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AI

Turing Test Passed 432

Posted by samzenpus from the almost-human dept.
schwit1 (797399) writes "Eugene Goostman, a computer program pretending to be a young Ukrainian boy, successfully duped enough humans to pass the iconic test. The Turing Test which requires that computers are indistinguishable from humans — is considered a landmark in the development of artificial intelligence, but academics have warned that the technology could be used for cybercrime. Computing pioneer Alan Turing said that a computer could be understood to be thinking if it passed the test, which requires that a computer dupes 30 per cent of human interrogators in five-minute text conversations."

Submission + - Ad Exec: Learn to Code or You're Dead to Me 1

Submitted by theodp
theodp writes: In a widely-read WSJ Op-Ed, English major Kirk McDonald, president of online ad optimization service PubMatic, informed college grads that he considers them unemployable unless they can claim familiarity with at least two programming languages. 'Teach yourself just enough of the grammar and the logic of computer languages to be able to see the big picture,' McDonald advises. 'Get acquainted with APIs. Dabble in a bit of Python. For most employers, that would be more than enough.' Over at Typical Programmer, Greg Jorgensen is not impressed. 'I have some complaints about this "everyone must code" movement,' Jorgensen writes, 'and Mr. McDonald’s article gives me a starting point because he touched on so many of them.' Nice rebuttal, and one might add that even a programming whiz might find it tough to land a job at PubMatic — a 2011 USA Today article noted that PubMatic maintained its 100-person development team in India. Why? 'It is easier to find and retain engineers in India,' explained CEO Rajeev Goel (McDonald's boss). 'And it is more affordable.'

Submission + - Crowdfunding To Build a Copyleft Photo Archive of the Adirondack Mountains

Submitted by sajuuk
sajuuk writes: After several years of getting fed up with a lack of good stock photography for the area that I live in (as well as constantly having to explain that I don't live in a shack in the woods), I have decided to begin a Kickstarter campaign to simultaneously build a copyleft photo archive of life in the Adirondack Park and publish a photo-essay about the same subject. If the funding is successful, I will release all photos I will license all photos I take over the course of the year that the project will run as Creative Commons Attribution 3.0 Unported, allowing free use for all who wish to use them. The photos will include subjects such as landscape, waterscape, architecture, and of course, human interest. Check out the project here: 52 Weeks: The Adirondack Life.

Submission + - Psychiatrists Cast Doubt on Biomedical Model of Mental Illness (guardian.co.uk) 2

Submitted by jones_supa
jones_supa writes: British Psychological Society's division of clinical psychology (DCP) will on Monday issue a statement declaring that, given the lack of evidence, it is time for a 'paradigm shift' in how the issues of mental health are understood. According to their claim, there is no scientific evidence that psychiatric diagnoses such as schizophrenia and bipolar disorder are valid or useful. The statement effectively casts doubt on psychiatry's predominantly biomedical model of mental distress – the idea that people are suffering from illnesses that are treatable by doctors using drugs. The DCP said its decision to speak out 'reflects fundamental concerns about the development, personal impact and core assumptions of the (diagnosis) systems', used by psychiatry.

The provocative statement by the DCP has been timed to come out shortly before the release of DSM-5, the fifth edition of the American Psychiatry Association's Diagnostic and Statistical Manual of Mental Disorders. The manual has been attacked for expanding the range of mental health issues that are classified as disorders.
Transportation

Sen. Rand Paul Introduces TSA Reform Legislation 585

Posted by Soulskill from the freedom-from-getting-pawed-and-groped dept.
OverTheGeicoE writes "Over a month after Sen. Rand Paul announced his desire to pull the plug on TSA, he has finally released his legislation that he tweets will 'abolish the #TSA & establish a passengers "Bill of Rights."' Although the tweet sounds radical, the press release describing his proposed legislation is much less so. 'Abolition' really means privatization; one of Paul's proposals would simply force all screenings to be conducted by private screeners. The proposed changes in the 'passenger Bill of Rights' appear to involve slight modifications to existing screening methods at best. Many of his 'rights' are already guaranteed under current law, like the right to opt-out of body scanning. Others can only vaguely be described as rights, like 'expansion of canine screening.' Here's to the new boss..."
Crime

UK Plans Private Police Force 252

Posted by Soulskill from the very-polite-unless-you-spill-their-tea dept.
An anonymous reader writes "'Private companies could take responsibility for investigating crimes, patrolling neighborhoods and even detaining suspects under a radical privatization plan,' The Guardian reports. 'The contract is the largest on police privatization so far, with a potential value of £1.5bn over seven years, rising to a possible £3.5bn depending on how many other forces get involved.' A worrying development in a country with an ever-increasing culture of surveillance and intrusive policing."
The Military

US Military Working On 'Optionally-Manned' Bomber 278

Posted by Soulskill from the contract-paid-by-skynet dept.
An anonymous reader writes "Despite massive budget deficits, the U.S. military is working towards a stealthy and 'optionally-manned' bomber capable of carrying nuclear weapons. The craft is intended to replace the 1960s B-52, 1970s B-1 and 1990s B-2 bombers. The new aircraft is meant to be a big part of the U.S. 'pivot' to the Pacific. With China sporting anti-ship weapons that could sink U.S. carriers from a distance, a new bomber is now a top priority."
The Internet

Submission + - Patent Troll Claims Ownership of Interactive Web (wired.com)

Submitted by wiedzmin
wiedzmin writes: A low-profile Chicago biologist, Michael Doyle, and his company Eola Technologies, who has once won a $521m patent lawsuit against Microsoft, claim that it was actually he and two co-inventors who invented, and patented, the “interactive web” before anyone else, back in 1993. Doyle argues that a program he created to allow doctors to view embryos over the early Internet, was the first program that allowed users to interact with images inside of a web browser window. He is therefore seeking royalties for the use of just about every modern interactive Internet technology, like watching videos or suggesting instant search results. Dozens of lawyers, representing the world’s biggest internet companies, including Yahoo, Amazon, Google and YouTube are acting as defendants in the case, which has even seen Tim Berners-Lee testify on Tuesday.
Firefox

Submission + - Firefox 11 integrated SPDY (huntall.com)

Submitted by
huntall
huntall writes: "SPDY is a network protocol developed and introduced by Google in late 2009 with the goal of improving our experience of internet browsing, printing faster in loading web pages . While SPDY is part of Google Chrome since its early versions, the public character"
Image

Pancake Flipping Is Hard — NP Hard Screenshot-sm 260

Posted by samzenpus from the sorting-a-large-stack dept.
mikejuk writes "French computer scientists have finally proved that sorting pancakes is hard — NP hard. No really — this isn't a joke. Well, it is slightly amusing but that's just because it is being presented as pancake flipping. The algorithm in question is sorting a permutation using prefix reversal — which is much easier to understand in terms of pancakes. Basically you have to sort a pancake stack by simply inserting your spatula and flipping the top part of the stack. We now know that if you can do the this in polynomial time then you have proved that P=NP."
Science

EU Scientists Working On Laser To Rip a Hole In Spacetime 575

Posted by samzenpus from the what-could-possibly-go-wrong? dept.
astroengine writes "Those pesky physicists are at it again; they want to build a laser so powerful that it will literally rip spacetime apart. Why? To prove the existence of virtual particles in the quantum vacuum, potentially unravel extra dimensions and possibly find the root of dark matter. The $1.6 billion Extreme Light Infrastructure Ultra-High Field Facility (known as ELI) will be built somewhere in Europe by the end of the decade and physicists are hoping the ten high-powered lasers — delivering 200 petawatts of power at a target for less than a trillionth of a second — will turn up some surprises about the very fabric of the Universe."

Comment I'll believe it when I see it... (Score 1) 271

by sajuuk (#36416994) Attached to: The Internet Is Killing Local News, Says the FCC
If by "local news" you mean Local TV News, well, there's none of that around me. On the other hand, if you mean "local newspaper" and "local radio" then you are sadly mistaken, at least up here in the Adirondacks. We get a high quality locally published and printed newspaper 6 days a week - with a superb website accompanying - but NOT replacing it. And the local NPR station isn't half bad either.
Security

Sony Officially Blames Anonymous For PSN Hack 575

Posted by samzenpus from the in-today's-sony-hack-news dept.
H_Fisher writes "In a letter to Congress, Kazuo Hirai, chairman of Sony's board of directors, blames hacker group Anonymous for making possible the theft of gamers' personal information. 'What is becoming more and more evident is that Sony has been the victim of a very carefully planned, very professional, highly sophisticated criminal cyber attack designed to steal personal and credit card information for illegal purposes,' Hirai wrote. He also indicated that Sony waited two days before notifying the FBI of the theft."

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