Karl W. Steinbuch (June 15, 1917 in Stuttgart-Bad Cannstatt – June 4, 2005 in Ettlingen) was a German computer scientist, cyberneticist, and electrical engineer. He was an early and influential researcher in German computer science, and was the developer of the Lernmatrix, an early implementation of artificial neural networks. From the late 1960s onwards the focus of his activity shifted from scientific research to right-wing political activism supporting the Neue Rechte. == Biography == Steinbuch joined the National Socialist German Students' League (NSDStB) and the Nazi Party. Steinbuch studied at the University of Stuttgart and in 1944 he received his PhD in physics. In 1948 he joined Standard Elektrik Lorenz (SEL, part of the ITT group) in Stuttgart, as a computer design engineer and later as a director of research and development, where he filed more than 70 patents. Steinbuch completed the first European fully transistorized computer, the ER 56 marketed by SEL. In 1958 he became professor and director of the Institute of Technology for information processing (ITIV) of the University of Karlsruhe, where he retired in 1980. In 1967 he began publishing books, in which he tried to influence German education policy. Together with books from colleagues like Jean Ziegler from Switzerland, Eric J. Hobsbawm from the UK, and John Naisbitt his books predicted what he regarded as the coming education disaster of the emerging civic lobby society. In 1957, together with Helmut Gröttrup, Steinbuch coined the term Informatik, the German word for computer science, which gave informatics, and the term kybernetische Anthropologie. == Awards and recognition == Wilhelm-Boelsche award - medal in Gold German non-fiction book award Gold medal award of the XXI. International Congresses on Aerospace Medicine Konrad Adenauer award of science Jakob Fugger award medal Medal of merit of the state of Baden-Wuerttemberg member, German Academy of Sciences Leopoldina member, International Academy of Science, Munich. grants from a state government grants program, named "Karl-Steinbuch-Stipendium" Steinbuch Centre for Computing at the Karlsruhe Institute of Technology named after him == Books == Steinbuch wrote several books and articles, including: 1957 Informatik: Automatische Informationsverarbeitung ("Informatics: automatic information processing"). 1963 Learning matrices and their applications (together with U. A. W. Piske) 1965 A critical comparison of two kinds of adaptive classification networks (together with Bernard Widrow) 1966 (1969): Die informierte Gesellschaft. Geschichte und Zukunft der Nachrichtentechnik (The informed society. History and Future of telecommunications) 1989: Die desinformierte Gesellschaft (The disinformed society) 1968: Falsch programmiert. Über das Versagen unserer Gesellschaft in der Gegenwart und vor der Zukunft und was eigentlich geschehen müßte. (as a bestseller listet in: Der Spiegel) (Programmed falsely. About our society's failure in the present and with respect to the future and what should be done.) 1969: Programm 2000. (as a bestseller listet in: Der Spiegel) 1971: Automat und Mensch. Auf dem Weg zu einer kybernetischen Anthropologie (Machine and Man. On the way to a cybernetic anthropology; 4th revised edition) 1971: Mensch Technik Zukunft. Probleme von Morgen (German non-fiction book award) (Man Technology Future. Problems of Tomorrow) 1973: Kurskorrektur (Correcting the Course) 1978: Maßlos informiert. Die Enteignung des Denkens (Excessively informed. The Deprivation of Thinking) 1984: Unsere manipulierte Demokratie. Müssen wir mit der linken Lüge leben? (Our Thought-controlled Democracy. Do we have to live with the leftist lie?)
ARD Sounds
ARD Sounds (until March 2026: ARD Audiothek) is the joint audio portal of the state broadcasting stations of the ARD and Deutschlandradio on the Internet. The service was officially launched as a mobile app on November 8, 2017, on the occasion of the ARD Radio Play Days in Karlsruhe. A beta web version has also been available since November 2018; it replaces the radio features in the ARD Mediathek, which has since offered only video content. Editorial support for the ARD Audiothek is provided by the ARD, the online editorial team in Mainz. In April 2018, the ARD Audiothek won the German Digital Award in silver in the category "Mobile Apps - User Experience / Usability". Within a year, the mobile app version had been installed more than 510,000 times and had around 21 million audio views. The Android app recorded more than 100,000 downloads in October 2019, according to the Google Play Store.
Smartglasses
Smartglasses or smart glasses are eye or head-worn wearable computers. Many smartglasses include displays that add information alongside or to what the wearer sees. Alternatively, smartglasses are sometimes defined as glasses that are able to change their optical properties, such as smart sunglasses that are programmed to change tint by electronic means. Alternatively, smartglasses are sometimes defined as glasses that include headphone functionality. A pair of smartglasses can be considered an augmented reality device if it performs pose tracking. Superimposing information onto a field of view is achieved through an optical head-mounted display (OHMD) or embedded wireless glasses with transparent heads-up display (HUD) or augmented reality (AR) overlay. These systems have the capability to reflect projected digital images as well as allowing the user to see through it or see better with it. While early models can perform basic tasks, such as serving as a front end display for a remote system, as in the case of smartglasses utilizing cellular technology or Wi-Fi, modern smart glasses are effectively wearable computers which can run self-contained mobile apps. Some are handsfree and can communicate with the Internet via natural language voice commands, while others use touch buttons. Like other computers, smartglasses may collect information from internal or external sensors. It may control or retrieve data from other instruments or computers. In most cases, it supports wireless technologies like Bluetooth, Wi-Fi, and GPS. A small number of models run a mobile operating system and function as portable media players to send audio and video files to the user via a Bluetooth or WiFi headset. Some smartglasses models also feature full lifelogging and activity tracker capability. Smartglasses devices may also have features found on a smartphone. Some have activity tracker functionality features (also known as "fitness tracker") as seen in some GPS watches. == Features and applications == As with other lifelogging and activity tracking devices, the GPS tracking unit and digital camera of some smartglasses can be used to record historical data. For example, after the completion of a workout, data can be uploaded into a computer or online to create a log of exercise activities for analysis. Some smart watches can serve as full GPS navigation devices, displaying maps and current coordinates. Users can "mark" their current location and then edit the entry's name and coordinates, which enables navigation to those new coordinates. Although some smartglasses models manufactured in the 21st century are completely functional as standalone products, most manufacturers recommend or even require that consumers purchase mobile phone handsets that run the same operating system so that the two devices can be synchronized for additional and enhanced functionality. The smartglasses can work as an extension, for head-up display (HUD) or remote control of the phone and alert the user to communication data such as calls, SMS messages, emails, and calendar invites. === Security applications === Smart glasses could be used as a body camera. In 2018, Chinese police in Zhengzhou and Beijing were using smart glasses to take photos which are compared against a government database using facial recognition to identify suspects, retrieve an address, and track people moving beyond their home areas. === Sport applications === Smart glasses are used in sports like cycling, running, skiing, golf, tennis, or sailing, giving athletes real-time, heads-up data without looking down at the screen of a watch or smartphone. In 2025, Meta has announced a new partnership with sports eyewear brand Oakley. === Healthcare applications === Several proofs of concept for Google Glasses have been proposed in healthcare. In July 2013, Lucien Engelen started research on the usability and impact of Google Glass in health care. Engelen, who is based at Singularity University and in Europe at Radboud University Medical Center, is participating in the Glass Explorer program. Key findings of Engelen's research included: The quality of pictures and video are usable for healthcare education, reference, and remote consultation. The camera needs to be tilted to different angle for most of the operative procedures Tele-consultation is possible—depending on the available bandwidth—during operative procedures. A stabilizer should be added to the video function to prevent choppy transmission when a surgeon looks to screens or colleagues. Battery life can be easily extended with the use of an external battery. Controlling the device and/or programs from another device is needed for some features because of a sterile environment. Text-to-speech ("Take a Note" to Evernote) exhibited a correction rate of 60 percent, without the addition of a medical thesaurus. A protocol or checklist displayed on the screen of Google Glass can be helpful during procedures. Dr. Phil Haslam and Dr. Sebastian Mafeld demonstrated the first concept for Google Glass in the field of interventional radiology. They demonstrated the manner in which the concept of Google Glass could assist a liver biopsy and fistulaplasty, and the pair stated that Google Glass has the potential to improve patient safety, operator comfort, and procedure efficiency in the field of interventional radiology. In June 2013, surgeon Dr. Rafael Grossmann was the first person to integrate Google Glass into the operating theater, when he wore the device during a PEG (percutaneous endoscopic gastrostomy) procedure. In August 2013, Google Glass was also used at Wexner Medical Center at Ohio State University. Surgeon Dr. Christopher Kaeding used Google Glass to consult with a colleague in a distant part of Columbus, Ohio. A group of students at The Ohio State University College of Medicine also observed the operation on their laptop computers. Following the procedure, Kaeding stated, "To be honest, once we got into the surgery, I often forgot the device was there. It just seemed very intuitive and fit seamlessly." 16 November 2013, in Santiago de Chile, the maxillofacial team led by Dr.gn Antonio Marino conducted the first orthognathic surgery assisted with Google Glass in Latin America, interacting with them and working with simultaneous three-dimensional navigation. The surgical team was interviewed by ADN radio. In January 2014, Indian Orthopedic Surgeon Selene G. Parekh conducted the foot and ankle surgery using Google Glass in Jaipur, which was broadcast live on Google website via the internet. The surgery was held during a three-day annual Indo-US conference attended by a team of experts from the US and co-organized by Ashish Sharma. Sharma said Google Glass allows looking at an X-Ray or MRI without taking the eye off of the patient and allows a doctor to communicate with a patient's family or friends during a procedure. In Australia, during January 2014, Melbourne tech startup Small World Social collaborated with the Australian Breastfeeding Association to create the first hands-free breastfeeding Google Glass application for new mothers. The application, named Google Glass Breastfeeding app trial, allows mothers to nurse their baby while viewing instructions about common breastfeeding issues (latching on, posture etc.) or call a lactation consultant via a secure Google Hangout, who can view the issue through the mother's Google Glass camera. The trial was successfully concluded in Melbourne in April 2014, and 100% of participants were breastfeeding confidently. == Display types == Various techniques have existed for see-through HMDs. Most of these techniques can be summarized into two main families: "Curved Mirror" (or Curved Combiner) based and "Waveguide" or "Light-guide" based. The mirror technique has been used in EyeTaps, by Meta in their Meta 1, by Vuzix in their Star 1200 product, by Olympus, and by Laster Technologies. Various waveguide techniques have existed for some time. These techniques include diffraction optics, holographic optics, polarized optics, reflective optics, and projection: Diffractive waveguide – slanted diffraction grating elements (nanometric 10E-9). Nokia technique now licensed to Vuzix. Holographic waveguide – 3 holographic optical elements (HOE) sandwiched together (RGB). Used by Sony and Konica Minolta. Reflective waveguide – A thick light guide with single semi-reflective mirror is used by Epson in their Moverio product. A curved light guide with partial-reflective segmented mirror array to out-couple the light is used by tooz technologies GmbH. Virtual retinal display (VRD) – Also known as a retinal scan display (RSD) or retinal projector (RP), is a display technology that draws a raster display (like a television) directly onto the retina of the eye - developed by MicroVision, Inc. OLED microdisplays for near-eye applications (outdoor optical equipment, night vision glasses, ocular equipment for medical devices, augme
Someday (short story)
"Someday" is a science fiction short story by American writer Isaac Asimov. It was first published in the August 1956 issue of Infinity Science Fiction and reprinted in the collections Earth Is Room Enough (1957), The Complete Robot (1982), Robot Visions (1990), and The Complete Stories, Volume 1 (1990). == Plot summary == The story is set in a future where computers play a central role in organizing society. Humans are employed as computer operators, but they leave most of the thinking to machines. Indeed, whilst binary programming is taught at school, reading and writing have become obsolete. The story concerns a pair of boys who dismantle and upgrade an old Bard, a child's computer whose sole function is to generate random fairy tales. The boys download a book about computers into the Bard's memory in an attempt to expand its vocabulary, but the Bard simply incorporates computers into its standard fairy tale repertoire. The story ends with the boys excitedly leaving the room after deciding to go to the library to learn "squiggles" (writing) as a means of passing secret messages to one another. As they leave, one of the boys accidentally kicks the Bard's on switch. The Bard begins reciting a new story about a poor mistreated and often ignored robot called the Bard, whose sole purpose is to tell stories, which ends with the words: "the little computer knew then that computers would always grow wiser and more powerful until someday—someday—someday—…"
Someday (short story)
"Someday" is a science fiction short story by American writer Isaac Asimov. It was first published in the August 1956 issue of Infinity Science Fiction and reprinted in the collections Earth Is Room Enough (1957), The Complete Robot (1982), Robot Visions (1990), and The Complete Stories, Volume 1 (1990). == Plot summary == The story is set in a future where computers play a central role in organizing society. Humans are employed as computer operators, but they leave most of the thinking to machines. Indeed, whilst binary programming is taught at school, reading and writing have become obsolete. The story concerns a pair of boys who dismantle and upgrade an old Bard, a child's computer whose sole function is to generate random fairy tales. The boys download a book about computers into the Bard's memory in an attempt to expand its vocabulary, but the Bard simply incorporates computers into its standard fairy tale repertoire. The story ends with the boys excitedly leaving the room after deciding to go to the library to learn "squiggles" (writing) as a means of passing secret messages to one another. As they leave, one of the boys accidentally kicks the Bard's on switch. The Bard begins reciting a new story about a poor mistreated and often ignored robot called the Bard, whose sole purpose is to tell stories, which ends with the words: "the little computer knew then that computers would always grow wiser and more powerful until someday—someday—someday—…"
Photometric stereo
Photometric stereo is a technique in computer vision for estimating the surface normals of objects by observing that object under different lighting conditions (photometry). It is based on the fact that the amount of light reflected by a surface is dependent on the orientation of the surface in relation to the light source and the observer. By measuring the amount of light reflected into a camera, the space of possible surface orientations is limited. Given enough light sources from different angles, the surface orientation may be constrained to a single orientation or even overconstrained. The technique was originally introduced by Woodham in 1980. The special case where the data is a single image is known as shape from shading, and was analyzed by B. K. P. Horn in 1989. Photometric stereo has since been generalized to many other situations, including extended light sources and non-Lambertian surface finishes. Current research aims to make the method work in the presence of projected shadows, highlights, and non-uniform lighting. Photometric stereo is widely used in various fields, including archaeology, cultural heritage conservation, and quality control. It is now integrated into widely used open-source software, such as Meshroom. == Basic method == Under Woodham's original assumptions — Lambertian reflectance, known point-like distant light sources, and uniform albedo — the problem can be solved by inverting the linear equation I = L ⋅ n {\displaystyle I=L\cdot n} , where I {\displaystyle I} is a (known) vector of m {\displaystyle m} observed intensities, n {\displaystyle n} is the (unknown) surface normal, and L {\displaystyle L} is a (known) 3 × m {\displaystyle 3\times m} matrix of normalized light directions. This model can easily be extended to surfaces with non-uniform albedo, while keeping the problem linear. Taking an albedo reflectivity of k {\displaystyle k} , the formula for the reflected light intensity becomes I = k ( L ⋅ n ) . {\displaystyle I=k(L\cdot n).} If L {\displaystyle L} is square (there are exactly 3 lights) and non-singular, it can be inverted, giving L − 1 I = k n . {\displaystyle L^{-1}I=kn.} Since the normal vector is known to have length 1, k {\displaystyle k} must be the length of the vector k n {\displaystyle kn} , and n {\displaystyle n} is the normalised direction of that vector. If L {\displaystyle L} is not square (there are more than 3 lights), a generalisation of the inverse can be obtained using the Moore–Penrose pseudoinverse, by simply multiplying both sides with L T {\displaystyle L^{T}} , giving L T I = L T k ( L ⋅ n ) , {\displaystyle L^{T}I=L^{T}k(L\cdot n),} ( L T L ) − 1 L T I = k n , {\displaystyle (L^{T}L)^{-1}L^{T}I=kn,} after which the normal vector and albedo can be solved as described above. == Non-Lambertian surfaces == The classical photometric stereo problem concerns itself only with Lambertian surfaces, with perfectly diffuse reflection. This is unrealistic for many types of materials, especially metals, glass and smooth plastics, and will lead to aberrations in the resulting normal vectors. Many methods have been developed to lift this assumption. In this section, a few of these are listed. === Specular reflections === Historically, in computer graphics, the commonly used model to render surfaces started with Lambertian surfaces and progressed first to include simple specular reflections. Computer vision followed a similar course with photometric stereo. Specular reflections were among the first deviations from the Lambertian model. These are a few adaptations that have been developed. Many techniques ultimately rely on modelling the reflectance function of the surface, that is, how much light is reflected in each direction. This reflectance function has to be invertible. The reflected light intensities towards the camera is measured, and the inverse reflectance function is fit onto the measured intensities, resulting in a unique solution for the normal vector. === General BRDFs and beyond === According to the Bidirectional reflectance distribution function (BRDF) model, a surface may distribute the amount of light it receives in any outward direction. This is the most general known model for opaque surfaces. Some techniques have been developed to model (almost) general BRDFs. In practice, all of these require many light sources to obtain reliable data. These are methods in which surfaces with general BRDFs can be measured. Determine the explicit BRDF prior to scanning. To do this, a different surface is required that has the same or a very similar BRDF, of which the actual geometry (or at least the normal vectors for many points on the surface) is already known. The lights are then individually shone upon the known surface, and the amount of reflection into the camera is measured. Using this information, a look-up table can be created that maps reflected intensities for each light source to a list of possible normal vectors. This puts constraints on the possible normal vectors the surface may have, and reduces the photometric stereo problem to an interpolation between measurements. Typical known surfaces to calibrate the look-up table with are spheres for their wide variety of surface orientations. Restricting the BRDF to be symmetrical. If the BRDF is symmetrical, the direction of the light can be restricted to a cone about the direction to the camera. Which cone this is depends on the BRDF itself, the normal vector of the surface, and the measured intensity. Given enough measured intensities and the resulting light directions, these cones can be approximated and therefore the normal vectors of the surface. Some progress has been made towards modelling an even more general surfaces, such as Spatially Varying Bidirectional Distribution Functions (SVBRDF), Bidirectional surface scattering reflectance distribution functions (BSSRDF), and accounting for interreflections. However, such methods are still fairly restrictive in photometric stereo. Better results have been achieved with structured light. == Uncalibrated photometric stereo == Uncalibrated Photometric Stereo is an approach in photometric stereo that aims to reconstruct the 3D shape of an object from images captured under unknown lighting conditions. Unlike classical methods, which often assume controlled or known lighting setups, this approach removes these constraints, making it adaptable to diverse and real-world environments. The advent of deep learning has revolutionized universal PS by replacing handcrafted assumptions with data-driven models. Recent approaches leverage Transformer-based architectures and multi-scale encoder–decoder networks to directly estimate surface normals from input images. Uncalibrated Photometric Stereo is inherently an ill-posed problem, as it attempts to recover 3D shape and lighting conditions simultaneously from images alone. This leads to fundamental ambiguities in the reconstruction process, which manifest as systematic errors in the recovered geometry, including global distortions in the object's overall shape, and misinterpretation of surface orientation, where concave regions may appear convex and vice versa. To address the challenges of uncalibrated photometric stereo, hybrid methods have emerged that combine multi-view stereo and photometric stereo. These approaches leverage the strengths of both techniques, including geometric reliability and resolution.
Evolving intelligent system
In computer science, an evolving intelligent system is a fuzzy logic system which improves the own performance by evolving rules. The technique is known from machine learning, in which external patterns are learned by an algorithm. Fuzzy logic based machine learning works with neuro-fuzzy systems. Intelligent systems have to be able to evolve, self-develop, and self-learn continuously in order to reflect a dynamically evolving environment. The concept of Evolving Intelligent Systems (EISs) was conceived around the turn of the century with the phrase EIS itself coined for the first time by Angelov and Kasabov in a 2006 IEEE newsletter and expanded in a 2010 text. EISs develop their structure, functionality and internal knowledge representation through autonomous learning from data streams generated by the possibly unknown environment and from the system self-monitoring. EISs consider a gradual development of the underlying (fuzzy or neuro-fuzzy) system structure and differ from evolutionary and genetic algorithms which consider such phenomena as chromosomes crossover, mutation, selection and reproduction, parents and off-springs. The evolutionary fuzzy and neuro systems are sometimes also called "evolving" which leads to some confusion. This was more typical for the first works on this topic in the late 1990s. == Implementations == EISs can be implemented, for example, using neural networks or fuzzy rule-based models. The first neural networks which consider an evolving structure were published in. These were later expanded by N. Kasabov and P. Angelov for the neuro-fuzzy models. P. Angelov introduced the evolving fuzzy rule-based systems (EFSs) as the first mathematical self-learning model that can dynamically evolve its internal structure and is human interpretable and coined the phrase EFS. Contemporarily, the offline incremental approach for learning an EIS, namely, EFuNN, was proposed by N. Kasabov. P. Angelov, D. Filev, N. Kasabov and O. Cordon organised the first IEEE Symposium on EFSs in 2006 (the proceedings of the conference can be found in). EFSs include a formal (and mathematically sound) learning mechanism to extract it from streaming data. One of the earliest and the most widely cited comprehensive survey on EFSs was done in 2008. Later comprehensive surveys on EFS methods with real applications were done in 2011 and 2016 by E. Lughofer. Other works that contributed further to this area in the following years expanded it to evolving participatory learning, evolving grammar, evolving decision trees, evolving human behaviour modelling, self-calibrating (evolving) sensors (eSensors), evolving fuzzy rule-based classifiers, evolving fuzzy controllers, autonomous fault detectors. More recently, the stability of the evolving fuzzy rule-based systems that consist of the structure learning and the fuzzily weighted recursive least square parameter update method has been proven by Rong. Generalized EFS, which allow rules to be arbitrarily rotated in the feature space and thus to improve their data representability, have been proposed in with significant extensions in towards 'smartness' of the rule bases (thus, termed as "Generalized Smart EFS"), allowing more interpretability and reducing curse of dimensionality. The generalized rule structure was also successfully used in the context of evolving neuro-fuzzy systems. Several facets and challenges for achieving more transparent and understandable rule bases in EFS have been discussed by E. Lughofer in. EISs form the theoretical and methodological basis for the Autonomous Learning Machines (ALMA) and autonomous multi-model systems (ALMMo) as well as of the Autonomous Learning Systems. Evolving Fuzzy Rule-based classifiers, in particular, is a very powerful new concept that offers much more than simply incremental or online classifiers – it can cope with new classes being added or existing classes being merged. This is much more than just adapting to new data samples being added or classification surfaces being evolved. Fuzzy rule-based classifiers are the methodological basis of a new approach to deep learning that was until now considered as a form of multi-layered neural networks. Deep Learning offers high precision levels surpassing the level of human ability and grabbed the imagination of the researchers, industry and the wider public. However, it has a number of intrinsic constraints and limitations. These include: The "black box", opaque internal structure which has millions of parameters and involves ad hoc decisions on the number of layers and algorithm parameters. The requirement for a huge amount of training data samples, computational resources (usually requiring GPUs and/or HPC) and time (usually requiring many hours of training). Iterative search. Requires retraining for new situations (is not evolving). Does not have proven convergence and stability. Most, if not all, of the above limitations can be avoided with the use of the Deep (Fuzzy) Rule-based Classifiers, which were recently introduced based on ALMMo, while achieving similar or even better performance. The resulting prototype-based IF...THEN...models are fully interpretable and dynamically evolving (they can adapt quickly and automatically to new data patterns or even new classes). They are non-parametric and, therefore, their training is non-iterative and fast (it can take few milliseconds per data sample/image on a normal laptop which contrasts with the multiple hours the current deep learning methods require for training even when they use GPUs and HPC). Moreover, they can be trained incrementally, online, or in real-time. Another aspect of Evolving Fuzzy Rule-based classifiers has been proposed in, which, in case of multi-class classification problems, achieves the reduction of class imbalance by cascadability into class sub-spaces and an increased flexibility and performance for adding new classes on the fly from streaming samples.