danconnolly.co.uk

Quite incredible and/or ridculous - as something of a follow-up to Deep Blue, IBM have been working on a computer that can play Jeopardy:

For the last three years, I.B.M. scientists have been developing what they expect will be the world’s most advanced “question answering” machine, able to understand a question posed in everyday human elocution — “natural language,” as computer scientists call it — and respond with a precise, factual answer…Nobody ever tackled “Jeopardy!” because experts assumed that even for the latest artificial intelligence, the game was simply too hard: the clues are too puzzling and allusive, and the breadth of trivia is too wide. With Watson, I.B.M. claims it has cracked the problem — and aims to prove as much on national TV.

It’s a really interesting article and is another (scary) indication of how fast technology is moving. When I was a kid if I wanted to find something out I sat down with our Encyclopedia Britannica collection (apparently purchased from a door-to-door salesman as my Dad was having a bath, renovation work my Dad was doing meant there wasn’t actually a wall in the bathroom at the time making doorstep conversations from the tub upstairs that bit easier). Now we have the internet, Google, Wikipedia, it’s all out there you just have to search for it. Soon we will have knowledge (but more importantly answer) engines that can understand us and give us the answer.

At first, a Watson system could cost several million dollars, because it needs to run on at least one $1 million I.B.M. server. But Kelly predicts that within 10 years an artificial brain like Watson could run on a much cheaper server, affordable by any small firm, and a few years after that, on a laptop.

Within my lifetime I will be able to stand in my house and ask Computer/Mother/Pierce Brosnan a question and it will give me an answer. Or become self-aware and nuke the world. I’d still probably rather have a lightsaber.

(via Kottke)

It’ s all about the sublimely blasé introduction of actual Minority Report shit right around 5:25

Not sure how I missed this back in January…

The director of a British company that supplies bomb detectors to Iraq has been arrested on fraud charges, and the export of the devices has been banned…

The ADE 651 is a hand-held wand with no batteries or internal electronic components, ostensibly powered by the static electricity of the user, who needs to walk in place to charge it. The only moving part is what looks like a radio antenna on a swivel, which swings to point toward the presence of weapons or explosives.

The Times of London quoted Mr. McCormick in November as saying that the device’s technology was similar to that of dowsing or divining rods used to find water. “We have been dealing with doubters for 10 years,” he said. “One of the problems we have is that the machine does look primitive. We are working on a new model that has flashing lights.”

Shortly after the arrest on Friday, the BBC reported that it had arranged a lab test of the device and found that its bomb-detection component was an electronic merchandise tag of the sort used to prevent shoplifting.

ATSC’s brochures claim the ADE 651 can detect minute traces of explosives, drugs or even human remains at distances of up to 6 miles by air, or three-fifths of a mile by land.

The Iraqi government paid this guy $85 million dollars for 800 sticks that have failed to prevent thousands of people from getting blown up.

So having spent a good 20 minutes chatting to Jim (of Mermahuataur fame) explaining why I wouldn’t be buying an iPad I now really want one… for my cats.

Having watched this I really can’t see any other option!

(via Boing Boing)

(via John Nack)