Kybernetica.com > November 28, 2006

Permalink

 [ Joe Duck] One of my favorite things about the holidays is hearing from people about things they believe/don’t believe/feel strongly about/don’t care about, etc.     It’s also fun to follow up online.     I think many people who “live” online don’t realize how few people properly use the internet to find even basic information.  This is changing, but slowly.

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Computability: theoretical or practical?

[Complexes] A Turing Machine is actually an abstract mathematical construction, which cannot be fully materialized, since it requires an infinite tape (memory). Nevertheless, people have been discussing their brains out on whether the human mind (whatever that may be) is computable or not.

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Posted at 02:40 AM

November 28, 2006

Permalink

 [ Joe Duck] One of my favorite things about the holidays is hearing from people about things they believe/don’t believe/feel strongly about/don’t care about, etc.     It’s also fun to follow up online.     I think many people who “live” online don’t realize how few people properly use the internet to find even basic information.  This is changing, but slowly.

Read related posts for „Permalink“.

Posted at 02:41 AM

Computability: theoretical or practical?

[Complexes] A Turing Machine is actually an abstract mathematical construction, which cannot be fully materialized, since it requires an infinite tape (memory). Nevertheless, people have been discussing their brains out on whether the human mind (whatever that may be) is computable or not.

Read related posts for „Computability: theoretical or practical?“.

Posted at 02:40 AM

November 22, 2006

Is this a sentient machine?

 [ The Neurophilosopher’s weblog] Josh Bongard, Victor Zykov and Hod Limpton of Cornell University’s Computational Synthesis Laboratory have designed and built the Black Starfish, a four-legged robot which “automatically synthesizes a predictive model of its own topology (where and how its body parts are connected) through limited yet self-directed interaction with its environment, and then uses this model to synthesize successful new locomotive behavior before and after damage.”

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Posted at 02:58 AM

November 19, 2006

Did you say you worked for 8 hours?

[Adeology] Clive Thompson wrote interesting habits of tech workers in an article “Meet the Life Hackers”. The article is 6 pages long and mainly explains how...

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Posted at 02:54 AM

New cartoons: Complex Humour

[Complexes] I've added seven new cartoons to Complex Humour More cartoons @ Complex Humour...

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Posted at 02:53 AM

November 16, 2006

Understanding Where Chimp and Human Brains Diverge May Help Design Better Minions

[ Mad Scientist World News] you probably mean to say “turn off the sound”.  If a minion is too literal he (or she) may destroy your nice new expensive speakers.  Now UCLA scientists have identified a new way to pinpoint the genes that separate us from our closest living relative - and perhaps a way to design a better minion.  “We share more than 95 percent of our genetic blueprint with chimps,” explained Dr.

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Posted at 02:43 AM

Five Tough-Guy Robots

 [ Tales from the Raven] The Tetra Vaal Robot Video really weirds me out.  They think it’s a good idea to give a robot a gun and tell it to shoot people?  Somebody is seriously out of touch with their paranoid side and needs to reconnect quickly.

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Posted at 02:42 AM

November 07, 2006

Iris recognition technology for mobile phones

[Positive Technology Journal] According to Oki, any camera-equipped cellphone or PDA can perform iris recognition once the special software is installed. Identification accuracy is said to be high, with only 1 in 100,000 scans resulting in error, and the system can tell the difference between flesh-and-blood eyes and photographs...

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Posted at 02:51 AM

90% accuracy for translation software?

 [Daniel Lemire’s blog] The USA Today research projects whose goal is to deliver, by 2010, software that can almost instantly translate Arabic and Mandarin Chinese with 90 to 95% accuracy. I’m no natural language researcher, but I’d be interested in knowing how they measure accuracy.

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Posted at 02:47 AM