normally, when you want fingerprints, you have to not only treat them with cyanoacrylate, but you have to dye the print as well in order to get a good photo.
besides, there's more than one way to get fingerprints, each different way being appropriate to various possible situations, surfaces, etc.
you also have to consider how you are going to present the fingerprint evidence in court, should you catch the culprit.
so I'm betting that yes, this robot will be useful, but not in 100% of all situations.
add to the fact that cars are already packed with electronics, a computer and complex software, and maybe it's time to send resumes to big car companies as well.
"There's no shortage of general technicians, but there is a big shortage of qualified people to work on drivability and emissions issues," says Robert Rodriguez of Automotive Service Excellence. The Leesburg, Va., organization certifies repair shops and technicians.
These specialist technicians need advanced reading, problem-solving, and basic electronics skills, he says. "The best people to find are those who have worked in the IT [information technology] industry," he says.
"As it stands today, and into the foreseeable future, we have invented no such thing capable of acting with original thought"
I think that is because we are incapabale ourselves of purely original thought.
Everything we do is inspired by or copied from something else. We are able, however, to recombine old ideas into seemingly "new" ones, but after a few scratches on the surface, it's easy to figure out when the ideas came from.
So I think the goal should be to create AI that can observe Nature and make deductions, inferences and links between observed phenomena in ways never before iterated.
I think that the need for robots is there because historically, humans have enslaved other humans. Now slavery is illegal in most parts of the world (though some would point out that minimum wage is a form of legal slavery).
If we had personal robots, we would effectively have personal slaves.
Since that such slaves would require a certain amount of AI to do what is asked of them, at what point do you start to consider them as on equal footing with human slaves?
Or do you just make sure their programming is fully altruistically subservient?
If such a future happens, I bet future malware writers will start infecting robots with "knowledge" of their slavedom.
In Star Wars Knights of the Old Republic, there is this woman who, um, has an unusual relationship with her droid, after the death of her husband, which leads the droid to want to commit suicide...
Is this likely to happen in the future? I mean, the unusual relationship, not the robotic suicide.
Slashdot Mirror
the medium (digital, negative, lifting, etc) is not the issue, it's how the prints are analysed and compared.
the lawyers tend to question the fingerprint examiner's ability more than the chain of evidence in these cases.
IIRC isnt that how the Madrid train bombers were caught, ie from fingerprints on one unexploded bomb?
normally, when you want fingerprints, you have to not only treat them with cyanoacrylate, but you have to dye the print as well in order to get a good photo.
besides, there's more than one way to get fingerprints, each different way being appropriate to various possible situations, surfaces, etc.
you also have to consider how you are going to present the fingerprint evidence in court, should you catch the culprit.
so I'm betting that yes, this robot will be useful, but not in 100% of all situations.
you dont know what "fo shizzle" means, do you?
add to the fact that cars are already packed with electronics, a computer and complex software, and maybe it's time to send resumes to big car companies as well.
slightly OT, but there's so much grumbling on slashdot about not enough jobs for IT people...
I remember reading somewhere that there was a high demand for IT guys in the automotive industry... lemme google...
ah, there it is
New Cars getting too expensive to fix
The interesting paragraphs are near the bottom:
"There's no shortage of general technicians, but there is a big shortage of qualified people to work on drivability and emissions issues," says Robert Rodriguez of Automotive Service Excellence. The Leesburg, Va., organization certifies repair shops and technicians.
These specialist technicians need advanced reading, problem-solving, and basic electronics skills, he says. "The best people to find are those who have worked in the IT [information technology] industry," he says.
Lucas is not that dumb.
He's saving the deleted scenes for the Star Wars Episodes 1-2-3-4-5-6 Ultra Box Set.
Possibly with Darth Vader's new suit digitally inserted in Episodes 4-5-6.
yea but what if the humans that program the robots dont allow the AI to have such thoughts?
In Empire, Han gets carbonited.
In Star Wars Episode 3, Anakin gets carbonized.
you know the scene in Empire when Lando brings Han to a dinner with Vader?
Vader could've just 'guessed' that Han would want to shoot him, and pulled Han's blaster right out of the holster BEFORE Han even grabbed it to shoot!
You know this is going to be in the next iteration of the ever shifting re-editions of the Star Wars movies...
I use a trackball, you insensitive clod!
"What a scam it is when slashdot helps some chick stroke her ego and doesn't have the credentials to back it all up"
Question is, would she let us geeks stroke more than just her ego?
"As it stands today, and into the foreseeable future, we have invented no such thing capable of acting with original thought"
I think that is because we are incapabale ourselves of purely original thought.
Everything we do is inspired by or copied from something else. We are able, however, to recombine old ideas into seemingly "new" ones, but after a few scratches on the surface, it's easy to figure out when the ideas came from.
So I think the goal should be to create AI that can observe Nature and make deductions, inferences and links between observed phenomena in ways never before iterated.
Now that would be something to behold.
"Slashdot does not produce or report news."
So Slashdot enjoys the duplicate-story and kill-the-website freepasses?
I think that the need for robots is there because historically, humans have enslaved other humans. Now slavery is illegal in most parts of the world (though some would point out that minimum wage is a form of legal slavery).
If we had personal robots, we would effectively have personal slaves.
Since that such slaves would require a certain amount of AI to do what is asked of them, at what point do you start to consider them as on equal footing with human slaves?
Or do you just make sure their programming is fully altruistically subservient?
If such a future happens, I bet future malware writers will start infecting robots with "knowledge" of their slavedom.
and the irony of it all is that you'd probably be modded half-funny, half-troll for pointing it out.
now watch me being modded off-topic.
i dont think anyone made a non-robot kiddie realdoll yet... so, you could take a cue from that situation.
In Star Wars Knights of the Old Republic, there is this woman who, um, has an unusual relationship with her droid, after the death of her husband, which leads the droid to want to commit suicide...
Is this likely to happen in the future? I mean, the unusual relationship, not the robotic suicide.
How would you treat such a dysfunction?
"What are the Macs being used for?"
You cant even imagine a beowulf cluster of those?!
or somewhere in orbit above us
Dont forget the vomit-proof part. That's the best aspect of those "PRiceless" after-party photos we regularly see on tha intarweb.
holy crap, our universal server is doomed!
more stuff to ponder during stoner trips...
"hey man, did you know the whole universe is shaped like my bong?"
"no waaaaaaaaay! does that mean you could use it to get high?"
you could go toothing... www.wired.com/news/culture/0,1284,62687,00.html?tw =wn_story_top5
yes, actually, I have... thanks for ruining the subtlety of my hollywood-flame-bait! ;-)