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AI

The Uncanny Valley of Voice Recognition 83

Posted by Soulskill from the siri-do-these-pants-make-me-look-fat? dept.
An anonymous reader writes: We've often seen the term "uncanny valley" applied to the field of robotics — it's easy to get unsettled when robots act close to being human, yet fail completely in a few key ways. GitHub Engineer Zach Holman writes that we've now reached uncanny valley territory in speech recognition as well, though the results are more frustrating than they are disturbing. He says, "Part of this frustration is the user interface itself is less standardized than the desktop or mobile device UI you're used to. Even the basic terminology can feel pretty inconsistent if you're jumping back and forth between platforms.

Siri aims to be completely conversational: Do you think the freshman Congressman from California's Twelfth deserved to sit on HUAC, and how did that impact his future relationship with J. Edgar? Xbox One is basically an oral command line interface, of the form: Xbox (direct object). ...it's these inconsistencies that are frustrating as you jump back and forth between devices. And we're only going to scale this up."
Education

AP Test's Recursion Examples: An Exercise In Awkwardness 252

Posted by timothy from the best-practice-or-best-illustration dept.
theodp writes "Yet another example of how AP exams are loaded with poor coding practices," quipped Alfred Thompson, referring to a recursive code example that prints the numbers 0 to 6, which was posted to the (closed) AP Computer Science Facebook group. "We are often forced to use code examples that are not ideal coding practice," Thompson notes. "We do that to make things clear and to demonstrate specific concepts in a sort of isolation that we might not normally use. We seem to do that a lot with recursion because the examples that require recursion tend to be fairly complex." So, while asking students to use recursion instead of a loop to print '0123456' serves the purpose of teaching recursion, Thompson opines that it's also a poor example of code practice. "Someone raised on functional programming where recursion is a pretty standard way of doing looping might disagree of course," he adds. "There is a saying that when all you have is a hammer all your problems look like nails. This seems, in a way, to be the case with recursion and loops. If your first tool of choice (or what you have learned first) for iteration is loops you tend not to think of recursion as a solution. Similarly if you start with recursion (as is common with functional programming) you are a lot more likely to look at recursion as a tool for iteration." So, do you tend to embrace or eschew recursion in your programming?

Comment Re:Same answer every time. (Score 4, Informative) 178

by StormReaver (#49001121) Attached to: Ask Slashdot: With Whom Do You Entrust Your Long Term Data?

Once you give your data to "the cloud" it ceases to be YOUR data.

It boggles my mind that people still haven't caught on to this. I'm going to expand on your message just a little bit:

Once you give your data to "the cloud", it becomes the property of government snooping agencies. It doesn't even matter if you're in a country that doesn't actively snoop (if you believe that such a thing exists anymore). Companies change hands, and they do so across political boundaries. Companies cannot be trusted with your data. Period.

Hopefully, this little incident opens some eyes.

Comment Re:How is this an AI? (Score 2) 187

by StormReaver (#48992707) Attached to: The Poem That Passed the Turing Test

I don't understand how this poetry generator constitutes an AI.

That's because it doesn't. This program is on the same complexity scale as chapter 2 or 3 in an introduction to programming book, when it reaches the concept of variables. It's an exercise in triviality, not artificial intelligence.
Education

Washington May Count CS As Foreign Language For College Admission 259

Posted by timothy from the alle-menschen-sind-auslaender dept.
theodp writes On Wednesday, Washington State held a public hearing on House Bill 1445, which proposes a study "to allow two years of computer sciences to count as two years of world languages for the purposes of admission into a four-year institution of higher education." Among the questions posed by the House Higher Education Committee to a UW rep at the hearing was the following: "What's the case for...not just world language is good, world language is well-rounded, but world language is so super-duper-duper good that you should spend two years of your life doing them and specifically better than something else like coding?" The promise of programming jobs, promoted by Microsoft execs and other MS folks like ex-Program Manager Audrey Sniezek (ironically laid off last summer), has prompted Kentucky to ponder a similar measure.

Comment Re:mod parent up (Score 0, Troll) 253

Parent is actually insightful.

No, he's not. He is completely ignorant of history. Even if you can't see it right now, there is trap hidden somewhere in Microsoft's actions. There is ALWAYS a hidden trap in any apparently-friendly action Microsoft takes. You either see it up front and avoid Microsoft like the plague that it is, or you fall victim to the trap after it's sprung.

Don't any of you remember Microsoft's last promise to not sue over Dot Net runtime patents?! On the surface, it seemed like Microsoft had turned a corner away from the Dark Side. But a closer analysis revealed that Microsoft's promise only extended to one very specific version of the Dot Net runtime, which was a version that was quickly superceded by the next version of the Dot Net runtime.

The trap was that we were meant to believe that we were covered by the patent pledge for the Dot Net runtime. However, if you tried to implement Microsoft's superceding version, the patent pledge no longer applied.

Rather than trying to figure out whether you're the dinner guest or the dinner in the wolf's lair, it's just far safer to stay away from the wolf altogether. No one ever got eaten by staying away from Microsoft.
Open Source

Microsoft Open Sources CoreCLR, the .NET Execution Engine 253

Posted by Soulskill from the following-through dept.
An anonymous reader writes: As part of Microsoft's continuing project to open source the .NET framework, the company has announced that CoreCLR, the execution engine for .NET Core, is now available on GitHub. CoreCLR handles things like garbage collection, compilation to machine code, and IL byte code loading. The .NET team said, "We have released the complete and up-to-date CoreCLR implementation, which includes RyuJIT, the .NET GC, native interop and many other .NET runtime components. ... We will be adding Linux and Mac implementations of platform-specific components over the next few months. We already have some Linux-specific code in .NET Core, but we're really just getting started on our ports. We wanted to open up the code first, so that we could all enjoy the cross-platform journey from the outset."

Comment Re:Oh God, not again (Score 1) 740

by StormReaver (#48968975) Attached to: New Jersey Gov. Christie: Parents Should Have Choice In Vaccinations

Measles is one of several diseases that was nearly eradicated before the vaccine was introduced. The effectiveness of the Measles vaccine is based more on religious faith than on science.

The recent New York "outbreak" of 24 cases (only 24 cases, but whatever: we like a good hysterical response to a non-issue) consisted of 20 people who were vaccinated and 4 that were not. That does not speak well to the effectiveness of this particular vaccine, but does lend credence to the notion that good sanitation is more effective than the pharmaceutical cash grab that is modern vaccinations.

More damning of the Measles vaccine is that the source of the New York outbreak was a fully vaccinated person. Measles vaccinations seem a lot like snake oil.
Education

WA Bill Takes Aim at Boys' Dominance In Computer Classes 779

Posted by samzenpus from the all-things-equal dept.
theodp writes Boys' over-representation in K-12 computer classes has perplexed educators for 30+ years. Now, following on the heels of Code.org's and Google's attempts to change the game with boys-don't-count gender-based CS teacher funding schemes, Washington State lawmakers have introduced House Bill 1813, legislation that requires schools seeking K-12 computer education funding to commit to preventing boys from ruling the computer class roost. Computer science and education grant recipients, HB 1813 explains, "must demonstrate engaged and committed leadership in support of introducing historically underrepresented students [including girls, low-income students, and minority students]" and "demonstrate a plan to engage historically underrepresented students with computer science." Calling it "a bold new bill that we hope more states will follow," corporate and tech billionaire-backed Code.org tweeted its support for the bill.
Technology

Ask Slashdot: Is There a Modern IP Webcam That Lets the User Control the Output? 263

Posted by samzenpus from the a-picture-is-worth-a-thousand-words dept.
First time accepted submitter Tronster writes Owners of a local shop have a menu that changes daily and wanted an IP webcam to update an image on their web-site. After a frustrating 2 hours of a "Hikvision" refusing to behave, I threw in the towel and looked for a better camera to recommend. The biggest issue today is that the new webcams that come out don't support FTP, they all support sending images/video direct to a "private cloud" (e.g., Simplicam, Dropcam, etc...). Google has been no help; all the sites are either outdated in terms of ranking or the most recent ones recommend a Foscam. They previously tried one of these and it's image quality was too poor. While security systems and home automation has been discussed recently, I haven't found any recent discussions on webcams that give a user control of where the content is sent. Does anyone in the Slashdot community have recommendations, reputable sites that are up-to-date in rankings, and/or hacks to have control over some of these newer cameras?

Comment Re:worry about the other "Zone of Lawlessness"! (Score 2) 431

Fix that, and then the American people might consider not using encryption anymore.

That ship has sailed, and is not coming back. When the American Government is indistinguishable from any other type of criminal, you are well advised to protect yourself from them all.
Communications

FCC Fines Verizon For Failing To Investigate Rural Phone Problems 94

Posted by timothy from the shrugging-it-off dept.
WheezyJoe writes Verizon agreed to a $5 million settlement after admitting that it failed to investigate whether its rural customers were able to receive long distance and wireless phone calls. The settlement is related to the FCC's efforts to address what is known as the rural call completion problem. Over an eight-month period during 2013, low call answer rates in 39 rural areas should have triggered an investigation, the FCC said. The FCC asked Verizon what steps it took, and Verizon said in April 2014 that it investigated or fixed problems in 13 of the 39 areas, but did nothing in the other 26.

"Rural call completion problems have significant and immediate public interest ramifications," the FCC said in its order on the Verizon settlement today. "They cause rural businesses to lose customers, impede medical professionals from reaching patients in rural areas, cut families off from their relatives, and create the potential for dangerous delays in public safety communications." Verizon has been accused of letting its copper landline network decay while it shifts its focus to fiber and cellular service. The FCC is working a plan to protect customers as old copper networks are retired.
Security

Video 'Never Miss Another Delivery' - if You Have a TrackPIN (Video) 85

Posted by Roblimo from the let-me-in-let-me-in-by-the-hair-on-my-chinny-chin-chin dept.
The company is called TrackPIN, as is the product. Its creator, Mark Hall, showed it off at CES. Timothy pointed his camcorder at Mark as he explained how his product would let you get package deliveries safely when you aren't home by giving the UPS or FedEx (or other) delivery person access to your garage, as well as letting in selected people like your maid, your plumber, and possibly an aquarium cleaner. Each one can have a private, one-time PIN number that will actuate your garage door opener through the (~$250) TrackPIN keypad and tell your smartphone or other net-connected device that your garage was just opened, and by whom. You might even call this, "One small step for package delivery; a giant leap forward for the Internet of Things." Except those of us who don't have garages (not to mention electric garage door openers) may want to skip today's video; the TrackPIN isn't meant for the likes of us. (Alternate Video Link)
Verizon

Verizon About To End Construction of Its Fiber Network 201

Posted by Soulskill from the you're-stuck-with-comcast dept.
WheezyJoe writes: If you've been holding out hope that FiOS would rescue you from your local cable monopoly, it's probably time to give up. Making good on their statements five years ago, Verizon announced this week it is nearing "the end" of its fiber construction and is reducing wireline capital expenditures while spending more on wireless.

The expense of replacing old copper lines with fiber has allegedly led Verizon to stop building in new regions and to complete wiring up the areas where it had already begun. The fiber network was profitable, but nowhere near as profitable as their wireless network. So, if Verizon hasn't started in your neighborhood by now, they never will, and you'd best ignore all those ads for FiOS.
The Internet

Moot Retires From 4chan 184

Posted by samzenpus from the fare-thee-well dept.
vivaoporto writes Moot bids his final farewell as the administrator of the (in)famous imageboard. The full resignation letter can be read on the site blog (it's cool, it's SFW) but for those who are not brave enough to dwell in the "underbelly of the internet" here are some excerpts: "I founded 4chan eleven and a half years ago at the age of 15, and after more than a decade of service, I've decided it's time for me to move on. 4chan has faced numerous challenges... [B]ut the biggest hurdle it's had to overcome is myself. As 4chan's sole administrator, decision maker, and keeper of most of its institutional knowledge, I've come to represent an uncomfortably large single point of failure. I've spent the past two years working behind the scenes to address these challenges,... [T]he site isn't in danger of going under financially any time soon,... and while I've still been calling the shots, I've delegated many of my responsibilities to a handful of trusted volunteers, most of whom have served the site for years. That foundation will now be put to the ultimate test, as today I'm retiring as 4chan's administrator.... I look forward to one day returning to 4chan as its Admin Emeritus or just another Anonymous,... I'm humbled to have had the privilege of both founding and presiding over what is easily one of the greatest communities to ever grace the Web."

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