While the idea of a 3D printer cheap enough for personal use/is/ going to revolutionize the world by making certain real items as cheap as software, the part about it being a von Neumann machine is overrated. The article just mentions it in passing and there is no evidence that he's actually figured out how to do that. That's been one of the holy grails of engineering since it was proposed. The article doesn't mention whether the materials used will be recyclable. Since everyone and their grandmother will start spitting out objects if they have this and since it would probably be cheaper to build a new object rather than repairing an old one, mass use of UCs will produce tons of waste. Imagine if you could never delete any file on your computer but could create more easily. You would run out of space very quickly.
BTW, for a good book on the social implications of cheap universal constructors, I suggest the Stephenson's book Diamond Age.
Link
It should be noted that this isn't an atmosphere in the common sense. The air is continually created and lost due to internal sources and weak gravity.
Hmm...I can still outrun that so I guess I don't have to welcome our new robotic overlords for a couple more months. We'll only have to start worrying if the robots can actually move fast enough to catch and enslave us.
The article says "Reynolds said... that Turion-powered systems could have up to one-third less battery life than laptops running on Intel's ultra low voltage products." That sounds like its just a comparison of the 27W to 35W specs of the processors. However, since both companies have their own systems to dynamically scale back power by slowing down the CPU like SpeedStep and PowerNow, could the power labels be inaccurate as a measure of battery life in this case? Just like how clock-vs-clock benchmarks are no longer valid, could the same now be true about Watt-vs-Watt measurements?
*shrugs* Then again, AMD might just be flat out decieving on the benchmarks because they are thinking of their shareholders rather than their customers.
In order to clear up the confusion about performance, the FPGA company involved here has decided to drop the 90MHz from ads and just call the FPGA 75000 ultra-uber-extreme edition.
They're still Not Good Enough. FPGAs are faster than running software on a normal CPU, but they're still not as fast as running on pure hardware. While modern GPUs are programmable, they're still dependent on extreme hardware which is basically tons of simple circuits doing the same few operations. FPGAs are used when the system has to be more flexible than just 1) get vertex 2) transform 3) paint. Places like ATI do use FPGA systems when they are designing the hardware since it has faster turnaround time from design->test->debug than real hardware. However, these FPGA implementations of GPUs tend to be 1-2 orders of magnitude slower than the final hardware.
Anyone remember that PR nightmare a couple years back when people found out that using the IR (marketed as a nightvision) system on a certain Sony handheld cam would allow people to see through thin layers of clothing? A Google search for Sony x ray should give the results for anyone who is interested. And on the topic of cheap IR gear, http://www.amasci.com/amateur/irgoggl.html. It's effectively the same thing as this story but it's about what happens if you just stick the filter on a pair of goggles and use them during bright sunlight.
Virtual museums are overrated. When VRML became The Next Big thing about 10 years ago, I looked into creating virtual museums, and we're still not at the tech level that we can pull them off. 2D objects look bad when they're distorted into a 3d projection on such a small screen. The best way to view virtual paintings is just as a normal bitmap on a large enough screen. 3D objects like vases and small sculptures do work well in VRML since you can rotate them and view them from any angle. Large (with respect to the virtual user) sculptures and architecture tend to look boring on a screen compared to the real thing and aren't worth it unless viewed in 3D googles to get a sense of the depth involved.
And the whole walking part in a virtual museum is completely worthless unless the museum's architecture is artistic by itself since walking is slower than the "teleportation" available with normal hyperlinks.
BTW, this technology doesn't really compare with QTVR since QTVR is an output system and this technology is an input system to generate 3D models. You would still need a 3D renderer with texture support to view the data produced from this system.
From one of the links: The SIFT algorithm is restricted by patents in the United States and hence this software is not completely free to use. For details see the LICENSE file included in the distribution, before you start to use this software.
Hopefully, they're liberal about the patent and will let noncommercial nonresearch applications use the algorithm. Otherwise, we would have to wait for the really interesting software to come out.
The problem with that metric is that SETI@home has such as high lag time between nodes (data gets sent every few hours or so) that you can't really compare it with a supercomputer for most tasks. It would be better to say SETI@home is running at N*X where N is the average user count and X is the FLOPS/user. Other companies are already selling distributed computing time.
He was also part of the Strategic Defense Initiative in the 80s
Given how much of a waste of money the SDI program was (or should I say is), I hope his work at NASA is better. Otherwise, we might end up with an planetary defense system on the moon to protect us from Martian terrorists.
I was getting excited since I thought they had actually created a practical reversible computing hardware system. The idea behind true reversible computing is that information flow in computation is linked to the energy lost as heat during computing. Von Neumann showed that there was a hard limit on the amount of energy needed everytime a bit of information is lost dependent on Boltzmann's constant and temperature of the system. The ultimate goal is to have a computer that looks a lot like particle physics where the rules are completely time-symmetric. I.e. if I reverse the flow of time, the laws of physics will still run properly and allow me to reconstruct all the previous states from the present one. While the principle of quantum reversibility (sometimes called the "conservation of information law") you can't do the same with most binary operations since all the common ones except NOT take in 2 bits and output 1 bit. Thus, it is impossible to run the system in reverse and reconstruct those two bits from that one bit. This has the adverse effect of wasting energy as heat into the environment.
It's and interesting field that's going to take off as Moore's Law slows down due to wasted heat. A good starting page with links for the interested is here.
The problem with ebooks is still a matter of viewing technology rather than distribution technology. People don't like reading from the computer screen for long periods of time and e-paper has been Just Around the Corner for a while now. However, DVDs are displayed on the same media technology as MPEG4 (or whatever the top of the line is) but the problem has always been distribution since it is still expensive to download DVD quality video in terms of the bandwith needed. As bandwith increases, this problem disappears and downloaded media (via legal Bittorrent or whatever method) will be easier than physical media. The same will only be true for ebooks once epaper becomes efeasible.
Shouldn't that be generalized to include other things like TV and radio? Radio is currently being replaced by webcasts for those who listen to it at work and home. If enough major metro areas implement WiFi access (which they will eventually) then people would be able to get radio that way too. The Internet and distributed communications technology in general will pretty much be the end of all classic media delivery systems once broadband really takes off and people can stream near realtime HDTV level video.
If Google continues to support Wikipedia or even acquire it, then they might increase the support for Wiktionary. However, the answers.com thing they have set up is pretty nice since it brings a bunch of dictionary and similar references together.
If Google continues to support Wikipedia or even acquire it, then they might increase the support for Wiktionary. However, the answers.com thing they have set up is pretty nice since it brings a bunch of dictionary and similar references together.
... the First Amendmentment gives us. As much as I despise some the the conservative laws in the US, I'm still proud of the fact that we support freedom of speech in some of the most extreme cases.
In Australia it is illegal to commit, or attempt to commit suicide. Suicide and sedition: the only crimes where those who suceed aren't prosecuted.
My main gripe with the default BT client is the lack of per file settings. BitTornado allows the user to download specific files in the torrent. This is useful since people can post aggregated torrents and the user can just select the files that he wants.
It's a flag at the IP level which routers use to handle different traffic classes (realtime, low-bandwith/low-lag, etc. In particular, bulk data is high-bandwith and lag tolerant so that someone using a high lag system like a sat. connection can route the packets in a manner that improves overall performance. This normally involves allowing for bigger chunks of data at a time with less feedback (the ACKs) for each chunk.
My main gripe with the default BT client is the lack of per file settings. BitTornado (site's down at the moment) allows the user to download specific files in the torrent. This is useful since people can post aggregated torrents and the user can just select the files that he wants.
Unless whatever contract the person signed when then applied for the university prohibitied this behavior, isn't this just good business sense? All businesses twist the laws and contracts to wring every bit of usefulness out of them. In that sense, wouldn't finding out information ahead of time be a wise business tactic? Or would it be a better business tactic for the 119 applicants to get together and hire a lawyer sue Harvard for this?
Slashdot Mirror
While the idea of a 3D printer cheap enough for personal use /is/ going to revolutionize the world by making certain real items as cheap as software, the part about it being a von Neumann machine is overrated. The article just mentions it in passing and there is no evidence that he's actually figured out how to do that. That's been one of the holy grails of engineering since it was proposed. The article doesn't mention whether the materials used will be recyclable. Since everyone and their grandmother will start spitting out objects if they have this and since it would probably be cheaper to build a new object rather than repairing an old one, mass use of UCs will produce tons of waste. Imagine if you could never delete any file on your computer but could create more easily. You would run out of space very quickly.
BTW, for a good book on the social implications of cheap universal constructors, I suggest the Stephenson's book Diamond Age.
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Link It should be noted that this isn't an atmosphere in the common sense. The air is continually created and lost due to internal sources and weak gravity.
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Hmm...I can still outrun that so I guess I don't have to welcome our new robotic overlords for a couple more months. We'll only have to start worrying if the robots can actually move fast enough to catch and enslave us.
--
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The article says "Reynolds said... that Turion-powered systems could have up to one-third less battery life than laptops running on Intel's ultra low voltage products." That sounds like its just a comparison of the 27W to 35W specs of the processors. However, since both companies have their own systems to dynamically scale back power by slowing down the CPU like SpeedStep and PowerNow, could the power labels be inaccurate as a measure of battery life in this case? Just like how clock-vs-clock benchmarks are no longer valid, could the same now be true about Watt-vs-Watt measurements?
*shrugs* Then again, AMD might just be flat out decieving on the benchmarks because they are thinking of their shareholders rather than their customers.
--
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Or a free Nintendo DS, GC, PS2, Xbox
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In order to clear up the confusion about performance, the FPGA company involved here has decided to drop the 90MHz from ads and just call the FPGA 75000 ultra-uber-extreme edition.
--
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Or a free Nintendo DS, GC, PS2, Xbox
Wired article as proof
They're still Not Good Enough. FPGAs are faster than running software on a normal CPU, but they're still not as fast as running on pure hardware. While modern GPUs are programmable, they're still dependent on extreme hardware which is basically tons of simple circuits doing the same few operations. FPGAs are used when the system has to be more flexible than just 1) get vertex 2) transform 3) paint. Places like ATI do use FPGA systems when they are designing the hardware since it has faster turnaround time from design->test->debug than real hardware. However, these FPGA implementations of GPUs tend to be 1-2 orders of magnitude slower than the final hardware.
--
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Or a free Nintendo DS, GC, PS2, Xbox
Wired article as proof
Anyone remember that PR nightmare a couple years back when people found out that using the IR (marketed as a nightvision) system on a certain Sony handheld cam would allow people to see through thin layers of clothing? A Google search for Sony x ray should give the results for anyone who is interested. And on the topic of cheap IR gear, http://www.amasci.com/amateur/irgoggl.html. It's effectively the same thing as this story but it's about what happens if you just stick the filter on a pair of goggles and use them during bright sunlight.
--
Free iPod? Try a free Mac Mini
Or a free Nintendo DS, GC, PS2, Xbox
Wired article as proof
Virtual museums are overrated. When VRML became The Next Big thing about 10 years ago, I looked into creating virtual museums, and we're still not at the tech level that we can pull them off. 2D objects look bad when they're distorted into a 3d projection on such a small screen. The best way to view virtual paintings is just as a normal bitmap on a large enough screen. 3D objects like vases and small sculptures do work well in VRML since you can rotate them and view them from any angle. Large (with respect to the virtual user) sculptures and architecture tend to look boring on a screen compared to the real thing and aren't worth it unless viewed in 3D googles to get a sense of the depth involved.
And the whole walking part in a virtual museum is completely worthless unless the museum's architecture is artistic by itself since walking is slower than the "teleportation" available with normal hyperlinks.
BTW, this technology doesn't really compare with QTVR since QTVR is an output system and this technology is an input system to generate 3D models. You would still need a 3D renderer with texture support to view the data produced from this system.
--
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Or a free Nintendo DS, GC, PS2, Xbox
Wired article as proof
From one of the links: The SIFT algorithm is restricted by patents in the United States and hence this software is not completely free to use. For details see the LICENSE file included in the distribution, before you start to use this software.
Hopefully, they're liberal about the patent and will let noncommercial nonresearch applications use the algorithm. Otherwise, we would have to wait for the really interesting software to come out.
A C# implementation with support for Mono is available to play with for anyone who is interested: http://user.cs.tu-berlin.de/~nowozin/libsift/
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Since slashdot will probably burn out the web server hosting images: http://www.mdrobotics.ca.nyud.net:8090/ism/behind. htm
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The problem with that metric is that SETI@home has such as high lag time between nodes (data gets sent every few hours or so) that you can't really compare it with a supercomputer for most tasks. It would be better to say SETI@home is running at N*X where N is the average user count and X is the FLOPS/user. Other companies are already selling distributed computing time.
--
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Or a free Nintendo DS, GC, PS2, Xbox
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He was also part of the Strategic Defense Initiative in the 80s
Given how much of a waste of money the SDI program was (or should I say is), I hope his work at NASA is better. Otherwise, we might end up with an planetary defense system on the moon to protect us from Martian terrorists.
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If it does stop, here is the mirrordot link.
That said, what impresses me is that they pulled it off with an A64 3200.
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I was getting excited since I thought they had actually created a practical reversible computing hardware system. The idea behind true reversible computing is that information flow in computation is linked to the energy lost as heat during computing. Von Neumann showed that there was a hard limit on the amount of energy needed everytime a bit of information is lost dependent on Boltzmann's constant and temperature of the system. The ultimate goal is to have a computer that looks a lot like particle physics where the rules are completely time-symmetric. I.e. if I reverse the flow of time, the laws of physics will still run properly and allow me to reconstruct all the previous states from the present one. While the principle of quantum reversibility (sometimes called the "conservation of information law") you can't do the same with most binary operations since all the common ones except NOT take in 2 bits and output 1 bit. Thus, it is impossible to run the system in reverse and reconstruct those two bits from that one bit. This has the adverse effect of wasting energy as heat into the environment.
It's and interesting field that's going to take off as Moore's Law slows down due to wasted heat. A good starting page with links for the interested is here.
--
Free iPod? Try a free Mac Mini
Or a free Nintendo DS, GC, PS2, Xbox
Wired article as proof
The problem with ebooks is still a matter of viewing technology rather than distribution technology. People don't like reading from the computer screen for long periods of time and e-paper has been Just Around the Corner for a while now. However, DVDs are displayed on the same media technology as MPEG4 (or whatever the top of the line is) but the problem has always been distribution since it is still expensive to download DVD quality video in terms of the bandwith needed. As bandwith increases, this problem disappears and downloaded media (via legal Bittorrent or whatever method) will be easier than physical media. The same will only be true for ebooks once epaper becomes efeasible.
--
Free iPod? Try a free Mac Mini
Or a free Nintendo DS, GC, PS2, Xbox
Wired article as proof
Shouldn't that be generalized to include other things like TV and radio? Radio is currently being replaced by webcasts for those who listen to it at work and home. If enough major metro areas implement WiFi access (which they will eventually) then people would be able to get radio that way too. The Internet and distributed communications technology in general will pretty much be the end of all classic media delivery systems once broadband really takes off and people can stream near realtime HDTV level video.
--
Free iPod? Try a free Mac Mini
Or a free Nintendo DS, GC, PS2, Xbox
Wired article as proof
If Google continues to support Wikipedia or even acquire it, then they might increase the support for Wiktionary. However, the answers.com thing they have set up is pretty nice since it brings a bunch of dictionary and similar references together.
--
Free iPod? Try a free Mac Mini
Or a free Nintendo DS, GC, PS2, Xbox
Wired article as proof
If Google continues to support Wikipedia or even acquire it, then they might increase the support for Wiktionary. However, the answers.com thing they have set up is pretty nice since it brings a bunch of dictionary and similar references together.
--
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Or a free Nintendo DS, GC, PS2, Xbox
Wired article as proof
If they want to really open it up, they should combine their efforts with that of Wiktionary
--
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... the First Amendmentment gives us. As much as I despise some the the conservative laws in the US, I'm still proud of the fact that we support freedom of speech in some of the most extreme cases.
In Australia it is illegal to commit, or attempt to commit suicide.
Suicide and sedition: the only crimes where those who suceed aren't prosecuted.
--
Free iPod? Try a free Mac Mini
Or a free Nintendo DS, GC, PS2, Xbox
Wired article as proof
My main gripe with the default BT client is the lack of per file settings. BitTornado allows the user to download specific files in the torrent. This is useful since people can post aggregated torrents and the user can just select the files that he wants.
--
Free iPod? Try a free Mac Mini
Or a free Nintendo DS, GC, PS2, Xbox
Wired article as proof
It's a flag at the IP level which routers use to handle different traffic classes (realtime, low-bandwith/low-lag, etc. In particular, bulk data is high-bandwith and lag tolerant so that someone using a high lag system like a sat. connection can route the packets in a manner that improves overall performance. This normally involves allowing for bigger chunks of data at a time with less feedback (the ACKs) for each chunk.
--
Free iPod? Try a free Mac Mini
Or a free Nintendo DS, GC, PS2, Xbox
Wired article as proof
My main gripe with the default BT client is the lack of per file settings. BitTornado (site's down at the moment) allows the user to download specific files in the torrent. This is useful since people can post aggregated torrents and the user can just select the files that he wants.
--
Free iPod? Try a free Mac Mini
Or a free Nintendo DS, GC, PS2, Xbox
Wired article as proof
Has anyone found pictures of the lava flow?
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Unless whatever contract the person signed when then applied for the university prohibitied this behavior, isn't this just good business sense? All businesses twist the laws and contracts to wring every bit of usefulness out of them. In that sense, wouldn't finding out information ahead of time be a wise business tactic? Or would it be a better business tactic for the 119 applicants to get together and hire a lawyer sue Harvard for this?
--
Free iPod? Try a free Mac Mini
Or a free Nintendo DS, GC, PS2, Xbox
Wired article as proof