Artificial Intelligence Books

Anyone familiar with Ray Kurzweil and/or the notion of the Singularity will not be surprised by this book. The difference between Mulhall and other technological prophets is the degree of detail. Actually, the book should have been expanded into two - the first covering background and possible trends, the second dealing with societal and individual reaction and responses to this coming future.

It is a truism but the wild blue yonder never seems wild or blue or so yonder. What we now casually accept as part of everyday life - the ability to communicate with anyone at anytime, the abundance of free knowledge, the vast capabilities of computers, machines without moving parts, the merging of radio, camera, computer and telephone into a single device - this would have seemed almost miraculous even 15 years ago. I have an idea that a future in which we can have whatever we want through nanotech is still a long way off. The problem is two fold: How will such power be controlled and who will do the controlling.

This is yet another opportunity for increasing the authority of the State when, on the face of it, these creations should lead to individual empowerment. The best parts were the technical discussions, what will or will not be possible, when and how all this will come about. The preachy parts were the worst and should have been in another book. When I see the word "should" as in "what we should do is" I feel a warning. Perhaps the most poignant warning was an event that is today occurring: The forgetting of culture and the past. It seems as if our new technology has made all things new without any reference to the past. Like the Hopi (his example), we may once remember this society by our leftovers. The discussion on democracy was good but not nearly extensive enough. If we are to maintain any notion of individual worth, privacy, "rights" and community, this problem must be dealt with even as we advance. My grade: B

If I had to sum up the main theme of this work, I would say it's about preservation of the human species. A large portion of this work is devoted to how humans (or our progeny) can avoid extinction by natural and man-made disaster. All other discussions seem to lead to this point in one form or another. The author believes that the underlying technologies in the title can and perhaps will provide for our salvation if we play our cards right.

The author has done his research and has a large source of information to draw from. This book gives the reader a good overview of real scientific advancements as well as other insights from prominent leaders and theorists in these fields. There are ample notes and anecdotes to give the reader the option to pursue more detailed information on the topics.

A few parts of the book drag due to some repetitiveness and some of the discussions don't appear to have a firm scientific base and don't seem too plausible, especially if you have decent scientific knowledge in the particular subject. If you are a scientist or engineer with some expertise in the fields you may find that some theories lack a firm foundation. However one theme that comes with the author's optimism is that throughout history, even the most prominent experts have been proven wrong through natural progressions and even breakthroughs!

This work is not incredibly deep or profound though quite entertaining and at times it appears to feel more like a novel than a documentary of the future. It is suitable for readers of all walks of life.

I have just finished reading this book, and i must say wow! This is a amazing read from start to end. The book goes over what Nanotechnology is now, and what possiblities are there in the future. I would recommend this book to anyone who is interested in reading about Nanotechnology.

If there is a better book that can get one up to speed on the ramifications of nanotechnology, then I'd like to know about it.

The media does a poor job on covering nanotechnology. Forget the media; read this book instead.

The author was on the Art Bell show recently. Three hours was not enough time to do this book and subject justice.

Art Bell fans will love this book. It covers many of the catastrophe scenarios that Art and George Noory talk about.

Art and George spend little time talking about nanotechnology. Again, read this book and you'll enjoy their next show on nanotechnology even more.

If you believe this book, then nanotechnology will change your life like nothing that has ever come before.

It's like reading a science fiction novel, only minus the fiction.

For optimists and those who find life in the 21st century a complete source of exhiliration, and for those who are indulging themselves in the dizzying pace of technological advancement, this book is sheer delight. Speculative in some points, and gaurded in others, the author has written a book that takes the reader through a future that is not far distant, and a future that is now. Genetic engineering, artificial intelligence, nanoscale computing, and robotics are here, right now, and advances in these areas show every sign of being explosive.

The author asks us to imagine a conversation between a farmer in the year 1899 and a person who rolls up in an early automobile. The driver tells the farmer what is ahead in the next decades, such as playing golf on the moon, his children being able to drive themselves faster than a locomotive, his cows milked using machines, etc. The author then replays the same conversation but with a farmer of the year 2001, he automobile is replaced by a flying car: golf will be played on Mars, and egg hatcheries will be designed by computers that do a better job then humans, agriculture will be replaced by food synthesizers, etc. With these hypothetical conversations, the author asks us to take stock in our skepticism that the future he outlines in the book it too far-fetched.

He is certainly correct in his reasoning. There are too many instances of "famous last words" when it comes to the future of a particular technological development. If one takes cognizance of the many developments that are now occuring simultaneously, it would be hard to tell exactly which ones are going to prevail. For example, when it comes to the enhancement of human capabilities, I see a competition between genetic engineering and artificial intelligence arising in the future. Both are strategies to improve human mental and physical capabilities, but are essentially different ways of course to meet these ends. The marketplace, and not government, will hopefully determine the outcome of this competition, but it, may disappear entirely if new methodologies, up to this time unknown, dilute the efficacy of these approaches.

In addition, human factors engineering, which is not really emphasized in the book, may determine the outcome of particular technologies. Voice recognition and command in computers for example, may be too annoying to actually employ in the workplace, if open cubicle environments are still in place. The resulting noise level of everyone talking to their computers might be too irritating. Federal and state health requirements also have a repressive influence on the employing of new technology. With the growing hostility towards genetic engineering, governments will be stepping up their regulations and this might dampen the ever-growing amplitude of 21st century development.

The author is aware of these attitudes towards technology, and so he attempts to offer a different sort of justification for employing them, particularly nanotechnology. Much space in the book is devoted to the use of this to combat natural disasters, such as asteroids, earthquakes, tornadoes, tsunamies, and radical climate changes. Many of his proposals for using nanotechnology to do this are interesting, such as "utility fog", which allows material objects to change shape at arbitrary time scales, food fabrication using molecular biosynthesis and robotic replenishment, and the intelligent product system (IPS), which allows maximal compatibility with the environment. In addition, the author envisions the deployment of millions of nanosatellites that will probe the solar system in order to find rogue asteroids that threaten our planet. Once found, the asteroid will be dissassembled layer by layer to a size that nullifies its threat. The residue will then be used as raw materials for space-based colonies.

The author is also realistic in his appraisal of just what it is going to take from a financial perspective to develop the technology which he envisions. Such developments can be accomplished, and the financial and time scales involved, coupled with the physical dimensions of the technology, are the justification for his optimism. He does not use "inevitability" arguments to justify future technology developments, but instead realizes, correctly, that such developments are subject to human volition. We can halt or move forward, the choice being completely our own.

Robo sapiens, Robo servers, and Homo provectus, may be on the way the author states. He asks us if we are ready, and he asks us to consider the answers to the employment of new technologies ourselves, and not leave it up to our government or religious leaders, who themselves are explaining it to us inadequately, he argues. Religious institutions are centuries behind, companies are selling products and services but are not structured to serve our interests, and scientists are too involved in their projects to consider how their discoveries will impact human life on Earth.

The author encourages the reader to get involved, or invent, institutions or strategies that will mesh with the technological advances that are confronting each one of us. I cannot speak for the author here, but he seems to be incredibly optimisitic. This is refreshing, for this indeed is the most exciting time to be alive. We should all constantly attempt to improve ourselves and others with the knowledge we have available. With genetic engineering, artificial intelligence, highly sophisticated mathematics, robotics, and nanotechnology, we have precisely the right instruments, at precisely the right time, to participate in and build the greatest century yet for the human species...

The book is OK. from a student's perspective, the book is not interesting. Unless is assigned by the course instructor it would sit in my bookcase and collect dust.

This is a very accessible textbook that does a good job of covering the basics of all aspects of the design of virtual reality systems. This textbook can be roughly divided into three parts. The first four chapters describe input devices, output devices, and computer architectures for virtual reality, and are useful for engineers studying the design of hardware devices used in virtual reality systems. Usually, hardware sections of VR textbooks gloss over techical details in exchange for essay-like descriptions, but this book does a pretty good job of describing the hardware in enough detail that most engineers can grasp what makes the hardware function and figure out how to duplicate the various hardware sections of a VR design. Although many of the ready-made systems in the section on computer architecture are obsolete, such as the SGI and Sun systems, the overall architecture of computers shown that assist in Virtual Reality systems is not obsolete, and this section of the book is therefore still useful.

The next three chapters discuss modeling, VR programming, and human factors in VR. These are primarily of interest to the computer scientist whose area of research is virtual environments. The programming sections focus on the WorldToolKit and Java3D. These sections illustrate the kinds of tasks that can be accomplished with these programming environments/APIs and even show some code snippets. However, these sections are not a tutorial on these languages. For that you will need outside sources that specialize on teaching you the specific programming languages and environments.

The final two chapters are on the application of virtual reality, and should be of interest to anyone who wishes to become knowledgeable about the design of virtual reality systems and the tasks that such systems can perform. Although much of these last two chapters is written in more of an essay style, they don't abandon all technical details, and they have some pretty good descriptions and block diagrams showing VR being applied to robotics, for example.

The book's CD includes video clips that demonstrate virtual reality simulations as well as a six chapter lab manual for students to demonstrate their skill in designing and especially programming various functions of a VR system. Highly recommended for the student who is getting started in studying virtual reality and wants to learn about the hardware and software that comprise VR systems. Since the CD's lab manual is a book in itself, I list its table of contents here since that information is not available with the other product information:

1. Introduction to VRML and Java 3D
Objectives
1.1 Overview of the VRML language
1.2 The VRML Browser
1.3 Examples of VRML Worlds
1.4 The Basic VRML Syntax
1.5 Objects Creation in VRML
1.6 Introduction to Java 3D [Advanced]
1.7 VRML and Java 3D [Advanced]
Homework
Project 1.0 Install a VRML Browser
Project 1.1 Create a Simple VRML World
Project 1.2 Load VRML files in Java 3D [Advanced]

2. Sensor and Event Processing
Objectives
2.1 Route and Event Processing
2.2 Sensor Nodes
2.3 Interpolators in VRML
2.4 Creating Objects in Java 3D [Advanced]
2.5 Event Scheduling in Java 3D [Advanced]
2.6 Interpolators in Java 3D [Advanced]
2.7 Sensors in Java 3D [Advanced]
2.8 Hardware Device Interface in Java [Advanced]
Homework
Project 2.1 Interaction using Sensor Nodes
Project 2.2 Simple Interaction in Java3D [Advanced]
Project 2.3 Behavior in Java3D [Advanced]
Project 2.4 Interaction using a 3D Tracker [Advanced]

3. VRML and Java Script
Objectives
3.1 Programming in VRML
3.2 Script Node in VRML
3.3 Event Processing in a VRML file for scripting
3.4 A Scripting Example using JavaScript
3.5 A Scripting Example using Java [Advanced]
3.6 Stereoscopic Viewing using StereoEyes Glasses
Homework
Project 3.1 Trajectory of a Bouncing Ball in JavaScript
Project 3.2 Test Stereoscopic View with different parameters
Project 3.3 VRML Loader with Stereoscopic view [Advanced]

4. Scene Hierarchy, Geometry and Texture
Objectives
4.1 Scene Hierarchy in VRML
4.2 Constructing a Hierarchical Object: The Snowman
4.3 Geometry nodes in VRML
4.4 Extended geometry node details
4.5 Textures in VRML
4.6 Geometry in Java 3D [Advanced]
4.7 Texture Mapping in Java 3D [Advanced]
Homework
Project 4.1 Create a Hierarchical hand model
Project 4.2 Creating a Garden in VRML
Project 4.3 Human-like Robot in Java 3D [Advanced]

5. VRML PROTO and Glove Devices
Objectives
5.1 Creating a New Node in VRML
5.2 An Example of Prototyping in VRML
5.3 The New Node for Device Interface in VRML
5.4 Data acquisition and calibration of the 5DTgloveTM [Advanced]
Homework
Project 5.1 Glove Calibration
Project 5.2 Human-like Robot
Project 5.3 Glove Calibration and Hand Animation [Advanced]

6. Viewpoint Control, Sound and Haptic Effects
Objectives
6.1 Navigation and Its Control
6.2 Using 3D Sound in VRML
6.3 Creating Force Feedback Joystick interface [Advanced]
Homework
Project 6.1 Viewpoint Control using Glove Data
Project 6.2 Force Feedback Joystick Interaction in Java 3D [Advanced]
Resources
References

Appendix
A.1 Available Java 3D Loaders
A.2 A JNI Example Program for Polhemus
A.3 Combining VRML world in HTML Documents
A.4 Configuration of the system to see Stereoscopic view using StereoEyes
A.5 Example Grading Policy for Project 3-1 Bouncing Ball
A.6 An Example of Final Project Assignment (Requirement)
A.7 A Sample Sheet for VR Final Project Grading

Dr. Grigore Burdea and Dr. Philippe Coiffet have years of experience in the field of virtual reality, and Virtual Reality Technology reflects their combined expertise to the benefit of all. I used the first edition as a required textbook in my undergraduate and graduate virtual reality courses for many years, almost from the time it was published in 1994. I am now going to use the second edition in my classes.

Instructors in need of a textbook for undergraduate or graduate introductory virtual reality courses, students looking for a guide to the field of VR, persons interested in knowing something about the current state of virtual reality, and practitioners, researchers, and businesses involved in VR, will all find this a must-have book.

Like the first edition of Virtual Reality Technology, the second edition is a book that provides an enormous amount of information. Because of its coverage of all the important areas of VR, it is the perfect textbook. The inclusion of a CD-ROM, which contains well-chosen video clips and a laboratory manual with programming assignments, adds to the book's usefulness for students. The manual uses VRML and Java 3D languages, which are free and thus reduce the cost of creating VR teaching laboratories in connection with the book.

The book includes mathematical and technical background and explanations, for courses that need that information. As a further aid to instructors and students, this textbook edition has review questions at the end of each chapter. Rounding out the list of valuable teaching aids, there is a companion website for instructors at http://www.vrtechnology.org with additional teaching material, such as sample term projects, quiz and exam examples, and lecture notes.

As a highly satisfied user of the first edition with many VR classes, I can wholeheartedly recommend the second edition of Virtual Reality Technology.

Dr. Veronica S. Pantelidis, Distinguished Professor, Co-Director, Virtual Reality and Education Laboratory, East Carolina University, Greenville, North Carolina USA

The 1st edition of "Virtual Reality Technology" by Burdea and Coiffet quickly established itself in a twin role as a basic VR teaching text, and an essential laboratory reference manual. Given the high rate of change in this field, this 2nd edition is well overdue, but it has to be said that it has been worth the wait.

The book has the potential to attract diverse audience from students (and instructors), to the non-VR professionals, and VR professional wishing to keep abreast of the state of the art outside their core domain. Undoubtedly this book has something for everyone, but the text (and its support materials) is particularly geared to the needs of the student and the instructor. I have to say that in this teaching role the book, the CD and the web site provide almost unparalleled support with each chapter providing comprehensive details of the relevant technologies and concluding with sample questions. This is supported by a well-organised web site with course material, exam questions, samples and quizzes. To use this site, instructor registration is required with access in less than 24hrs. The registration process is not fully user friendly for non-US and non-academic users but this small misgiving aside this is an excellent method of obtaining first rate lecturing material that can be used exactly as it stands or adapted to purpose. And still there is more! - in the form of a CD-ROM, which contains video clips to augment the text and a laboratory manual with programming assignments. Most of the video material is excellent and very instructive although some is little more than a commercial promotional video with uncritical appraisal. Nevertheless this whole concept is to be applauded. One minor point with the movies is the range of formats used (Avi, QuickTime, Real Media, and Mpeg) which does not suit all computers and their loaded software. The manual provided within the CD-ROM uses VRML and Java 3D languages, and also includes drivers and hardware manuals for several well-known devices all of which improves the educational content of the book.

Turning to consider the book, its content and layout in some detail, we see that early in the book the authors identify what they consider to be the key aspects of a "VR system architecture". At the start of each chapter they then highlight the position of the chapter material within this architecture. This simple mechanism clearly shows where each aspect of the technology is located in the bigger picture.

The introductory chapter deals primarily with a history of VR, showing some of the earliest systems, but also speculating on growth trends and the potential of the technology. This is an interesting but generally lightweight chapter and perhaps the only area with which I was a little disappointed.

Chapters 2,3,and 4 consider the system hardware, with chapters 2 and 3 concentrating on input/output hardware and chapter 4 focusing of the computer platforms. I found this very logically written and presented, providing an excellent overview, and in most instances good detail of the hardware and it operation. Given the number of devices highlighted it could be argued that there is insufficient detail and while this may be true for the expert reader I feel that it is well rounded to suit the student reader. At this same time the extensive list of references available at the end of each chapter should satisfy many of the demands of the expert. In chapter 4 dealing with the platforms, I was pleased to see that considerable effort has focused on the PC based systems which are becoming increasingly powerful and acceptable both to the public and commercial/professional user. Although the technology at this end of the market changes and dates so quickly the importance of this format makes it a valuable addition.

In chapter 5 dealing with modelling the authors explain; the difference between, the use of, and advantages with, different modelling techniques including polygon-based and NURBS-based models and the principles of physical modelling, behavioural modelling, and database management. There is no doubt that the content of this chapter will stretch those coming into the area with limited mathematical knowledge while perhaps falling short for those with specialist modelling requirements. Getting the right blend for the novice student and expert reader is always going to be difficult. Nonetheless, I believe that the blend achieved suits a wide (the widest) range of audience.

The sixth chapter considers programming and while not a programmers manual per se offers excellent explanations of the key limitations, advantages and quirks of some of the better known programming languages. Having studied this the reader is left in the position where they now possess the basic knowledge to consider some serious VR programming and this is no mean achievement given all the other content of the book.

A user's perspective is presented in chapter 7 looking at the human factors Unlike many texts which deal only with visual interaction quality, this book covers a wide range of effects including the nature of the input interface and multiple interactions with objects and other humans. This chapter not only explains the value of human factors studies, it actually gives a fairly complete explanation of how they are conducted. The chapter concludes with a discussion of health and safety issues including the causes and prevention of simulation sickness.

The final two chapters focus on the applications. Given the number of applications that are or have been developed and the natural bias of any reader, getting the right blend will never be easy or perhaps even possible. Nonetheless, the authors have tried and largely succeeded in identifying the key generic areas where VR is having or is likely to have an impact. It would be all to easy to nit pick over the exact choice which will never be to everyone's liking, but there is a good blend of current medical, entertainment and military uses followed by a brief exploration of emerging application trends.

Dr. Grigore Burdea and Dr. Philippe Coiffet have years of experience in the field of virtual reality, and Virtual Reality Technology reflects their combined expertise, to the benefit of all. I used the first edition as a required textbook in my undergraduate and graduate virtual reality courses for many years, almost from the time it was published in 1994. I am now going to use the second edition in my classes.

Instructors in need of a textbook for undergraduate or graduate introductory virtual reality courses, students looking for a guide to the field of VR, persons interested in knowing something about the current state of virtual reality, and practitioners, researchers, and businesses involved in VR, will all find this a must-have book.

Like the first edition of Virtual Reality Technology, the second edition is a book that provides an enormous amount of information. Because of its coverage of all the important areas of VR, it is the perfect textbook. The inclusion of a CD-ROM, which contains well-chosen video clips and a laboratory manual with programming assignments, adds to the book's usefulness for students. The manual uses VRML and Java 3D languages, which are free and thus reduce the cost of creating VR teaching laboratories in connection with the book.

The book includes mathematical and technical background and explanations, for courses that need that information. As a further aid to instructors and students, this textbook edition has review questions at the end of each chapter. Rounding out the list of valuable teaching aids, there is a companion website for instructors at http://www.vrtechnology.org with additional teaching material, such as sample term projects, quiz and exam examples, and lecture notes.

As a highly satisfied user of the first edition with many VR classes, I can wholeheartedly recommend the second edition of Virtual Reality Technology.

Dr. Veronica S. Pantelidis, Distinguished Professor, Co-Director, Virtual Reality and Education Laboratory, East Carolina University, Greenville, North Carolina USA

The first two thirds of this book survey current knowledge of AI and make some guesses about when and how it will take off. This part is more eloquent than most books on similar subjects, and its somewhat different from normal perspective makes it worth reading if you are reading several books on the subject. But ease of reading is the only criterion by which this section stands out as better than competing books.
The last five chapters that are surprisingly good, and should shame most professional philosophers whose writings by comparison are a waste of time.
His chapter on consciousness, qualia, and related issues is more concise and persuasive than anything else I've read on these subjects. It's unlikely to change the opinions of people who have already thought about these subjects, but it's an excellent place for people who are unfamiliar with them to start.
His discussions of ethics using game theory and evolutionary pressures is an excellent way to frame ethical discussions.
My biggest disappointment was that he starts to recognize a possibly important risk of AI when he says "disparities among the abilities of AIs ... could negate the evolutionary pressure to reciprocal altruism", but then seems to dismiss that thoughtlessly ("The notion of one single AI taking off and obtaining hegemony over the whole world by its own efforts is ludicrous").
He probably has semi-plausible grounds for dismissing some of the scenarios of this nature that have been proposed (e.g. the speed at which some people imagine an AI would take off is improbable). But if AIs with sufficiently general purpose intelligence enhance their intelligence at disparate rates for long enough, the results would render most of the book's discussion of ethics irrelevant. The time it took humans to accumulate knowledge didn't give Neanderthals much opportunity to adapt. Would the result have been different if Neanderthals had learned to trade with humans? The answer is not obvious, and probably depends on Neanderthal learning abilities in ways that I don't know how to analyze.
Also, his arguments for optimism aren't quite as strong as he thinks. His point that career criminals are generally of low intelligence is reassuring if the number of criminals is all that matters. But when the harm done by one relatively smart criminal can be very large (e.g. Mao), it's hard to say that the number of criminals is all that matters.
Here's a nice quote from Mencken which this book quotes part of:
Moral certainty is always a sign of cultural inferiority. The more uncivilized the man, the surer he is that he knows precisely what is right and what is wrong. All human progress, even in morals, has been the work of men who have doubted the current moral values, not of men who have whooped them up and tried to enforce them. The truly civilized man is always skeptical and tolerant, in this field as in all others. His culture is based on 'I am not too sure.'
Another interesting tidbit is the anecdote that H.G. Wells predicted in 1907 that flying machines would be built. In spite of knowing a lot about attempts to build them, he wasn't aware that the Wright brothers had succeeded in 1903.
If an AI started running in 2003 that has accumulated the knowledge of a 4-year old human and has the ability to continue learning at human or faster speeds, would we have noticed? Or would the reports we see about it sound too much like the reports of failed AIs for us to pay attention?

It's hard to express how much I am enjoying this book. The writing style is very active-voice and lucid. I'm sure there's a really good editor somewhere in this mix, but not even the best editor can rehabilitate turgid prose (witness the prose we all have to slog through in the vast majority of books on technical subjects). The editor of this book probably had the opposite problem: how not to get in the author's expository way.

I don't know the author personally, but I can tell you this about him: he is truly educated. In the classical tradition. By that I mean he has not only been a student of things technical, he has been a student of great writing, poetry, social science, economics, politics and more. It's not that he attempts to parade his knowledge in these areas; rather, it's that his strong liberal arts education, very naturally, simply permeates his expository style. More than that, he has the rare ability to present complex topics in a way that any curious reader can comprehend. Isaac Asimov, R. Buckmister Fuller, Richard Feynman, Freeman Dyson and Carl Sagan are the writers of which the author reminds me. And, like the erudite writers in that list, it is quite obvious that the author is truly interested (dare I say fascinated?) in the subject about which he is writing. His enthusiasm is contagious. Above all, he wants you to "get it."

I don't think I've read a book that was written this well and inspired me intellectually this much since I read R. Buckmister Fuller's "Utopia or Oblivion" back in 1968. That book changed my life. Now, forty years later, I find another book that is so well written and intellectually provocative that it may just change my life again. This is a fascinating book. You must read it. Seriously. J. Storrs Hall is the Robert Ludlum of non-fiction. The only time I put this book down is when I'm driving because I'm pretty sure reading and driving at the same time is illegal in my state. I'm even reading it while I write this (OK, that's not true - but you get my point).

This book is a ripping good read. It'll tickle your neurons until they cry out for mercy.

Before attempting to build the consciousness machine author must provide a proof that such phenomena is existing.
So far no one was able to find specific properties of that taught up phenomena.
We could blindly believe in it existence in every day life, but scientific research required proof that its subject is present.

Michael Zeldich

BEYOND AI: CREATING THE CONSCIENCE OF THE MACHINE discusses both the scientific and the ethical challenges of artificial intelligence, which is advancing so quickly that it holds vast potential for quickly changing everyday human life - as vast as the Internet's realm. Computers are already capable of driving cars, playing soccer and organizing Web information: but if machine intelligence comes to rival human intelligence, will it eventually overcome humanity? This and other questions are addressed by a computer scientist who surveys achievements, potentials, and accompanying social challenges, making it a fine pick not just for libraries strong in computer studies, but for college-level and even general-interest holdings equally strong in social science.

At some point we will realize all the chatter we hear about "I don't want things to change" or "I'll never augment my mind or body" or "Maybe we'll return to the good old days" is just that - enpty chatter. There is no turning back from that wondrous, terrifying future and the remarkable element about this whole discussion (as noted in the book) is the incredibly short time it has taken to arrive at this plateau. Starting with simple instinctal behavior, humans began to augment themselves - through culture, rough tools, domesticated animals and then reworking nature itself. The Industrial Age accelerated this push and now, 300 years later, we are on the cusp of an undefinable, magical future.

This is a fascinating read - in fact it should be a must read. We are not in the realm of science fiction any more and anyone who follows the daily "Kurzweil Technology Advancement Board" (my own term) realizes that the rate of advancement is ever-increasing almost daily as one discovery leads to an invention that allows yet another discovery - the wheel turns endlessly. What I especially liked were the serious discussions without exaggeration or wish-fulfillment, conservative time frames and realistic expectations. Implicit to any discussion of AI is an assessment of its past. One of the most informative parts of the whole book was the history of AI which is as much an evolution of ideas as it is technique, methods and machinery. We have gone form hoping AI could mimic humans to expecting it to surpass humankind. We read about both "hard" and "soft" AI, software and then that most important subject - the human qualities of AI.

This last area may prove the most difficult in both design and concept since human opinions are both universal and individualistic and human emotions are nebulous. Those emotions may be - as the fundamentalist Darwinisns insist - simplay a result of trillions of "yes/no" switches but they interplay with our health, location, past events, future expectations, primal urges and societal forces. Our sense of morality derives from distinctly human edifices - culture, society, family and religion. Where would conscious machines learn morality? Will machines know that lying and disguise are a primary component of being human, of existing in the world. The problem is that we cannot conceive of what hyper intelligence thinks or even the dizzying pathways it employs for thinking or even if it "thinks" at all.

There is an unnamed fear, the unspoken elephant in the room. If the Universe is teeming with life as many suggest and if sentience exists elsewhere than Earth, why haven't we seen evidence? Societies millions of years older should be traveling galazies, building wormholes, harnessing the very forces of the universe yet the continual silence and lack of anything remotely intelligent indicates we are the first. The alternative is more frightening - they surpassed their own "humanity" and by doing so, ensured their own extinction. Apparently even the machines vanished as well. It is a lesson we will only recognize on hindsight. My Grade - A

Profound piece of work. I am not a cognitive scientist, and this book is a bit technical, but it is still within reach of the motivated lay person.

Gardenfors puts forward a a model to explain cognition that he calls "conceptual spaces." These conceptual spaces are at a level of abstraction in between the symbolic (used by AI types) and connectionist (Neural Nets). But what makes his conceptual spaces interesting and plausible is the position he takes that in this conceptual space, most reasoning is done by evaluating the analog of a distance between two aspects of a perception. Or, we find things to be similar if they are "geometrically" (measurably) closer on some limited number of dimensional scales.

This is easy to follow for things like colors, but he doesn't stop there. He goes on to describe how this explains a wide variety of perceptions, as well as how we form and reform categories and concepts, and shows how this informs semantics and the process of induction.

My only criticism is that some of the illustratios would have been more powerful in color.

If one is to design a machine that can formulate concepts and engage in such things as inductive inference and its corollary scientific discovery, then one must be able to quantify the notion of a concept in such a way that it can be implemented into the cognitive structure of the machine. One must be able to distinguish one concept from another, be able to tell when one concept is similar to another, and understand in detail how concepts are related across domains. It would not be enough to have qualitative notions of these distinctions or similarities, since they must be able to be formatted in such a way, either via coding, language, or electronically, so as to be used by the machine.

This book gives an interesting approach to the problem of concept classification, but it does so only from a qualitative point of view. It is a good start in this regard, and readers will gain a lot of insight into the problems that it addresses. It does not however give any advice on how to implement its ideas into a real thinking machine. Mathematical concepts are brought in order to talk more meaningfully about spaces of concepts, but they are really restricted to metric spaces and not general enough to deal with the plethora of concepts that could present themselves in typical environments. The book should be considered more as a work in philosophy, so those interested in this field might enjoy the book more than those who were expecting a book more geared towards artificial intelligence and computer science. Those readers interested in automated theorem proving or automated mathematical discovery might find the discussion on geometric categorization models of interest, and will find an interesting application of Voronoi tessellations, namely that of accounting for the varying sizes of concepts in a categorization.

By far the most interesting chapter in the book is chapter 6, wherein the author gives a highly original discussion of inductive inference. The ability of human cognition to generalize from a limited number of observations is viewed (correctly) by the author as very impressive, but he is careful to note that inductive inference cannot be done free of side constraints. Quoting the philosopher J.S. Peirce and his evolutionary explanation of why induction is so effective, the author uses his theory of conceptual spaces to develop a theory of constraints for inductive inferences. The main notion in this theory is that of "projectability", which attempts to delineate the properties and concepts that are may be used in inductive inference. The author wants to arrive at a computational model of induction, and he offers interesting proposals for doing so, even if they lack immediate empirical justification.

Central to the problem of induction the author argues is how observations are to be represented. This has been neglected in the history of philosophy he says, and so he then proceeds to outline his ideas on how to represent observations, distinguishing three levels, namely the `symbolic', the `conceptual', and the `subconceptual.' At the symbolic level, observations are represented by describing them in a specified language. At the conceptual level, observations are characterized relative to a conceptual space. At this level induction is viewed as concept formation. At the subconceptual level observations are characterized by inputs from sensory receptors. Induction is then viewed as the attaining of connections between various inputs. The author views the processing taking place in artificial neural networks as an example of modeling at the subconceptual level.

The problem of induction is more complicated than is typically presented in the literature, the author argues. Inductive inference will look different depending on which approach to observations is taken. In his elaborations on the processes of induction, one of the key issues that arises is the how discovery takes place across different domains. The process of conceptualizing across different domains takes place, as expected, at the subconceptual and conceptual levels. The symbolic level is delegated to formulating laws.

The essence of conceptual spaces, as I understand it, is that we can define concepts as regions in conceptual spaces. A conceptual space is defined by axes representing qualities. For example, color spaces are conceptual spaces, as is the tasting combos of sweet, bitter, salty.

Your choice of qualitative measures deeply affects how you understand the world. 'Spose reality is an infinitely dimensional, then we have lots of choices for axes. We simplify and correlate by using all that coordinate transformation and axis projection stuff from 3D graphics! Heck Gardenfors even uses Delauney Triangulation (or polyhedralization).

Criterion P, page 71

A natural property is a convex region of a domain in a conceptual space.

Criterion C, page 105

A natural concept is represented as a set of regions in a number of domains together with an assignments of salience weights to the domains and information about how the regions in the different domains are correlated.

Concept Combination, page 122

The combination CD of two concepts C and D is determined by letting the regions for the domains of C, confined by D replace the values of the corresponding regions for D. (contrast class p. 119), for example the "stone lions" outside the NYC library.

Six Tenets of Cognitive Semantics, page 160

i) Meaning is a conceptual structure in a cognitive system (not truth conditions in possible worlds)
ii) Conceptual Structure are embodied (meaning is not independent of perception or of bodily experience).
iii) Semantic elements are constructed from geometrical or topological structures (not symbols that can be composed according to some system of rules).
iv) Cognitive models are primarily image-schematic (not propositional). Image-schemas are transformed by metaphoric and metonymic operations (which are treated as exceptional features on the traditional views).
v) Semantics is primary to syntax and partly determines it (syntax cannot be described independently of semantics).
vi) Concepts show prototype effects (instead of showing the Aristotelian paradigm based on necessary and sufficient conditions).

Process of Abstraction, page 191 - Start with a collection of things. Identify and quantify individual objects. The determine the clusters. Step three: abstract the clusters into dimensions. Simple!

I especially liked the notion that a metaphor is taking the spatial relationship of a cluster of concepts in one domain and using them in a new domain to help understand the new domain.

Gardenfors introduces his theory of concept-formation, and at the same time presents a survey of the competing theories and research. He shows a high level of professionalism by accepting that the theories can coexist, presenting the competing theories in their strongest light and letting you decide where to apply each theory. This book is not only a good argument for why his theory deserves a permanent place in your toolbox, but also a good education for anyone wanting to know the tradeoffs in representing concepts -- especially for knowledge representation or machine learning systems. He presents the material in a very logical order so that the subtopics can be consumed individually. And although some of the material is well-known, each chapter presents a series of contrasting pros and cons and synthesizes the information in ways that are thought-provoking and novel. It was well worth the time and money.

For anyone interested in the cognitive topics, machine learning and artificial intelligence, this book is an eye opener. The point of view it presents attempts to put an order in what "meaning" really means.

Drawbacks of the book? The lack of conceptualization when it comes to dynamic concepts (treated very superficially). Also, the theory is deficient when modeling the functional aspects of concepts (a "sin" already recognized by the author).

But considering the pioneering character of this piece of art, these drawbacks are just compelling invitations for further research in the field.

This semester I had the honor of taking a class in Broadband and SONET networking concepts with one of the author's of this text, Professor Ahamed. This book was the required reading. The book is dated February 28, 1997 but it could have been released yesterday. The material is as up to date as the current literature that I had surveyed which included some texts from Cisco press.

The difference lies in the material, where a Cisco book may briefly cover optical concepts and jump into Cisco IOS and configuration this book goes deeper and deeper into the scientific realm.

I truly recommend this text to any networking professional, especially one who is working in the Optical realm. For networking professionals this book will bring you to a higher place. You may find however that you may need to read the material more than once.

This book is a must have reference book for any one and every one in the field of Telecommunications. After reading this book, I now have a thorough understanding about theory of transmission systems in general as a subject and very specific to Twisted Wire Pair, Co-axial Cable, Satellite based system and Fiber Optic based system. In my field of design and engineering of Broadband access networks for voice video and data over Cable and DSL, this book helped me in understand all the issues involved with OSI layers 1,2 and 3. This is the only book out in the market that explains the fundamental concepts involved with High Speed transmission over DSL. It triggers new ideas and paradigms. Further more it teaches how to implement the ideas into simulation CAD package. Thanks to Dr. Ahamed and Dr. Lawrence for making this great contribution.

The book entitled " Design and Engineering of Intelligent Communication Systems" by Prof. Syed V. Ahamed (CUNY) and Dr. Victor Lawrence (Bell Labs) is a must read book not only for graduate students in the areas of Computer Science, Electrical and Telecommunications Engineering, but also for engineers and scientists alike.

The book starts by presenting an overview of the existing networks in an evolutionary manner presenting all the facts in detailed manner from an architecture perspective. Topic such as HDSL, ADSL, BR-ISDN, PR-ISDN and fibre optic technology along with system performance issues are treated very well. The physical layer environment and the simulation methods are dealt in an elaborate manner.

This book which is volume 2 of the two volume set, is supplemented with the companion book entitled "Intelligent Broadband Multimedia Networks" which is volume 1.

"Design and Engineering of Intelligent Communication Systems" is the companion book of the first volume "Intelligent Broadband Multimedia Networks". This book is a reference book of choice for many research scientists and network professionals at a well known R&D company like Bell Labs. And I strongly believe that it will still be for the next decade! Prof. Syed Ahamed and Dr. Victor Lawrence in this volume are further detailing the engineering and design aspects of intelligent communications systems. The book elaborates on the new trends in transmission, with emphasis on digital transmission, as well as all type of transmission media, with emphasis on wireless and optical media. Paraphrasing Malraux, communications-wise, this decade will be of glass and air, or it will not be at all!
This book has 5 parts:

- In the first part the architecture and the hierarchy of central offices are presented, the many aspects of FM (Frequency Modulation) is analyzed in all detail, the characteristics and particularities of video and TV networks are underlined, and the main characteristics of current digital networks are presented.

- The second part elaborates on the metallic media for the physical layer. The subscriber loop and especially the DSL (Digital Subscriber Line) and its operational environment are analyzed in great detail.
Also ISDN transmission modes are presented with component considerations like: equalizers, echo cancellers, and overall system design.

- In the third part CAD (Computer Aided Design) and simulation of digital transmission, with emphasis on ISDN and DSL, are explored in considerable detail. Most aspects of network design and optimization of DSL type networks are presented.

- The fourth part presents a systematic and thorough analysis of network performances from PRI ISDN to HDSL to very high speed ATM networks. Further, the concept of "knowledge highway" is introduced and, in this context, the role of the SONET and ATM protocols for evolving networks is presented.

- The fifth, and last part, is an excellent presentation of the optical media and technology, its integration with the metallic media, and its advantages and limitations. Finally the integration of all existing communications networks is analyzed in some detail.

The book has a very high density of useful information, introduces in great detail many new concepts in the field of communications networks, and is intellectually challenging. Always, its systematic way of presentation makes it easy to follow complex technical concepts and their interrelation.
I clearly see this book and its companion first volume "Intelligent Broadband Multimedia Networks" as an excellent support book for graduate courses in communications networks as well as a main reference book for any research scientist as well as other specialists in the field of data- and tele- communications networks.

Other categories of engineering professionals, eager to better understand new emerging communications technologies, could find valuable information in this book and its companion volume.

Design and Engineering of Intelligent Communication Systems by Dr. Ahamed and Dr. Lawrence is an excellent reference book for scientists/researchers and telecommunications professionals. It is also a graduate level textbook. The material covered in this book ranges from an overview of the communication networks to recent and evolving high-speed network environments such as knowledge highways and PC based fiber optic CAD environment. This book is in five parts and eighteen chapters; each part has four chapters except Part II. Part I deals with an overview of the communication facilities. It presents switching and transfer of information in traditional and intelligent networks. It covers carrier concepts- analog and digital carriers as well as Central Office hierarchy in great detail. Each topic is presented with figures and tables. Other topics covered in this part are FM techniques for long haul transmission and video and TV environment. Chapter 4 of Part I is dedicated to current digital networks. It explores functions of digital channel banks. Part II covers the metallic media for the physical layer. It describes the subscriber loops and operational environment in the HDSL. Methodologies for interconnection and exchange of information are discussed. Part III covers metallic media data transmission systems for HDSL, CAD techniques and optimization strategies for basic and primary rates of ISDN systems. This part also discusses the design of fiber optic systems in public and private domain networks, including the most significant aspects of computation for the design and engineering of the DSL, HDSL, and ADSL. Part IV discusses the system performance from very low to very high rates. It discusses data up to and at PRISDN rates. The system performance is extended to all loops under 12 kft, rather than the preselected CSA loops. It also discusses performance of Trellis coding and digital subscriber line (HDSL and ADSL) capacity. Part V deals with the transition to fiber including recent high-speed network environments dealing with SONET, ATM, broadband networks and most aspects of fiber optic networks. Chapters 16-18 in Part V cover the recent global optical networks in great detail.

Both volume 1 and 2 include a wealth of figures and tables as well as telecom acronyms with definitions. They are excellent reference books (with additional readings for more detailed information) as well as textbooks for graduate level courses in telecommunications/intelligent networks.

Intelligent Broadband Multimedia Networks (vol.1) and Design and Engineering of Intelligent Communication Systems (vol.2) were textbooks in two courses I took with Dr. Ahamed who was also my mentor at CUNY, Graduate Center, New York, NY. Both volumes are excellent textbooks for graduate courses.

C.S. Rani, Ph.D.

Rodney, neuroscience explorer, returns from a trek into the unknown chart area, "terra incognita". Consciousness and mind hide there and now this book yields up their secrets and treasures. Well illustrated, apt quotations, written with beautiful expression and constantly rigorous in thought and argument. Science writing now days divides into the noisy and the hidden gems. The first is smart agents, pushy PR and personalities that constantly self promotion but write work that never lives up to its flash and advertising. Would that Pinker was as good as the ads tell us he is. In the second group are those that never get into the stream of success because they are too good natured for the game. But they write the science that is worth reading. Professor Cotterill - at least after reading this book -- is at the top of that group. Having read Pinker's Blank Slate, I wished I had read this first - better is a personal judgment but this is. Not a book for indenting from the library but buying for a holiday and pleasure.

This is vastly better than the meretricious commercial books that clutter up this area. Cotterill is (a) well-informed; (b) writes compellingly and clearly, with analogies and new ideas that will make even neuroscience professionals sit up and take notice. It is emphatically not just another piece of popularisation.

This is an extremely comprehensive book. It covers many aspects of neuroscience and neural networks. Among a lot of information, there is his theory of consciousness. He bases his view of the mind as action centered, and this is to my mind, a good move. It is no surprising that his model includes sensimotor areas. He also includes the prefrontal, premotor, and the thalamus intralaminar nuclei, forming a loop, in his theory of consciousness. He supports it quite well, and it gives rise to predictions that can be experimentaly tested. The data considered is overwhelming, so even if the consciousness theory end up not being totally right, the book as a whole is still a very important piece of literature in the neurosciences. Qualia as essentialy the effects of muscle-spindles in the loop at first seems confusing, if not implausible, but maybe deserves further consideration. Not a lot of neural network talk, but enough to complement nicely.

Daniel Dennett doesn't Explain Consciousness and Steven Pinker doesn't really tell us How the Brain Works. Cotterill does both: at a level of detail which allows the expert (which I am not) to evaluate his claims, yet in a style which is always accessible to the scientifically aware general reader. The evidence, getting down to the individual neuron and its dendrites, builds up to an overall picture which shows consciousness to be the outcome of a sort of time-lapse pattern matching process in the brain. This book really tells you how it works: it's not just a bunch of philosophising -- it's all (almost all, 'cos he does allow himself a speculation or two) based on experiment. Cotterill concludes by telling us that he and his students are now working on computer neural networks which should result in a computer which (convincingly) simulates consciousness. [Maybe I shouldn't have given away the ending.]

If you are, like me, an "amateur" when it comes to the study of the mind, you have probably sought to balance your reading of philosophers like Dennett with something more solid from the science of mind. "Enchanted Looms" is a fine place to do that.

This is not a book to sweep through in a few days. You will want to pause and digest. Although Cotterill is clearly aiming at an educated layperson as a reader, he bows, stylistically, to an academic audience. This interfered with my reading of the book. Dozens of times per chapter, he cites sources parenthetically or within the text. Too many sentences begin in the form "The work of _x_ and _y_ has shown..." For the longest time I kept thinking that noting and remembering those names would help me in following a line of argument. This was rarely the case. But then, at times, a backward reference to "_x_" would stump me. Once I learned to glide over these I found it much easier to read the book.

The tie-in with "neural networks" was an interesting process since I had little sense of their importance in cognitive science. Cotterill does a nice job, initially, of showing how such structures might work in both the abstract and at the level of neural anatomy. But, interestingly, he moves on to make a convincing case that such structures cannot adequately model all the functionality of the human brain. I came away from this book with the sense that neural nets are the "Ptolemaic epicycles" of brain science - a paradigm that with growing complexity and constant tweaking can just barely model what we know about a physical phenomenon, but which are not up to the ultimate task.

Cotterill does a nice job of making the macro-anatomy of the brain a part of a meaningful whole. Too many neuro-anatomy-focused books seem to just carve out the various regions and leave a sense of oddly unconnected "vision centers" and "speech centers." "Enchanted Looms" presents much more of the sense of the interconnectedness of those zones that we have chosen to isolate as anatomical pieces. He goes into some depth about how these connections might themselves function as a layer in the processing that we call thinking or sensation, ... or consciousness.

Which brings me, in the end, to the grail in my own "brain-book" search - "consciousness." Sure its fascinating to realize how interesting the study of, for instance, vision, might be, but its that "me" in there, in HERE, that wants some explaining. Although this is not the focus of Cotterill's book, he does propose a very different model for consciousness from any that I have seen - seemingly centered around neuro-motor systems; an odd twist on the notion of a "muscle-head" ! I say "seemingly" because it was really only upon reading this concluding section of the book that I realized I might not have understood enough of the prior 500 pages. Cotterill's argument for this unusual underpinning of consciousness seemed somewhat unconvincing, to me, only to the degree that it built upon elements of his model for brain that I had only partially grasped.

So I will reread this book... a very unusual thing for me, for this topic. It bespeaks the power of the ideas it presents that I know "Enchanted Looms" will be worth that second effort.

This book covers a lot of ground -- check out the table of contents and you'll see something for every flavor of computer or video game, from the Atari VCS to PC-based first-person-shooters and massively multiplayer online role-playing games, to handhelds like Palm and Pocket PC devices, to all of the major console machines you attach to your television.

Like any computer book, this is full of ephemeral information that may not age well. In a few years, many of the links given here will cease to exist, and much of the hardware referenced could be difficult to find. Some of the tools which seem cool today will be commonplace, having been built into new revisions of hardware. The author does a good job of anticipating where this might happen, and sticks to generalities while providing specific examples wherever possible. As I write this review, the book has been in print for almost a year, and in my opinion, it remains fresh, relevant, and worthy of purchase.

Some of the activity described in this book is in the grey area between legal and illegal activity, and Carless takes care to warn the reader when he/she might be stepping on dangerous ground. Such caveats make this book even more interesting to this reviewer and probably others as well.

If you've ever done any of these things, enjoyed it, and wanted to do more, then this book is for you!
- played a Japanese game on a USA or UK territory console;
- played a "hacked" ROM of an old game in emulation;
- wanted to get more out of old games which are boring now;
- wondered about nonstandard import adapters and accessories;
- wanted to interface your console with your PC

In other words, if you're creative enough to want to think outside the narrow box that some manufacturers have put us in, and want more, you want this book, even if you've already done a lot of this stuff on your own. The weblinks alone will provide hours of entertainment, but the book draws everything together into a coherent whole. Cheers to Carless for writing this and to O'Reilly for having the courage to publish this in the age of the Digital Millenium Copyright Act!

This book was a lot of fun to read and provides a lot of great tips for not only getting the most out of your current gaming system, but also for enjoying those games you played 20 years ago. The book starts out with an introduction to emulation and MAME, which allows you to play old console games (like the Atari 2600) or arcade games on a PC. The author even provides directions to illustrate how you can take an old Atari 2600 paddle controller and hook it into your PC (with a soddering iron and a little work). Any gamer who ever played on the Atari would love something like this.

In my favorite chapter, the author shows how to maximize portable devices for gaming fun. In one hack, the author shows how to play games on your iPod. In another hack, the author shows how to produce color pictures from the Game Boy's black and white camera attachment. There are even instructions for turning your PocketPC or PalmPilot into a Game Boy or even a Commordore 64.

The author has a section dedicated to creating the best game machine, where he discusses video cards, mice, and other peripherals. In other sections, the author discusses how to modify your gaming console, including Xbox mods, tunneling (e.g. making games play online that weren't designed to be played online), and other game hacks. Finally, the author rounds out the discussion by demonstrating how to create and add a vehicle to Unreal Tournament 2004. While it does require a bit of time and some work, I was surprised at how relatively easy the whole process was.

This is a great book to read if you enjoy gaming-regardless of whether they're games from 20 years ago or brand new. This book will help you to get the most out of your gaming experience and have a lot of fun doing it.

If you want to go far beyond the obvious, whether you want to modify your console controller to work on other consoles, create your own text adventure, or modify your Game Boy, there is an awful lot of fun you can have for cheap or free, using the creative exploits of the gaming gurus. Gaming Hacks is the indispensable guide to cool things gamers can do to create, modify, and hack videogame hardware and software.

Everything from social exploits and tips to be used in MMORPGs (Massive Multiplayer Online Role Playing Games) to soldering-iron heavy hardware hacks is covered in this extreme-cool hack guide written by gamers for gamers. Gaming Hacks offers a stunning variety of hacks, exploits, and other creative acts on both modern and archaic console hardware and today's PC hardware. One hundred detailed, ingenious hacks are included.

Gaming Hacks also includes detailed software-based looks at MMO (massively multiplayer) titles, FPS (first-person shooter) games, machinima (real-time movies created using game engines), emulation, save-game hacking, and many other miscellaneous subgenres and topics.

Gaming Hacks shows hardcore gamers how to configure the best FPS peripherals, hack the Nuon DVD Player/Gaming System, modify their Game Boy, watch movies and listen to music and their Sega Dreamcast, and much, much more.

Gaming Hacks shows you how to do things you didn't know could be done. If you want more than your average gamer, if you want to explore and experiment, unearth shortcuts, or make your games do what you want them to do Gaming Hacks will show you how. You don't need to be gaming guru to pick up Gaming Hacks, but you will be one when you put it down.

This book covers everything. You can go old school and get information on Mame games and building your own arcade machine. It covers portable with information on PDA games, hacking your Gameboy, and installing a PS2 in your car. It talks about the online world with combat strategies, how to game the systems to make money, and how to find and avoid cheaters. It's got great advice on how to build high end gaming PCs. Consoles are covered as well. He talks about overclocking them and chipping them to play import games. And that's just a sample.

Were this any other type of book I would say that the coverage is unfocused because it's too broad. But it's a Hacks book and these are intended for people with a clue to give them material on a wider range of topics. It starts you off and expects that you will run with it. For example, you get a lot of information about how to create a home arcade machine with Mame, but you won't get the detailed construction plans.

The text is well written, though he does tend to use the gamer lingo, so you may need a translator if you aren't up to the minute. Certainly the best book I have seen for people who want to push their gaming experience beyond what you can get out of the box from Electronics Boutique.

If you're a gamer who is always looking for new information to improve your gaming experience, check out Gaming Hacks by Simon Carless (O'Reilly).

Chapter list: Playing Classic Games; Playing Portably; Playing Well With Others; Playing With Hardware; Playing with Console and Arcade Hardware; Playing Around the Game Engine; Playing Your Own Games; Playing Everything Else; Index

Like all Hacks titles, there are 100 hints, tips, and hacks that cover the spectrum of gaming, from hardware to software, from consoles to online gaming. If you're old like me, you might enjoy Play Commodore 64 Games Without the C-64 (#2) and Play Atari ROMs Without the Atari (#3). Those will take you back to your early days of computing. If you're into first player shooting games, Tweak Your Tactics for FPS Glory (#94) will help boost your scoring. Carless will even help you play Japanese video games without knowing the language in #97 - Play Japanese Games Without Speaking Japanese. He shows you some basic hiragana and katakana that you'll encounter frequently in those games, and that might allow you to bridge the language gap.

The only trouble I see with the book is that it's covering such a wide area of subject matter. Unless you're a full-time gamer, you'll probably find a number of areas in this book that don't pertain to your interests. In some ways, that's OK for a Hacks title, as not everything is meant to apply to every single reader. But this particular title seems to be a bit more scattered than usual. The material is good, to be sure, but each reader may have a different opinion of the book based on what their gaming interests are.

The articles in this work are written by a who's who list of authors from the cognitive and computational neuroscience community. Each article is useful for getting an initial bearing on a topic from this dynamic field. The references for each article serve as useful "jumping off points" for further learning. It should be noted that this text is not a typical college textbook -- it is a reference work. As such, a beginner to the field should consider one of the other introductory textbooks (perhaps "The Cognitive Neurosciences").

Review of Second Edition (January 2008):

This sizable collection of articles updates the first volume with many discoveries and conceptual developments that were unknown at the time. Meant of course for reference, a typical reader, such as this reviewer, would probably not read every article in the collection but would instead concentrate on the ones of primary interest. The editor however does offer advice on "how to use this book" at the beginning of the book, for those readers who intend to use it as their primary source of information, or for instructors who will use it as a supplement to such classes as brain theory, artificial intelligence, computational neuroscience, and cognitive neuroscience. All of these topics are represented, with emphasis of course on those that the editor finds important. Time constraints will of course play in role in any sampling algorithm for the articles, but every article that was studied by this reviewer was well worth the time spent.

One of these articles, written by the editor, gave an overview of his work on the `mirror system hypothesis' (MSH). This work has been widely discussed in the literature on evolutionary linguistics since the first edition of this book, and when confronting it for the first time may seem like a radical hypothesis. Such skepticism is aggravated by the lack of any historical record for the structure of the brain, and so any theories on language evolution will remain more tentative as compared to other scientific theories. The editor though wants the reader to consider evidence for the mirror system hypothesis that is drawn from existing life forms. Thus he proposes that we examine the "mirror system" for grasping in monkeys, which he asserts contains `mirror neurons" that are activated when the monkey performs a specific hand action and when it only observes a human or other monkey performing a similar action. The MSH is the assertion that the matching in the neural code between observation and execution occurs in the common ancestor of monkey and human. Further, this matching explains the notion of language `parity', which asserts that a spoken utterance has essentially identical semantics between speaker and listener. The editor reviews his ideas on what brain mechanisms are responsible for language and grasping, and whether a mirror system is indeed present in humans. Experiments using proton emission topography support his thesis to some extent, but he cautions that the a lot more work needs to be done before one can make definitive conclusions. His thesis though is a plausible one on the surface, and interesting in that it proposes that language originally evolved not from a need for communication but from a need to recognize a set of actions. "Language readiness" then, resulted from an extension of the mirror system from being able to recognize single actions to being able to imitate compound actions. A natural question to ask here is why sophisticated grammatical constructions, some of them semantically awkward and of no practical value, would evolve from the mere need to imitate, which itself is not really complex from any reasonable measure of complexity. The editor is aware of these kinds of objections, for in the article he addresses them under the guise of `protospeech', wherein he postulates two evolutionary stages for its development. His assertions in this regard are interesting for they involve the need for cooperation between two or more areas of the brain. Along these same lines, and even more fascinating, is the editor's discussion on neuronal models for the mirror system, for when he proposes a canonical structuring for sentences he is actually asserting a kind of "entanglement" (he does not use this terminology in the article) between the F5 area and its mirror.

Review of First Edition:
This complilation of articles by leading experts in the field gives an excellent overview of studies in cognitive theory and the theory and applications of neural networks. The first two parts of the book give an overview and background of the properties of neurons and gives guidance to the reader on what sequence the articles are to be read. This reviewer did not read all of the articles, but only those that piqued his interest. such as the following articles which are particularly well-written and informative: 1. "Applications of Neural Networks": Outlines the diverse applications of neural networks to signal processing, time series, imaging, etc. 2. "Astronomy": Neural network applications in astronomy, such as adaptive optics and telescope guidance. 3. "Chains of Coupled Oscillators": Their connection with the lamprey central pattern generator. 4. "Chaos in Axons": An excellent review of chaos experimentally in squid axons and numerically with nerve equations. 5. "Collective Behavior of Coupled Oscillators": A study of the phase and complex Ginzburg-Landau model. 6. "Computer Modeling Methods for Neurons": Good overview of numerical modeling of neurons. 7. "Computing with Attractors": Overview of omputing and feedback networks with attractors and a fascinating discussion of the possible existence of attractors in the brain. 8. "Constrained Optimization and the Elastic Net": Useful discussion of application of neural networks to optimization problems. 9. "Data Clustering and Learning": Good discussion of parameter estimation of mixture models by parametric statistics and vector quantization of a data set by combinatorial optimization. 10. "Diffusion Models of Neuron Activity": Discusses 1-dimensional stochastic diffusion models for the neuron membrane potential. 11. "Disease: Neural Network Models": Interesting overview of neural net computational models of various mental illnesses. 12. "Dynamics and Bifurcation of Neural Networks": Discussion of neural nets and their behavior as dynamical systems. 13. "Emotion and Computational Neuroscience": Fascinating discussion of computational models of emotion. 14. "Investment Management": A discussion of tactical asset allocation neural network methods in asset management. 15. "Learning and Centralization: Theoretical Bounds": Overview of computational learning theory. 16. "Locust Flight": Interesting neural network study of the locust flight system. 17. "Neural Optimization": Discussion of combinatorial optimization using Ising and Potts neural networks. 18. "PAC Learning and Neural Networks": Overview of the Valiant "probabilistically correct learning paradigm in neural networks. 19. "Protein Structure Prediction": Neural network applications to prediction of protein secondary structure. 20. "Schema Theory": Extremely interesting overview of schemas. 21. "Speech Recognition: Pattern Matching": Excellent discussion of the applications of hidden Markov models to speech recognition. 22. "Statistical Mechanics of Neural Networks": Discussion of the use of the Hopfield model in neural networks. 23. Vapnik-Chervonenkis Dimension of Neural Networks": Very interesting discussion of the VC-dimension of neural networks.

Look through this book to convince yourself that an exact brain theory does not exist. The arrangement of the articles by the first letter of their title tells it all (consider classifying animals by the first letter of their name). The editors wrongly assume that mathematical methods equal theory; actually, theory is a small conceptual tent under which a large number of experimentally established facts can be gathered. In most cases, mathematics is a very useful tool in pitching this tent, but it has little to do with the tent itself.

An exact theory of the brain may be possible and we are in dire need of it. Unfortunately, nobody has come up with it yet. This book is an encyclopedia of various mathematical methods that have been used to solve various neuroscience problems. These methods and solutions are as diverse as the problems themselves. Don't look for common themes in this book. If you are looking for a unified brain theory, you'll be much better off reading standard neuroscience textbooks. I do hope one day we'll be able to cast these vague ideas into something precise and, most likely, mathematical. Sadly, not today. I own a copy of this book and use it to remind me why and how we have failed so far.

It should be kept in mind that it is not at all clear that "neural" networks can emulate consciousness. They may or they may not. Firstly, a single neuron resembles a computer processor in its complexity and is a constantly evolving entity. Secondly, only 10% of brain cells are neurons and the remaining 90% (glial cells) now too appear to be involved in information processing. At a more fundamental level, consciousness may be less algorithmic and computational than we expect. Finally, the brain and the reality "outside the brain" are a two-way street. As the great neuroscientist Cajal put it, "As long as our brain remains an arcanum, the Universe, a reflection of its structure, will also be a mystery". If we assume the brain analyzes something, we need to define a reality independent of this analysis -- a hardly possible task if standard "input-output" approaches are used.

If the title of this book were "Current Mathematical Methods in Neurosciences", I'd have no problem giving it five stars.

November 2005: The chapters in the second edition are still arranged alphabetically. I refuse to believe neuro-mathematicians cannot think more coherently.

One final note for those looking for serious conceptual advances on the theoretical front: do no miss "Spikes: Exploring the Neural Code" (edited by F. Rieke) and "Decisions, Uncertainty, and the Brain: The Science of Neuroeconomics" by Paul Glimcher.

Research is tedious, but if you want to know the nitty-gritty of mind-brain theory and neural networking, this book is an invaluable resource for basic, relevant, and accessible papers on the subjects. Encompassing seminal works from an unusually broad range of disciplines, here is an outstanding reference for those concerned with the mechanisms of intelligence.

This is THE neural network and brain theory reference. Owning it is like owning an entire library, though much more compact.

If you take a look at the table of contents, you'll see the massive value in this book. If you're into neural nets and brain theory, or want to be, you need this book.

I'll start by admitting that I'm not a sci-fi thriller fan, but this book was recommended to me and I took a chance. I'm glad I did! This is an outstanding piece of work written by an individual who must know a great deal about high-technology advancements and the field of artificial intelligence. The book kept me enthralled and engaged every bit of the way. Anyone who likes thrillers, knows anything about computers and the advancements made, underway, and those yet to come, will find this book a must read. Mr. Rockwood has a promising future for writing and I look forward to reading more of his work.

When I read the opening of this novel, I had high hopes for it. Andy Rasmusson is a computer science professor at Cornell University and he has invented sentient non-organic beings. In other words, they are intelligent, self-aware computers. For lack of a better term, the computers are called Bee and Cee. The story opens with Bee being a guest on a television talk show hosted by a man named Ragu. There is a great deal of public animosity against the non-organic sentient entities and Ragu contributes to this hostility.
Shortly after the appearance, the administration and government agents try to get Andy to take a position on upcoming anti-sentient legislation. When he refuses, he is placed on unpaid administrative leave and asked to leave the university. The government then begins a program of persecution, intimidation and tries several times to arrange a fatal "accident." He is slowly being poisoned by the police bracelet and he is denied contact with his former colleagues who may be in a position to help him.
Andy eventually lands in the hospital due to the poisoning and the government plot is exposed. The poisoning has caused his liver and kidneys to fail, so the solution suggested by Cee is to have them regenerated using nanotechnological techniques. The conspiracy was so far ranging that it brings down the President of the United States and Andy is now a hero to the nation. A great deal of the prejudice against sentient non-organic beings now evaporates and the book closes with an episode of the Ragu show. This time Ragu is very respectful of the sentient non-organic beings and their future is assured.
The problem with this book is that once the opening is done, it becomes just another massive government conspiracy book. Government agents are ubiquitous in Andy's life; they plant bugs everywhere in his residence, have him under constant physical surveillance, block all his communications and cancel his credit cards. However, even though they have all this power, at the end the government agents prove inept and public pressure brings them down. It would have been so much better if the plot would have involved the decision-making process of the non-organic sentients. Something along the lines of Isaac Asimov's robot stories and the three laws of robotics. Fundamentally, the plot is not about the social and political consequences of a sentient computer and artificial intelligence. They are only background devices needed to launch a story about a government conspiracy.

So much of Science Fiction has been dominated by the techno-thriller prolepses of Gibson and the vast rambling scientific recreations of Stephenson and all their imitators that the philosophical and speculative roots of the genre seem all but lost at times. "How Noble in Reason" is a return to the brave, imaginative values of H. G. Wells and Jules Verne. Like those pioneers Rockwood begins with a daring and original speculation for a real future which he then explores through the lives of credible, conflicted characters about whom we come to care deeply.

The novel also feels almost Nietzschian at times, both in the way it rapidly and wryly touches numbers of philosophical issues and its central, highly original speculation. Nevertheless, like the stories of Wells and Verne, it is great fun to read. Rockwood is a scientist and Mathematician and he knows how human science actually is and how it's done. That experience lends the book the same level or authenticity that has made the books of Tom Clancy so successful.

Read the book because it is good, original Science Fiction. And don't be surprised if you find afterwards that you see the world you live in now in a very different way.

The genre of science fiction is not my forte', but I read this book because I've known Alyn from the time we were in grade school and wanted to be supportive of an old friend. I was impressed with Alyn's technical mastery of computers and of the idea of computers being designed to have feelings and character traits, an idea I had never considered. I was mostly impressed, however, with the symbolic nature of the book. I related to the theme of Job in the story, and ultimately of the restoration of things taken away, as Job also experienced. More than that, I was touched by the love a father has for a son, and tributes celebrating that love. Alyn contibutes to the lives of the masses through personal and individual accomplishment. I appreciated the insight I received as a result of reading this book.

It is the year 2051 and Dr. Andreas Rasmusson's comfortable existence is about to unravel. The underlying source of the destruction ... a three-year-old unsolved murder of his closest friend, Bee, a nonorganic sentient. Ostracized from the Cornell University academic community, Rasmusson finds temporary solace within the bucolic lifestyle of Colorado. Yet, peace is short-lived. In his quest to prove his innocence and solve the crime, Rasmusson is plunged into a world of deceit, espionage, and madness.

***

When I began reading How Noble in Reason, I anticipated it to be a murder mystery sci-fi thriller, and it was! The story takes the reader on an exciting emotional roller coaster ride with shocking plot twists and turns. Author Alyn Rockwood drops enough red herrings to confuse but not sidetrack to extreme.

So, what sets this novel apart from other techno-thrillers? How Noble in Reason is a powerful love story! The prevailing theme of unconditional love flows through the story on many levels: between human intelligence and artificial intelligence, father and son, boy and dog, husband and wife, lovers, friends, nature, and even enemies. In a futurist world, where artificial intelligence is a perceived threat to the human race, love is the one tie that binds humanity and machine.

Alyn Rockwood writes in a crisp Michael Crichton style, with the perfect blend of suspense, techno-speak, subtle humor, underlying romance, and human drama. It is one of the few books I have read with several "I never saw that coming" moments. How Noble in Reason is destined for the New York Times best-seller list!

This is an interesting introduction to artificial intelligence, but it is rather outdated. In addition, while it gives a general overview of the entire field (at least how the field stood during the writing of the book), it doesn't give as man concrete examples, or as many code examples, as an in-depth developer might want. I would recommend Russell & Norvig's Artificial Intelligence: A Modern Approach for the serious developer, and forego this guy.