60721963
submission
mikejuk writes:
Born With Curiosity is a proposed biopic about computer pioneer Grace Hopper http://developers.slashdot.org.... With a week to go before it closes on June 7, a crowdfunding campaign on Indigogo https://www.indiegogo.com/proj... has so far raised 94% of its $45,000 target.
Although there have been a couple of books devoted to Grace Hopper and recently was the subject of a Google Doodle, her story hasn't made it to celluloid, which is something that Melissa Pierce finds anomalous, stating on the Born With Curiosity Indigogo page:
"Steve Jobs had 8 films made about him, with another in pre-production! Without Grace Hopper, Steve might have been a door to door calculator salesman! Even with that fact,there isn't one documentary about Grace and her legacy. It's time to change that."
60708319
submission
Advocatus Diaboli writes:
The National Security Agency is harvesting huge numbers of images of people from communications that it intercepts through its global surveillance operations for use in sophisticated facial recognition programs, according to top-secret documents. The spy agency’s reliance on facial recognition technology has grown significantly over the last four years as the agency has turned to new software to exploit the flood of images included in emails, text messages, social media, videoconferences and other communications, the N.S.A. documents reveal. Agency officials believe that technological advances could revolutionize the way that the N.S.A. finds intelligence targets around the world, the documents show. The agency’s ambitions for this highly sensitive ability and the scale of its effort have not previously been disclosed.
60536649
submission
mikejuk writes:
A recent paper "Intriguing properties of neural networks" by Christian Szegedy, Wojciech Zaremba, Ilya Sutskever, Joan Bruna, Dumitru Erhan, Ian Goodfellow and Rob Fergus, http://cs.nyu.edu/~zaremba/doc...
a team that includes authors from Google's deep learning research project outlines two pieces of news about the way neural networks behave that run counter to what we believed — and one of them is frankly astonishing.
Every deep neural network has "blind spots" in the sense that there are inputs that are very close to correctly classified examples that are misclassified.
To quote the paper:
"For all the networks we studied, for each sample, we always manage to generate very close, visually indistinguishable, adversarial examples that are misclassified by the original network."
To be clear, the adversarial examples looked to a human like the original, but the network misclassified them. You can have two photos that look not only like a cat but the same cat, indeed the same photo, to a human, but the machine gets one right and the other wrong.
What is even more shocking is that the adversarial examples seem to have some sort of universality. That is a large fraction were misclassified by different network architectures trained on the same data and by networks trained on a different data set.
You might be thinking "so what if a cat photo that is clearly a photo a cat is recognized as a dog?" If you change the situation just a little and ask what does it matter if a self-driving car that uses a deep neural network misclassifies a view of a pedestrian standing in front of the car as a clear road?
There is also the philosophical question raised by these blind spots. If a deep neural network is biologically inspired we can ask the question, does the same result apply to biological networks.
Put more bluntly "does the human brain have similar built-in errors?" If it doesn't, how is it so different from the neural networks that are trying to mimic it? In short, what is the brain's secret that makes it stable and continuous?
Until we find out more you cannot rely on a neural network in any safety critical system..
60509609
submission
mikejuk writes:
The nematode worm C. elegans is going where no worm has gone before — into cyberspace. The Open Worm project aims to build a complete and accurate simulation of the first animal to be transferred to code. The most important thing about C.elegans is that it has only 1000 cells and only 302 are neurons. The OpenWorm project aims to create a simulation of the worm working at the level of chemistry making it the first animal to be re-created as software. The project has been going a while but it recently made a successful pitch on Kickstarter for $120,000 to develop the simulation to the point where the neurons control the body of the worm. The rewards offered on KickStarter might strike some as bizarre: T-shirts featuring C.elegans and access to an online version of the simulation called WormSim.
The "why" is because it's the only way to find out if we understand C.elegans but it raises lots of philosophical questions — is the finished simulation alive being the biggest?
60444895
submission
mikejuk writes:
Otto is the first product to make use of the Raspberry Pi Compute Module and it is open, hackable and takes animated GIFs which are automatically uploaded to your phone.
Otto is the brainchild of Next Thing Computing. It is currently on Kickstarter and at the time of writing well on its way to making its $60,000 goal. It doesn't look like a top notch semi-pro digital camera and that's by design. It looks like an old fashioned low-end film camera of the type you might give to kids. What is novel about this camera is that it may look like a cheapo plastic snapper but it can do some really interesting things.
The "film winder" on the top takes a sequence of stills as you rotate it to "advance the film" and when you "rewind the film" these are combined to create an animated GIF. Of course there might be some users who don't remember what film cameras were like and so might not get the reference to the older tech.
The animated GIF mode is enough to make Otto novel, but the fact that it uses a Raspberry Pi means it can be used in other modes and can be customized. "Using the OTTO SDK, you can modify every bit of OTTO’s software. Recompile the kernel, load it up with additional Linux packages, or just peek under the hood and see how it all works."
There is even a very weird hardware expansion option called Flashyflashy that looks like an old flash bulb attachment. How many users are going to remember those?
Perhaps the most exciting thing about Otto is that it is clearly going to be fun as soon as you take it out of the box but with some software and perhaps hardware skills you can have so much more fun with it.
I can't help but think that they might do even better with a cool futuristic design rather than something retro.
60443649
submission
jeek writes:
It expired yesterday.
Starting Nmap 6.40 ( http://nmap.org/ ) at 2014-05-24 16:01 UTC
Nmap scan report for www.slashdot.org (216.34.181.48)
Host is up (0.050s latency).
rDNS record for 216.34.181.48: star.slashdot.org
PORT STATE SERVICE
443/tcp open https
| ssl-cert: Subject: commonName=*.slashdot.org/organizationName=Dice Holdings, Inc/stateOrProvinceName=New York/countryName=US
| Issuer: commonName=GeoTrust SSL CA/organizationName=GeoTrust, Inc./countryName=US
| Public Key type: rsa
| Public Key bits: 2048
| Not valid before: 2013-04-21T04:25:05+00:00
| Not valid after: 2014-05-23T22:49:50+00:00
| MD5: 485c ed76 9008 56be 3820 849c 2d2e ee73
|_SHA-1: 18f2 bcaa a238 bbf3 429e 6d2b 9d2c bd74 6085 02e4
Nmap done: 1 IP address (1 host up) scanned in 0.41 seconds
59687929
submission
mikejuk writes:
"Linus Torvalds, the "man who invented Linux" is the 2014 recipient of the IEEE Computer Society's Computer Pioneer Award -
"For pioneering development of the Linux kernel using the open-source approach".
According to Wikipedia, Torvalds had wanted to call the kernel he developed Freax (a combination of "free", "freak", and the letter X to indicate that it is a Unix-like system), but his friend Ari Lemmke, who administered the FTP server it was first hosted for download, named Torvalds' directory linux.
In some ways Git can be seen as his more important contribution — but as it dates from 2005 it is outside the remit of the IEEE Computer Pioneer award."
59391299
submission
mikejuk writes:
During his state visit to Japan, President Obama interacted with Honda's humanoid robot ASIMO at Tokyo's Miraikan museum, which showcases Japanese emerging science and innovation. After bowing and making a formal introduction in English, ASIMO kicked a soccer ball to Obama who responded with "Good job" — see the video. Asimo also seemed pleased with his performance and jumped around to celebrate his own prowess in suitable soccer-star style. Compared to other soccer-playing robots, such as Nao, Asimo appears rather slow, although his aim is pretty good but President Obama's reservations, expressed later to students according to the Wall Street Journal is that the robots he met on this and previous visits to Japan are "too lifelike".
59053179
submission
mikejuk writes:
Now this really is an interesting iOS app. Gofor is a new company that is promoting the idea of drones on demand. All you have to do is use the app to request a drone and it shows you were they are and how long before one reaches your location.
You want to take the ultimate selfie? Scout ahead to see if the road is clear or just find a parking space? No problem just task a drone to do the job. For the photo you simply flash your phone camera at it and it pinpoints your location for an aerial selfie. If it is scouting ahead then it shows you what awaits you via a video link. See the promo video to see how it might work.
Flight of fancy? Possibly but the company claims to be operational in five US cities.
58483419
submission
mikejuk writes:
The Matrix Reloaded started something when "The Merovingian" wore a number of very flashy ties. The problem was that we thought we knew how many ways you can tie a tie. The number of ways had been enumerated in 2001 and the answer was that there were exactly 85 different ways but the enumeration didn't include the Matrix way of doing it.
So how many "Merovingian" knots are there?
The question is answered in a new paper "More ties than we thought", by Dan Hirsch, Meredith L. Patterson, Anders Sandberg and Mikael Vejdemo-Johansson. http://arxiv.org/pdf/1401.8242... The methodology is based on the original enumeration and an interesting application of language theory. The idea is to create a programming language for tying ties and then work out how many programs there are.
For single depth tucks there are 177147 different sequences and hence knots. Of these there are 2046 winding patterns that take up to 11 moves, the same as the The Merovingian knot and other popular knots, and so these are probably practical with a normal length necktie.
Who would have thought a little movie would have attracted so much attention....
58006175
submission
mikejuk writes:
As if we didn't have enough of a distraction in the form of the Loebner prize, the Turing Test turned into a circus. Now we have AI Xprize for a robot that can give a TED talk that gets a standing ovation.The new AI Xprize is: ...for the development of artificial intelligence (AI) so advanced that it could deliver a compelling TED Talk with no human involvement
Want input from you in the form of suggestions as to what the competition should be. The idea seems to be that there will be 100 predetermined topics and the AI agent will be given 30 mins to prepare a 3 min talk on one of the topics. The agent doesn't have to be a bipedal humanoid robot but as the audience gets to vote on its performance it certainly has to have an attractive presentation. After the talk it will be asked to answer some questions on the topic.
once you set a task this specific clever programmers can start to exploit its regularities and the intelligence of the audience to fool them into thinking that agent is indeed intelligent. This is what happened in the case of the Turing test and the chatbots. Attempts to understand language and respond with meaning were quickly replaced by automatic language transformations and tricks to make the observer interpret the output as intelligent.
I suppose anything is better than nothing but the AI Xprize could so easily be about something that is less easy to subvert. Perhaps this is what we should suggest on the website http://www.xprize.org/ted rather than detailed rules?
57982075
submission
mikejuk writes:
An "off-the-program" conversation at lat week's TED 2014 Conference in Vancouver between Charlie Rose and Larry Page reveals some of what is on the mind of Google's Founder and CEO.
It ranges over so many topics you can't really come to any particular conclusion, but it is well worth listening to.
The interview starts off with a discussion about Google's recent acquisition of Deepmind, an AI company. Page explains how Google has used neural networks to learn how to recognize a cat from YouTube videos — and the audience doesn't laugh.
When the conversation turns to privacy he turns it round to privacy depends on security and then emphasises that you don't want to throw the baby out with the bathwater. He points out that allowing access to anonymised medical records could save 100,000 lives per year. When it comes to his own recent voice problems he said that
"I was scared to share but Sergey encouraged me and we got thousands of people with similar conditions,"
The interview ends with a contemplation of business and technology.
"Most businesses fail because they miss the future,"
57969441
submission
Todd Palin writes:
Researchers at Penn State university are trying to reconstruct images of faces based only on the DNA sample of the individual. As far out as this sounds, they did a pretty good job at matching the actual appearance of the faces. This is a pretty good start on a whole new use for DNA samples. Imagine a mug shot of a rapist based only on a DNA sample.
57967953
submission
Hugh Pickens DOT Com writes:
Travis Gettys reports that creationist Danny Falkner appeared Thursday on “The Janet Mefford Show” to complain that the Fox television series and its host, Neil deGrasse Tyson, had marginalized those with dissenting views on accepted scientific truths. “I don’t recall seeing any interviews with people – that may yet come – but it’s based upon the narration from the host and then various types of little video clips of various things, cartoons and things like that,” said Falkner of Answers In Genesis who also complained that Tyson showed life arose from simple organic compounds without mentioning that some believe that’s not possible. “I was struck in the first episode where he talked about science and how, you know, all ideas are discussed, you know, everything is up for discussion – it’s all on the table – and I thought to myself, ‘No, consideration of special creation is definitely not open for discussion, it would seem." To be fair, there aren't a ton of shows on TV specifically about creationism says William Hamby. "However, there are entire networks devoted to Christianity, and legions of preachers with all the airtime they need to denounce evolution. Oh, and there was that major movie from a few years back. And there's a giant tax-payer subsidized theme park in Kentucky. And the movie about Noah. And entire catalogs of creationist movies and textbooks you can own for the low low price of $13.92."
57700073
submission
mikejuk writes:
Yes it is Pi day again, but this year it feels as though we aren't celebrating alone. For the first time it looks as if the momentum has built up to the point were a few people have heard about pi day and there are even attempts to sell you Pi connected items — as if it was a real holiday.
But there is always some one to spoil the party so what ever you do to celebrate don't miss Vi Hart's Anti-Pi Rant video.
