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Submission + - Could IBM's Watson fact-check our writing?

whereiswaldo writes: Word processors and other text-based have had spelling and grammar checking for years, but could IBM's Watson technology go a step further and provide a familiar squiggly underline for sentences that have no supporting evidence to back them up, while automatically link to the most authoritative source for sentences that are based in on fact? How might such an evolution in communication affect our consumption of news, topics of debate, science, and so on?

Comment Re:Init is broken (Score 0) 522

It can't do event driven launches and yes it does impact desktop users. Example, your on your corporate network on a laptop and you close the lid and take a plane to somewhere else and the laptop wakes up. How can Init handle something like this and know to configure it to a new network?

This is why Sun, Apple, and Ubuntu developed their own event driven systems. System D is not good. But event driven systems can respond to events like a hack attack, excess load, and other things for servers.

Init was made for stationary mini computers with only 20 text based commands and apps. It's not designed for the hacks we use to get it to work today on modern systems

Comment Re:Glad society is stable for that long (Score 1) 218

Second, people can read signs even after revolutions. If you put "severe radiation, stay out" on a concrete building, it'll be fine.

An additional advantage to those signs is that in a dystopian future, the terrorists are usually the good guys. The info will help direct those good guys to where they can find materials helpful in the fight against evil governments.

Comment Re:Windows 7 (Score 4, Interesting) 147

You mean no virtual desktops, a rumored tabs in explorer, kernel level sandboxing that all browsers can use, much improved power consumption, directx 12 with low cpu overhead, and USB 3 support are not reasons to upgrade?

There seems to be a consensus that all change is for the sake of change and eye candy and XP is GOD.

This is a must for a gamer or laptop users.

Comment Re:confusing many very different lists (Score 1) 124

I'm not sure if it's the same as the "terrorist watch list", but there's some kind of intermediate "can fly, but only after extra hassle" list also. I was on one for a while, apparently because of some British person with the same name as mine (I'm American, but have a very common English name). I couldn't use web check-in and had to always go to the airport to check-in with a person, who would first assume I was just dumb and didn't know how to use the machine, then after they verified I could indeed not check in on the machine, they'd poke around at the desk a bit, then call someone, check my ID, then give me a boarding pass, I guess after verifying I was not the other guy. Could've been worse, but was pretty annoying, especially because nobody would actually explain what was going on.

Comment Re:half-true, half-not-true (Score 1) 101

Android could perfectly well let you give an app local permissions without giving it call-out-to-the-network permissions. Snapsave shouldn't need to ever call out to external servers in the first place, if it does only what it advertises.

Android doesn't do this because of their broken ad-based ecosystem, though: they don't want to draw your attention to apps that unnecessarily call out to the network, because the most common reason for doing so is to show ads.

Comment Re:No Google (Score 5, Insightful) 210

Google analytics and ads are everywhere so even if you don't directly use their services like Search and GMail, you are still being tracked by them.
Also, your browser sends referrer headers which tells whatever site you're visiting where you came from. Your browser + browser plugin profile can be used to narrow down who you are even behind Tor. Browser plugins like Adobe Flash save their own set of cookies separate from regular browser cookies.
If you use the Internet, you're being tracked. You may be able to help yourself be tracked _less_ by taking some precautions, but that's about it, I think, for the average person.
I used FB for years before finally closing my account down. No doubt that data will stay in their system forever. Like a drug, better to not start at all than to have to quit.
Basically it boils down to: law enforcement are going to do what they're going to do. I know I'm being tracked, I try and keep my nose clean, and whatever happens happens. I'm not going to live my life all paranoid.

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