The Ultimate Android

DARPA, the US defence agency responsible for technological research, has been running competitions with defence contractors to design and build robots capable of carrying out useful tasks on the battlefield. Most attempts fail quite miserably, and in this year's competition three failed in all the tasks. One robot, however, passed all of the tests. This doesn't mean we can expect to see the battlefield filled with robots anytime soon, but does show that the aim is likely to be achievable in the coming years.

Apart from the engineering, technological and ethical challenges the biggest issue is one of finance. Few companies in the world can afford to front this level of investment, hence the DARPA competition. Presumably the real prize isn't the government contract but the government investment for development. There's an upside to this process that isn't immediately obvious, and that is the obligation that the company with the research funding will have to Uncle Sam. Governments and the national military may not always be seen as the best guarantors of common sense, but between them there's enough accountability in a decent democracy to address any excesses over time.

But what if the company with the best solution doesn't need the government's cash? One such technologically advanced company is Google - cash rich and acquisition happy it has bought up no fewer than eight robotic companies in the last year. That should secure them some of the best robotic engineers and access to cutting edge patents available. Critically Google doesn't need DARPA's money, although on past experience they'll probably take it. And if you thought KitKat was the best Android yet, just wait until you see what these guys bring to the table.

And on top of this Google are forging a top table in the fields of artificial intelligence, applying it to areas such as self driving vehicles and instant language translation.  There is no doubt, in ten years time the search engine front end of Google will be a side player to the technologies they are developing.

So it is probable that sometime soon Google will amass sufficient technology and knowhow to be a leader in the robot field.  Obviously not all robot applications are military and there are plenty of applications where a machine could be risked to save a human from being put into danger, especially in the field of civil emergencies.  But the biggest drive will come from the military and there will be pressure to generate military applications.  All of this is fine, but what happens if Google disagree with a specific military aim? What if the informal company motto 'Don't be evil' is invoked because someone in the upper echelons of Google believes they should interfere?

Because the way Google are going, by the time this technology is mature enough to count, they will be too big financially for any government to bully, even if they start paying all of their taxes.  Possibly they already are (too big that is).  If they secure the top engineers, hold the best patents and ring-fence the critical technology could they hold any government using their technology to ransom? Will the government need Google's tacit agreement over the deployment of any Google originated technology?

After the credit crunch the big question was should governments let banks get too big to fail.  Perhaps the new question is should they let companies get too big? Period.

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The Truly Personal Digital Assistant

I don't know how successful Siri is with US accents, but it isn't too successful with mine or my wife's.  Our accent is slightly northern, there's a twang of the Liverpudlian floating around in there, but neither accent is particularly strong or difficult to fathom.  I do know Americans who have struggled with my speech, but that has been more to do with colloquialisms than my accent.

In fact, when at a loose end, we enjoy asking Siri to send text messages to each other just to see how garbled the message can get.  So I guess the future of asking the computer for an opinion is still a while away.

But there are attempts to leverage the voice analytical capabilities of tablet computers even further.  Expect Labs, a San Francisco company, is launching a new service that will initially run on the iPad, with further roll outs for Android in the pipeline.  The concept they are pitching is the ever attentive personal aide who politely listens to your conversations and anticipates the data you may need to support the thread.

They are doing this by providing a communication app that will connect tablets together, a bit like Skype but with the ability to analyse what your are saying to each other and using that information to pro-actively pull up relevant data to support your conversation.

So I say to you on the app - hey, how about a trip to London, take in a show? and the iPad app starts to collate ways of getting to London from north Wales, perhaps starting to work out road routes, rail timetables, even short haul flights from Liverpool or Manchester.

You say fine, we'll get the train and the road and air options are dropped while the app starts to look at theatre shows, hotel rooms and restaurants we could use.

Or perhaps you might be discussing an actor in a film and one of you asks what else he's been in - while you're scratching your collective heads the app slinks off and peeks into iMDB, bring up the info you need before you've finished asking the first question.

Will it work?  No idea, but judging by Siri's performance with my northern accent I don't expect to find it that usable from the get-go, given its San Francisco origins, but I can see that the concept has legs.  More importantly, in a business context where a number of ideas are being thrashed around, a proactive always listening master of the internet search could be a real boon.

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