Intelligent Agency: Building the Better Bot
I've seen a lot of papers on the theoretical aspects of autonomous agents, and a lot of them aren't applicable to anything. The point of this conference is to identify the interesting real-world applications of autonomous agents and to find out how and where they're emerging, says organizer Lewis Johnson.
Agents are computational systems that inhabit unpredictable physical and simulated environments. Most of us are familiar with robots - agents that work in our world - but an agent can also be software code that performs a task over a computer network - or a graphical synthetic agent that colonizes and interacts in a virtual world. In any setting, intelligent agents can successfully interpret the hazards and opportunities of their environment and respond with smart decisions.
The First International Conference on Autonomous Agents, February 5-8 Marina del Rey, California, will introduce you to these Phi Beta agents. Meet a NASA-sponsored autonomous spacecraft that uses agent technology to execute maneuvers, perform independent experiments, and adapt to equipment failures. Browse with ShopBot, a University of Washington software agent that comparison shops on the Web while you siesta. Stanford researchers are busy honing tools that allow children to create animated characters for personalized interactive storybooks. At USC, an agent named Steve plays teacher within a VR-based training system by adjusting the difficulty level of students' tasks to match their ability. This conference brings together visionaries like Johnson, Nick Jennings, and Pattie Maes to discuss the practical uses for these way-new beings. This is not a trade show with marketing spiels and squishy balls, but an opportunity to interact directly with the brains behind the personal assistants of the future.
Registration: US$595. Contact: +1 (717) 258 1816, fax +1 (717) 243 8642, email agents-97-info@isi.edu, on the Web at www.isi.edu/isd/AA97/info.html.
The Current Roundup
January 3-5 The 1997 European Anime Convention; London. ... January 6-9 Pacific Symposium Biocomputing '97; Kapalua, Hawaii. ... International Conference on Intelligent User Interfaces; Orlando, Florida. ... __ January 7-10 __ Genres in Digital Documents; Maui, Hawaii. ... __ January 27-29__ Fast Software Encryption Workshop 1997; Haifa, Israel. ... __ January 27-29__ Fast Software Encryption Workshop 1997; Haifa, Israel. ... __February 19-22 __TED; Monterey, California.
__January 23-25 __The Economics of Digital Information and Intellectual Property; Cambridge, Massachusetts. How will the pricing models for information in the advanced global Internet evolve? Don your pinstripes and penny loafers and head to Haahvard, where intellectual property pundits - like IIP director Brian Kahin - will explain the price structures and profit points of the new economy. Registration: US$600. Contact: +1 (617) 496 1389, fax +1 (617) 495 5776, email: iip@harvard.edu, on the Web at www/ksgwww.harvard.edu/iip/econ.html.
__February 8-12 __MILIA '97; Cannes, France: Jack into the latest and greatest in online publishing, multimedia art, and virtual worlds at the International Publishing and New Media Market bash. While the keynotes speak, the savvy businesspeople head straight to the backrooms for some serious schmoozing. If you've designed the best digital product of '96, be prepared to win a MILIA d'Or, proving once and for all that you can be a winner at Cannes. Registration: US$880. Contact: +1 (212) 689 4220, fax +1 (212) 689 4348, email: 75017.2143@compuserve.com, on the Web at www.reedmidem.milia.com.
February 10-11 The Internet Society Symposium on Network and Distributed System Security; San Diego, California. Blanket your security concerns at this networked systems fest. Net gurus Clifford Neuman, Matt Bishop, and Steve Bellovin will unravel the design and implementation of distributed system security services. Registration: price unavailable. Contact: +1 (310) 822 1511, fax +1 (310) 823 6714, email bcn@isi.edu.
__February 12-15 __ Interactive Newspapers '97; Houston, Texas: Most newspapers measure interactivity by counting page jumps. At this conference cosponsored by Editor & Publisher, the Association of Free Community Papers, and the International Association for Newspapers and Media Technology, Len Forman of The New York Times and Dorothea Coccoli Palsho of Dow Jones & Company will explain that the more bodacious binary rags must employ the latest technologies - like search services and online commerce - if they hope to survive in a networked economy. Registration: US$895. Contact: +1 (212) 675 4380 ext. 314, fax +1 (212) 929 1894, emailmichaelt@mediainfo.com, on the Web at www.mediainfo.com.
Out on the Range:
__March 1-2 __Convergence and Diversity: Pacific Asia in the 2020s; Wellington, New Zealand. Contact: +64 (4) 495 5079, fax +64 (4) 496 5413, email: heather.mclean@vuw.ac.nz, on the Web at www .vuw.ac.nz/~caplab/cdflier.htm.
__March 2-5__ACM97: The Next 50 Years of Computing; San Jose, California. Contact: +1 (212) 626 0531, email: phoenix@acm.org, on the Web at www.acm.org/acm97.
__March 7-16 __SXSW; Austin, Texas. Contact: +1 (512) 467 7979, email: 72662.2465@compuserve.com, on the Web at www/sxsw.com /sxsw.
__March 20-22 __First Joint Conference of CVRMed II and MRCAS III; Grenoble, France. Contact: +33 (76) 54 95 08, fax +33 (76) 54 95 55, email: jocelyne.troccaz@imag.fr, on the Web at www-cami.imag.fr/cvrmed-mrcas.
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