What "robots"'are you referring to? your dish washer or your roomba? Neither are "robots" in my point of view or what the fine article is alluding to. It's a about giving direction to a "multi-functional" piece of hardware in the true sense of the word "robot". Do this, do that, bend over etc. Not "clean under the tv" type of instruction.
I'm pretty sure I'm not a robot, but can someone teach me how to read that article... Look, when it comes down to it, it should have nothing to do with humans adjusting to how we can best teach a robot and adjusting our teaching methods to fit. It should be about designing machine intellegence to learn in a "human" way. If it's the former then no, "robots" as they say will not be predominant in the household. If its the latter and we design the "robot" to fit our needs and learn as we learn then yeah, they will actually be useful and become ubiquitous. But until then we are going to be stuck with the roomba, which unfortunately is classified as a "robot", and may well take over every living room in the country, as per the article... Much to the fanfare of the press, to me it's still not a "robot".
I know a better way to change the relationship, how about instead of stuffing the sensors in his socks, he stuffs them down his pants. Likely quite a bit easier to sense the emotions of his little head methinks.
With all due respect, I get it perfectly well thank you. I think you are not getting it or have misunderstood what I wrote. Note that the presenter specifically states that "the lamp has the technology embedded". In this case "the technology" is the power source! Using a lamp as a demonstration is disingenuous though as lamps don't need batteries and the techs reason detre is battery powered devices. As my original post suggested, they are going to have trouble fitting "the technology" in with the battery in order to make the end product palatable to finicky users that want their tech products as small and sleek as possible.
As a follow on to my earlier post, this is the clincher for the tech - from the article:
"Fujitsu's system couples a coil with a capacitor in receiving devices. The size of the device determines the size of coil it can accommodate and that in turn affects the capacitance."
So the bigger the coil in the receiving device the better. That aint going to go down so well for mobile phones, ipods etc where the size of the battery/power supply is absolutely crucial to the success of the product i.e. smaller is better. If it doesn't make sense for the mobile market then it won't be anything more than a niche product for the foreseeable future. Particularly when the benefit hardly comes close to outweighing the cost - really, how hard is it to plug a phone in?
I recently bit the bullet and deleted my FB account - I've had concerns about privacy on there from the get go. I did however start a new account using a name that is similar but not quite the same as my real name. I figure it will be hard for most people to find me that aren't in my immediate circle of trusted friends.
So, now I am starting to re-friend everyone which also has a couple of advantages. I get to say hi to a few people I haven't been in direct contact with when I drop them a new friend request and also have an excuse for dropping a bunch of people I should not have added in the first place (very old people from school I never really liked nor wanted remain friends with anyway). Further to this I can explain to a few people that ask why I deleted my account why I did so and spread the message of FB privacy issues.
Overall, I feel that at least now with a semi anonymous name/profile I am much less likely to be faced with these major privacy issues cropping up and can enjoy FB that much more.
I thought wireless power looked fantastic until I took a closer look at what you are actually getting. You can't just chuck your phone on the wireless charger pad and have it magically charge the phone. You need to either add a special "sleave" to the product you want to charge wirelessly or actually plug the product into the charge pad using various adapters which completely negates any real benefit from "wireless" power.
So for gadgets that currently are not "wireless power" enabled the tech kinda sucks and it is being overhyped in a major way - at least based on the product packaging and in-store displays that I've seen. It will be interesting to see if it takes off when manufacturers find a way to seamlessly incorporate this into new devices
Some of this stuff just reminds me of stuff I got bored with in the early-mid 90's and stopped using. Some of the technologies are the same, but it's largely the same inane gibberish as before.
Ok then, here's an idea, why don't you have a bit more of a think about that stuff that you got bored of in the early 90's, make some new shiny revamped apps and make a bucket load of money.
Joost comes pretty close. It's a torrent system that is now run from a web page. Not sure if you need a plugin though. It's not too far from your ideal, the idea just needs to be taken to the next level. (Probably not by Joost...)
I've been waiting for Google to come out with this.
This is the first step to true and accurate voice recognition and translation:
1) Google user speaks search string into phone.
2) Google gets it wrong, user corrects Google
3) Multiply by millions of searches daily with constant correction and feedback from users
4) Perfect voice rec, major profit
There will be a few issues with voice recognition to begin with but as it gets better and more people use the service and add to the database with their corrections and add to the pool of variable accents etc the accuracy will be perfected at an exponential rate.
A similar concept could apply to translations. Once voice recognition is perfected and becomes the primary search input of choice then more people will be able to use their phones as direct voice to voice translators. Obvious translation mistakes will become apparent through mass use. At every turn users could flag apparent mistranslations and through the help of the Google Borg accurate translations would evolve. Much the same way that Wikipedia pages tend to accuracy over time even with the input of a subset of "disruptive" users.
If it's a concern for you then don't muck around, get into heavy weights and mix it up with some cardio like running or biking. Increased muscle mass will help you stop storing energy as fat while you're sitting around.
I had your same problem and got into a regular weights/cardo routine and have managed major positive changes in 12 months. (That's right, it won't happen overnight) I work from home in a relatively small apartment too. I never thought I'd fit a weight bench in my place along with all the weights but I did, it was just a matter of convincing myself it needed doing. Tucking my small weight bench in beside my chest of draws and wardrobe is a work out in itself!
If you've never done heavy weights before you might be worried about getting TOO big and looking like a steroid abusing jock. Don't worry, it'll never happen! (unless you do get into the roids) It will take a lot of dedication to make much a noticeable difference to your physique but it will help you keep fit and keep your weight down. Give it a go, you can do it from home and it will make you feel much better about yourself both physically and mentally
For advice on routines and general body building advice I recommend t-nation.com and bodybuilding.com (Don't let the muscle head nature of these sites put you off, they have some very good advice on general workouts suitable for beginners). Good luck!
"wow, bad passwords, no wonder the guy was worried, using dictionary words is like not having a password as far as hackers are concerned, same deal with identical user/pass combos. i realize they use a encrypted key along with the password, but still..."
Can someone please elaborate on why "dictionary words" for passwords are so bad? I can understand that a hacker can do a dictionary attack and ultimately guess the password but how is it that the systems protecting the network allow this to happen? My bank, for instance, blocks my account if I enter the wrong password three times and I have to call the bank to reset it. Doesn't this stop a dictionary attack in its tracks? If not, why not? And if it does, I don't understand why more systems don't use similar protection measures. As far as I'm concerned the use of dictionary words as passwords isn't the problem, the problem is with the security systems themselves.
Is a genius. In the true sense of the word. Plain and simple. No need for further analysis. That's the secret of Microsofts success. He's one in ten billion. And you want to know something else. Steve Jobs is also a genius. That's the secret to Apples success. And here's another news flash for you - Sergey Brin and Larry Page are also geniuses. Here's a stock tip for you. Put your money behind the people with the passion and the smarts and you'll clean up.
I rarely post on Slashdot but I feel the need to now because I'm pissed that this has made the front page. *And yeah, I realise the 'stuff that matters tag line' It's not news for nerds. I'm starting to get that frustrated feeling like I did with Star Trek when I realised that most of the story lines were becoming more "Neighbours" style than science based - ala totally "space opera" with more opera than space. (You yanks should substitute "neighbours" for "Dallas")
I know of a number of other sites I can go to to discuss politics and other crap with my peers (you know who they are). I don't know of many other sites I can go to to discuss/embrace science and technology like I can on Slashdot. The brand is unique, we don't want it to be prostituted.
The Australian government trialed a system here in the early 90's called the Academic Extension Program (AEP). The program put gifted students in the same class from the first three years of high school - from the age of 13-15. I reckon it could have been done better.
We found out that the teachers secretly referred to the AEP as the Arsehole Extension Program - take a group of arseholes and turn them into even bigger arseholes. The reason being that all the kids in the AEP were a hell of a lot smarter than the teachers and constantly challenged their authority. You can imagine how hard it would be for a teacher to handle a cocky 13 year old that knows more about the subject being taught than the teacher. Teachers were often openly ridiculed in front of the whole class. One had a nervous breakdown and was found up a tree, out in the rain, singing to herself. I'm sure the stresses of her class were a compounding factor.
Another problem with the whole setup was that a lot of the kids were often targeted by bullies that weren't in the program. Segregating the classes basically had you labeled for the whole of high school, total bully fodder. This meant that most AEP kids stuck together and didn't socialise much at all outside of the group. A bit of a compounding nerd factor that I don't imagine did a lot of kids much good.
I still keep in touch with quite a few friends from my class 15 years on. We had a very strong bond, some of my current best friends are from that same class. Most of us turned out alright, going on to do well in highly qualified occupations. Some dropped the ball and dropped out choosing not to follow higher education and/or hit the drugs etc. It's hard to say but in some ways I think that the pressures of the program did a lot of kids more harm than good. It was basically an experiment that went wrong, one that seemed to have very little thought put into it.
Yet another technology demo that won't actually be in a real product for years.
The fact that we have been reading about these displays for years and that they have been steadily improving in quality to be reliable and actually useful means it won't be long before they hit the stores.
In other news, Seagate announced that its upcoming line of hard drives will be measured using the new LoC (Library of Congress) storage units to avoid confusion.
Does anyone know how many olympic sized swimming pools the LOC would fill? I'm serious, I can't get my head around these numbers!
Regarding social engineering being a problem for network security: Here in Australia one of the largest banks, ANZ, has an ad on TV touting the benefits of their credit card security features. It's done in a humourous way with the bank manager taking an outsider through the banks internal security measures. They walk past a room with a supposed intruder being attacked by a large falcon, then onto a quick iris scan, a fingerprint screen, then the bank manager smashes a glass tube with a Terminator-esque hand holding a swipe card which he quickly swipes at the main internal door he wants entrance to.
The door doesn't open. The bank manager looks flustered and grins sheepishly at the guy he's trying to impress. He then bangs loudly on the door a few times and is let in by one of the workers in the room.
Great security, and a great way for the bank to assuage the security fears of their customers. I've been waiting for the ad to be pulled but its been on for months now.
Bah. Don't you see? The majority of the Diggers that are up in arms and causing such a fuss are LOVING it! This controversy has made their week/year. Digg's (kevin Roses) capitulation has made the organised loud mouth minority feel even MORE valuable to the Digg community because they have directly influenced change. They won't be giving up on Digg, they won't be going anywhere. This sort of organised revolt is what they've been needing/wanting. Now that they've had a taste they'll be hanging for another chance at it. This incident and the associated publicity will only make Digg stronger. Assuming Digg can weather the legal storm of course.
I hate youtube. I hate google even more for their involvement of it. It's napster jr, plain and simple, and it'll be shut down.
Napster and Youtube are completely different beasts. Over 90% of the music on Napster was copyright, very few people used the service to download the other 10% which mostly comprised obscure backyard crap that no name bands put on there. Without the copyrighted music on Napster the service would never have become as big as it did. Youtube on the other hand has a much larger percentage of people that actually enjoy watching the obscure backyard crap so it makes up a larger proportion of the service.
No doubt the studio produced movies and TV shows help to lift the number of users on Youtube but Youtube would still survive and be successful without it, unlike Napster. I'm not sure of the percentages but just take a look at Youtube's most viewed videos and a lot of them are of cats in toilets, risque bra commercials from Sweden and teenage boys burning their genitals.
Might the solution not be to give the $1 billion to the military then and ensuring that the money is allocated to doing the work? After all, spotting deadly space rocks and defending the earth against them sounds to me like it comes under the banner of "defence" so maybe it could go in the defence budget. If the military doesn't have the capacity to do the job then they outsource it to NASA like they do with so many other parts of military spending. Problem solved.
Slashdot Mirror
What "robots"'are you referring to? your dish washer or your roomba? Neither are "robots" in my point of view or what the fine article is alluding to. It's a about giving direction to a "multi-functional" piece of hardware in the true sense of the word "robot". Do this, do that, bend over etc. Not "clean under the tv" type of instruction.
I'm pretty sure I'm not a robot, but can someone teach me how to read that article... Look, when it comes down to it, it should have nothing to do with humans adjusting to how we can best teach a robot and adjusting our teaching methods to fit. It should be about designing machine intellegence to learn in a "human" way. If it's the former then no, "robots" as they say will not be predominant in the household. If its the latter and we design the "robot" to fit our needs and learn as we learn then yeah, they will actually be useful and become ubiquitous. But until then we are going to be stuck with the roomba, which unfortunately is classified as a "robot", and may well take over every living room in the country, as per the article... Much to the fanfare of the press, to me it's still not a "robot".
I know a better way to change the relationship, how about instead of stuffing the sensors in his socks, he stuffs them down his pants. Likely quite a bit easier to sense the emotions of his little head methinks.
With all due respect, I get it perfectly well thank you. I think you are not getting it or have misunderstood what I wrote. Note that the presenter specifically states that "the lamp has the technology embedded". In this case "the technology" is the power source! Using a lamp as a demonstration is disingenuous though as lamps don't need batteries and the techs reason detre is battery powered devices. As my original post suggested, they are going to have trouble fitting "the technology" in with the battery in order to make the end product palatable to finicky users that want their tech products as small and sleek as possible.
As a follow on to my earlier post, this is the clincher for the tech - from the article:
"Fujitsu's system couples a coil with a capacitor in receiving devices. The size of the device determines the size of coil it can accommodate and that in turn affects the capacitance."
So the bigger the coil in the receiving device the better. That aint going to go down so well for mobile phones, ipods etc where the size of the battery/power supply is absolutely crucial to the success of the product i.e. smaller is better. If it doesn't make sense for the mobile market then it won't be anything more than a niche product for the foreseeable future. Particularly when the benefit hardly comes close to outweighing the cost - really, how hard is it to plug a phone in?
I recently bit the bullet and deleted my FB account - I've had concerns about privacy on there from the get go. I did however start a new account using a name that is similar but not quite the same as my real name. I figure it will be hard for most people to find me that aren't in my immediate circle of trusted friends.
So, now I am starting to re-friend everyone which also has a couple of advantages. I get to say hi to a few people I haven't been in direct contact with when I drop them a new friend request and also have an excuse for dropping a bunch of people I should not have added in the first place (very old people from school I never really liked nor wanted remain friends with anyway). Further to this I can explain to a few people that ask why I deleted my account why I did so and spread the message of FB privacy issues.
Overall, I feel that at least now with a semi anonymous name/profile I am much less likely to be faced with these major privacy issues cropping up and can enjoy FB that much more.
I thought wireless power looked fantastic until I took a closer look at what you are actually getting. You can't just chuck your phone on the wireless charger pad and have it magically charge the phone. You need to either add a special "sleave" to the product you want to charge wirelessly or actually plug the product into the charge pad using various adapters which completely negates any real benefit from "wireless" power.
So for gadgets that currently are not "wireless power" enabled the tech kinda sucks and it is being overhyped in a major way - at least based on the product packaging and in-store displays that I've seen. It will be interesting to see if it takes off when manufacturers find a way to seamlessly incorporate this into new devices
Ok then, here's an idea, why don't you have a bit more of a think about that stuff that you got bored of in the early 90's, make some new shiny revamped apps and make a bucket load of money.
Interestingly, this is a very similar article published by the NYT the day before - http://www.nytimes.com/2010/03/11/health/research/11gene.html?ref=health
Joost comes pretty close. It's a torrent system that is now run from a web page. Not sure if you need a plugin though. It's not too far from your ideal, the idea just needs to be taken to the next level. (Probably not by Joost...)
I've been waiting for Google to come out with this.
This is the first step to true and accurate voice recognition and translation:
1) Google user speaks search string into phone.
2) Google gets it wrong, user corrects Google
3) Multiply by millions of searches daily with constant correction and feedback from users
4) Perfect voice rec, major profit
There will be a few issues with voice recognition to begin with but as it gets better and more people use the service and add to the database with their corrections and add to the pool of variable accents etc the accuracy will be perfected at an exponential rate.
A similar concept could apply to translations. Once voice recognition is perfected and becomes the primary search input of choice then more people will be able to use their phones as direct voice to voice translators. Obvious translation mistakes will become apparent through mass use. At every turn users could flag apparent mistranslations and through the help of the Google Borg accurate translations would evolve. Much the same way that Wikipedia pages tend to accuracy over time even with the input of a subset of "disruptive" users.
My 2 cents.
IAAC (I am a chemist)
WBUAAWYWIOIFA (Why bother using an acronym when you write it out in full anyway?) Seriously?
If it's a concern for you then don't muck around, get into heavy weights and mix it up with some cardio like running or biking. Increased muscle mass will help you stop storing energy as fat while you're sitting around.
I had your same problem and got into a regular weights/cardo routine and have managed major positive changes in 12 months. (That's right, it won't happen overnight) I work from home in a relatively small apartment too. I never thought I'd fit a weight bench in my place along with all the weights but I did, it was just a matter of convincing myself it needed doing. Tucking my small weight bench in beside my chest of draws and wardrobe is a work out in itself!
If you've never done heavy weights before you might be worried about getting TOO big and looking like a steroid abusing jock. Don't worry, it'll never happen! (unless you do get into the roids) It will take a lot of dedication to make much a noticeable difference to your physique but it will help you keep fit and keep your weight down. Give it a go, you can do it from home and it will make you feel much better about yourself both physically and mentally
For advice on routines and general body building advice I recommend t-nation.com and bodybuilding.com (Don't let the muscle head nature of these sites put you off, they have some very good advice on general workouts suitable for beginners). Good luck!
"wow, bad passwords, no wonder the guy was worried, using dictionary words is like not having a password as far as hackers are concerned, same deal with identical user/pass combos. i realize they use a encrypted key along with the password, but still..."
Can someone please elaborate on why "dictionary words" for passwords are so bad? I can understand that a hacker can do a dictionary attack and ultimately guess the password but how is it that the systems protecting the network allow this to happen? My bank, for instance, blocks my account if I enter the wrong password three times and I have to call the bank to reset it. Doesn't this stop a dictionary attack in its tracks? If not, why not? And if it does, I don't understand why more systems don't use similar protection measures. As far as I'm concerned the use of dictionary words as passwords isn't the problem, the problem is with the security systems themselves.
Is a genius. In the true sense of the word. Plain and simple. No need for further analysis. That's the secret of Microsofts success. He's one in ten billion. And you want to know something else. Steve Jobs is also a genius. That's the secret to Apples success. And here's another news flash for you - Sergey Brin and Larry Page are also geniuses. Here's a stock tip for you. Put your money behind the people with the passion and the smarts and you'll clean up.
I'm sure two girls could work out what to do with it.
I don't care.
I rarely post on Slashdot but I feel the need to now because I'm pissed that this has made the front page. *And yeah, I realise the 'stuff that matters tag line' It's not news for nerds. I'm starting to get that frustrated feeling like I did with Star Trek when I realised that most of the story lines were becoming more "Neighbours" style than science based - ala totally "space opera" with more opera than space. (You yanks should substitute "neighbours" for "Dallas")
I know of a number of other sites I can go to to discuss politics and other crap with my peers (you know who they are). I don't know of many other sites I can go to to discuss/embrace science and technology like I can on Slashdot. The brand is unique, we don't want it to be prostituted.
Keep it real.
I say, jolly good old fellow!
The Australian government trialed a system here in the early 90's called the Academic Extension Program (AEP). The program put gifted students in the same class from the first three years of high school - from the age of 13-15. I reckon it could have been done better.
We found out that the teachers secretly referred to the AEP as the Arsehole Extension Program - take a group of arseholes and turn them into even bigger arseholes. The reason being that all the kids in the AEP were a hell of a lot smarter than the teachers and constantly challenged their authority. You can imagine how hard it would be for a teacher to handle a cocky 13 year old that knows more about the subject being taught than the teacher. Teachers were often openly ridiculed in front of the whole class. One had a nervous breakdown and was found up a tree, out in the rain, singing to herself. I'm sure the stresses of her class were a compounding factor.
Another problem with the whole setup was that a lot of the kids were often targeted by bullies that weren't in the program. Segregating the classes basically had you labeled for the whole of high school, total bully fodder. This meant that most AEP kids stuck together and didn't socialise much at all outside of the group. A bit of a compounding nerd factor that I don't imagine did a lot of kids much good.
I still keep in touch with quite a few friends from my class 15 years on. We had a very strong bond, some of my current best friends are from that same class. Most of us turned out alright, going on to do well in highly qualified occupations. Some dropped the ball and dropped out choosing not to follow higher education and/or hit the drugs etc. It's hard to say but in some ways I think that the pressures of the program did a lot of kids more harm than good. It was basically an experiment that went wrong, one that seemed to have very little thought put into it.
Yet another technology demo that won't actually be in a real product for years.
The fact that we have been reading about these displays for years and that they have been steadily improving in quality to be reliable and actually useful means it won't be long before they hit the stores.
In other news, Seagate announced that its upcoming line of hard drives will be measured using the new LoC (Library of Congress) storage units to avoid confusion.
Does anyone know how many olympic sized swimming pools the LOC would fill? I'm serious, I can't get my head around these numbers!
Regarding social engineering being a problem for network security: Here in Australia one of the largest banks, ANZ, has an ad on TV touting the benefits of their credit card security features. It's done in a humourous way with the bank manager taking an outsider through the banks internal security measures. They walk past a room with a supposed intruder being attacked by a large falcon, then onto a quick iris scan, a fingerprint screen, then the bank manager smashes a glass tube with a Terminator-esque hand holding a swipe card which he quickly swipes at the main internal door he wants entrance to.
The door doesn't open. The bank manager looks flustered and grins sheepishly at the guy he's trying to impress. He then bangs loudly on the door a few times and is let in by one of the workers in the room.
Great security, and a great way for the bank to assuage the security fears of their customers. I've been waiting for the ad to be pulled but its been on for months now.
Bah. Don't you see? The majority of the Diggers that are up in arms and causing such a fuss are LOVING it! This controversy has made their week/year. Digg's (kevin Roses) capitulation has made the organised loud mouth minority feel even MORE valuable to the Digg community because they have directly influenced change. They won't be giving up on Digg, they won't be going anywhere. This sort of organised revolt is what they've been needing/wanting. Now that they've had a taste they'll be hanging for another chance at it. This incident and the associated publicity will only make Digg stronger. Assuming Digg can weather the legal storm of course.
I hate youtube. I hate google even more for their involvement of it. It's napster jr, plain and simple, and it'll be shut down.
Napster and Youtube are completely different beasts. Over 90% of the music on Napster was copyright, very few people used the service to download the other 10% which mostly comprised obscure backyard crap that no name bands put on there. Without the copyrighted music on Napster the service would never have become as big as it did. Youtube on the other hand has a much larger percentage of people that actually enjoy watching the obscure backyard crap so it makes up a larger proportion of the service.
No doubt the studio produced movies and TV shows help to lift the number of users on Youtube but Youtube would still survive and be successful without it, unlike Napster. I'm not sure of the percentages but just take a look at Youtube's most viewed videos and a lot of them are of cats in toilets, risque bra commercials from Sweden and teenage boys burning their genitals.
Might the solution not be to give the $1 billion to the military then and ensuring that the money is allocated to doing the work? After all, spotting deadly space rocks and defending the earth against them sounds to me like it comes under the banner of "defence" so maybe it could go in the defence budget. If the military doesn't have the capacity to do the job then they outsource it to NASA like they do with so many other parts of military spending. Problem solved.