans in April, an accommodation that carved almost $40 billion from agency budgets for 2010, which were enacted when Democrats controlled Congress.

But this year's cycle of spending bills has been interrupted by an unusual dynamic: the August mid-course agreement, which has paved the way for Senate action while making it more difficult to pass the remaining bills through the tea party-driven House.

In the House, more than 50 tea party lawmakers still back a GOP spending "cap" that's $24 billion less than House Speaker John Boehner and Obama agreed to in August as part of hard-fought legislation to increase the government's ability to borrow.

But without the support of tea party lawmakers, it would take Democratic votes to pass most of the bills, which has created heartburn for GOP leaders because it means the bills would have to be largely scrubbed of items offensive to Democrats like policy "riders" on the environment and labor regulations. That's an unappetizing prospect for Republican leaders and it appears to be the main reason why the remaining six bills haven't come to the House floor for votes.

Meanwhile, Senate action was held up until the August agreement. In addition, plans to advance some of the legislation in September ? and even earlier ? were scrapped as Republicans and Democrats quarreled over disaster aid and Obama's jobs package.

Source: http://us.rd.yahoo.com/dailynews/rss/obama/*http%3A//news.yahoo.com/s/ap/20111101/ap_on_go_co/us_congress_spending

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New side-scrolling game, Ghostie for iPhone, now available

Ghostie is a new side-scrolling iPhone game that has got me hooked. In this game, you must help the little square-shaped ghost, Ghostie, get past various obstacles and pits to complete each level. The screen is constantly scrolling and you have only one control – jump. I...

Source: http://feedproxy.google.com/~r/TheIphoneBlog/~3/xtlNuwP_1ls/

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'Immortals' Mondays: Moving In God Speed

"Immortals" is just two weeks away from hitting theaters, but if we were able to move in God Speed, we'd be at that November 11 release date a whole lot quicker.
I'm talking about the speed with which Zeus, Poseidon and the other immortal powers of Olympus move against their adversaries, the Titans, in the [...]

Source: http://moviesblog.mtv.com/2011/10/31/immortals-mondays-moving-in-god-speed/

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