54884267
submission
mikejuk writes:
Unicode already contains over 110,000 characters but when the next major version is released next year it will be expanded by a further 2,833, including some that are as yet undeciphered — and nobody knows what they are supposed to mean. Unicode 7.0 introduces 23 new scripts, all of them of historical or limited modern usage, but the most "extreme" in this respect is Linear A, the as-yet undeciphered writing system from the Minoan civilization of ancient Crete. So if you really want to write something that is really meaningless Unicode 7 is for you.
If Linear A isn't enough of a puzzle then what about U+1F57, listed as "MAN IN BUSINESS SUIT LEVITATING" which has already attracted a lot of attention. The question is when would you use it? Also new is "RAISED HAND WITH PART BETWEEN MIDDLE AND RING FINGERS" — yes its a live-long-and-prosper Vulcan salute. At least there is no mistaking the meaning of this one or the "REVERSED HAND WITH MIDDLE FINGER EXTENDED". Doesn't it just make you long for the days of ASCII....
54771755
submission
mikejuk writes:
You must have seen TV programs where the CSI person is asked to zoom in on face or worse the reflection of a face in the victim's eye. This is clearly impossible — or is it?
A recent paper by Dr Rob Jenkins of the Department of Psychology at York University (UK) has managed to prove that you can get useful images of faces from the reflections in eyes. It really is as simple as zooming in. The catch is that the experiments were done with a 39 mega pixel camera — even so the actual final images were low resolution.
In the experiment a number of people were photographed with a "bystander" in a position so that a reflection of their face would be captured in the eye. The resulting extracted image of the reflection in the eye was only 27x36 and then rescaled using bicubic interpolation to 400x240 or bigger and enhanced using standard PhotoShop operations to normalize the contrast and brightness.
Test subjects were able to match faces using the low resolution images but the important result was that if the subject knew the person in the photo then recognition went up to 90% with false positives down at 10%.
So the next time you appear in a photo consider the fact that a simple procedure might reveal who you are with.
54609889
submission
mikejuk writes:
Asm.js is a subset of standard JavaScript that is simple enough for JavaScript engines to optimize. Now Mozilla claims that with some new improvements it is at worse only 1.5 times slower than native code. How and why?
The problem with JavaScript as an assembly language is that it doesn't support the range of datatypes that are needed for optimization. This is good for human programmers because they can simply use a numeric variable and not worry about the difference between int, int32, float, float32 or float64. JavaScript always uses float64 and this provides maximum precision, but not always maximum efficiency.
The big single improvement that Mozilla has made to its SpiderMonkey engine is to add a float32 numeric type to asm.js. This allows the translation of float32 arithmetic in a C/C++ program directly into float32 arithmetic in asm.js. This is also backed up by an earlier float32 optimization introduced into Firefox that benefits JavaScript more generally. Benchmarks show that firefox f32 i.e. with the float32 type is still nearly always slower than native code, it is now approaching the typical speed range of native code.
Mozilla think that this isn't the last speed improvement they can squeeze from JavaScript. So who needs native code now?
54605041
submission
mikejuk writes:
Google seems to have a way with DARPA challenges, first the self driving car and now the rescue robot. Yes, Google's team Schaft has won. The robots had to complete eight different rescue tasks and were awarded a maximum of four points per task. Schaft using a standard off-the-shelf HRP-2 robot which is surprisingly more able and powerful than the previous star of the show, the Boston Dynamics Atlas robot. Schaft scored 27 out of 32 beating its closest rival by seven points. However this makes the performance sound better than it actually was. Each task could take 30 minutes and most of the robots took their time and moved as slow as ice. It seems that the teams were precomputing every move and taking a lot of time rather than getting on with the task as quickly as possible. As a result there is a further to go in creating useful rescue bots than the scores might suggest.
Up to eight of the top teams will receive up to one million dollars to progress to the next stage of the challenge and their names will be announced soon. It appears that Google's company will be the number one contender in next year's trials. Where self driving cars go presumably rescue robots follow.
54336211
submission
mikejuk writes:
Google's Dart just reached version 1.0, but now it seems that it has aspirations to being an international standard. The question is will this make any difference to the language's future?
Given that Google effectively own Dart, what advantage does standardization bring? The answer to what Google thinks it brings is indicated in the Chromium blog:
"The new standardization process is an important step towards a future where Dart runs natively in web browsers."
and this seems reasonable. A standard is something that would be required before other browser makers decided to fall in line and support native Dart. It is probably a necessary but far from sufficient, condition, however, with Microsoft, Apple and Mozilla having other interests to further.
Last but not least, having the backing of a standard might just encourage possible users to believe that the language won't sink if Google gets distracted with other projects and decides that Dart is dispensable. However, a strong open source development community capable of supporting Dart without Google's input would be a better reassurance.
If you want to help, Google would like you to join the committee. After all, it still hasn't a Vice Chair.
So can we expect to see ECMA CoffeeScript or TypeScript in the near future? Probably not.
54236179
submission
mikejuk writes:
A few days ago the dates for the ending of retail and OEM availability of Windows 7 were announced, and then Microsoft backtracked.
Last week Microsoft announced the timings for Windows 7. For retail sales the date was October 30 2013, so if you wanted a copy you have missed the boat. Not in reality, however, because at the moment you can still buy a boxed copy from many retailers who still have stock.
The date for ending sales of Window 7 preinstalled on new machines was announced as October 30,2014 which is a much more important date in the life of an OS. Soon afterwards Microsoft announced that this was an error and the date was to be determined.
The time to end of OEM preinstalled sales is only available for the XP to Vista and Vista to Window 7 changeover — 3.7 years and 2 years respectively. XP had a bit longer because Vista wasn't suitable for smaller machines such as netbooks.Using the 2 years value, October 2014 is exactly when Windows 7 OEM preinstalled sales should end.
Now you can appreciate why Microsoft's backtracking is strange. Could it be that it all depends on how the take up of Windows 8.1 goes?
It could well be that customers will be asking Microsoft will extend mainstream support for Windows 7 on the grounds that Windows 8 isn't a suitable enterprise operating system. January 2015 seems very close all of a sudden.
54024255
submission
mikejuk writes:
App Inventor has had a difficult path to follow in migrating from being Google App Inventor to becoming MIT App Inventor but don't let that put you off — its new version 2 is even easier to use and ideal for the upcoming hour of code. The big news is that, like its stable mate Scratch, it has gone 100% browser. You no longer need to download and install anything at all. Just point your browser at the App Inventor site, sign in and start working. The "language" has been improved — most notably you now have local variables which is great for teaching as well as using it.
The best news is that you can now connect your Android device via Wifi. All you have to do is install the MIT App Inventor Companion app into your Android test device and the rest is more or less automatic. A QR code is created by App Inventor and the user simply taps the Scan code button. After the app has been installed you can run it in the usual way and any modification you make to the app in App Inventor are passed on to the device — yes you get live testng.
As far as teaching coding is concerned this is instant gratification. If students have an Android phone they can put together a real app as a "hello world" exercise that they can have running on their phone. It might be a trivial coding exercise but a custom app that just displays you name, or dials home, on your very own phone is a big buzz.
App Inventor plus Android could be what is needed to make kids program like we did in the 80-90s.
53821299
submission
mikejuk writes:
Xiaogang Cao just happened to be in Hong Kong and what do you do when you find yourself in Hong Kong?
Obvious, visit a secret Bitcoin mining operation. If you think that Bitcoin mining is something you can do with a spare GPU, or even a rack of spare GPUs, then it's time to rethink.
The ASICMINER construction was started in August 2013 and its hash rate started to ramp up in October. The whole unit is installed on the roof of the company that makes the ASIC chips. The ASIC cards are fitted to racks inside a glass tank containing a fire retardant liquid normally used in extinguishers. The liquid is cooled and pumped around using Chinese hardware. Each tank has 92 blades with 200cc of liquid providing 4kw of cooling.
Currently the farm is not fully populated and some of the racks are empty. The construction of the cooling system looks more like a piece of sci-fi set or perhaps plumbing-based modern art: ASICMINER is estimated to have 1% of the Bitcoin mining market but what happens when hardware like this is fully working and perhaps expanded a few times over. It is thinkable that with hardware and software improvements a single entity could control mining and hence the block chain — not to mention making the SHA-256 hash completely useless.
53688175
submission
mikejuk writes:
Researchers have developed an online dating system that not only matches you with partners you’ll find attractive, but who are also likely to find you attractive too. The researchers at the University of Iowa have addressed an underlying problem of online dating sites. There’s no doubt that such sites are ever increasing in popularity, and have good algorithms taking into account the reported likes, interests and hobbies of the person looking for a partner to come up with a potential match. What’s less well catered for is the trickier aspect of the reciprocal interest – you may think person x looks nice, but will they find you equally attractive?
The problem here is that if you are Average Joe and try asking out Supermodels Ann, Barbara and Cheryl, you’re unlikely to get a reply. Well, not a printable one, anyway. So coming up with yet another supermodel for you to sob over isn’t a lot of help.Instead, the researchers add a note of reality by analyzing the replies you get, and use this to work out how attractive you are. This is a scary thought for many of us, and one we may well not want an honest answer to. The results are used to recommend people who might actually reply if you get in contact with them.
Fortunately for the attractively challenged, the research is still just that – research.
However, given the fact the online dating market is worth around $3 billion a year, chances are someone is going to make use of this.
We have been warned.
53639121
submission
mikejuk writes:
If you think that Bitcoin mining is something you can do with a spare GPU, or even a rack of spare GPUs, then it's time to rethink. The day of the dedicated hash computing hardware is with us and people pay thousands of dollars for hardware that does nothing but mine Bitcoin. However, it seems that it is time to upgrade your expectations once again because there are mining operations that use racks of liquid cooled ASIC devices to do the job.
The ASICMINER construction was started in August 2013 and its hash rate started to ramp up in October. The whole unit is installed on the roof of the company that makes the ASIC chips. The ASIC cards are fitted to racks inside a glass tank containing a fire retardant liquid normally used in extinguishers. The liquid is cooled and pumped around using Chinese hardware. Each tank has 92 blades with 200cc of liquid providing 4kw of cooling.
How much of an impact on the difficulty of Bitcoin mining such super miners will have is difficult to say. The Bitcoin algorithm adjusts the difficulty every 2016 blocks to keep the rate at about 10 minutes to solve a block. It the hardware improves then the difficulty goes up to keep the rate constant. So introducing super hash farms, such as this one, will make the problem harder and make it increasingly difficult for less well equipped miners to succeed.
Of course, this is another potential mechanism whereby the Bitcoin algorithm could become compromised. A single mining faculty such as this could end up in control of most of the block validations in the world, with the resulting loss of decentralised processing that Bitcoin depends on.
53238481
submission
mikejuk writes:
Considering how long we have been trying to solve the problem, a robot walking is mostly amusing. Atlas is an impressive robot, evoking, the deepest fears of sci fi. http://hardware.slashdot.org/story/13/09/08/1829253/unboxing-boston-dynamics-darpa-ready-atlas-robot
Watch as one of the DARPA challenge teams makes Atlas walk, unaided, on randomness. This video of Atlas created by the Florida Institute For Human and Machine Cognition robotics team. It shows Atlas walking across a random collection of obstacles. Notice that even though it looks as if Atlas is supported by a tether, it isn't — as proved when it falls over at the end.
53018565
submission
mikejuk writes:
3D input devices like the Kinect have made so many new things possible, but what about output? inForm is a remarkably simple but effective device that has to be seen to be believed.
The mechanism of MIT's new shapeshifting output device is remarkably simple. It is based on the well known pin screen devices that you can use to take a 3D impression of an object. A 2D plate of pins can be moved to create a surface.In the same way, inForm uses a set of rods and actuators to create dynamic surfaces. The big difference is that the actuators are under computer control.
Now you have a computer controlled surface and what is really surprising is how much you can get from this simple idea. With the help of a 3D depth camera and some innovative software, the surface can act as an output device that lets you manipulate real objects remotely. If you use the surface as a table then your computer can bring you real objects such as your mobile phone — see the video to believe it.
While there are many obvious serious applications such as displaying volumetric CT scans, displaying complex data or providing early experience of prototypes there is also the possibility of having fun with the device. After all simple pinscreens are still sold as executive toys. Could there be a new generation of games in this?
What about putting a device at each end of a video phone call?
With a little more engineering to take it to a higher resolution and smoothness, you could have a magic coffee table that automatically handed you your coffee and followed up with a donut.
Perhaps one day all furniture will be alive.
52817217
submission
mikejuk writes:
There is of course the total wonder at being able to run operating systems in the browser. It's mind boggling that what was once compiled code works in an interpreted dynamic language inside a humble web browser — ok perhaps humble web browser is going a bit far given that today's web browsers are more like complete operating systems in their own right, but you get the idea.
The first set is courtesy of PCjs, a PC emulator written in JavaScript by Jeff Parsons. In fact, the PC emulator is really worth knowing about because it provides a completely configurable emulation of the original XT architecture. You can customize it using an XML file to include various components such as video adapters, keyboards and so on. A really nice touch is that you can easily set up a control panel that shows you what the hardware is doing at the register level — this could be a great teaching tool.
On the JavaScript Machines website http://jsmachines.net/ you can find a range of emulations ready to go, ranging from MS-DOS to Windows 1.01 — yes 1.01! The point being that Windows didn't really catch on until it reached version 3. If you take a look at 1.01, released in 1985, in the emulator you will find out why no-one wanted to use it.
So how much better was Windows 3?
You can find out using another emulator; PCE.js. This is a port, using Emscripten, of the well-known PCE emulator. Emscripten takes the C code of the original emulator and converts it to a subset of JavaScript called asm.js. http://jamesfriend.com.au/pce-js/ibmpc-win/
Finally we have the Mac System 7.0.1 OS running under PCE.js http://jamesfriend.com.au/pce-js/. It comes complete with MacPaint, MacDraw and Kid Pix. Try this one because in many ways it was the one that Windows was trying to beat.
The final question is — can anyone find a real use for a PC emulator within a browser?
52630857
submission
mikejuk writes:
Bribe.io announces itself as:
A super easy way to bribe developers to fix bugs and add features in the software you're using.
Recognizing the fact that a lot of open source projects are maintained by developers working alone and in their spare time, the idea is to encourage other developers to by specifying a monetary value to a bug report or feature enhancement. Once an initial "Bribe" has been posted others can "chip in" and add to the financial incentive.
Obviously there are problems to overcome — will it lead to devs introducing bugs at the same time as new features just to get paid to fix them? Also how does this fit with the underlying ethos of open source software? I Can hear RMS already....
52544825
submission
mikejuk writes:
On October 31st Rockstar filed patent infringement lawsuits against Google, Samsung, HTC, ZTE, ASUSTeK, Huawei, LG, and ZTE. Rockstar is an unfamiliar name, but it is the consortium formed by Apple, Microsoft, RIM, Ericsson and Sony to purchase a portfolio of more than 6,000 patents from Nortel.. This litigation employs just 15 of the patents and Google may now be regretting not outbidding the opposition when they were auctioned in 2011. What makes things worse is that having nearly won the auction with a bid of $4.$ billion Google can hardly argue that the patents are worthless. On the other hand, Google's behavior at the auction was, to put it mildly, bizarre. It chose bids that were mathematical constants, something that became apparent once the bidding passed $3 billion and Google's bid was $3.14159. If only it had continued with the first Feigenbaum constant, 4.669201609 ..., it might have avoided another protracted round of patent wars.
There are two actions one against Google Adwords for infringing search patents and one against Android manufacturers for infringing a range of patents in using Android.
If the device manufacturers lose it could be the end of a free Android OS as each device would mean a licence payment. This is something that Apple would like to see happen very much indeed, but Microsoft with its "paid for" operating system would also be very happy.
The effect of a loss in the Google search engine case is much more difficult to predict but potentially it could cut off, or severely reduce, Google's main source of income.
