Slashdot Mirror

An Anonymous Coward writes: "From the NYtimes: IBM has recently announced AI that supposedly can handle 20,000 simultaneous 'Help Desk Requests.' Per the release not only can it handle complaints in normal prose (typed, not spoken), but also fix them. Will wonders never cease -- a robot to tell me which key is the 'any' key?! ... Please let this be more than Ask Jeeves."

parvati writes: "The New York Times is reporting that a UMass professor, Dr. David Schmidt, used computer modeling to figure out why shower curtains suck inward during showers. He designed an image of his mother-in-law's shower, filled it with 50,000 3D velocity/pressure sensors, and turned on the virtual water. 1.5 trillion calculations later, he found that drag on the falling water drops creates a mini-hurricance, producing a low-pressure 'eye' that attracts the shower curtain."

You might remember the story a few months ago about the 15-year-old stock manipulator, who pumped and dumped stocks on message boards full of gullible idiots. Now the NYT Magazine has a story that is even better - that legal professional answering your questions about criminal law? Maybe he's a 15-year-old too.

You might remember the story a few months ago about the 15-year-old stock manipulator, who pumped and dumped stocks on message boards full of gullible idiots. Now the NYT Magazine has a story that is even better - that legal professional answering your questions about criminal law? Maybe he's a 15-year-old too.

joesao writes: "The NYTimes is profiling Dr. James Thomson, a reclusive Winsconsin researcher who was the first person to isolate human stem cells from embryos. The article outlines a few of the issues surrounding the stem cell research controversy, and of course, it's more acceptable counterpart, adult stem cell research. Why is this such an ethically-laden topic? I can understand why religious groups are so uptight about this, but don't the benefits greatly outweigh the burden of destroying the bundle of cells we call 'embryo'?"

joesao writes: "The NYTimes is profiling Dr. James Thomson, a reclusive Winsconsin researcher who was the first person to isolate human stem cells from embryos. The article outlines a few of the issues surrounding the stem cell research controversy, and of course, it's more acceptable counterpart, adult stem cell research. Why is this such an ethically-laden topic? I can understand why religious groups are so uptight about this, but don't the benefits greatly outweigh the burden of destroying the bundle of cells we call 'embryo'?"

Contention writes: "The following policy was released by ICANN today (9th July), reiterating their commitment to 'A Unique, Authoritive Root for the DNS'. The document contains a stern warning to anyone '[working] under the philosophy that if they get there first with something that looks like a TLD and invite many registrants to participate, then ICANN will be required [...] to recognize in perpetuity these pseudo TLDs, inhibiting new TLDs with the same top-level name' while at the same time encouraging clearly marked, experimental alternate DNS roots." So ICANN says, unsurprisingly, that ICANN is needed to govern the domain system. Meanwhile, the Markle Foundation released a study of internet governance and accountability issues today. Read the study, or the NYT article about it.

knightwolf writes: ""Particle Physicists Plan the Next Big Thing" - the New York Times online has an article describing the discussion around a new particle accelerator, including some commentary on the difficulties present in an international collaboration project. An interesting read - but it brings up other concerns - what about collaboration on other projects, such as software projects, internationally? Problems? Concerns? Major catastrophes?" Scientists fighting over a $6 billion expenditure - not a pretty sight.

Mr. Obvious writes: "It must have already been submitted, since the article is over a day old (gasp!) but there's a good round-up on the state of the art in supercomputing, as it applies to modeling the weather --- that is to say, modeling the planet --- over at the NYTimes. They go into lots of interesting things concerning how hard it is, what progress has been made lately, why the US researchers feel themselves to be hamstringed in comparison to those in Europe or Japan, and even into some things you probably didn't know (I didn't, at least) about the weather."

Mr. Obvious writes: "It must have already been submitted, since the article is over a day old (gasp!) but there's a good round-up on the state of the art in supercomputing, as it applies to modeling the weather --- that is to say, modeling the planet --- over at the NYTimes. They go into lots of interesting things concerning how hard it is, what progress has been made lately, why the US researchers feel themselves to be hamstringed in comparison to those in Europe or Japan, and even into some things you probably didn't know (I didn't, at least) about the weather."

shmert writes: "NYTimes has the scoop on some recent eco-terrorist activity. The most titillating being the torching of an SUV dealership. Wonder if this could ever lead to anything productive? Seems like I'd think twice about buying a new SUV if the tires got slashed every week. Although antics like this never really worked in those Carl Hiassen books." Are these sorts of actions justifiable? If one of the companies developing bio-engineered plants/animals messes up, the consequences to the rest of the world could be extreme and it's doubtful the company would be in any position to make restitution. Is it right to destroy property in an effort to prevent this sort of gambling with our quality of life? Is that the most productive way to deal with bio-engineering risks?

jeffsenter writes: "NASA is about to test a solar powered and solar orienting wheeled robot known as Hyperion on arctic Devos Island, Canada. The Carnegie Mellon designed robot is a prototype for future robots to explore the polar regions of Mars, the Moon, and other moons. Here is the BBC article and here is the NYTimes (free reg. req.)."

Mr. Obvious writes: "A NYTimes reporter has written an interesting, detailed story about the cutting edge in military simulation --- interpersonal interaction! This is not about flight simulation but about fight-or-flight simulation --- see the article to see what I mean. It's short on screen-shots (just one tiny teaser) but long on critical analysis about such things as the fragility of current simulation technology. Should be of interest not only to computer gamers but also to people interested in simulation technology and its (current) limits (particularly in regards to modeling real human behavior)."

Tuzanor writes: "Physicists have found the most convincing evidence yet that neutrinos, subatomic particles that were thought to have no mass whatsoever, actually do have a very tiny mass after all. The story is at Yahoo!" We mentioned the experiment yesterday, but this is big news. The New York Times has a thorough article on the whole experiment and its meaning.

Faux_Pseudo writes: "The NY Times (free reg) has a nostalgic article on the birth of the language that made computers usable by people without an IQ over 300. You might also note the lack of focus groups looking over their shoulders telling them what it should be, bureaucrats telling them when it must be released and bean counters about how much they could spend doing it."

MacRonin writes: "In an important declaration of the constitutional limits on new privacy-threatening technology, the Supreme Court ruled yesterday that the use by the police of a thermal imaging device to detect patterns of heat coming from a private home is a search that requires a warrant. The court said further that the warrant requirement would apply not only to the relatively crude device at issue but also to any "more sophisticated systems" in use or in development that let the police gain knowledge that in the past would have been impossible without a physical entry into the home. "We must take the long view, from the original meaning of the Fourth Amendment forward," Justice Antonin Scalia wrote for a 5-to-4 majority that cut across the court's usual ideological division. Justice Scalia said that to take any other approach "would leave the homeowner at the mercy of advancing technology, including imaging technology that could discern all human activity in the home." There is coverage in the: New York Times, Washington Post, and CNN. This older piece has a little background."

The Angry Clam writes: "Supposedly, Intel has really micronized transistors." Seems that "Intel engineers have designed and manufactured a handful of transistors that are only 20 nanometers, or 0.02 microns, in size." There's some of the usual discussion of how long Moore's Law can hold, but also a bit of discussion about what will replace silicon dioxide in a few years. Reader omnirealm points to a similar story at the New York Times as well.

matroid writes: "Today the National Academy of Sciences released their review of the IPCC's global warming diatribe finding that, except for the tremendously alarmist language in the document, the report is accurate. "Greenhouse gases are accumulating in the Earth's atmosphere as a result of human activities, causing surface air temperatures and subsurface ocean temperatures to rise." An article in the NYTimes is here. Maybe I shouldn't have bought that coal-based UPS after all ..."

Erasei writes: "With all of the goverments around the world trying harder and harder to regulate what their citizens do on the net, this article has some interesting ideas. While the text was written in 1998, points like the one made here are still interesting: The extent to which the surveillance capacity of cyberspace is limited, and where permitted made controllable by user choice, is perhaps the single key issue in the regulation of cyberspace." This is a very insightful article, despite its age (I'd read it before, but it bears repeating). This article, and Lessig's work generally, puts the lie to the myth that the internet cannot be regulated. Coincidentally, there's an article on this same subject in the NYTimes today. Discusses how the structure of online sites affects the discussion that occurs there. Good reading.

mtDNA writes: "The New York Times has an article on the eighth annual robotic firefighting contest at Trinity College." The contest's home page has contestant rankings as well as some great photos and the rules contestants had to live by. Next year promises to be even more challenging. Anyone there to offer some first-hand reports?

Mike Van Pelt writes: "Right in the midst of the tensions surrounding the spy plane incident in China, military instruments detected a bright flash and a nearly Hiroshima-sized blast in the ocean off Los Angeles. Turns out it was a meteor. (nytimes.com requires free registration for access.)" Scary.

selectspec writes: "The NYTimes is reporting that a panel of scientists has recommended that NASA treat samples returned from Mars from future missions be quarantined as if they contained deadly viruses until proven otherwise. ABC news also has the scoop, as does space.com. Of course many scientists agree this is pure politics given that over a ton of Martian material enters our atmosphere every year, spit up from meteor impacts on Mars. In the unlikely event that life currently existed on Mars in the past million or so years, such debris would have likely transported microbial organizisms here. Many forms of microbial life would be able to survive such a journey."

jonbrewer writes: "The NYTimes is running a great article talking about the growing trend of Diesel cars in Europe, their fantastic mileage, and the fact that America ignores them. While the article wows us with 78mpg for the Audi A2, I'm happy with the 45mpg my TDI Golf makes." Until diesel pumps are everywhere, I think I'll hold out for my solar/hydrogen-fuel-cell/flywheel hybrid.

jonbrewer writes: "The NYTimes is running a great article talking about the growing trend of Diesel cars in Europe, their fantastic mileage, and the fact that America ignores them. While the article wows us with 78mpg for the Audi A2, I'm happy with the 45mpg my TDI Golf makes." Until diesel pumps are everywhere, I think I'll hold out for my solar/hydrogen-fuel-cell/flywheel hybrid.

An Anonymous Coward writes: "The NY Times reports the work of two Danish researchers who, after analysing 114 previous medical studies, claim that placebos appear to have no significant effect on people's objective symptoms, despite the prevailing view to the contrary." This is refreshing news -- nice to see conventional wisdom challenged and found lacking. (Hmmm. I wonder if I got the placebo at Pharmaco a few years ago ...)

mtDNA writes: "There's an article in the New York Times about the strategies SETI is using to avoid fraudulent reports. One trick they're using is multiple analyses of the same data. Another strategy is the use of "ringer" data, where they send you fake data for which they know the results." One of the researchers has several postscript papers on his home page - Incentives for Sharing in Peer-to-Peer Networks, Uncheatable Distributed Computations, Distributed Computing with Payout. In related news, ProcessTree apparently sent out an email to participants indicating it is closing up shop, so although SETI seems to be chugging along, the idea of distributed computing as a business model is perhaps a bit premature.

mtDNA writes: "There's an article in the New York Times about the strategies SETI is using to avoid fraudulent reports. One trick they're using is multiple analyses of the same data. Another strategy is the use of "ringer" data, where they send you fake data for which they know the results." One of the researchers has several postscript papers on his home page - Incentives for Sharing in Peer-to-Peer Networks, Uncheatable Distributed Computations, Distributed Computing with Payout. In related news, ProcessTree apparently sent out an email to participants indicating it is closing up shop, so although SETI seems to be chugging along, the idea of distributed computing as a business model is perhaps a bit premature.

Faux_Pseudo writes: "In an attempt to flood your field of vison with more advertising the NY Times (free reg)has an article on how "digital technology may be used for the first time to place "virtual" products in scenes of a syndicated television series." If you were taken aback by The Duke selling Coors beer you might want to unplug the TV now." This sort of digital manipulation isn't totally new, but it seems like what we've seen so far is just the tip of the reality-distortion iceberg. As xueexueg puts it, "With any luck we'll see Capt. Janeway ask the food replicator for a meal, and a personal pan pizza will materialize."

Psx writes: "The New York times has an interesting article discussing theories of what happened before the big bang." Pretty heavy stuff to think about.

The NYTimes has a lengthy expose of the actions of a company that creates and administers standardized tests, one destined for RISKS Digest very shortly. A bug in their software sent students to summer school and resulted in teachers and superintendents being fired from their jobs, even though the company was notified of problems early. It's a fascinating story of the risks of going with a closed source vendor - how the company acts to perform damage control, lies, stalls, compartmentalizes the damage by telling each complainer that they are the only one experiencing problems, and finally, most of a year after being notified of the problem, fixes the bug. (It's a two-part series - the first part discusses problems with human scoring of tests.)

The NYTimes has a lengthy expose of the actions of a company that creates and administers standardized tests, one destined for RISKS Digest very shortly. A bug in their software sent students to summer school and resulted in teachers and superintendents being fired from their jobs, even though the company was notified of problems early. It's a fascinating story of the risks of going with a closed source vendor - how the company acts to perform damage control, lies, stalls, compartmentalizes the damage by telling each complainer that they are the only one experiencing problems, and finally, most of a year after being notified of the problem, fixes the bug. (It's a two-part series - the first part discusses problems with human scoring of tests.)

jeffsenter writes "CNET and the AP have stories on IBM's latest major advance of HD density. "Technically called antiferromagnetically-coupled (AFC) media and informally referred to as "pixie dust" at IBM, the innovation introduces a thin layer of the element ruthenium onto the disks inside hard drives where data is stored."" I knew it. Everyone told me through was no pixie dust in computers - but The Truth shall set you free!

The NYTimes is carrying a story I thought was interesting about Amazon.com trying to actually, gasp, turn a profit. When you have a small business it isn't terribly difficult to make sure you're selling things for more than they cost you. For an outfit like Amazon, it's a little more challenging.

The NYTimes had an article this morning about MusicNet, a new venture of Real and the record industry to provide pay-per-listen music to the masses. (Read the AP version if you don't want to register with the Times.) Meanwhile, CNET reports that SDMI adjourned from their most recent meeting without picking any technologies to go forward with - an admission that they are all thoroughly broken, by the team led by Professor Felton, who spoke yesterday at Stanford.

lizrd writes: "The New York Times is reporting in their cyber law section that Eric Corley is in trouble in the courts again. This time he's being sued by Ford Motor Company for pointing a domain name that the New York Times won't mention to Ford's website. It will be interesting to see how this comes out in the courts, both sides seem to have some fairly strong arguments."

g8orade writes: "This NYT article presents the increasingly difficult path researchers in public arenas (universities) have distributing the results of their efforts, because of patents held on the genetic structures of food crops. Stallman makes a big case for distinguishing between copyright and patents, but anyone want to start the Free Food Foundation?"

cblood writes: "This article tells how the worker bees at Time Warner are forced to switch to AOL for their email. That's one way to increase your user base." Turns out that not everyone at Time-Warner wants to hear "you've got mail!" 50 times a day.

jeffsenter writes: "The NYTimes has an interesting story on a new major ancient cover unearthed in Central Asia. The civilization existed for about 500 years over 4000 years ago and was independent of other roughly competorary civilizations in China, the Indus Valley, and Mesopotamia. The civilization also had at least begun to develop its own unique writing system. The end of the Cold War and new relations between Russian and American scientists made the discoveries possible."

DeepDarkSky writes: "This NYTimes article is saying more than 60 environmental and fishermen group are asking the FDA for a moratorium on approval of genetically-modified salmon until further assessments of the impact can be made. The last paragraph of the article particularly caught my attention: 'Mr. Entis said the salmon his company was developing were not larger than other salmon at sexual maturity, they just grew faster. In addition, he said, the females will be sterile to prevent reproduction.' Elliot Entis is the president of Aqua Bounty Farms, the people who are bringing forth the GM salmon. It seems to me that instead of growth hormones, they are now turning to genetic modification to change attributes of creatures raised for food (perhaps thinking that it's "safer" than the hormones and antibiotics being injected into cows and whatnot). And the last sentence seemed to be directly from out of the first Jurassic Park movie, doesn't it?"

selectspec writes: "Old pnuematic tubes used for delivering mail in 19th century cities like New York possibly could be used as piping to hold new fiber lines. Accoding to this nytimes article the tubes were used to deliver mail through New York City via pressurized air in 1897. Now, an entrepreneur wants to use the tubes instead of laying new pipes which would cost upwards of 100 million dollars a mile in New York City." Pneumatic tubes have been ahead of their time for over a century, so it's cool to see some of their inherent latency problems can be overcome by creative re-use.

pjones writes: "This just in! Open Source is bad for companies and countries too. In a New York Times article (registration required), John Markoff reports that: "In a speech defending Microsoft's business model, to be given on Thursday at the Stern School of Business at New York University, Craig Mundie, a senior vice president at Microsoft and one of its software strategists, will argue that the company already follows the best attributes of the open-source model by sharing the original programmer's instructions, or source code, more widely than is generally realized." Singled out for particular rebuke and scorn are IBM and the famous GPL and its author Richard Stallman. Who will be there to cheer Craig on?" See also ESR's dispatch on same. (Read below for update with time and place.)

Update: 05/03 01:55 PM by T : cananian points to this announcement on time and place. The upshot: from noon to 1:30 p.m, in room 1-70 of NYU's Kaufman Management Center (KMEC), 44 West 4th Street.

Big Brass Balls writes: "The NY Times has an article about how freebies are becoming harder to come by on the web." Registration free link, even -- "just doing my bit to promote freebies on the web." And I never got my free 50 photos developed by Shutterfly, either.

Big Brass Balls writes: "The NY Times has an article about how freebies are becoming harder to come by on the web." Registration free link, even -- "just doing my bit to promote freebies on the web." And I never got my free 50 photos developed by Shutterfly, either.

An Anonymous Coward writes: "The NY Times (free reg required) has a story about ionic liquids possibly taking over from some of the nastier organic solvents. Apparently these things have been around since the 40s, but are only just getting a lot of attention now. They are supposed to be a lot more environmentally friendly, offer all sorts of wonderful properties for carrying out chemical reactions, and so on. They may be cool and different, but are they really better? Salt on the roads in the winter causes all kinds of problems -- aren't other kinds of salts going to cause problems in large quantities? On the other hand, cool and different is good too."

An Anonymous Coward writes: "The NY Times (free reg required) has a story about ionic liquids possibly taking over from some of the nastier organic solvents. Apparently these things have been around since the 40s, but are only just getting a lot of attention now. They are supposed to be a lot more environmentally friendly, offer all sorts of wonderful properties for carrying out chemical reactions, and so on. They may be cool and different, but are they really better? Salt on the roads in the winter causes all kinds of problems -- aren't other kinds of salts going to cause problems in large quantities? On the other hand, cool and different is good too."

twrayinma writes: "According to this article in Salon, Prof. Felten may have been smarter than we thought yesterday when he "allowed himself to be bullied" by the DMCA wielding RIAA. 2600 and the EFF could use this incident as an example of a big company using DMCA to quash legitimate research, as their court case alleges. Looks like Prof. Felten's fight may not be over yet..." Carl Kaplan's Cyber Law column in the NY Times also discusses the case.

While I'm at it, I should mention that the appeal hearing in the 2600 case will be this Tuesday in New York City. I do not know if a "protest" of any sort is planned; judges aren't supposed to decide cases based on protests anyway. But the case may be of interest to many NY-area readers:

Tuesday May 1 2001
Second Circuit Courthouse
10:00 AM
Courtroom 506
40 Centre St., at Foley Square, Manhattan

Thanks to LXNY for the information.

orn writes: "Reuters is reporting that IBM has made a step toward using carbon nanotubes as the next best thing since sliced silicon wafers. They created a process that could potentially be turned into a manufacturing method to make extremely small transistors. Yahoo has a copy of the article. We all know that small transistors means higher speeds! Yum!" The NY Times has another article about the same technology, which we've mentioned before.

Logic Bomb writes "The New York Times has an article covering new advances in the field of display systems that beam images directly onto the retina. An actual useable product has been developed that allows you to see a "projected" image without necessarily interfering with the rest of your vision. It sounds like a great way to watch TV or read news headlines on the bus if you ask me, but the article discusses some more, um, useful applications. )"

wyren writes "This story in the NYTimes (free req req'd) summarizes some findings published in the journal Nature about a recent dig in China. The article claims the find is the most complete skeleton to date with fossilized evidence of feathers. There have been previous similar finds but one researcher claims the superior quality of this specimen makes it the 'find we've been waiting for.'"

Baldrson writes: "The New York Times reports that architect Stephen Valentine has been commissioned to build a $180 million cryonics "Noah's Ark" theme park and hospice. The purpose will be the preservation, and amusement, of all manner of biological samples, including humans. Among the supporting groups is the nonprofit Stasis Foundation which has been involved in bail-outs of cryonics companies (euphemism for cryonics companies in necrosis). This announcement is particularly timely given this weekend's Foresight Institute Senior Associate Gathering. Biblical themes may evoke religious contributions from aging boomers to push the envelope, but never underestimate the passion of the dog breeders." The vision that comes to mind is Michael Jackson's head in a glass jar.