Editorial
|
Our editors work tirelessly trying to beat even the most rough submission into shape to present to you, after all it's their job! However, every now and then, work goes quiet. It's then you know that you need to be careful as the editors are thinking. Who knows what thoughts might lurk in their heads?
|
|
Written by Gizmo
|
|
Friday, 14 October 2005 07:41 |
|
Stanford University won the Darpa Challenge last weekend. You can read more about that here. What I find interesting about all of this is that: - Last year, none of the entrants in the challenge completed the course. In fact, none of them got more than 7.5 miles.
- This year, no less than 5 entrants completed the entire 150 mile course.
- Of the 5 that finished, 4 actually completed the course in less than the allotted 10 hours.
- The Stanford team completed the course in just under 7 hours.
Now remember, these are robots. No human assistance allowed. And this isn't your average Sunday drive on the highway. These 'bots were traveling cross-country. Now granted, crossing the Mojave isn't exactly like driving over the Rocky Mountains, but you still have to navigate around things; you can't exactly plow over a cactus, for example, and there are other obstacles on the course that have been deliberately placed.For the contestants to have made such significant improvements in just about a year is, well, amazing. Now, granted, this is DARPA. This stuff is being designed with a military application in mind. However, it isoften the case that stuff developed for the military eventually finds its way into civilian applications. This is, I think, an application that can have definite civilian appeal, provided the cost can be reduced. After all, 7 Pentium-M chips, a radar system, a GPS tracker, 4 laser range finders, and 2 camera systems (one stereoscopic) aren't cheap. Leaving aside the subject of cars driving themselves, though, what this all suggests to me is some major leaps in Artificial Intelligence. This has been one of the Holy Grails of computing for the better part of the last 40 years. We have science fiction stories of machines that are self-aware (anybody remember 'HAL' from 'Space Odyssey'?). We might finally be getting close to science fiction becoming fact. What do you think? Tell us in the forums!
|
|
|
Written by Gizmo
|
|
Friday, 02 September 2005 09:42 |
|
Unless you've been living in a cave, you know that Hurricane Katrina slammed into the U.S. gulf coast pretty hard. New Orleans is a total wreck, and most of Louisanna, Mississippi, and Alabama have been badly damaged. As we prepare to celebrate Labor Day in the rest of the country, please remember the people who have lost everything to this disaster. They need our help. As always, the United Way, the Salvation Army, the Red Cross, local churches, and other organizations are doing their best to assist, and appreciate anything you can spare, food, clothes, bedding, shelter, anything.
|
|
Written by Gizmo
|
|
Thursday, 11 August 2005 08:36 |
|
CNET News reports that Red Hat announced Tuesday at the LinuxWorld Conference and Expo that it will finance the efforts of outside developers to obtain patents that can freely be used by open-source developers. This came a the same time the that Open Source Developer Labs launched a patent commons project with the goal of providing a central list of all patents that have been donated to the open-source community. What makes this interesting is that it seems to suggest that the open-source community, which has long been against the idea of software patents, is changing it's tack on this issue. It looks more and more like they are begining to think along the lines of "Let's fight fire with fire". This may be exactly what is required to get governments to take a serious look at not just the notion of software patents, but the notion of patents generally, and how they are being applied today. Those of you who have read my posts in the past know that, as a software developer, I support the idea that a person should have some societal protection for their hard work and effort. However, the patent system as it sits today (at least in the U.S.) is being severely abused and needs to be seriously rethought. We shouldn't get rid of patents, but IMHO we should get back to the original concept, that a patent should be granted for novel applications and developments of technology that would NOT BE OBVIOUS to any competent practitioner of the discipline. What do you think? Tell us in the forums!
|
|
|
Written by Daniel
|
|
Tuesday, 09 August 2005 15:01 |
|
Yesterday, President Bush signed an energy bill that pays lip service to renewable energy development and energy efficiency while including big subsidies to the fossil fuel and nuclear industries. Despite the lack of federal leadership, the Union of Concerned Scientists is committed to building the demand for real solutions to our country's energy needs--and we need your help to continue, and ramp up, our ongoing work. Please consider making a gift to UCS today to support our work to ensure a safe, secure, and sustainable energy future. The energy bill ignores our oil dependence, fails to promote renewable energy, disregards global warming, and even raises the risk of nuclear terrorism. One of the most promising measures brought to the Congressional conference committee was a renewable electricity standard, which would have required major electric companies to gradually increase sales of electricity from wind, solar, and other renewable sources from two percent today to about 10 percent by 2020. This provision was stripped from the bill before its passage. The bill will increase our gasoline consumption while ignoring conventional technology that could increase fuel economy, generate hundreds of thousands of new jobs, and save consumers billions at the pump. The federal government appears to think we can drill our way to security and oil independence, but UCS sees it differently. We are working on real alternatives--encouraging renewable energy development in the states, pushing automakers to develop cleaner cars, and implementing market-driven strategies to speed our way to a sustainable future. Please click here to support our efforts today. https://secure.ga3.org/03/energy_bill_new_members |
|
Written by Gizmo
|
|
Wednesday, 20 July 2005 15:52 |
|
People give big corporations a lot of crap about how they take care of their customers. Most of the time, the big corporations deserve the crap they get, too. However, we should also acknowledge when they do things right. This is one of those times. Let me tell you about what an outfit named ASUS did for me. (You can discuss this in the forums, also.)
|
|
Read more...
|
|
|
|
|
<< Start < Prev 1 2 3 4 5 6 7 8 Next > End >>
|
|
Page 6 of 8 |
|
