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Comment Well, Marvin Minsky was wrong too. (Score 4, Interesting) 280

I was in the AI lab at MIT, testing my wits against LISP. In walks Marvin Minsky.

I asked him if he could give me a tip or two about atoms.

His response to me was: "Well, why dont you wait until the computer speaks your language... Then program it in that?"

That was alot longer ago than 15 years...

Comment Searching & Indexing Capabilities (Score 1) 684

Does anyone have any experience with the searching and indexing capabilities in these devices?

I want to store my technical library in one of these, but have been resistant to switch, because I want searching and indexing that allows me to use this device as a decent replacement for that 'Technical Library Search' usecase, where someone asks some questions, and I can use this device to do one search and have the results, across all the documents that i have stored, displayed in a results list. for easy access.

Does anyone have any experience with these functions in a variety of readers?

Thanks.

Submission + - Ebook Reader for Technical Library 5

dbuttric writes: "As I've moved from job to job, and technology to technology, I've accumulated a library of books that is very cumbersome to carry around, and just as bad to refer to when i need them.

When the Kindle happened, I decided that I'd buy one and move my library to it. As I've learned more about ebook reader technology, I have a few requirements that are hard requirements, that will make or break my purchase.

1) I want all the material to be DRM free, so that I can move it from device to device without having to think about whether I have register it on a new device. (This rules out the Kindle)

2) I Need really great search on the contents of the books that I put on the reader. Ultimately, I'd like to be able to search the indices of each book for whatever term(s) I type in, but perhaps that would be even too limiting. What I want is to have great search of the corpus, and allow me to easily distinguish which book the reference comes from, what page it is on, etc.

I went looking at the Nook, and it has almost no facility for searching the body of the books that you put on it, it does have great search of the online store, but that doesn't help me.

Has anyone got experience using an ebook reader in this way? If so, what are your thoughts?

Thank you."
Google

Submission + - Our Google Government (philosecurity.org)

Sherri Davidoff writes: "Recently I saw an ad which read: 'Over 60% of the U.S. state governments have gone Google.' Does this mean that we’ve now handed the majority of our state governments’ operational data to a single privately-controlled company which has well-publicized partnerships with other governments such as China?... Google declined to make their list of state government customers public, so instead I checked to see which states had active Google Apps login pages for their domains. There are 19 states that have active Google Apps login pages (plus Washington D.C.)..."

Comment So, I have to think EACH letter? (Score 1) 262

Well,

This strikes me as time consuming to have to think the letters to type a word. I want to be able to think the word and have it appear. When do we get a semantic, bi-directional neural interface?

Think about this: When a person starts to think about a document I bet there is a planning part of my brain that is forming an outline of the document, before I even start to come up with the actual content in it. I'd LOVE to tap into that planning, and be able to lay out an outline, just by thinking about it, and then be able to fill that outline with content through thought alone.

Imagine applying this to code generation!

Comment Whats bugging me is... (Score 1) 111

I have this software running on my phone, and it does work.
What stuns me is that while this thing is in 'beta' and returning poor search results, they have the opportunity to 'train up' the AI, while also keeping hold of a bevy of images that they collect from a few thousand (or hundred thousand) phones that geeks like us were willing to install it on...

I bet that the corpus of images they collect during the next 4 years - the beta period - will be pretty impressive, and kind of scary. I bet that they claim rights on all of them. I guess we need to start watermarking the photos from our phonecams.

Just my thoughts...

Comment AT&T needed motivation (Score 1) 551

It really is about time that AT&T had motivation to actually upgrade their network so that it is usable. Considering the disparity between our infrastructure, and most of the rest of the world, I think this is progress that is along time coming.

I also think that it is very similar to the responses that AT&T had when DSL became a reality. Here in the Midwest, Southwestern Bell sat on DSL for YEARS before actually building it into their network. And they made close to the same excuse that AT&T is making about this.

Not amazed, not amused, just waiting...

Oh yeah, an Android phone would help to AT&T...

The Internet

Submission + - The World Wide Web is 20

An anonymous reader writes: Sir Tim Berners-Lee's world wide web is 20-years-old tomorrow — no more the troubled teen. But hands up who knew that the programmer of the first line-mode web browser was a woman called Nicola Pellow?
Mars

Mars Gullies Show Water Once Flowed 59

NewYorkCountryLawyer writes "A new analysis of puzzling gullylike features on Mars offers further evidence that water flowed on the Red Planet's surface, perhaps as recently as several hundred thousand years ago. The findings bolster the case that melting snow from a departed Martian ice age carved these gullies, rather than shifting sands or other 'dry' phenomena."
Programming

QT 4.5 Released, Plus New IDE and Analysis Tool 62

stoolpigeon writes "QT 4.5 has arrived and is now available for download. This new release is quite significant due to licensing changes that now make it simpler to use QT in a wider range of products without cost as well as a number of new features. The latest version of Webkit is now integrated into the product. Qt 4.5 sees the introduction of QtBenchLib, a new component to make measuring the performance of the toolkit and checking for regressions easier. Mac developers who use Qt will note a major reworking of 4.5 on the Mac, now providing 64-bit support. QT Creator is a new IDE that looks to have combined a number of previously separate tools. And there is much more."
Biotech

Inside the New Science of Neuroengineering 83

palegray.net writes "Wired brings us a look into the world of neuroengineering, the science of hacking the brain to improve its function. Dr. Ed Boyden is the director of MIT's Neuroengineering and Neuromedia Lab, focusing on innovative methods of physically altering neuroanatomy for various purposes. As useful as discoveries in the field may be, the work certainly raises moral and ethical questions. From the article: '"If we surgically or electrically modify someone's personality... that raises many questions about personal identity, (of) who we are at our core," says Dr. Debra Matthews of The Berman Institute of Bioethics. "We place ourselves in the mind and therefore the brain. (Mood-altering surgery) feels like fundamentally modifying who a person is."'"
Image

PHP5 CMS Framework Development 72

Michael J. Ross writes "Most Web developers are familiar with one or more content management systems (CMSs), and how they can be used to create Web sites more efficiently than by hand. These developers may have deep knowledge of how to install, configure, customize, and extend a CMS. But far more rare is knowledge of how to develop a CMS of one's own, and the programming considerations required to do so successfully. These are the main themes of Martin Brampton's book PHP5 CMS Framework Development." Read below for the rest of Michael's review.
Education

Submission + - Schools Drop Laptop Programs

AgentPaper writes: "Schools that jumped on the laptop-in-every-backpack bandwagon in the late 90's and early 00's are discontinuing the programs, citing the lack of educational value and rampant security problems posed by the machines. Raise your hand if you didn't see this coming."
Power

Submission + - Cooler silicon lasers thanks to energy harvesting

Light Licker writes: UCLA researchers have developed a way to cut power use and heat output from a silicon laser used for optoelectronics. Both have been problems because silicon absorbs too much light — producing high-energy free electrons that make heat. One of Intel's best silicon lasers produced 125 times more heat than usable light. The UCLA team added a diode to their laser which can harvest free electrons and use them to help power the circuit — simultaneously cutting heat output and power use.

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