I almost regret my dashed-off sarcastic comment below when you took the time to write something so much more appropriate and balanced. 5's too low a score for this.
You're welcome to view it as a spectrum if you like (in the abstract I'm not refuting that), but from an implementation point of view I'm highly sceptical that controlled language is on the route to the implementation of a natural language interface. It's like saying you're moving towards making a screwdriver by making a hammer (along the tools to apply fixings spectrum).
Rubbish. You don't need to have full AI to have a natural language-based system with some success (albeit short of passing the Turing Test), but if you're starting with controlled structure you're not doing natural language at all. I'm not putting down NER, I'm not even putting down controlled vocabulary, I'm just saying that the example (and everything you've said on top of it) shows no sign that natural language is even being attempted here.
Ubiquity is more powerful. You can highlight a page of Craigslist results and use the map command and it will actually extract addresses from the detail pages of each result and map all of them. It can do translation of a webpage while you're on it, do syntax highlighting on code snippets, etc.
None of which uses real natural language either. Finding addresses is just an extension of named entity recognition, code is a formal language and Google Translate is statistical.
That's your example of natural language?
Map as a transitive verb and a fairly specific reference?
How about: "show me where the prime minister's house is on a map"?
Yes it is a deep question, but the answer was found many decades ago. The answer is that this is computation, but it's not a device capable of universal computation.
That PayPal enforce some arbitrary set of rules and close accounts is not news (not for several years).
That they didn't confiscate the funds for once (?) maybe is...
I've used a Network Walkman with MP3s, not ATRAC, happily for more than a year - not found anything better for cycling - use both MP3 and AAC on my PSP (I don't even know if it supports ATRAC) and just got a W810i, the software for which rips to unprotected MP3 by default. I don't know where you've been...
Ever notice how people who want to buy a cellphone keep complaining that they can't just get a bloody phone? Lots of people don't want a digicam/game/text/browsing/fishing rod/floor wax device, they want an f'ing phone.
No, no, I don't. I hear this on Slashdot all the time, but in real life I see people taking pictures with their phones all the time, clambering for higher-resolutions cameras, making calls on the railway platform with bluetooth headsets, listening to music etc. etc.
Myself I've just ordered the new W810i, the second Ericsson with Sony Walkman technology, and having to wait because neither the operators nor the high-street shops can keep them in stock, they're in such demand!
I've also spent an hour this morning looking into stereo bluetooth headsets, because I'd like something I can wear all day, switching from music and mobile calls, on the train and my bicycle, to music Skype at my desk.
I don't know if it's a inter-Atlantic difference, but for once the geeks are sounding like Luddites and regular people the enthusiastic early-adopters.
Seriously, though, if Slashdot were right on this market forces would have the manufacturers scaling down their phones, but actually the opposite is happening.
Yes, because when your university tells you you must use Mathematica during your course, you can use Maple or Matlab, because they're based on open standards, and GNU Computer Algebra is really becoming stable these days!
Don't get me wrong, I think it's a poor choice to throw away the open Internet mail client protocols that academia helped to develop, but get some perspective...
It matters if I'm viewing LJ and I happen to be a member as well. Telling me I can't use ad blocking software is simply not OK.
If you're a paid member you don't see the ads. Fundamentally this is a way of forcing ads on free accounts while still being able to claim that they haven't (since it's other users that force them on us)...
Slashdot Mirror
I almost regret my dashed-off sarcastic comment below when you took the time to write something so much more appropriate and balanced. 5's too low a score for this.
[confused]I thought they were only a cover for nuclear weapons development[/confused]
A more pertinent question is when iPods are going to ship with an eMusic client.
MS Research are not the ones behind the production operating systems. That's like refusing to program in C because your phone line's unreliable.
What kind of 'combine' harvests tomatoes, lettuces and all the other plants that are currently hydroponically grown for mass markets?
Wow, just one discs? That's an interesting data.
"A single [...] media" - what language is that?
Hardly. Your announcement concerns getting them into 30 cinema and their longer term plans are only to put them into 75 out of 110 of their cinemas.
You're welcome to view it as a spectrum if you like (in the abstract I'm not refuting that), but from an implementation point of view I'm highly sceptical that controlled language is on the route to the implementation of a natural language interface. It's like saying you're moving towards making a screwdriver by making a hammer (along the tools to apply fixings spectrum).
Rubbish. You don't need to have full AI to have a natural language-based system with some success (albeit short of passing the Turing Test), but if you're starting with controlled structure you're not doing natural language at all. I'm not putting down NER, I'm not even putting down controlled vocabulary, I'm just saying that the example (and everything you've said on top of it) shows no sign that natural language is even being attempted here.
Ubiquity is more powerful. You can highlight a page of Craigslist results and use the map command and it will actually extract addresses from the detail pages of each result and map all of them. It can do translation of a webpage while you're on it, do syntax highlighting on code snippets, etc.
None of which uses real natural language either. Finding addresses is just an extension of named entity recognition, code is a formal language and Google Translate is statistical.
That's your example of natural language? Map as a transitive verb and a fairly specific reference? How about: "show me where the prime minister's house is on a map"?
A waterfall process and object-oriented design and programming are orthogonal issues. The summary, at least, is nonsense.
Yes it is a deep question, but the answer was found many decades ago. The answer is that this is computation, but it's not a device capable of universal computation.
That PayPal enforce some arbitrary set of rules and close accounts is not news (not for several years). That they didn't confiscate the funds for once (?) maybe is...
So how would this have protected his Sergeant's groin?
"What are you doing, soldier?"
"Painting my groin, sir..."
Fathers can't participate in this process then?
I've used a Network Walkman with MP3s, not ATRAC, happily for more than a year - not found anything better for cycling - use both MP3 and AAC on my PSP (I don't even know if it supports ATRAC) and just got a W810i, the software for which rips to unprotected MP3 by default. I don't know where you've been...
Myself I've just ordered the new W810i, the second Ericsson with Sony Walkman technology, and having to wait because neither the operators nor the high-street shops can keep them in stock, they're in such demand!
I've also spent an hour this morning looking into stereo bluetooth headsets, because I'd like something I can wear all day, switching from music and mobile calls, on the train and my bicycle, to music Skype at my desk.
I don't know if it's a inter-Atlantic difference, but for once the geeks are sounding like Luddites and regular people the enthusiastic early-adopters.
Seriously, though, if Slashdot were right on this market forces would have the manufacturers scaling down their phones, but actually the opposite is happening.
Maybe, just maybe, you're wrong...
Still, worth pointing out. I'd mod you up if all my points didn't go on "I hate $ony, there the devil" posts...
Yes, because when your university tells you you must use Mathematica during your course, you can use Maple or Matlab, because they're based on open standards, and GNU Computer Algebra is really becoming stable these days! Don't get me wrong, I think it's a poor choice to throw away the open Internet mail client protocols that academia helped to develop, but get some perspective...
Why not just post other people's April Fools from last year?