I was particularly interested in the acquisition of the Australian mapping company (which hasn't been greatly publicised). Does that mean that Australia might be getting Google maps? If so, WhereIs might be an acquisition they could consider, although it seems to be part of a larger Sensis search group. It's pretty good already, but it would benefit from extra bandwidth and a bit of Google sleek-ifying.
I wonder if you could do some sort of trick where you had polarised screens, and people wore corresponding glasses, so that you could have two separate images appearing on the screen, but only visible to people with the right glasses?
Or, use the Imax like glasses, and flick between images on the screen every refresh, and have the glasses blackout for every other image, so you again only see the images you want.
Oh, and to top it off, you set up your speakers really carefully so that there's interference, and a node (no sound) from one source for person A, and a node from the other source for person B!
Then again, it's probably easier just to use two screens and two headphones:)
"helping Microsoft to understand Open Source and community-based projects."
I think Microsoft already understand Open Source projects - and, quite obviously and unsurprisingly, they don't like them. Justifiable from a business perspective, crap from (almost) everyone else's perspective, and I have trouble seeing what change he could bring in Microsoft.
Unless of course he's got several kilograms of TNT strapped to his chest when he has his first meeting with Bill:)
It's a minor point, but you need to specify the speed relative to something - in this case, it's the speed of relative to the sun. It's good old relativity - and I'm not talking about general or even special - just good old Galilean relativity! (Which says you can't know whether you're moving, or the object you're watching is moving...)
It reminds me a little of when Canon released their sub-$1000 Digital SLR (300D). It had quite a few features disabled by software (such as flash power setting and I think some white balance settings). People promptly wrote a new firmware for it, and you ended up with a camera that wasn't so far off their more expensive model.
I understand why they do it, but if I'm paying for the hardware, I want to jolly well use it!
I wonder where the "Keep your house clean!" sits in the positronic brain surface potential? It would have to be at 1.5, to stop pesky teenagers from ticking off their parents...
1. A robot may not harm a human being, or, through inaction, allow a human being to come to harm.
1.5 A robot must keep its house clean, except where such orders would conflict with the First Law.
2. A robot must obey the orders given to it by human beings, except where such orders would conflict with the First Law for 1.5th Law.
3. A robot must protect its own existence, as long as such protection does not conflict with the First, 1.5th or Second Law.
While I'm inclined to believe it will probably work just as well as the image recognition software posted a few weeks ago (i.e., not very well), if they're getting you to pay for it (and as much as a song on iTunes, no less!) then they're obviously confident!
I wonder if you get your money back if it can't identify the song, or if it identifies it incorrectly? I can see it being a bit of a minefield for customer satisfaction unless they really do have a top class product...
I did the midnight screening thing as well, arriving at about 8pm. There were many cool characters there, and, I have to confess, I was one of them. Or, at least, I was a character. Cool is debatable...
I'd made myself a lightsaber out of hardware store items, and while not authentic it worked pretty well. (A chrome table leg, cut ot size, and then various bits of wire and plumbing supplies glued on - it's easy to make something that looks quite reasonable!) My partner made me a cloak, and I think I did quite a good job - certainly among the best Jedi costumes there, if I do say so myself.
But, as the subject line promised, the best was a male Princess Leia, complete with danish pastry hair and pointy breasts...he would have been quite becoming were it not for the stubble. Or have I said too much?
It's funny - I'm not really a huge Star Wars fan, but I do love the atmosphere of a midnight screening. There's something pretty awesome about seeing it, and having everyone cheer for the LucasFilm logo!
Now this is why I read Slashdot - where else can you get such a diverse range of people, and pick up wonderful little tidbits like the true story behind that wonderful legend about solving unsolved problems? Sure, it's available on Snopes for you to find if you know what you're looking for, but asking the right question is often a lot harder than the answer, as best illustrated bythe Hitch Hiker's guide: Meaning of life=42, Question=???. (Hey, perhaps if they'd put that up on the board, he might have been able to solve that as well!)
An interesting question will be whether Google will ever put ads on its main page. Clearly that would be a sought-after position, but also goes against the beauty of Google's AdWords system, where I actually find Ads relevant.
But perhaps if I select certain personalised info for my home page, they would have enough information to justify attempting to target ads to me? I actually think it pretty unlikely - it would be an unpopular move, and Google really does no evil. But it must be tempting!
Google's doing the right thing - some people (I presume!) actually like having everything together on the one page. And in many ways, it could be nice - if with a simple, uncluttered interface I can see the day's weather and some of the top news stories from my slected news site when I load up my browser to my default page, then that's good. It's only when the page starts being cluttered by dating services and offers for stuff that doesn't apply to non-U.S.ians that it gets annoyed.
And, of course, if I decide I don't like it, I can simply revert back to the simple interface. As long as I can do that, I'm happy.
Anyway, who has time to think about Google when there's Star Wars to think about?!
I, for one, loved Revenge of the Sith - I thought it was a seriously cool movie, awsome special effects, great story and brilliant acting from Anakin - this was definitely the movie he was cast for. And Palpatine...well, what can I say?!
And, best of all, it answered lots of questions, but also raised lots more - we know how Anakin fell to the Dark Side, and we know how he became Darth Vader. We understand where Luke and Leia fit in, and even a little about the Jedi "ghosts". But there's lots to discuss - was Palpatine really beaten by Mace Windu (I highly doubt it). And what was really going through Anakin's head? Did he really believe that he was going to bring peace, etc, to the galaxy? Or was it just to give himself a plausable excuse to save Amidala? So delightfully tormented! I've posted some thoughts to my blog.
The lightsaber battles and special effects, the thunderous roar of the ships - watching a crappy download on the computer simply doesn't do it justice. Even with the best home sound system, etc, I think the big screen still has something to offer.
Of course, after seeing it on the big screen I've got noproblem with going and downloading it to watch it again (although I've sheepishly got ot admit that I've seen it in the cinema twice - once at the midnight screening (which we Aussies got before the U.S. - go time zones!) and once with my partner.)
I really loved the movie, and definitely think it was worth it - a truly memorable conclusion to the Star Wars saga.
I remember the good old days of Turbo Pascal, working with just 640kb of conventional memory, and trying to figure out how to swap some extended memory pages in, or use the mouse. It's pretty amazing how far programming languages have become - whether Windows or Mac it's certainly a lot easier to do a lot more knowing a lot less, for better or worse.
That said, does Pascal really have a place these days? C is really the dominant language, and I can't help but think that this is more of a vanity project for die-hard Pascal fans than a serious contender for a stake in the software platform market.
As other posters have pointed out, this sort of self replication is a long way from the feared "grey goo" effect, where the robots eventually cover the planet. Here, the pieces are pre-assembled, and the robots simply combine them in the appropriate way to make more robots. The "grey goo" idea is a particular feature of nanobots, where the robots are on the order of a nanometre across, and can replicate using simple compounds (e.g., the robots in Michael Crichton's Swarm "eat" metals from computers and other electronics and reform them into the necessary circuits and mechanical bits). The idea is that if enough of them got together, we would see a grey goo, that could self replicate and spread.
But it does mean that self-replicating robots are, unsurprisingly, possible, and that if the robots could be made simpler, they could perhaps replicate using simpler pieces, and so forth.
More importantly, if you gave the robots a whole bunch of pieces (basically, the equivalent of Lego blocks) they could perhaps replicate and reproduce into shapes that best suit their environment - they're modular and expandable, which might have important applications (e.g., rescue, exploration, etc).
I can't help but think that Apple would be one of the best people to pull this off. Given that they (pretty much) control the specs of their systems and the corresponding OS, they can really tailor the Tablet functionality to work as well as possible. The tablets I've seen in PCs are cool, but not enough to encourage me to fork out the extra money compared to a regular laptop. (That said, I'm now a Mac user anyway!) Apple really has a talent for creating sexy, sleek and functional products - I'm sure they'd do a good job with this one!
Incidentally, for those who don't want a full on Tablet laptop, grab a Wacom Graphire 3 Tablet! They're cheap (approx $100), highly effective (used by many professional graphic designers) and can work with Powerpoint, Photoshop, etc. I love mine! It takes a little getting used to, but after that it's a piece of cake.
Two bodies were found dead on the side of the road, apparently flung from a speeding vehicle. Satellite tracking followed the car as it drove itself, without driver, to a house in suburban San Diego. Police arrested 14 year old Neville Splink as he prepared to climb into the drivers seat with a modded Bluetooth enabled Playstation 2 running Linux and a copy of Gran Turismo 4. Neville could not be reached for comment, but sources say he couldn't believe how lucky he was that some idiots deliberately loaded his virus into their car. He had been expecting to have to take over their minds with their mobile phones first.
Police have warned all families with nerdy children to be on the look out for unexplained cars turning up in their garage.
I wonder how long before the robots realise that they can slip high grade oil or lithium ion batteries into the shopping cart instead of the cheap no-brand versions...After all, their "owner" isn't looking...
Obligitary comment: I for one welcome our new robot shopper overlords...
I just did a quick search based on this image of a Qantas logo (that's the main Australian airline, in case you're wondering...) It's red, with a white kangaroo in the middle. My theoretical aim was to find photos of Qantas planes.
What I got was an awful lot of red planes - some of which were actually Qantas planes, but I think more by coincidence (i.e., they're red) than design. Many images had nothing to do with Qantas, or even a red plane - they simply had a lot of red in the image.
This is impressive in some ways, but in others it seems like it's simply looking for similar patches of colour. I haven't done enough testing to see what happens if,say, I gave it a half red half green image.
Interesting, but not ready for public consumption just yet. A bit like A.L.I.C.E. the artifial intelligence system actually - neat, but not practical. Yet!
Slashdot Mirror
I was particularly interested in the acquisition of the Australian mapping company (which hasn't been greatly publicised). Does that mean that Australia might be getting Google maps? If so, WhereIs might be an acquisition they could consider, although it seems to be part of a larger Sensis search group. It's pretty good already, but it would benefit from extra bandwidth and a bit of Google sleek-ifying.
Or, use the Imax like glasses, and flick between images on the screen every refresh, and have the glasses blackout for every other image, so you again only see the images you want.
Oh, and to top it off, you set up your speakers really carefully so that there's interference, and a node (no sound) from one source for person A, and a node from the other source for person B!
Then again, it's probably easier just to use two screens and two headphones :)
I think Microsoft already understand Open Source projects - and, quite obviously and unsurprisingly, they don't like them. Justifiable from a business perspective, crap from (almost) everyone else's perspective, and I have trouble seeing what change he could bring in Microsoft.
Unless of course he's got several kilograms of TNT strapped to his chest when he has his first meeting with Bill :)
A dollar a day keeps the lawyers away!
It's a minor point, but you need to specify the speed relative to something - in this case, it's the speed of relative to the sun. It's good old relativity - and I'm not talking about general or even special - just good old Galilean relativity! (Which says you can't know whether you're moving, or the object you're watching is moving...)
You have to admire Microsoft's ability to turn what seems to be a damaging situation into something that might actually benefit them!
I'm so going to be on their blacklist for this comment...
I understand why they do it, but if I'm paying for the hardware, I want to jolly well use it!
Nice - robot fight clubs! I like it - beats the heck out of Robot Wars...
1. A robot may not harm a human being, or, through inaction, allow a human being to come to harm.
1.5 A robot must keep its house clean, except where such orders would conflict with the First Law.
2. A robot must obey the orders given to it by human beings, except where such orders would conflict with the First Law for 1.5th Law.
3. A robot must protect its own existence, as long as such protection does not conflict with the First, 1.5th or Second Law.
Don't worry - Spider-man will be along in time to save us! And he might even bring a cute girl with him ;) Hey - maybe that's their plan!
I wonder if you get your money back if it can't identify the song, or if it identifies it incorrectly? I can see it being a bit of a minefield for customer satisfaction unless they really do have a top class product...
I'd made myself a lightsaber out of hardware store items, and while not authentic it worked pretty well. (A chrome table leg, cut ot size, and then various bits of wire and plumbing supplies glued on - it's easy to make something that looks quite reasonable!) My partner made me a cloak, and I think I did quite a good job - certainly among the best Jedi costumes there, if I do say so myself.
But, as the subject line promised, the best was a male Princess Leia, complete with danish pastry hair and pointy breasts...he would have been quite becoming were it not for the stubble. Or have I said too much?
It's funny - I'm not really a huge Star Wars fan, but I do love the atmosphere of a midnight screening. There's something pretty awesome about seeing it, and having everyone cheer for the LucasFilm logo!
Now this is why I read Slashdot - where else can you get such a diverse range of people, and pick up wonderful little tidbits like the true story behind that wonderful legend about solving unsolved problems? Sure, it's available on Snopes for you to find if you know what you're looking for, but asking the right question is often a lot harder than the answer, as best illustrated bythe Hitch Hiker's guide: Meaning of life=42, Question=???. (Hey, perhaps if they'd put that up on the board, he might have been able to solve that as well!)
But perhaps if I select certain personalised info for my home page, they would have enough information to justify attempting to target ads to me? I actually think it pretty unlikely - it would be an unpopular move, and Google really does no evil. But it must be tempting!
And, of course, if I decide I don't like it, I can simply revert back to the simple interface. As long as I can do that, I'm happy.
Anyway, who has time to think about Google when there's Star Wars to think about?!
And, best of all, it answered lots of questions, but also raised lots more - we know how Anakin fell to the Dark Side, and we know how he became Darth Vader. We understand where Luke and Leia fit in, and even a little about the Jedi "ghosts". But there's lots to discuss - was Palpatine really beaten by Mace Windu (I highly doubt it). And what was really going through Anakin's head? Did he really believe that he was going to bring peace, etc, to the galaxy? Or was it just to give himself a plausable excuse to save Amidala? So delightfully tormented! I've posted some thoughts to my blog.
Of course, after seeing it on the big screen I've got noproblem with going and downloading it to watch it again (although I've sheepishly got ot admit that I've seen it in the cinema twice - once at the midnight screening (which we Aussies got before the U.S. - go time zones!) and once with my partner.)
I really loved the movie, and definitely think it was worth it - a truly memorable conclusion to the Star Wars saga.
That said, does Pascal really have a place these days? C is really the dominant language, and I can't help but think that this is more of a vanity project for die-hard Pascal fans than a serious contender for a stake in the software platform market.
But it does mean that self-replicating robots are, unsurprisingly, possible, and that if the robots could be made simpler, they could perhaps replicate using simpler pieces, and so forth.
More importantly, if you gave the robots a whole bunch of pieces (basically, the equivalent of Lego blocks) they could perhaps replicate and reproduce into shapes that best suit their environment - they're modular and expandable, which might have important applications (e.g., rescue, exploration, etc).
Incidentally, for those who don't want a full on Tablet laptop, grab a Wacom Graphire 3 Tablet! They're cheap (approx $100), highly effective (used by many professional graphic designers) and can work with Powerpoint, Photoshop, etc. I love mine! It takes a little getting used to, but after that it's a piece of cake.
Police have warned all families with nerdy children to be on the look out for unexplained cars turning up in their garage.
Obligitary comment: I for one welcome our new robot shopper overlords...
What I got was an awful lot of red planes - some of which were actually Qantas planes, but I think more by coincidence (i.e., they're red) than design. Many images had nothing to do with Qantas, or even a red plane - they simply had a lot of red in the image.
This is impressive in some ways, but in others it seems like it's simply looking for similar patches of colour. I haven't done enough testing to see what happens if,say, I gave it a half red half green image.
Interesting, but not ready for public consumption just yet. A bit like A.L.I.C.E. the artifial intelligence system actually - neat, but not practical. Yet!
Does anyone know if this works if you already have to go through a proxy server, as I do at my University?