Baby robot learns first words by chatting with a human

Baby robot “iCub” learned its first words by chatting with adults who did not belong to the researcher´s team, but were instructed to try and teach the robot some simple words. This scientific project is supposed to both uncover how children first start to make sense of language and make robots talk in a more human-like way. To watch “iCub” learn how to talk and learn about the details of this project, click iCub´s picture in this week´s news highlights LinkCloud.

4-year-old buys a real train for almost $30,000

A 34-year old New Zealand woman left her 4-year-old son unattended who successfully placed a $29,990 bid on a bright yellow Metlink train. The train had operated in the Wellington area in the late 1940s and was taken out of service last week before being put up for sale. The boy´s mother was alarmed at the prospect of owning a retired full-sized two-carriage unit and asked the seller to remove the bid. Unfortunately, the auction ended with more than 150 comments, but no real bids. To read more about this funny incident, click the yellow train in this week´s news highlights LinkCloud.

Woman with super color vision finally found

Neuroscientist Gabriele Jordan finally identified a so-called “tetrachromat”, a woman who can see much greater color depth than ordinary people. The Brit has the ability to identify 100 million different colors, whereas we can only distinguish as little as 1 million. Scientists have been looking for the tetrachromat for more than 20 years. Even though many people with four cones (different cell types needed for super color vision) was tested the researchers, only the female doctor living in northern England passed the tests for tetrachromatic vision. To learn more about this super color vision, click the eye in this week´s news highlights LinkCloud.

Facebook silently launched and pulled the “Find-Friends-Nearby-Feature”

Only two days after silently launching the novel “Find-Friends-Nearby” feature, Facebook pulled the feature claiming the feature´s launch had only been the test run of some developers. The app lets users find other Facebook users near them allowing users to quickly add each other to their network without having to check many profiles before finding the right person they would like to add as a friend. To read more about the feature itself, click the Facebook sign in this week´s news highlights LinkCloud.

Make Sure You Know These News Highlights Of The Week

Here is my corresponding LinkCloud, which guides you to the articles described in this post. Just click the picture associated with the news you are interested in and the link will open in a new tab. I generated this cloud using the free, live-synched and device-independent service myLinkCloud.