As a project scientist specializing in artificial intelligence at NASA's Jet Propulsion Laboratory (JPL), Ayanna Howard is part of a team that is applying its creative energy to develop autonomous robots capable of "thinking" for themselves in space.
"We want to tell the robot to think about any obstacle it encounters just as an astronaut in the same situation would do," she says. "Our job is to help the robot think in more logical terms about turning left or right, not just by how many degrees."

The metasearch engine Strategic Finder has a new plug-in: AerospaceFinder.
It allows you to do web searches on the aeronautic industry sector. With links to over 230 selected aeronautic Internet sources (specialized search engines, databases, qualified sites or pages, Press Release Portals…), AerospaceFinder gets information from the invisible web.

Novobot, the smart headline viewer, has been updated. Now it has a miniticker window with scrolling headlines. Also Novobot saves currently displayed headlines between sessions, so that you can retrieve headlines and review them later; it remembers your position in the headline list so you can continue browsing headlines from where you left off when you closed Novobot. You can prompt for channels that didn't produce any headlines, for easy detection of non-functioning channels.

LexiQuest, provider of strategic watch and information management software, has released the version 2.0 of LexiQuest Guide, the natural language search engine. LexiGuide translates "plain-language" questions into a form easily understood by traditional search engines. This powerful capability can be refined with add-on modules, featuring comprehensive industry-specific dictionaries of terminology and proper names.
LexiGuide is available in English, French, and Spanish

Copernic Shopper, the tool that allows you to search for product reviews and to compare prices from dozens of online stores at once, is now available also as Copernic Shopper Plus. This new version gives you all the benefits of the Basic version with extra features such as the ability to monitor product availability or keep track prices automatically.

To be an efficient form of communication, e-mail must be delivered and read as soon as possible. Fundi e-Lert makes checking for new mail every few minutes effortless. Small and fast, it handles multiple POP3 mailboxes with ease. When the program discovers new mail, it announces the new messages either by displaying the message details, or by playing a sound, or both.

Price Column helps you find the lowest price to your product from hundreds of online stores. It offers an unbiased service that helps you choose the right products and where to buy it.

The professor Chris Csikszentmihalyi has creates the first digital robot DJ. It's called DJ I, Robot. It uses a PC, several micro-controllers, and an advanced "motion control" system to automatically mix, scratch, and search a pair of custom vinyl records on the robotic phonographs.
DJ I, Robot has also competed at several DJ competitions including Blackkat's Beat Mechanix competition in New York.

Blaxxun interactive is a company that designs, develops, and produces interactive Virtual Worlds based on its software platform. The company develops professional, solutions for Virtual Worlds in the fields of entertainment, e-commerce, and business.

Personal Finder is an agent that allows you to search on internet/intranet and on your hard drive with one simple user interface. It has thematic agents that inquire specialized search engines related to your activity.

The Peer to Peer Computing Forum will be held on June 20-21 2001 in London.
It is the only European event that deals exclusively with how your company can benefit from P2P and how you can go about implementing this technology with the least cost and hassle. The topics of interest will be around examining and assessing the business benefits of P2P, integrating P2P into an existing technology infrastructure, etc.

iNoize allows you to instantly listen to other persons' music in MP3 format, without downloading or copying files. This software also lets you create your own customized Playlists of Albums or Tracks.