Same as with any interception. A few ideas might be: * Check ps aux for programs that might monitor your activities (or the Windows task manager/process list/service list) * Try HTTP TRACE and HTTP HEAD to see if there are any unexplained proxy servers * Traceroute to see if there's anything fishy Just make sure your employer won't have an objection to you doing these things first.

It seems to me this could either be trying to recoup the cost of rebuilding the factories, or it could be manufacturers trying to exploit a situation that caused an increase in prices.

It's not surprising that as more data is stored on computer, and more of those computers have internet connections, more breaches occur. Though even I will admit a 10 fold increase is a lot. It would be interesting to know how these breaches are occurring.

Is it just me, or are version numbers accelerating?

"able to look into Intel's open-source Linux graphics driver to understand how an operation is handled by the hardware, tossing some extra debugging statements into the Intel driver to see what's happening" - it is exactly this kind of thing that motivated RMS to start the free software movement - the freedom to tinker and improve! On a more pragmatic note: nice:D - Perhaps the interest of major video games companies will encourage hardware manufacturers (particularly those that do not currently do so) to help provide full functionality to FOSS drivers - something which no doubt the typical slashdotter would love. The optimistic among you would hope that this is the beginning of a world where a FOSS environment is properly supported - rather than ignored as "not the one everyone uses". The pessimist will probably see this as another example of either vaporware, or hypeware.

It seems to me that the "recognise itself" part could be done entirely with traditional computer vision techniques.

Step 1) Flip the image vertically to undo the transformation implied by the mirror
Step 2) Use a computer vision algorithm to identify the robot (just as it might be used to identify a coffee cup, or a picture of the Enterprise)
Step 3) (This being the most specific part) allow the robot to move, and to associate changes in the image with this movement
This is not "self awareness" as most of us would understand the concept; we would not consider it to be self awareness if we could recognise a puppet under our control.

I think the title is slightly misleading in that respect. It seems to me that the hard part is in having a computer vision algorithm that understands the concept of a mirror. A robot that recognises itself in a mirror is a very natural extension to that.

On the face of it, this submission may look like very good news (and I guess it is good news), but remember that (at least according to the article - I haven't checked this), the MPAA have already successfully used the Copyright, Designs and Patents Act 1988 to achieve court orders to block infringement sites. If this is true, then in effect the government has merely agreed to repeal superfluous legislation.

Fuel economy issues aside, how do they plan to find these islands of plastic if they're in the middle of the ocean? A quick peak at Google Earth would suggest that the overwhelming majority of ocean is... well.... water, and it clearly isn't practical to meander around an entire ocean looking for something without a clue as to its location.