The 2nd On-line World Conference on Soft Computing in Engineering Design and Manufacturing (WSC2) has extended its registration deadline to 04July97, to accommodate the continuing demand. , or send a "wsc2: email-service" subject line and "info" message to . [Pravir Chawdhry , genetic-programming, 27Jun97. Bill Park.]

Hugo de Garis and Michael Korkin will soon show the first CAM-Brain Machine (CBM) prototype at the GP97 conference, with commercial prototypes possibly available in 1998. The CBM uses Xilinx XC6264 FPGA chips in re-programmable "3D cellular automata" cells to test neural-network configurations within genetic algorithm runs. The CA cells are updated over 100B times per second, which allows [simple] evaluation of tens of thousands of neural networks per second. De Garis foresees many thousands of such modules forming an "artificial brain," or revolutionizing the field of evolutionary engineering. . [, GA-List, 27Jun97. Bill Park.] (De Garis works at Nippon Electric Company's Advanced Telephone Research Labs (NEC/ATR). Bill comments that only certain problems -- such as traveling salesman -- lend themselves to single-trial evaluation. Others -- such as financial models or complex control systems -- may take weeks to evaluate.)

"An Introduction to Evolutionary Computation," by David Fogel and Zbigniew Michalewicz, is a 106 min. VHS video (with course notes) from the IEEE Neural Networks Council and IEEE Educational Activities. Details from (908) 562-5499 or . [comp.ai.genetic, 18Jun97.]

For a nonprofit UK website on complex systems -- including self-organization, alife, chaos, neural nets, genetic algorithms, etc. -- see . Many FAQs and links. [DAKirshbm , comp.ai, 28Jun97.]

The Evolutionary Computation Repository Network (ENCORE) is accessible by WWW at (and other addresses), by FTP from , and by email with a "get help" message to . You can retrieve the comp.ai.genetic FAQ, "The Hitch-Hiker's Guide to Evolutionary Computation," with a "get research/softcomp/EC/FAQ/hhgtec.ps.gz" command. GNU tools to unpack the files can be downloaded from . [Jorg Heitkotter , comp.ai.alife, 24Jun97.]

Argonne National Lab is licensing its Parallel Genetic Algorithm Package (PGAPack) Version 1.0 for scientific use or for incorporation in commercial software. The library is "unique, general-purpose, and data structure-neutral," callable from Fortran or C, and can run on parallel or serial computers or on workstation networks. . [FEDIX, 26Jun97.]

For "industrial strength" AI freeware, look through the Public Ada Library at CERN, . There's at least one NN program, with instructions, plus free Ada compilers and an online tutorial. [Alan Brain , comp.ai.games, 08May97.] (Alan claims that his current war game AI development in C++ is five times as much work as similar Ada programming that he did for two NATO navies.)