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BIRD BOTS. "They’re autonomous, meaning that they compute their flight plans on their own, without any central control. They can follow instructions, but they work out their own paths using GPS signals to navigate and radio signals to talk to one another. They’re the closest thing we have to an artificial flock of birds." http://phenomena.nationalgeographic.com/2014/02/27/a-bird-like-flock-of-autonomous-drones/ View in LinkedIn

FLOCK OF AUTONOMOUS DRONES. "In a field outside Budapest, Hungary, ten quadcopter drones are flying as a coordinated flock. They zip through the great outdoors, fly in formation, or even follow a leader." http://phenomena.nationalgeographic.com/2014/02/27/a-bird-like-flock-of-autonomous-drones/ View in LinkedIn

BIRD FLIGHT CRACKED. "Learning how to fly took nature millions of years of trial and error – but a winged robot has cracked it in only a few hours, using the same evolutionary principles." https://lnkd.in/dewfVH9 View in LinkedIn

INTELLIGENT TRIAL AND ERROR in robots allows them to recover from damage very rapidly. An impressive video. http://www.kurzweilai.net/emulating-animals-these-robots-can-recover-from-damage-in-two-minutes View in LinkedIn

DAMAGE ADAPTATION. "Robots learn to adapt to damage the way animals do. One six-legged walking robot ranked 13,000 styles of walking based on their effectiveness. Once damaged, the robot was able to begin testing the walking styles it predicted to be most effective, slowly ruling out options until it arrived at the best choice. The team was able to get their six-legged robot to walk well again in only a few minutes after two of its six legs were broken." https://lnkd.in/dkDqfpK View in LinkedIn

DISOBEDIENT BOTS. "Uh oh! Robots are learning to disobey humans: Humanoid machine says no to instructions if it thinks it might be hurt." https://lnkd.in/dBdPJkh View in LinkedIn

CHEATING POKER BOTS. "CasinoRobots.com today announced Poker Robot Collusion Edition for Microsoft Windows, an intelligent software robot capable of consistently winning games of Texas Hold'Em Poker at popular online Poker Rooms." http://CasinoRobots.com View in LinkedIn

HORIZONTAL COLLUSION. "When bots collude. Uber’s algorithm can lead to horizontal collusion if the algorithm gives rise to an “alternative universe” that pushes up prices based on the perceived market value of a ride, rather than its actual market value. A human need not be involved." https://lnkd.in/dNpdkZa View in LinkedIn

FRAGMENT FROM NATURE concludes this weekend on a biological consideration of a sense of place, in particular for peripatetic creatures, whose destiny is to constantly migrate across the globe. These animals have acute geographical sense, and often migrate to very specific destinations, covering many thousands of miles to end up at the exact same nest, for instance, like the swallows in my home. Navigation and timing, cues, and fasting metabolism during transit, all are complex issues. View in LinkedIn