DEEP GREEN PLAYS COOL POOL
While IBM’s Deep Blue supercomputer had the lofty aim of beating a world chess champion, Deep Green’s purpose is far more lowly – shooting pool. The world’s first pool-playing robot comprises a long slender box containing a computer that glides along a set of tracks fixed above a pool table. A camera-guided cue, which shoots out an electromagnet-powered bolt to hit the ball, is attached to an arm on its base (see www.ece.queensu.ca/hpages/faculty/greenspan).
The prototype’s shot-planning software can “look ahead” and set up shots three or four turns in advance, says developer Michael Greenspan of Queen’s University in Kingston, Ontario. However,…
