January & February 2010 Give-aways

Global Agenda Limited Edition Boxes!

Its Official - Global Agenda has been RELEASED.

During January and February, we will give away

10 Global Agenda Limited Edition Game Boxes,

including a poster and art book.

December 2009 Give-aways

These prizes were be given away during the first week of January, 2010:

Gift Cards Galore!

Choose from FRY's, Outdoor World, Starbucks,

Target, Popular Restaurants, Home Depot,

And As Always, Tons of Global Agenda Beta Keys!

November 2009 Give-aways

These prizes were given away during the first week of December, 2009:

JVC HANC100 Noise-Canceling Headphones

Logitec Freedom Joystick

Coby CV-290 Bluetooth Wireless Stereo Headphones

As Always, Tons of Global Agenda Beta Keys!

October 2009 Give-aways

These prizes were given away during the first week of November, 2009:

Global Agenda Beta Keys!!!!

Major Retailer Gift Certificates!

September 2009 Give-aways

These prizes were given away during the second week of October, 2009:

Global Agenda Beta Keys!!!!

Global Agenda Merchandise!!!

August 2009 Give-aways

These prizes were given away during the first week of September, 2009:

1) MANY GLOBAL AGENDA BETA KEYS

2) SONY DRBT22 Wireless Bluetooth Stereo Headset

3) GearHead AU6000 Surround Sound Gaming Headset

4) MACSENSE BlueICE Bluetooth stereo w/controller

5) SONY DRBT30Q/S Clip-on Wireless Headset

July 2009 Give-aways

These prizes were given away during the second week of August, 2009:

1) MANY GLOBAL AGENDA BETA KEYS

2) Nintendo DS Lite (crimson/black)

3) Other iPods and MP3 Players!!!

June 2009 Give-aways

These prizes were given away during the final week of June 2009:

1) NEW iPod Shuffle 4GB with VoiceOver

2) 1 TeraByte External USB Hard Drive

3) Apple iPod Nano 8GB

4) Nintendo DS Lite (crimson/black)

5) Other iPods and MP3 Players!!!

May 2009 Give-aways

These prizes were given away during the final week of May 2009:

1) Acer 24" Widescreen LCD Monitor / 1080p

2) Techno Gears Mega Marble Mania Extreme

3) Philips Noise-canceling Headphones

4) Delonghi Steam-driven 4-cup Espresso Maker

5) Seagate 1.5 Terabyte Desktop Hard Drive

April 2009 Give-aways

These prizes were given away during the final week of April 2009:

1) Creative HS-1200 Wireless Gaming Headset

2) 24" Flat Panel LCD Monitor

3) Starbucks Gift Cards

4) Sony Play Station Portable 3000 (PSP) Core System

5) RAZER MORAY IN-EAR ISOLATING GAMING EARPHONES

March 2009 Give-aways

These prizes were given away In March of 2009:

* Apple iTouch

* TomTom ONE 130 S GPS

* 500GB USB drive

* Apple iPod Nano Chromatic

* Creative HS-1200 Wireless Gaming Headset

February 2009 Give-aways

These prizes were given away during the final week of February 2009. Winners were contacted via email:

1) An Acer 24 inch flat panel monitor

2) Starbucks Gift Cards in $20, $30 and $50 denominations

3) An Apple iPod Nano-Chromatic

4) An Apple iPod Shuffle

5) A TomTom Portable GPS System

January 2009 Give-aways

These prizes were given away during the final week of January 2009.

1) A Dell 24 inch flat panel monitor

2) Bose Headphones

3) An Apple iPod Nano-Chromatic

4) An Apple iTouch (8 GB, Gen 2)

5) An Apple iPod Shuffle

6) A 1TeraByte USB External Drive By Seagate

December 2008 Give-aways

Winners will be contacted via email before January 9, 2009

1) Grand prize of an Apple iTouch (16 GB, Gen 2)

2) Second place prize of a Sony PSPCore System

3) Third place prize of a Motorola BlueTooth Stereo Headphones

ExplAIning A.I.

Suppose I ask you to think of a cup. You envision a cup that you own, or a cup you have seen, or some mixture of all the cups you have experienced in the past. You know how it feels, what it does, where to find it, how much it weighs and so on. In Artificial Intelligence research, we would say that you have a model of a cup. When you encounter a cup in reality, you know that it is a cup precisely because it is like that model cup you imagined. In fact, you notice the features of the cup when they are different from your model (size, color, shape, content, etc.).

Next I will ask you to look around where you are now. The objects you see most likely fit one of the many models you have in your brain. The computer screen, the mouse, your desk or table, your hands, other people, and so on. The fact that you have learned what these objects are, meaning that your brain has a model for each of them, allows you to easily separate them from each other. There�s no question that the screen is not part of the wall behind it or that the keys on the keyboard will move when pressed. Your model predicts it.

Finally, think of the last time you saw a car engine or a circuit board or some other complex environment that was full of unfamiliar things. Lacking models for the component parts, you probably could not draw it or even make a list of the parts.

Through this exercise, we have stumbled on to the Artificial Intelligence technique of model deformation. An A.I. can be taught models of certain objects and then told to search for those objects in cluttered images. Perfect model objects never appear in reality so the A.I. has to modify or deform the model in order to search for realistic variations. In this sense, it has to fit a deformed model over an image and hope that it matches part of the image like a puzzle piece. This approach takes a lot of computing power but holds great promise for computer vision applications.