Corporate Sponsors of Minds and Machines Laboratory at Rensselaer

Corporate Sponsors
The Minds & Machines Laboratory is now sponsored by a number of companies; only some of them are listed here. And the list appears to be growing monthly. Accordingly, this page will continue to grow. For a brief description of sponsorship in connection with the M&M Lab, see Overview of Research in Minds & Machines Lab. The One-Page Graphical Overview of Research in the Minds & Machines Lab may prove convenient.

Vicarious Visions. is an independent game development company founded in 1994 by a team of experienced designers, programmers, and artists with the common goal of producing imaginative single player and online multiplayer games. VV's development philosophy centers around streamlined, efficient development teams whose members bring talent and experience from a range of game-related fields: software development, video, film, illustration, marketing, engineering, and scientific research. Currently Vicarious Visions is partnering with the Minds & Machines Laboratory in studying, under controlled conditions, why some games succeed and others don't. VV is also working with the Lab on a revolutionary simulation system.

Apple Computer. All the video for Introduction to Artificial Intelligence was . The digitization of the Fall 98 and 99 Minds & Machines Evening Lecture Series, Exceptional Minds/Exceptional Machines and Creative Minds/Creative Machines, is currently being done on the Mac as well. Research on the effectiveness of Hyperproof (logic courseware exclusively for MacOS) is taking place in the Lab. And lots of other Mac-related activity is taking place and is planned.

Thanks to the generosity of sgi. our "Sim3" simulator is driven by a beautiful 540, the architecture for which is truly amazing. The Sim3 is the core system for our Cognition and Advanced Transport research theme (see Overview of Research in Minds & Machines Lab). The Sim3 is also used for gaming research.

In connection with story generation work led by Selmer Bringsjord and Dave Ferrucci, the Minds & Machines Lab carries out research that relates to the products and vision of Legal Knowledge Systems for computer-assisted writing.

The remarkable Sense8 system from EAI. allows us to simplify the complex task of developing real-time, immersive 3D scenarios for our Sim3 simulator. The Sim3 is the core system for our Cognition and Advanced Transport and Gaming Minds research themes (see Overview of Research in Minds & Machines Lab).

The BRUTUS system was developed in the FLEX system from Logic Programming Associates, a long-established software house supplying smart software tools for intelligent industry solutions. LPA's products undergird many of Selmer Bringsjord's classroom demonstrations as well, in the area of logic programming.

The researchers working in the Minds and Machines Lab are clever and engergetic, sure, but there's a secret to their productivity: Red Bull, which in many ways powers the lab. Working through the night on a robotics project or a proposal to the NSF or a recalcitrant program that's got to be running clean by 8am can seem like a walk in the park after a couple of cans. Amazing stuff.