gwbw - Slashdot User

Comment disregard of traffic regulations (Score 1) 490

by gwbw on Sunday May 11, 2014 @07:17AM (#46971419) Attached to: Traffic Optimization: Cyclists Should Roll Past Stop Signs, Pause At Red Lights

I intuited many years ago that traffic laws pertaining to vehicular traffic were downright dangerous for me as a cyclist - having worked as a bike courier in Washington DC, I found that the safest strategies for operating a bicycle in the urban environment are not real popular with motorists, law enforcement, or pedestrians for that matter. I decided too bad for them - as a cyclist the cards were stacked against me already on the safety front - I adopted my own set of rules, which worked very well for me and never hurt anyone else. Stopping at stop signs and redlights was certainly NOT part of the repertoire and as much as this infuriated others I was able to live with that.

IBM Dumping $1 Billion Into New Watson Group 182

Posted by samzenpus on Friday January 10, 2014 @03:02AM from the eggs-in-one-basket dept.

Nerval's Lobster writes "IBM believes its Watson supercomputing platform is much more than a gameshow-winning gimmick: its executives are betting very big that the software will fundamentally change how people and industries compute. In the beginning, IBM assigned 27 core researchers to the then-nascent Watson. Working diligently, those scientists and developers built a tough 'Jeopardy!' competitor. Encouraged by that success on live television, Big Blue devoted a larger team to commercializing the technology—a group it made a point of hiding in Austin, Texas, so its members could better focus on hardcore research. After years of experimentation, IBM is now prepping Watson to go truly mainstream. As part of that upgraded effort (which includes lots of hype-generating), IBM will devote a billion dollars and thousands of researchers to a dedicated Watson Group, based in New York City at 51 Astor Place. The company plans on pouring another $100 million into an equity fund for Watson's growing app ecosystem. If everything goes according to IBM's plan, Watson will help kick off what CEO Ginni Rometty refers to as a third era in computing. The 19th century saw the rise of a "tabulating" era: the birth of machines designed to count. In the latter half of the 20th century, developers and scientists initiated the 'programmable' era—resulting in PCs, mobile devices, and the Internet. The third (potential) era is 'cognitive,' in which computers become adept at understanding and solving, in a very human way, some of society's largest problems. But no matter how well Watson can read, understand and analyze, the platform will need to earn its keep. Will IBM's clients pay lots of money for all that cognitive power? Or will Watson ultimately prove an overhyped sideshow?"

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