Friday 20 February 2009

Moral Code for Military Robots?

Just read an interesting article on Times Online about some research being undertaken by the US Navy regarding AI in field robots. Interesting stuff, although it's all been talked about for quite a while now.

Two key questions come up:
1. How do you stop the robots from going all Skynet on you?
2. Who's responsible when the robots go wrong?

You can see the article here: http://technology.timesonline.co.uk/tol/news/tech_and_web/article5741334.ece

Friday 13 February 2009

AI to help you get to work

I'm catching up on some of my e-mails, I have something like 30 e-mails from Google News alerts relating to Artificial Intelligence. Even though I've sort of left that behind, I like to keep myself up-to-date. Anyway, more point is, I may make a few posts on my findings from those e-mails...

This one relates to the use of AI (fuzzy-logic) to aid a GPS navigation system. It's called CADRE and you can see more here (Science Daily).

Tuesday 10 February 2009

Everything is now a computer...

I loved this article on Wired.Com

It's about a computer system that uses your phone, a camera and a small projector to make everything more interactive.

It's cool, but on the other hand it means there's even less chance of breaking free from your phone.

All those poor people who can't break free of their Blackberrys will never be able to escape!!

Monday 9 February 2009

Yahoo Pipes

I've recently created myself a new "homepage". A single page combining my presence on the internet into one bitesize chunk. This means that anyone can come and see what I'm up to! This is, of course, a public site, so I don't want to give too much away (or say anything that my employer or future employer may find offensive, disturbing or generally off-putting).

I'm getting my current Facebook profile picture and status using a Facebook "badge", my 4 most recent blog posts using feed2js, my pictures using Yahoo Pipes (and Picasa Web albums) and finally a list of top links again using Yahoo Pipes (and Google Documents).

I can't believe Yahoo Pipes! It's so incredible! For instance, the list of links is actually a spreadsheet on Google Documents with 3 colums (Name, Link and Description). It's then published as a CSV which my Pipe then takes and reencodes as an XML compatible feed. What's even better is that you can then stick that on your page as a "badge" like the two I have on mine. Brilliant!

As an aside, I've also updated my profile on here so that it no longer says that I'm getting married, but that I am...

Tuesday 3 February 2009

Whats the obsession with skinny?

I've just seen an advert for Heat or some trash like that, moaning about Charlotte Church being a normal sized woman. Oh no, she's just given birth and she's not trying to kill herself by being stick thin.

What is the obsession with disgustingly thin women? Why are the media constantly trying to kill young girls? Let's be blunt, the media say thin is good, the girls don't eat and they die. It's horrible and upsetting and I can't believe it's allowed, but I guess that's the cost of free press.

Get over it people. The average British woman is size 16 or something... not -14...