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Comment: Re:They will see no fallout from the AP wiretappin (Score 1) 310

by mattr (#43767209) Attached to: FBI Considers CALEA II: Mandatory Wiretapping On Every Device

HEY! If that guy really is suicidal you are committing a crime, you jerk.

You don't have to egg him on. There are plenty of geeks on this board who have been bullied in school and thought of killing themselves at one point or another in their lives. The ones who didn't follow through on it (almost all of them) did so because they came to their senses and found a reason to continue, before they met some total asshole like YOU.

(You may fuck off and die now)

Comment: Re:Yawn (Score 1) 157

by mattr (#43700267) Attached to: Realtime GPU Audio

They could make a bundle consulting for Hollywood space opera movies or pro sound designers maybe.
And how about Google... what will the clanging feel like when they bump into and drill into that asteroid? Will it drive the miners or their robots insane??

Comment: Re:Jupiter Tape? (Score 1) 621

by mattr (#43643431) Attached to: Former FBI Agent: All Digital Communications Stored By US Gov't

Don't be silly. Current natural language processing (NLP) technology allows the extraction of significant proper names and subject matter which effectively compresses the data to its salient points. A very simple consumer version exists in the Summarize context menu service in my MacBook Pro.

Without much brains it at least picked the central sentence correctly to get this:

Current natural language processing (NLP) technology allows the extraction of significant proper names and subject matter which effectively compresses the data to its salient points.

See:
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Automatic_summarization
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Natural_language_processing#Major_tasks_in_NLP

Comment: Scrap it. (Score 1) 140

by mattr (#43597549) Attached to: Study: Limiting Bidding On Spectrum Could Cost Billions

I don't get it. Sure if you think of spectrum as gold veins and you are selling mining rights.
But it is artificial. The government pays these companies to develop something, then charges them for spectrum.
It becomes a billions of dollars business for the government, and for the carriers who only have to pay a bit less than they receive.
The point IIRC was to deliver low-cost, high quality applications. That has nothing to do with paying for spectrum and the phone companies have shown they don't put the money they get to use building infrastructure, which is why an upstart like Google can parachute in and deliver high quality fiber connectivity.
How about we just scrap the whole thing and start over again?

Comment: Re:Sample data... (Score 1) 124

by mattr (#43501507) Attached to: Siri Keeps Your Data For Two Years

well they probably would want to keep the data as a corpus of text that can be further analyzed or used to guide further searches. It's just that it can be quite abused... and many people these days would rather have the data deleted immediately rather than improve a service that is less than crucial to one's life, so far.

Comment: Re:Sample data... (Score 1) 124

by mattr (#43501497) Attached to: Siri Keeps Your Data For Two Years

Anonymize means to make anonymous. Not the vocal pattern. Simply the user id is not tied to it after 6 months.
    A corpus (large body of annotated text and/or voice) is a necessary part of natural language recognition, which is a type of artificial intelligence, but usually you tell me people that is what will happen to the data.
      The 6 month window during which you ID is tied to your voice record, is likely very useful for AI such as being able to understand a given person's accent better, or perhaps providing context (they know your email and surfing habits) to understand your query better (perhaps if you are travelling, you want to know about a train schedule, etc.).
      However it also means law enforcement could: easily read all the searches a user has done; force collection with ID beyond 6 months; automatically scan siri requests to fish for suspicious activity; or even tick the checkbox that turns your phone into a 24x7 eavesdropping device based on those automated scans, which of course are becoming more intelligent thanks to having all this corpus data and economic activity (cashflow) attached to this business of making AI smarter for mobile devices.

Comment: Versant (Score 1) 253

by mattr (#43370535) Attached to: Automated System Developed To Grade Student Essays

I was surprised the other day when helping another friend prepare for a test on English speaking proficiency (for foreigners to join the U.S. government). One of the applicable tests is Versant, which does this. It is a verbal test. You call a phone number, enter your ID and then do tasks including: read sentences, give one or two word answers, create sentences by reordering and linking three phrases, retell a story with as many as possible of the characters, actions and situation; and finally give your opinion about a concept (like, "Do you think children should be able to decide when and how much to study?"). The system grades you not on individual questions but gives you a general score in areas like vocabulary, pronunciation, and fluency. The problem is it is very rapid-fire so you can't really pass it unless you are close to a native. The grades can be viewed on the web in a few minutes.
On one practice test I typed what he should say live during the test, which gave him an idea of how much work he has cut out for himself to achieve a passing score.
http://www.versant.jp/e_about.html

What good is it if you talk in flowers, and they think in pastry? -- Ashleigh Brilliant

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