not just random

I really enjoy reading books on Amazon’s Kindle. I read a lot and nowadays I tend to favor Kindle books to regular ones.

Here’s a service that I would love for Amazon to offer though:

I would love to be able to return all those paperback and/or hardcover books that I purchased (often from Amazon.com) in the past to them. For each book they could then

1. give me an electronic version, and
2. offer the book for sale on the used market

This could turn out to be a potential win-win deal.

In Bots get smart, the authors Jonathan Schaeffer, Vadim Bulitko, and Michael Buro report that current, stronger competition in the computer game market is driving increased demand for smarter games, improved artificial intelligence.

However, “game makers rarely have the time or resources to conduct the research required to solve the many thorny problems involved, which is why they have come to recognize the value of engaging the scholarly community [...].”

Innovation in game AI can help drive innovation in other areas of AI and vice versa.

The authors present a number of interesting current developments, including their own group’s PaSSAGE, a system for storytelling and player modeling.

Checking LinkedIn in the early afternoon reveals:

LinkedIn Will Be Back Soon

We are busy upgrading LinkedIn with technology and features to add even more ways for you to leverage your professional reputation and network. We will return around 9:00pm PT.

We apologize for the inconvenience and appreciate your patience. Thank you for using LinkedIn!

I am as much looking forward to new LinkedIn features as the next guy, but: At the time of this writing it is not even 4pm PT. I checked earlier and received the same message. I must admit, I am a bit surprised that LinkedIn would take the publicly-visible portion of their website offline for 5+ hours.

AI Magazine recently published the following poster.

It is a nice visualization of some of the many areas of life that are impacted by current AI.