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Comment Re:Hmm (Score 3, Informative) 106

by merrickm (#37253370) Attached to: Cornell's Creative Machines Lab Lets Chatbots Interact
Cleverbot is real, yeah. Everything it says is based on things users have said to it in the past. User says something, Cleverbot tries to match it to a conversation it had in the past, pulls out something a user said then. So at some point somebody told Cleverbot it was a unicorn, and something the other Cleverbot instance said reminded it of that conversation.
Movies

Why People Should Stop Being Duped By the 3D Scam 394

Posted by Soulskill from the go-holodeck-or-go-home dept.
Phoghat writes "The entertainment and electronics industries keep trying to push 3D on consumers, even though a lot of smart people have caught on to the fact that it is a scam and not innovation as the industry would like you to believe. From the article: 'This is a bad experiment that the industry is forcing consumers to subsidize. And since they can’t create a better product, they’ve simply latched on to 3D as a marketing ploy that the entertainment and electronics industries can use to trick people into thinking that they are getting a superior experience. It’s only working because just enough people are falling for the scam to keep it alive.'"
Image

Seinfeld's Good Samaritan Law Now Reality? Screenshot-sm 735

Posted by samzenpus from the not-that-there-is-anything-wrong-with-that dept.
e3m4n writes "The fictitious 'good samaritan' law from the final episode of Seinfeld (the one that landed them in jail for a year) appears to be headed toward reality for California residents after the house passed this bill. There are some differences, such as direct action is not required, but the concept of guilt by association for not doing the right thing is still on the face of the bill."
Media

Tired of Flash? HTML5 Viewer For YouTube 372

Posted by timothy from the that-taste-great-together dept.
An anonymous reader writes "Instead of spending the next 10 years trying to find a Flash implementation for Linux or OS X that doesn't drain CPU cycles like there's no tomorrow, NeoSmart Technologies has made an HTML5 viewer for YouTube videos. It loads YouTube videos in an HTML5 video container and streams (with skip/skim/pause/resume) against an MP4 resource, and an (optional) userscript file can update YouTube pages with the HTML5 viewer. The latest versions of Firefox, Chrome, and Safari are supported. Personally, I can't wait until the major video sites default to HTML5 and we can finally say goodbye to Flash."
Networking

Network Adapter Keeps Talking While a PC Is Asleep 188

Posted by timothy from the would-make-me-feel-better-about-keeping-a-server-on dept.
Al writes "Researchers at Microsoft and the University of California, San Diego have developed a network adapter that lets a computer enter sleep mode without disrupting the network connection. The adapter, dubbed Somniloquy (meaning to talk in one's sleep), consists of a gumstix running embedded Linux, 64MB of RAM and a 2G SD memory card, connected via USB. The adapter keeps the network connection going and the researchers have also developed a simplified IM client and bittorrent client that carry out more complicated tasks autonomously, only waking the computer if, for example, an actualy IM is received or a download is completed."
Games

Speaking With the Designer of an Indie MMO Project 104

Posted by Soulskill from the quite-ambitious dept.
PsxMeUP writes "Love is a persistent online first-person shooter that will let players build structures, permanently manipulate the environment and share resources — all in real-time. Action will be similar to a real-time strategy game as seen through the eyes of a grunt. The game is being completely designed by a man named Eskil Steenberg, and GameObserver had a chance to interview him. Steenberg talks about how all MMOs offer an egocentric experience where character growth is the most important aspect, and how he intends to change that. He also explains how mainstream MMOs have too many players, which basically trivializes accomplishments that have an impact on the entire server. 'If you imagine Civilization where you invent your stuff or build new stuff, imagine playing one of those characters on the ground doing that. And being able to do something minute in your world and see that impact in the major world,' Eskil explains, when asked what his game will be like. 'I want to scare people in a direction that is different from this sort of "me-centric" style of games. It feels that pretty much all games are going into that Diablo direction of collecting and building up my characters, and it's all very egocentric about creating your own powerful character,' he clarifies when asked how his game will be different from other MMOs. Love is well into development, and Steenberg has already posted some incredible gameplay demos. Levels, for instance, are all procedurally generated. The game also offers open-source tools, like UV editing — not a small feat considering the whole thing was designed by one man."

Comment Re:Uh huh. (Score 1) 1089

by merrickm (#28620221) Attached to: Google Announces Chrome OS, For Release Mid-2010
I imagine this is the sort of thing you'd try to sell not so much to individual users but to businesses- a business with a lot of employees on doing work on computers that has everything it needs its employees to do as a web app (or could have everything as a web app after, perhaps, paying Google to help them set that up) installs this thin-client OS on all their employee workstations and, assuming it works as well Google hopes, cuts down on IT headaches.
KDE

Does the Linux Desktop Innovate Too Much? 542

Posted by kdawson from the billg-at-least-pretended-users-demanded-innovation dept.
jammag writes "The Linux desktop has seen major innovation of late, with KDE 4 launching new features, GNOME announcing a new desktop, and Ubuntu embarking on a redesign campaign. But Linux pundit Bruce Byfield asks, do average users really want any of these things? He points to instances of user backlash, and concludes 'Free software is still driven by developers working on what interests or concerns them. The problem is, the days when users of free software were also its developers are long gone, but the habits of those days remain. The result is that developers function far too much in isolation from their user base.' Byfield suggests that the answer could be more user testing."

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