Borglabs goes live!
Sometimes the best way to start a major goal is to boldly take the plunge. I had originally intended to launch this Web site after completing the first of my projects but changed my mind. For I realized that it is more important to craft the first humble page, to put a stake in the ground and forge a path for other thoughts that will follow.
I plan to use this site as a venue to talk about my projects and independent research on several topics that have fascinated me for years. These include:
- robotics, specifically personal robots and autonomous machines
- insect cognition and biology-inspired adaptive behaviors
- collective intelligence
- machine learning and other adaptive methods
- Artificial General Intelligence
- tools that enhance how we sense and reason
While the list is admittedly broad in scope, I have a simple and effective rule of thumb to narrow my focus: Choose ideas or topics that are I can readily experiment with using readily available parts and software, prefering open-source items whenever possible. Thus my posts will slant towards projects and ideas that anyone can replicate with modest resources. Occassionally I may talk about some exciting work being done at research universities and R&D groups– but primarily to look for sources of inspiration.
My goal is to build, or buy when possible, machines that enhance how we sense our environnent, make decisions and do our tasks. These include personal robots, avatars and software agents, wearable computers and related technologies. I am interested in these things partly from a technical standpoint but more so to see how we can harness these innovations to improve our lives.
We are fortunate to live in an era where ideas that were once considered pipe dreams are now achievable and– with some stretch– accessible to the common person, thanks to the rise of affordable hardware, open-source projects and a wealth of services in the Internet cloud. In upcoming posts, I will talk about my exploits in these areas…