Comment Re:Credit where credit is due (Score 1) 444
Clearly, someone hasn't discovered firebug yet... I think I would shoot someone if I had to develop a full AJAX app ONLY on IE...
Comment Re:This is NOT new (Score 1) 276
Hah, sweet, I was just thinking, one of the profs in my department (Jack Gallant) was doing just this. This paper can only predict 10x10 contrast sensitive images, which sounds fairly doable. It's extremely irritating that the press picked this up as being able to predict dreams and crap. This is like a sophisticated version of measuring the electrical response of the eye to either dark or light.
Best Introduction To Programming For Bright 11-14-Year-Olds? 962
firthisaword writes "I will be teaching an enrichment programming course to 11-14 year old gifted children in the Spring. It is meant as an introduction to very basic programming paradigms (conditions, variables, loops, etc.), but the kids will invariably have a mix of experience in dealing with computers and programming. The question: Which programming language would be best for starting these kids off on? I am tempted by QBasic which I remember from my early days — it is straightforward and fast, if antiquated and barely supported under XP. Others have suggested Pascal which was conceived as an instructional pseudocode language. Does anyone have experience in that age range? Anything you would recommend? And as a P.S: Out of the innumerable little puzzles/programs/tasks that novice programmers get introduced to such as Fibonacci numbers, primes or binary calculators, which was the most fun and which one taught you the most?" A few years ago, a reader asked a similar but more general question, and several questions have focused on how to introduce kids to programming. Would you do anything different in teaching kids identified as academically advanced?
Comment Re:Not efficient (Score 2, Interesting) 138
For surgery devices like what you're suggesting, look at some current haptics research. I'm actually participating in some of this stuff, where you stick your fingers in two little armatures. These armatures use inverse kinematics to determine the location of your fingers in space, and allow you to manipulate a 3D world. It's really really convincing, because you can "feel" the objects. The armatures give you very real feedback on the boundaries, stiffness, and texture of the object you're manipulating.
A device like this would be much better for surgery because they don't rely on inaccurate gestures for input. In addition, they provide direct feedback, giving an extra level of immersion. The wiimote relies on gestures, and as such, the motion control adds very little beyond what a button or two can do.
A device like this would be much better for surgery because they don't rely on inaccurate gestures for input. In addition, they provide direct feedback, giving an extra level of immersion. The wiimote relies on gestures, and as such, the motion control adds very little beyond what a button or two can do.
Comment Re:Not efficient (Score 1) 138
Sorry, took me a while to find this picture, but this is what the device looks like: http://bankslab.berkeley.edu/Projects/visualHapticSchematic.html
Comment Re:Not efficient (Score 2, Interesting) 138
Such a device wouldn't be exercising the right muscles. For one thing, there's no way you'd be able to work up a sweat waving your arms around like that. So, definitely not aerobic activity. For another thing, that's only likely to give you all sorts of odd repetitive stress problems.
Comment Not efficient (Score 4, Interesting) 138
I find the allure of making Minority Report devices rather... funny. The movie itself already shows one REALLY good reason why these interfaces are awful. When he tries to shake the guy's hand, the interface suddenly resets itself. You can't "snap out" of the interface like you can letting go of a mouse. It really only looks cool. After waving your arms in the air for 5 min without support, you'll wish you had the mouse and keyboard back...
Zune Sales Not So Bad After All 366
pyrbrand writes "Despite the iFanboy jabber that Zune sales were horrific, CNN has a story to the contrary. Turns out Zune was the #2 Digital Audio player in its first week of sales. Not a bad start for the challenger to the iPod throne. As others have pointed out the Amazon sales rank may have been thrown off by Zune sales being divided between the three colors."
