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ARLINGTON: The Defense Advanced Research Projects Agency (DARPA) is developing artificial intelligence that can help humans understand the floods of data they unleashed 50 years ago with the Internet and make better decisions, even in the heat of battle. Such “human-machine collaboration” — informally known as the centaur model — is the high-tech holy grail of the Defense Department’s plan to counter Russian and Chinese advances, known as the Third Offset Strategy.

“We’ve had some great conversations with the deputy,” said DARPA director Arati Prabhakar, referring to the chief architect of Offset, Deputy Defense Secretary Bob Work. “In many of our programs you’ll see some of the technology components” of the strategy. But it’s more than specific technologies, however exotic: It’s about a new approach to technology.

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Very huge step forward for brain sensory mapping.


Data from functional magnetic resonance imaging (fMRI) have provided eye-popping pictures of the way the brain is wired, and allowed neuroscientists and laypeople alike to view intricate anatomical and functional connections between regions of the brain. But what if a new tool could be applied to MRI and other data, to listen to the way the brain works and how it is forged with connections?

An emerging effort to “sonify” imaging data is taking root at UT Dallas’ Center for Vital Longevity, in the lab of Dr. Gagan Wig. The approach, now funded by the Defense Advanced Research Projects Agency (DARPA), allows data to be represented by sounds from which a trained listener might be able to discern patterns of brain connectivity not readily seen in available visualization strategies.

Wig, an assistant professor in the School of Behavioral and Brain Sciences, is working with his UT Dallas colleagues Dr. Roger Malina, Arts and Technology Distinguished Chair, Scot Gresham-Lancaster, assistant professor in the sound design program in the School of Arts, Technology, and Emerging Communication, and a mix of scientists, computer programmers and artists to translate data to sight and sound.

Here is a thought; could we see a future where runway models are robots? What about the Victoria Secret fashion show? Or, could all models (men and women) be replaced for the perfect robot? Maxim has already been known for using artificial models in print.


Shape-shifting dummies, the mannequins of the future, could change garment fitting in a big way.

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