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Comment Re:Look at Edinburgh University, in Scotland (Score 1) 386

by edibleplastic (#26245879) Attached to: Study Abroad For Computer Science Majors?

I'd second this recommendation. Edinburgh is a wonderful city and the uni has one of the best AI programs in Europe. While you're there, try out Scottish country dancing, scotch (of course) and -why not- courses in another major.Edinburgh is the home of David Hume and has an excellent philosophy department.
Robotics

Robotic Aircraft To Supply Troops 111

Posted by samzenpus from the battle-platform-soon-to-come dept.
Cowards Anonymous writes "PC World reports on a prototype driverless aircraft designed to shuttle hundreds of pounds of supplies to soldiers in war zones. Dubbed a flying Humvee by Frontline Aerospace's CEO, the robotic vehicle can fly 600 to 1,000 miles carrying a full cargo of 400 pounds. It's about the size of a large SUV, weighing in at 2,400 pounds and measuring 21 feet long and up to 26 feet wide."
Mars

Phoenix Mars Lander Updates 138

Posted by CmdrTaco from the still-no-water-yet dept.
spandex_panda writes "There are a few pictures of the Mars Lander on the ground — you can see its parachute and its heat shield a few kilometers away, too. There's a very cool looking picture of it floating down, actually captured while it's in the air with its parachute out!" We also have a YouTube video all about the robot arm that will dig down and probably find a groundhog who we all hope will see his shadow.

Comment Re:most people can hold seven random digits (Score 1) 189

by edibleplastic (#23524764) Attached to: Cognition Enhancer Research

what is this bullshit about adding an *extra* digit to one's memory?
Wow, chill out. First of all, the statistic about working memory span being 7+/-2 is simply the average amount that people can recall when given an unstructured list of numbers. Nowhere is anybody saying that one can't remember more than this: a) it's an average and b) it is divorced of context so the subjects may have a harder time chunking the numbers in order to store them hierarchically.

Second of all, what does it mean to "add an extra digit"? It simply means that *on average* subjects were able to recall an extra digit than before. Guess what, when you're tired you probably recall a digit or two fewer, on average.
Bug

Swarming Ants Destroy Electronics in Texas 328

Posted by timothy from the where's-tiny-ender-when-you-need-him dept.
AntOverlords writes "Voracious swarming ants that apparently arrived in Texas aboard a cargo ship are invading homes and yards across the Houston area, shorting out electrical boxes and messing up computers. They have ruined pumps at sewage pumping stations, fouled computers and at least one homeowner's gas meter, and caused fire alarms to malfunction. They have been spotted at NASA's Johnson Space Center and close to Hobby Airport, though they haven't caused any major problems there yet."
Mars

Will Mars be a One-way Trip? 724

Posted by samzenpus from the please-send-paris-hilton dept.
alexj33 writes "Will humans ever really go to Mars? Let's face it, the obstacles are quite daunting. Not only are there numerous, difficult, technical issues to overcome, but the political will and perseverance of any one nation to undertake such an arduous task is huge. However, one former NASA engineer believes a human mission to Mars is quite possible, and such an event would unify the world as never before. But Jim McLane's proposal includes a couple of major caveats: the trip to Mars should be one-way, and have a crew of only one person."
The Courts

FBI Bullet Analysis Technique Invalidated With Science

Posted by Zonk from the faulty-assumptions dept.
Hugh Pickens writes "The Washington Post reports that the FBI has abandoned comparative bullet-lead analysis, the technique using chemistry to link crime-scene bullets to ones possessed by suspects. The comparison was made on the theory that each batch of lead had a unique elemental makeup. The National Academy of Sciences has revealed that decades of FBI statements to jurors linking a particular bullet to those found in a suspect's gun or cartridge box were so overstated that such testimony should be considered 'misleading under federal rules of evidence.' NAS says that the flaw is in using a statistical method called chaining (pdf). Analysts sequentially compared crime scene bullets to a set of reference bullets ... which can lead to the formation of artificially large sets of matching bullets. The government has fought releasing the list of the estimated 2,500 cases over three decades in which the FBI performed the flawed analysis."

The Future of Love and Sex - Robots 510

Posted by Zonk from the oh-robot-girlfriend dept.
nem75 writes "The New York Times has a review of British AI researcher David Levy's book 'Love and Sex with Robots'. He claims that within a span of about 50 years the day will come when people could actually fall in love with life-like robots. While this may seem far fetched at first, he has some pretty interesting views. 'He begins with what scientists know about why humans fall in love with other humans. There are 10 factors, he writes, including mystery, reciprocal liking, and readiness to enter a relationship. Why can't these factors apply to robots, too?' The case he builds goes much further though, and certainly provides food for thought." Update: 12/14 16:16 GMT by Z : This article is very similar to a discussion we had recently.
Math

Brains Hard-Wired for Math 246

Posted by samzenpus from the easy-as-1-2-3 dept.
mcgrew writes "New Scientist is reporting that "non-human primates really can understand the meaning of numerals." The small study of two rhesus monkeys reveals that cells in their brains respond selectively to specific number values — regardless of whether the amount is represented by dots on a screen or an Arabic numeral. For example, a given brain cell in the monkey will respond to the number three, but not the number one. The results suggest that individual cells in human brains might also have a fine-tuned preference for specific numerical values." The report itself is online at PLoS Biology, Semantic Associations between Signs and Numerical Categories in the Prefrontal Cortex."
The Internet

Submission + - Internet Domain .Asia Launched (physorg.com)

Submitted by
eldavojohn
eldavojohn writes: "Expect to see sites ending in .asia pop up soon as ICANN has allowed DotAsia to recently open bidding on the new domain. A DotAsia representative is quoted as saying, "Our research has found that 'Asia' is one of the most searched-for terms and by having a .asia website, your ranking on Google or Yahoo will become much higher." Is there really a need for more top level domains? I personally think that you're just going to see the same companies registering their domains with .asia to match their .jp or .cn websites."
Microsoft

Submission + - Microsoft Announces New Zune Lineup, Wireless Sync (pcworld.com)

Submitted by BarlowBrad
BarlowBrad writes: From PC World: "Microsoft announced a new slate of Wi-Fi-equipped Zune players today, including $150 4GB and $200 8GB flash-based players, and a $250 80GB model that's slimmer than the original Zune. All of the new models feature touch-sensitive controls and wireless syncing with your PC, a much-demanded feature that Microsoft will also make available on the original 30GB Zune when the new models debut in mid November."

Wireless. More space than a Nomad. But draw your own conclusions.
Space

Submission + - Rocket-Powered 21-Foot Long X-Wing Actually Flies (gizmodo.com) 2

Submitted by Anonymous Coward
An anonymous reader writes: Andy Woerner and his crazy rocketeer friends have built a 21-foot long X-Wing model that can actually fly. Yes, this is a real X-Wing powered by four solid-fuel rocket engines complete with radio-controlled moving wings. It blasts off in California next week, and we talked with Andy about the project, and how they expect it will do. Look at the pictures of the construction. It even has an R2-D2. I can't wait for this fly and/or blown-up.
Microsoft

Submission + - Microsoft offers licenses for fake Windows XP

Submitted by Stony Stevenson
Stony Stevenson writes: In the latest sign that Microsoft expects to support its Windows XP operating system for the foreseeable future, the company has introduced a new licensing program designed to let users of fake or pirated copies of the business version of the OS upgrade to fully licensed copies. To qualify, users of illegitimate versions of Windows XP Pro must pledge to use only genuine Microsoft software going forward and agree to have their software infrastructure audited. Resellers who push the Get Genuine Windows Agreement to customers will get a cut of any new license fees they generate, Microsoft said.
Security

Zero-day Exploit in PDF With Adobe Reader 188

Posted by CowboyNeal from the be-on-alert dept.
hankwang writes "Security researcher Petko Petkov, who is known for his recent discovery of a vulnerability with Quicktime in Firefox, claims to have discovered an exploit that allows arbitrary code execution when a maliciously crafted PDF document is opened in any version of Adobe Reader. Petkov did not disclose any technical details other than a video, but claims on his blog that Adobe has acknowledged the vulnerability. If this exploit goes wild, it could cause some serious problems, as PDFs are usually automatically opened from web browsers and widely used and trusted by corporate users."
Google

Google Wins Nude Thumbnail Legal Battle 204

Posted by CowboyNeal from the over-for-now dept.
eldavojohn writes "Google is currently fighting many fronts in its ability to show small images returned in a search from websites. Most recently, Google won the case against them in which they were displaying nude thumbnails of a photographer's work from his site. Prior to this, Google was barred from displaying copyrighted content, even when linking it to the site (owner) from its search results. The verdict: "Saying the District Court erred, the San Francisco-based appeals court ruled that Google could legally display those images under the fair use doctrine of copyright law." This sets a rather hefty precedence in a search engine's ability to blindly serve content safely under fair use."

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