2) High Energy Density
Small and light, the new battery offers a high level of storage efficiency. The prototype battery is only 3.8mm thick, 62mm high and 35mm deep and has a capacity of 600mAh. Given the recharge times that is an amazing amount of energy for PDAs, cameras and the like. However, if you're going to scale up that system for cars, you are going to have a hellishly dangerous amount of current flowing in order to get a charge in a minute (or time similar to a gas station) so they better figure out some good safety systems if they want to go to market with this for pure electic cars rather than the hybrids they're planning for in 2006. However, they might not need the one minute charge if they use the charge at home system the some electric car designs. You could charge to full in an hour or get enough of a charge at the supermarket or other store to make short hops without a problem.
These aren't processors. They're more like modems. They convert the optical signal into electrons and let a normal electronic CMOS CPU proccess the data. The article is about the fact that this modulator can be done on the same chip as the processor and is ten times as fast as the next best thing.
I think you meant to say electricty is light. This is somewhat right but not exactly. Light/is/ made up of electromagnetic fields and the electric force between charges/is/ transmitted by photons, but they are two seperate ideas. Modern quantum physics has electricity sent via virtual photons while normal light is sent by real photons. Real photons involve both an electric field and a magnetic field perpendicular to each other and perpendicular to the direction of the wave propogation. The reason fiber optics transmissions are "faster" is because we can send multiple signals on different wavelengths over the same line without them interfering with each other two much. We can't do this with normal electric signals because high frequency electric signals start acting strangly since metal wires can no longer be though as resistors but now have to be modeled as inductors too.
The article isn't about pure photonic processors that working completely on light. These would be used in fiber optic routers where switching between light and electric signals is a waste. Data is already transmitted via light but the modulators used are seperate from the computing logic parts. In this new system, the computing system is still using classic transistors but the optical parts are integrated onto the IC. This is still a far step from pure photonic computers where the "transistors" or logic gates are done purely via light.
when he was part of the Challenger investigation team. Hopefully, this means that the chance of another accident is improbable given NASA's desire to phase out the Shuttle and replace it with something more 21st century. Hopefully the winds won't change and the Shuttle will be replaced with something better before the next accident. NASA should really start pushing for more private groups to do this rather than just handing out paltry prizes. Or maybe the Chinese will end up giving NASA the drive it needs to get a working space program. China's economy isn't on the rocks like the USSR during the space race so they would actually be able to compete with us.
If he had just stopped after he gained a couple million and spam wasn't as big of a deal, he could have retired and lived in peace for the rest of his life. Yet he got greedy and kept trying to make more money even as people kept getting more fed up with spam. Excessive greed has takes down even the best of criminals.
The article concentrates on hackers liking the features that Apple adds to the modern Mac, but how many of the programmers and power users jumping ship from Wintel (or WAMD) machines are doing this because of BSD? The main reason I got my Mac Mini was because it is smaller than the Linux server I use right now so it's easier to deal with. I might eventually use it as a Mac client machine rather than as a server once I figure out how to set up my media system, but right now it's just another *nix box to me. Apple really did the right thing by loading OSX with a ton of developer tools and allowing the community to do much of their work for them.
All of the previous courts that have ruled on this case have sided with P2P. Probably because the P2P side has been making the argument that P2P is just the next version of VCRs, audio tapes, etc. Also the Constitution says that the purpose of copyright laws is to "promote the Progress of Science and useful Arts" and the P2P side has artists saying that the tech is good for them because it helps them get their stuff out. The RIAA's argument is pretty much "we're losing money" rather than "the arts are being destroyed" so they have a harder argument to pull off. There is also the strong evidence showing that many people who use P2P do buy the music later on. While this is still technically illegal, it ends up promoting the arts so this is probably a Good Thing in the eyes of the Founders.
I just read Stephenson's Diamond Age and it had the concept of fully interactive media. Instead of just overlaying a face over a static movie, 'ractives didn't seperate actors and viewers. The idea was that the 'viewer' would buy a ractive and would pay a different amount depending on the type of ractive. They would also be able to have other viewers join them or they could pay professional actors to fill in the spot. The system was flexible enough to adapt to whatever the people did (and probably had a rating system to get rid of trolls) so it combined the basics of a script with something like a MMORPG. As AI come closer to the Turing test, this might also take off as you buy 3d/VRML/etc client and join RPGs that concentrate more on the role-playing rather than casting fireballs. However, I don't think this kind of thing will really take off until it becomes open enough that anyone can write their own ractives instead of just joining a centralized server an follow someone else's script.
Dictionary attacks and other brute force attacks still don't work too well on passphrases so those who use them can protect their drug money for a little while longer. It should also be noted that the DNA attack won't work unless the Secret Service has your private key file. The actual encryption can't be broken easily so they have to attack the weak encryption on the digital private key that's stored on your computer. If the key is stored in a manner that they can't get to it, then your data will still be safe. E.g. the key is stored on an IC in the computer that self destructs if it is tampered with like IBM's ultra-paranoid laptops. The IC would detect a brute force attack and destroy the key.
If the MLA would come up with a formal specification of the English language that was a recursively enumerable language it wouldn't be so fucking hard to parse the language. They could at least formalize things like order-of-operations regarding clauses and enumerated lists and give a better set of punctuation to work with. They should choose whether they want the language to be pure communications medium with a formal syntax or if they want it to be a completely flexible means of artistic expression full of nuances and hints that can only be understood by a sentient being who has studied the language in-depth for many years.
If people read that linked slashdot story, they would see that self-replicating robots are not much closer than when von Neumann wrote about them. The LEGO Mindstorm evolution is pretty cool just because Mindstorms is being used as a platform for this and since the evolution system is doesn't require an outside computer.
However, the small population used (2 bots) and the seemingly weak fitness function make me think that this project won't go anywhere fast (pardon the pun) and is just a genetic dead end. Evolution is dependent on the Law of Very Large Numbers for anything significant to happen.
If you really want to see something cool along the lines of evolving moving robots, I suggest the GOLEM Project. The robots don't manufacture themselves, but the system is a lot closer to biological evolution than most.
Re:At last, Iain M Banks gets a bit of recognition
on
2005 Hugo Nominations
·
· Score: 4, Interesting
Even though he wasn't nominated for a Culture novel, I agree with the parent that his writing kicks ass. I suggest his essay, A Few Notes on the Culture, as quick intro about it. IMO, the best book is Excession but all of his Culture novels are amazing. They detail life in a post-scarcity ("money is a sign of poverty") civilization which is utopian by many standards. When many sci-fi books show AI as being human level sophonts (Star Wars, Asimov, etc) Banks has his AIs operating orders of magnitude above humans yet he still makes humans feel like an important part of the universe. Of all the science fiction I've read, the universe created by Banks is by far the coolest.
I haven't read the novel in question, but if his Culture books are any indication of this novel's quality, it will be just as amazing and worthy of the Hugo.
I was hoping that the BGs were inside shots of the CRTs or detailed views of LCD panels rather than illusions of the room which only work from one angle. However, I am reminded of the transparent skirts.
This is a good time as any to mention Vinge's Singularity. The main topic is AI, but he also talks about IA or Intelligence Amplification. The DM in the article is a type of IA for communications systems between people. It would merge the useful parts of online communications such as active logging without the problematic impersonal problems that are sometimes caused. This gets extended further when people are connected 24/7 and they have the ability to treat the real world and the wired world much more similarly
As with many console launches, I think a big problem here is the games. This happened with the DS too since their selection was limited (Mario DS and Metroid are the only two good ones from what I've heard) even though they have their GBA games to fall back on. Since the DS is less expensive, can also do movies, MP3s and ebooks using Movie Player Advance, people don't seem to want to spend the $100 extra for it. Both companies want to create a new industry around downloading content over WiFi and other non videogame things so they seem to be holding out on their initial releases. It might be better to wait six months and see which side has better stuff.
Since the majority of viruses, spyware, and other crap are due to user inaction, this isn't really a fair metric about the overall security. However, it is good to compare against the Windows survival time which is measured in minutes. This does show that Apple has its default security setup as "paranoid with multiple tin foil hats) compared to Windows XP's default setup. A more interesting test would compare how hard it is to get spyware onto a user's computer via the default webbrowser since that seems to be the primary vector these days. However, this is problematic since it's heavily dependent on user stupidity.
Because their law still prevents private copies. And since you can't crack the DRM without making a private copy using PyMusique, you end up violating the law. As soon as you make a copy of the downloaded file that doesn't have DRM, you've violated this law.
Because certain corporations who will remain nameless pay them not to. The courts have shot down certain laws that are intrusive under the Substantive Due Proccess requirement because the government couldn't show that the laws helped people rather than hurt them. It's much harder for them to do this when the rights being violated are more subtle (fixed term copyrights vs unlimited extensions) so it's easier for the corporations to control copyright.
"the circumvention of a TPM applied to copyright material will only be illegal if it is carried out with the objective of infringing copyright. Legitimate access, as authorized by the Copyright Act, will not be altered."
That sounds like it will allow the creation and sale of mod chips as long as they are used legally. Though, it doesn't allow private copying which means that cracking iTunes for personal use is still not legal.
It's been known for a while that Apple is full of atheistic-Satan-worshiping-anarchy-loving-communis ts for a while now Register Article: The real operating system hiding under the newest version of the Macintosh operating system (MacOS X) is called... Darwin! That's right, new Macs are based on Darwinism! While they currently don't advertise this fact to consumers, it is well known among the computer elite, who are mostly Atheists and Pagans. Furthermore, the Darwin OS is released under an "Open Source" license, which is just another name for Communism. They try to hide all of this under a facade of shiny, "lickable" buttons, but the truth has finally come out: Apple Computers promote Godless Darwinism and Communism.
NYTimes is just annoying enough, but it would be nice for Slashdot to not link to paid registration articles. However, the 5 pics from the image gallery were pretty sweet. Personally, I like this idea. Not so much as an iPod, but as a multiGB HD system that I could easily use with my PDA, cellphone, or camera via Bluetooth rather than the limited 1GB/$99 flash sticks with their own fucking readers that no one else uses. Thus a photo on my camera is automatically dumped to my iPod if it's in range via BT and then sent to my PC via WiFi when I get home.
Slashdot Mirror
2) High Energy Density Small and light, the new battery offers a high level of storage efficiency. The prototype battery is only 3.8mm thick, 62mm high and 35mm deep and has a capacity of 600mAh.
Given the recharge times that is an amazing amount of energy for PDAs, cameras and the like. However, if you're going to scale up that system for cars, you are going to have a hellishly dangerous amount of current flowing in order to get a charge in a minute (or time similar to a gas station) so they better figure out some good safety systems if they want to go to market with this for pure electic cars rather than the hybrids they're planning for in 2006. However, they might not need the one minute charge if they use the charge at home system the some electric car designs. You could charge to full in an hour or get enough of a charge at the supermarket or other store to make short hops without a problem.
--
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These aren't processors. They're more like modems. They convert the optical signal into electrons and let a normal electronic CMOS CPU proccess the data. The article is about the fact that this modulator can be done on the same chip as the processor and is ten times as fast as the next best thing.
--
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I think you meant to say electricty is light. This is somewhat right but not exactly. Light /is/ made up of electromagnetic fields and the electric force between charges /is/ transmitted by photons, but they are two seperate ideas. Modern quantum physics has electricity sent via virtual photons while normal light is sent by real photons. Real photons involve both an electric field and a magnetic field perpendicular to each other and perpendicular to the direction of the wave propogation. The reason fiber optics transmissions are "faster" is because we can send multiple signals on different wavelengths over the same line without them interfering with each other two much. We can't do this with normal electric signals because high frequency electric signals start acting strangly since metal wires can no longer be though as resistors but now have to be modeled as inductors too.
--
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The article isn't about pure photonic processors that working completely on light. These would be used in fiber optic routers where switching between light and electric signals is a waste. Data is already transmitted via light but the modulators used are seperate from the computing logic parts. In this new system, the computing system is still using classic transistors but the optical parts are integrated onto the IC. This is still a far step from pure photonic computers where the "transistors" or logic gates are done purely via light.
--
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when he was part of the Challenger investigation team. Hopefully, this means that the chance of another accident is improbable given NASA's desire to phase out the Shuttle and replace it with something more 21st century. Hopefully the winds won't change and the Shuttle will be replaced with something better before the next accident. NASA should really start pushing for more private groups to do this rather than just handing out paltry prizes. Or maybe the Chinese will end up giving NASA the drive it needs to get a working space program. China's economy isn't on the rocks like the USSR during the space race so they would actually be able to compete with us.
--
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If he had just stopped after he gained a couple million and spam wasn't as big of a deal, he could have retired and lived in peace for the rest of his life. Yet he got greedy and kept trying to make more money even as people kept getting more fed up with spam. Excessive greed has takes down even the best of criminals.
--
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Or try a free Nintendo DS, GC, PS2, Xbox. (you only need 4 referrals)
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The article concentrates on hackers liking the features that Apple adds to the modern Mac, but how many of the programmers and power users jumping ship from Wintel (or WAMD) machines are doing this because of BSD? The main reason I got my Mac Mini was because it is smaller than the Linux server I use right now so it's easier to deal with. I might eventually use it as a Mac client machine rather than as a server once I figure out how to set up my media system, but right now it's just another *nix box to me. Apple really did the right thing by loading OSX with a ton of developer tools and allowing the community to do much of their work for them.
--
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All of the previous courts that have ruled on this case have sided with P2P. Probably because the P2P side has been making the argument that P2P is just the next version of VCRs, audio tapes, etc. Also the Constitution says that the purpose of copyright laws is to "promote the Progress of Science and useful Arts" and the P2P side has artists saying that the tech is good for them because it helps them get their stuff out. The RIAA's argument is pretty much "we're losing money" rather than "the arts are being destroyed" so they have a harder argument to pull off. There is also the strong evidence showing that many people who use P2P do buy the music later on. While this is still technically illegal, it ends up promoting the arts so this is probably a Good Thing in the eyes of the Founders.
--
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Or try a free Nintendo DS, GC, PS2, Xbox. (you only need 4 referrals)
Wired article as proof
I just read Stephenson's Diamond Age and it had the concept of fully interactive media. Instead of just overlaying a face over a static movie, 'ractives didn't seperate actors and viewers. The idea was that the 'viewer' would buy a ractive and would pay a different amount depending on the type of ractive. They would also be able to have other viewers join them or they could pay professional actors to fill in the spot. The system was flexible enough to adapt to whatever the people did (and probably had a rating system to get rid of trolls) so it combined the basics of a script with something like a MMORPG. As AI come closer to the Turing test, this might also take off as you buy 3d/VRML/etc client and join RPGs that concentrate more on the role-playing rather than casting fireballs. However, I don't think this kind of thing will really take off until it becomes open enough that anyone can write their own ractives instead of just joining a centralized server an follow someone else's script.
--
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http://www.mirrordot.org/stories/7a619ff68b3628144 0ce8c14d21197d5/index.html
IMO, the Wi-Fi model they have there looks more interesting than the wired one. Hopefully, they'll get picoTux to work on that and be able to make the antenna less clunky.
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Dictionary attacks and other brute force attacks still don't work too well on passphrases so those who use them can protect their drug money for a little while longer. It should also be noted that the DNA attack won't work unless the Secret Service has your private key file. The actual encryption can't be broken easily so they have to attack the weak encryption on the digital private key that's stored on your computer. If the key is stored in a manner that they can't get to it, then your data will still be safe. E.g. the key is stored on an IC in the computer that self destructs if it is tampered with like IBM's ultra-paranoid laptops. The IC would detect a brute force attack and destroy the key.
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Or maybe they game them movie theater tickets
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If the MLA would come up with a formal specification of the English language that was a recursively enumerable language it wouldn't be so fucking hard to parse the language. They could at least formalize things like order-of-operations regarding clauses and enumerated lists and give a better set of punctuation to work with. They should choose whether they want the language to be pure communications medium with a formal syntax or if they want it to be a completely flexible means of artistic expression full of nuances and hints that can only be understood by a sentient being who has studied the language in-depth for many years.
--
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If people read that linked slashdot story, they would see that self-replicating robots are not much closer than when von Neumann wrote about them. The LEGO Mindstorm evolution is pretty cool just because Mindstorms is being used as a platform for this and since the evolution system is doesn't require an outside computer.
However, the small population used (2 bots) and the seemingly weak fitness function make me think that this project won't go anywhere fast (pardon the pun) and is just a genetic dead end. Evolution is dependent on the Law of Very Large Numbers for anything significant to happen.
If you really want to see something cool along the lines of evolving moving robots, I suggest the GOLEM Project. The robots don't manufacture themselves, but the system is a lot closer to biological evolution than most.
--
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Or try a free Nintendo DS, GC, PS2, Xbox. (you only need 4 referrals)
Wired article as proof
Even though he wasn't nominated for a Culture novel, I agree with the parent that his writing kicks ass. I suggest his essay, A Few Notes on the Culture, as quick intro about it. IMO, the best book is Excession but all of his Culture novels are amazing. They detail life in a post-scarcity ("money is a sign of poverty") civilization which is utopian by many standards. When many sci-fi books show AI as being human level sophonts (Star Wars, Asimov, etc) Banks has his AIs operating orders of magnitude above humans yet he still makes humans feel like an important part of the universe. Of all the science fiction I've read, the universe created by Banks is by far the coolest.
I haven't read the novel in question, but if his Culture books are any indication of this novel's quality, it will be just as amazing and worthy of the Hugo.
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I was hoping that the BGs were inside shots of the CRTs or detailed views of LCD panels rather than illusions of the room which only work from one angle. However, I am reminded of the transparent skirts.
--
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This is a good time as any to mention Vinge's Singularity. The main topic is AI, but he also talks about IA or Intelligence Amplification. The DM in the article is a type of IA for communications systems between people. It would merge the useful parts of online communications such as active logging without the problematic impersonal problems that are sometimes caused. This gets extended further when people are connected 24/7 and they have the ability to treat the real world and the wired world much more similarly
--
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As with many console launches, I think a big problem here is the games. This happened with the DS too since their selection was limited (Mario DS and Metroid are the only two good ones from what I've heard) even though they have their GBA games to fall back on. Since the DS is less expensive, can also do movies, MP3s and ebooks using Movie Player Advance, people don't seem to want to spend the $100 extra for it. Both companies want to create a new industry around downloading content over WiFi and other non videogame things so they seem to be holding out on their initial releases. It might be better to wait six months and see which side has better stuff.
--
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Or try a free Nintendo DS, GC, PS2, Xbox. (you only need 4 referrals)
Wired article as proof
Since the majority of viruses, spyware, and other crap are due to user inaction, this isn't really a fair metric about the overall security. However, it is good to compare against the Windows survival time which is measured in minutes. This does show that Apple has its default security setup as "paranoid with multiple tin foil hats) compared to Windows XP's default setup. A more interesting test would compare how hard it is to get spyware onto a user's computer via the default webbrowser since that seems to be the primary vector these days. However, this is problematic since it's heavily dependent on user stupidity.
--
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MP3s will last longer than games. A good rundown of the different times: http://psp.ign.com/articles/572/572563p1.html
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Because their law still prevents private copies. And since you can't crack the DRM without making a private copy using PyMusique, you end up violating the law. As soon as you make a copy of the downloaded file that doesn't have DRM, you've violated this law.
--
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Because certain corporations who will remain nameless pay them not to. The courts have shot down certain laws that are intrusive under the Substantive Due Proccess requirement because the government couldn't show that the laws helped people rather than hurt them. It's much harder for them to do this when the rights being violated are more subtle (fixed term copyrights vs unlimited extensions) so it's easier for the corporations to control copyright.
--
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"the circumvention of a TPM applied to copyright material will only be illegal if it is carried out with the objective of infringing copyright. Legitimate access, as authorized by the Copyright Act, will not be altered."
That sounds like it will allow the creation and sale of mod chips as long as they are used legally. Though, it doesn't allow private copying which means that cracking iTunes for personal use is still not legal.
--
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It's been known for a while that Apple is full of atheistic-Satan-worshiping-anarchy-loving-communis ts for a while now
Register Article:
The real operating system hiding under the newest version of the Macintosh operating system (MacOS X) is called... Darwin! That's right, new Macs are based on Darwinism! While they currently don't advertise this fact to consumers, it is well known among the computer elite, who are mostly Atheists and Pagans. Furthermore, the Darwin OS is released under an "Open Source" license, which is just another name for Communism. They try to hide all of this under a facade of shiny, "lickable" buttons, but the truth has finally come out: Apple Computers promote Godless Darwinism and Communism.
--
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NYTimes is just annoying enough, but it would be nice for Slashdot to not link to paid registration articles. However, the 5 pics from the image gallery were pretty sweet. Personally, I like this idea. Not so much as an iPod, but as a multiGB HD system that I could easily use with my PDA, cellphone, or camera via Bluetooth rather than the limited 1GB/$99 flash sticks with their own fucking readers that no one else uses. Thus a photo on my camera is automatically dumped to my iPod if it's in range via BT and then sent to my PC via WiFi when I get home.
--
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Or try a free Nintendo DS, GC, PS2, Xbox. (you only need 4 referrals)
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