Useful app of the week.

In a movie, but need to pee? Then you need to download the RunPee app. It will tell you the best time during your movie to run and pee so you miss as little as possible of the movie.

But plan ahead. When people use phones in movies, it can get ugly. Find out your best pee-time *before* you head into the theater!

British intelligence captured and stored images from webcam chats

This will be hard to write without it becoming an opinion piece because I have strong feelings regarding all players involved, and you might be surprised to find out who I support and who I don't. That being said, it was revealed that the British intelligence agency known as GCHQ collected and stored millions of webcam images from Yahoo chat sessions.

This does seem excessive. I don't know their justifications or rationale, but I question how valuable these images have turned out to be. There should at least be some mechanism in place for determining if the images have value and, if not, deleting them immediately.

And, as you could probably figure out, many of them are of an....intimate nature, and those were apparently being viewed by many people at the agency who didn't need to view them. For things such as that between consenting adults, no one needs to view them other than the sender and recipient; I can't imagine any of them are related to national security.

I'll wait to hear their explanation as to the probative value of these captured images, but I suspect it is going to be difficult to explain away.

Look at Bing!

If it's Thursday, go to Bing right now! If it's not, click on the navigation arrows at the bottom of the Bing homepage until you see the image above. It's a great animation.

To be fair to Google, their homepage is well done today also, celebrating John Steinbeck. It doesn't beat their Pac-Man doodle, but it's still pretty neat.

What? You don't say!

Prepare to be blown away. I hope you're wearing shoes because this news bit is so astounding it will *literally* knock your socks off. They will fly, unaided, from your feet.

Here it is, are you ready?

Turns out, Americans would give up their TV service before they'd give up their Internet service. Anyone surprised? Anyone? No?

To be fair, people really love having their TV service. I have friends who are chomping at the bit for the next season of Game of Thrones to start, and I believe are paying for cable just so they can watch it. I have another friend who claims they wouldn't be able to live if they couldn't watch Judge Judy. Seriously.

The thing is, much of that is available if you have Internet service and a little patience. For example, you all know I'm a reluctant fan of The Walking Dead, and I am able to buy episodes through a (legit) video marketplace the day after they air for $3.00 per HD episode, or $2.00 for SD. So I pay $12.00 a month for that show as opposed to $131 I was paying for cable just to watch that one show. And you'd be surprised what can be found on YouTube.

"We're not here for brains, we're just looking for a good Wi-Fi set-up."

Even the SuperBowl was streamed online this year for anyone who wanted to watch, cable subscription or not.

In fairness to people who love TV, some networks seem like they love being beholden to cable companies (by the way, one of the big issues with the Comcast / Time-Warner merger is that the new company will be able to extort higher carrier fees from content providers, meaning the networks, which will then be passed on to you) . HBO requires a cable service to watch their shows online, as does HGTV and many others, but if you're patient many shows end up on DVD or Netflix or somewhere else in relatively short order.

It was an adjustment giving up my cable TV service, but I'm glad I did it. There's a sense of freedom and independence that came with it, and apparently I'm not the only one who came to that conclusion. And that is not going unnoticed.

I should also mention this bizarre point made in the original article: "Pew noted spectacular growth in use of the Web, especially since 1995." So, in other words, there has been spectacular growth in the single most revolutionary development since the introduction of the transistor, especially if we start counting from the day it was made available to the general public. Stop the presses!

Her, for real this time.

Recently in class I mentioned I had seen the movie 'Her,' a story about a man who falls in love with his operating system. I wasn't terribly excited about seeing it; I chalked it up to another take on the romantic comedy, a genre of film I find repellent. That's why I was surprised at how good I thought it was, as it touched on issues of technology dependence and withdrawal, isolationism, loneliness in an increasingly connected yet decreasingly face-to-face world, plus it removed the issue of physical appearance, for both parties, from the equation. In fairness to the guy, the OS was voiced by Scarlett Johanssen. Give him a break!

A couple of you mentioned that you thought the whole thing was just too weird, that the very concept itself was unnerving. Well, prepare for it to get weirder and unnerving-er! In the same vein as that movie, Microsoft is readying what it refers to as a digital assistant to take on the offerings from Apple (Siri) and Google (Google Now). In the upcoming release of the Windows Phone 8.1 platform, Microsoft will be including Cortana, a personal assistant named after the eponymous AI from their Halo series, that will not just respond to queries, but will have some personality as well, including the way it bounces around the screen or presents a frown based on queries posed. That also means it won't take on the female persona it had in the games, and I suspect for good reason - considering she's digital, it was surprisingly difficult to find an appropriate header image for this post.

Cortana will also be replacing Bing search on the phones. That doesn't mean Bing is gone, not by any means. Bing will still be one of the underlying search mechanisms that provides Cortana her (her? its?) results, along with Nokia's HERE maps among others, and Apple's Siri uses Bing as its underlying search mechanism as well.

But with these personal digital assistants developing more and more of a personality, both reactive and specific, we're starting to enter what I suspect will become a challenging time, especially since we are already dealing with many, many, many people experiencing a removal from real-life as they accept digital versions instead.

A little more history and technological evolution

The image above is a photo of NASA's Jet Propulsion Laboratory from 1964, taken from this link at space.com. As the article states, it was used for controlling unmanned space flights, and it has been designated an historical landmark and is still in use.

The reason I find this image particularly interesting is because the cel phone you have in your pocket or purse is infinitely more powerful than all the machinery you see here. To come up with specific numbers is meaningless, because the magnitudes are so significant.

To show how significant they are, I found some interesting comparisons at this link. The highlight is that they compared the Apollo moon landing craft - the spacecraft that took us to the MOON - to the very early IBM PC XT, the computer than ran Visicalc which we discussed in class, and started the computer revolution we are still experiencing today. A picture of it is below to give context.

Well, it turns out that the Apollo 11 spacecraft - the WHOLE spacecraft - had a whopping 2k of memory. That's right, 2 kilobytes of memory. Some phones today have 2 *gigabytes* of RAM, although it's not quite the same thing. The PC XT above had 16k, and it was only 10 years after the Apollo 11 mission.

The software, as the article goes on to state, was a different story. Incredibly advanced for its time, it used true multitasking along with a virtual machine (analogous to running a different system that uses a completely different language within the original system), and did it all with that limited amount of memory.

It's no secret machines are as powerful as they are. Never mind spacecraft, it is a violation of federal law to ship an Xbox or Playstation game console to certain countries because their hardware is so powerful they could, theoretically, be used as a missile guidance system.

Additional note: I wanted to make a reference to the old Casio calculator watches that were popular in the 70's and 80's, specifically noting their allotted memory, if any, but no matter how hard I looked I could not find those specifications. I did however, find this article originally published in Time magazine in 1975, which contained the following sentence, and I assure you I am not making this up:

"The next development in watches, a few Christmases hence, will be the nuclear timepiece, powered by a radioactive cell that will last 50 years."

Ponder that statement.

Floppy disk table!

Those three words don't make a lot of sense, but if you remember the 3 1/2-inch floppy disk I showed in class, then imagine it as a table, well suddenly the pieces all fall in to place, don't they?

It even has the same amount of storage.

Why would you want one of these? Why would you want something from the 80's / 90's magnified and turned into a piece of living-room furniture? You'd want it for the most obvious reason of all:

Because. You. Can.

You can buy one here if you're interested, and if you don't mind their terrible web page, and if you can get their contact page to work, and if you don't care that they're hand-made in Germany with no price listed.

The devil in the digital details.

PRE-EMPTIVE STRIKE: As some posts can be, this one may - I emphasize *may* - be a sensitive subject for some. However, it is not a place to denigrate or debate others regrading their beliefs. Anyone is welcome to express their personal feelings or beliefs about the topic and that is welcome, but arguing with others about what they believe is not. I just wanted to get that out there. This is also going to be somewhat of a precursor discussion on the ethics of technology, something we will cover later in the semester.

Remember the post about Skyping with the deceased? Well here we go again, except this involves something many take much more seriously; this one involves none other than demons possessing humans. Like several of our previous blog topics, this one has also been the plot and subject of many, many books, movies, TV shows, songs, and artworks. If someone believes they have been afflicted by a demon or other unwanted guest, one option is to apply for an exorcism to be conducted. It is, according to those who believe, the only way to cleanse the person possessed. But simply getting approval for the procedure can be a lengthy, involved endeavor in which medical causes have to be ruled out, and valid signs of a true possession need to be present.

However, and I'll interject some opinion here as I tend to do, there are those who would exploit believers as well. I don't claim to know one way or the other about demonic possession, but I know what I'm about to tell you seems very suspect. According to the Huffington Post, and I'll forewarn you there is some intolerance expressed in this article, there is now a Reverend in Arizona who will conduct exorcisms via Skype.

Photo credit: abc15.com, Arizona

He charges almost $300 per session, and donates the money to a charity. He claims it's a real exorcism and the people are truly afflicted, while others feel a true exorcism can't be performed in this way. It should also be noted that the reverend's web page sells many products, he's trying for a TV show, he goes on tour, and his daughter along with her exorcist-peers tout their abilities as though they're advertising for a teen drama on the Lifetime Channel. Prepare to be offended by the video on that page.

Again, I'm no expert, but it seems something as serious as an exorcism would require personal contact and involvement. As was mentioned in the linked article, someone truly possessed by a demon wouldn't sit in front of a monitor and allow themselves to be vanquished via videoconference. I find the claim of using Skype to rid someone across the world of a demon more unlikely than the possession itself.

Useful site of the week.

Can't sleep? This should help!

If you're like me, your mind is flying all over the place all the time and it can sometimes be hard to concentrate. What is needed in that case is something to level out your thought process, focus your attention, and allow you to be productive. For me, the only thing that works is brown noise. Brown noise is a low-frequency non-specific tone similar to what a radio station gives when there's no signal.

There are other types of noise, including white noise and pink noise, each with their own sound signature and characteristics, ultimately for us it boils down to different 'colors' of noises having a higher pitch while others have a lower pitch.

It's why people listen to sounds of ocean waves or have a fan running (both generally a brown noise) when they want to fall asleep. I personally can't sleep without it myself.

But rather than listen to me go on and on about it, you can experiment with it yourself. Simplynoise.com is a website that has white, pink and brown noise and you can select between them. If you need a little cognitive balance every once in a while, this website will serve you well.

The future is here! (135 years ago)

If we're going to go in to the future, we should also, on occasion, go into the past. Here then, topical to our recent discussions about prosthetics, are a couple of images from a prosthetic limb, circa 1880. I think we have it much better now. You can even print your own! 

Navy warship equipped with laser weapon

USS Ponce

It's not quite the equivalent of the lasers that you see flying through space in the movies, oh wait, yes it is! It has been announced that the Navy Warship U.S.S. Ponce, currently deployed in the Persian Gulf, has been equipped with a laser weapon known as LaWS (Laser Weapons System, cleverly), that is capable of destroying targets with a pulse of light and heat.

There are several advantages to this: One, the cost of firing the weapon is very cheap. As the article notes, the pulse will cost about $1 in electricity, as opposed to standard ordinance which can run thousands of dollars each. It's also easier to maintain and more flexible for close-range, small targets. There are concerns as well. The biggest one of all is how it will perform in adverse weather. It has acquired 100% of its test targets so far, but weather hasn't been incorporated in to the test plan yet. Additionally, it is a short-range weapon, and it hasn't been proven against fast moving, more distant targets like fighter jets.

This is the actual laser weapon that will be deployed.

This technology isn't anything new. The military has been working on this kind of thing for a long time, and I can't imagine anyone is surprised by that. As the linked article states, the plan to equip lasers on aircraft was unsuccessful, and those cost over $1 billion each, whereas this laser was developed as part of a $40 million project. Additionally, development continues on very-high powered lasers that will do severe damage to targets that are fast-moving and/or far away. It's known as the free-electron laser, and the Navy wants you to know all about it!

Below is a brief video from CBS news about its operation.

On the conventional-weapon front, development continues on the rail-gun, which fires an inert projectile at a velocity exceeding the speed of sound, around 5,500 mph, doing massive damage to whatever it impacts. A very brief video of that is below.

The morality or potential misuse of these types of developments is beyond what I wanted to talk about here. It is clearly a concern, and I know there are people who think we shouldn't be developing weapons of war, while others think it is a necessity. I'll leave that up to you. It's not the type of thing that would likely fall into enemy hands anytime soon, but it is a significant advancement in military technology. Even our robots are getting better.

A couple of other points I should make for clarification purposes: Those laser beams you see flying from spaceships in movies? You wouldn't see them either. And laser is actually an acronym for 'Light Amplification by Stimulated Emission of Radiation,' so technically it's not laser, it's LASER.

Speaking of prosthetics

I'll be dating myself here, but The Bionic Woman was a show from the late seventies about Jamie Sommers, who is saved from near death by bionic implants that giver her superhuman abilities. It was an offshoot of The Six Million Dollar Man, in which main character Steve Austin is given extraordinary abilities such as superhuman speed, vision, sight, and jumping ability from the same type of procedure. It also, incidentally, contains one of the most well-known opening scenes/monologues in television history. Both of them were fascinating shows back then, when we could only imagine a future in which human beings could be enhanced by bionics.

Well guess what? Some of you may remember back in mid-2102, a tragic story made national news in which 24-year old Aimee Copeland fell from a zip line and contracted flesh eating bacteria through a gash in her leg. Afterwards, she lost both arms below the elbow and one of her legs to the infection.

Well, believe it or not there is a bionics-related upside to the whole thing. She was the first person in the world to be fitted with the most advanced, articulate prosthetic arms available at that time, the iLimbs, created by Touch Bionics. Their web page has some amazing information about where this kind of thing is going. They cost $100,000 each, and they take training to use, but ultimately they move the same way we all move our hands *now.* Our brain sends a signal saying 'move your arm' and our arm moves thanks to electrical signals stimulating the muscle. Same for her, except the electronic signals move her prosthetic.

But hey, don't take my word for it. Watch the video below for a real glimpse of the future.

Visit NBCNews.com for breaking news, world news, and news about the economy

A ring that hopefully means more than a 5 year mission

There may be some terms in this post not everyone is familiar with, and that's ok, and it presupposes some knowledge of Star Wars among others. To be honest, I'm not actually sure how related this is to tech or even to this class, but I thought these were pretty incredible, and they involve a great contribution to tech from a pop-culture perspective. Over on Etsy is a jeweler who makes science-fiction themed jewelry, and the ring I noticed first is one based on the USS Enterprise from Star Trek. Here's the picture from the artist's Etsy shop:

Pretty nifty, yeah? If your significant other presents you with one of those, they're a keeper! But it gets better, this ring isn't the only one. Browsing through his collection you'll also find rings based off of R2-D2 and Boba Fett, Chewbacca's bandolier, my personal favorite Han Solo in carbonite, Wonder Woman, the Triforce, and even a Pokeball (that one should give you second thoughts about whoever gives it to you). Of course, if pendants/necklaces are more your thing, well, say it with the Enterprise or go more Han Solo style, although that can be had in cufflinks as well, complete with pictures! Some versions of the rings are available as pendants, as seen in the image below.

Some of them are serious jewelry items, with prices as high as $3,000. Other are more reasonable at the $100 range or thereabouts.

So back to my initial mention of Star Trek, before I got carried away with all the rest. It turns out Star Trek, which only ran for three seasons between 1966 and 1969, was a surprisingly astute predictor of future trends. Communicators emulated years later by flip-phones, flat-screen monitors, in-ear communicators like today's Bluetooth headsets, phasers (Tasers) set to stun, and on and on and on. In fact, it was so good at these predictions that a television show was created called "How William Shatner Changed the World," and it focused on all the technology we have today that was predicted or inspired by Star Trek.

Look familiar?

Of course, subsequent entries in the series made predictions of their own. Here we see a scene from an episode of Star Trek: The Next Generation where they accurately predicted the future release of the Android phone.

It was hardly the only show to do that, however; another, well known predictor of future trends and technologies was The Twilight Zone, full episodes of which can be seen here if you're interested, which tackled issues such as robotics, space travel, technology overload and bioengineering. 2001: A Space Odyssey brilliantly predicted intelligent machines, the very thing we've been discussing recently. In fact, many shows, books, movies, even songs made surprisingly astute predictions about what the future would hold. I could write lengthy dissertations on each title I just linked.

Are *you* a troll?

We're all familiar with trolls. No, not those trolls, or those, or even those. We're talking about those people who antagonize others with hateful, violent, racist, misogynistic, and bilious comments on seemingly every single web page that allows comments. Their attempts to stir readers and garner a response are often quite obvious, which has led to the Internet refrain "Please don't feed the troll!" That simply means don't react to a clear attempt to get a reaction.

Trolling, and idiots posting to comment threads in general, has become so bad that Google, along with many, many other sites, now requires users to use their real - or at least G+ - names when commenting on YouTube videos, YouTube being the prime example of base-level Neanderthals provided with anonymity to say whatever they want. Many people went crazy about this requirement but I understand where they are coming from. In case you missed it, read this and prepare to be amazed. Rotten Tomatoes stopped allowing comments altogether because they became such a cesspool. CNN's story about the Affordable Care Act famously garnered ultra-violent comments as described in this article covering the phenomenon, and the YouTube channel featuring a Cheerios ad with an interracial couple had to close the comments altogether they were so atrocious. In fact, Go to any national news site, any one at all, pick a random story and start reading the comments. I dare you. Trolling can occur in other on-line domains as well, just head on over to fatuglyorslutty.com as proof.

Now, a team of researchers in Canada have discovered that online trolls are actually classifiable sadists! I personally prefer the term troll, but both are good. Either way, they showed all the personality traits - including Machiavellianism which I'll let slide because it sounds cool - of true sadists. I personally support the idea of discovering their identities and outing them, but I'll leave that up to the pros.

What? Stop the presses!

Moral of the story: Don't be a troll, or you might end up like this!

Oddball site of the week!

Can't find your pointer? PointerPointer.com can!

By pointing at it.

What could possibly go wrong?

Apologies in advance if I sound irked or irritated, but you'll know why in short order. Remember the posts about the repeal of Net neutrality regulations, and the follow-up discussion of how it's just getting worse? Well time to pile more on the heap! On Wednesday of this week, news started flying around that Comcast is in a shares-only (meaning no cash involved) bid to buy Time-Warner cable for $45 billion, which would result in what is easily the largest cable company *and* ISP in the country, covering approximately 80 million customers.

Anyone want to guess my opinion on this? Anyone at all? You don't need to guess because you already know! I'm not sure where to begin in my criticism of this, it stinks on all levels. First, it would create an absolutely massive monopoly of sorts right after the nullification of the Net neutrality regulations. It scares me to think of the control that would hand to this new entity. I had the same issues way back in 2000 when AOL bought Time-Warner in a $160-billion stock-only deal - which was an absurd price especially back then - to form what was at that time the largest entertainment company on earth. The problem I had with it is that that single company would control the entirety of your experience; the content you viewed, the software you used to view it, the channels on which the content was carried, almost every aspect of your TV/Internet experience would be controlled by them. The companies have since parted ways, especially since it was a bad deal to begin with.

Companies controlled by AOL-Time Warner post-merger

Now, this. We already have the concerns about Comcast throttling Netflix, which is a competitor to Comcast-invested Hulu. They also acquired NBC-Universal last year for $45 billion further cementing their monopoly and control over the industry, and the FCC chairman, Tom Wheeler, who will be a significant part of the approval process of the merger was once the cable industry's most powerful lobbyist, which is why it's no surprise he's not too keen on issues like Net neutrality. Comcast also wants to muscle in on Netflix with their own streaming service, which I wouldn't have a problem with except for one major issue: Netflix doesn't control the channels over which their content is delivered. Comcast does. Comcast could throttle Netflix to give themselves an advantage, but not the other way around. To play devil's advocate, one of the reasons cable companies feel the need to do this is because of the record number of people cutting their cords, and that article is from 2011! In fairness, 4th quarter 2013 is the first time in six years those numbers didn't increase for Comcast.

On top of all of this, the EU is now saying it wants one of the major Internet regulatory agencies wrested from U.S. control. I see their perspective, but that could set the Internet back 30 years.

There is still some hope. Comcast will likely be forced to include agreements assuring it will practice Net neutrality, at least for the near future, as an extension of similar agreements it made when it acquired NBC-Universal. Additionally, there has been a lot of unwillingness on Capitol Hill regarding the potential merger between AT&T and T-Mobile, although strangely enough, that one doesn't bother me. It would be good for both companies, since neither is in the overly-powerful position Comcast is. So it may face significant scrutiny, although lawmakers don't actually get to say one way or the other if the deal goes through.

All these issues are so serious it actually makes me feel a little sick. I try to be open-minded and see things from all perspectives, but it seems pretty clear to me - and this is just my own point of view - that this whole thing is a control and monopoly issue, and the FCC chairman's waffling on the related issues is because of his previous ties to the cable companies.

I'll keep hope alive, perhaps there will be a positive outcome, and we won't know the results for months. Fingers crossed.  

Another amazing medical advancement

From the linked CNN article: Tiny gold rods among cells.

Someone mentioned nano-machines, which are tiny, sometimes microscopic machines, in a previous comment, and now look what I found. This story on CNN describes how for the first time scientists have been able to deploy microscopic machines, essentially tiny gold rods, into a cell's interior to destroy the cell.

Why would you want to do that? As the article states, if they could be injected into cancer cells specifically and destroy them, it would be a milestone moment in the fight against that insidious disease. Not only that, while all you'd want to do is destroy cancer cells, if the motors could be enhanced so they could carry out more specific tasks, they could be used for other beneficial purposes. Again, quoting the article, 'surgery within the cell.' I don't know why that would be desirable, but I'll leave that up to the doctors. I aso believe, although I can't say with certainty, that this is based on previous research, also done at Penn state by chemists back in 2007, that involved the manipulation of 2-micrometer gold rods.

Any time we get closer to better ways for fighting illness and disease, I'm always amazed, and while the practical application of this technology is a long way off, it holds promise.

An actual map of the Internet

Some of you may have heard of XKCD. It's a brilliant commentary on life, science, technology and everything in between. It has been around a long time and not lost any of its edge. One of its more well known entries, and that's saying something because there have been a few, are the maps of on-line communities done in 2007 and then again in 2010, with the size of the community represented by comparative volume of web traffic to the site. I have included both below, with the 2007 version presented first. They're big, with the first one over 1000 pixels wide and the second over 3000 pixels wide, mimicking the exponential growth of the Internet itself. Not only that, they include a whole lot, especially the second version. If you look at them both closely it is quite amazing to see how much they - in other words, the Internet - change in just three short years. Many once-powerful and influential sites shrink to almost nothing, while ones that were barely born rise to dominate. The most glaring example: Compare the relative size of Facebook to MySpace in the first one. Even Friendster (remember them?) is bigger than Facebook! But look at Faebook in the second. And then look at MySpace.

Online communities: 2007 version

Online communities: 2010 version

But as much as I am a fan of XKCD, the map below by DeviantArt artist Jay Simons is the most impressive one I've ever seen. It's not complete, or even to scale in some instances as the author notes on the map itself, but it is still beyond impressive. It's huge, at almost 5000 pixels wide by just over 3000 high. You could spend a looong time just looking through it to see if you recognize any sites that eat up good chunks of your time. It provides a whole host of other information as well; it lists the top technology companies, codes countries by Internet penetration, lists the top 500 websites according to Alexa.com, has a website timeline, language breakdown, there is just a ton of information here. And in very, very, VERY tiny print acknowledges XKCD's maps but in a demeaning way which mars the otherwise stellar job. Take a look below, and prepare to become enraptured. I was anyway.

His site, linked above, has other maps that are zoomed in areas of the above large map, but they pale in comparison. This one gives a visual, and gives some perspective, as to how huge the Internet actually is.

One other thing since I'm on the subject: the word 'Internet,' when referring to the one we all use, is always capitalized. Just wanted to throw that out there.

Smart rifles, both awesome and terrifying

This will be another sensitive post, but one I feel presents an important issue. It does not condemn or condone any of the actors or agencies, it simply presents the story with a tinge of opinion.

When it comes to military firearms, one of the most legendary is the sniper rifle. A precision device for hitting a target at long range, it requires extensive training and skill. The sniper often has to lay low for hours, even days on end waiting for the right opportunity to strike their target. Sometimes the result, and the shot it took to get there, are unbelievable. On the other hand, as someone who lived in the area where the D.C. sniper went on his rampage, I know that like anything, if they fall into the wrong hands, very bad things can result.

Now, an article over on C|Net discusses the military's interest in a system that could take some of the training out of being a sniper, and make even a mediocre soldier or possibly just an everyday yokel, a masterful sniper. They are currently researching a system made by Tracking Point that attaches to a regular sniper rifle, and can compensate, on its own, for wind, sun, barrel length, distance, and a host of other factors, making it much less difficult - easy, even - to hit the mark. In fact, they can hit a target SEVEN FOOTBALL FIELDS away on their own, and a video on the company's product page claims their system "eliminates multiple sources of error." The sniper would be pulling the trigger, but the system would be doing the shooting.

Note in the video below, that at only 11 seconds in, the narrator says "...enabling anyone to hit long distance targets." It's fascinating tech, but very chilling at the same time. It's supposed to be for hunting, but it doesn't sound like hunting to me.


I'm all for superiority in military conflicts, but my concern is the same as it always is with technologies of this sort. Although it's a very limited application, and the systems can run between $23,000 and $27,000, I worry about this tech falling into bad hands. As mentioned above, they already sell similar kits to hunters.

Of course, military snipers carry out other, important functions and have significant training in many areas. I never thought I'd see the day when they might start losing jobs to technology.

Finally - machine learning for a valid task.

The concept of deep learning, which is a subset of the Artificial Intelligence discipline, involves machines being able to extract contextual or inherent meaning from inputs. It's much, MUCH more complex than it sounds; humans are great at it, machines not so much. But now the process has finally been put to some good use. Forget facial recognition or pattern recognition or interpreting blocks of text to find out what's going on, now the machines can learn to play old Atari games.

DeepMind Technologies, a company that develops machines that try to learn as humans do, has published a paper showing the machine has learned to play games on the old Atari 2600. It may not sound like a big deal, except the machine learned only by evaluating the pixel on the screen and had no other inputs. No rules, no game-specific programming, nothing but what the screen outputs. The amazing thing is that it adapted to the visual cues to learn the games just as a human being would do.

Space Invaders on the Atari 2600

The games weren't terribly difficult: BeamRider, Pong Sports, Breakout, Space Invaders, and Seaquest. More complex games on the console, like Q*Bert, still cause it to stumble. But it's ability to deduce rules solely from screen output is remarkable and unnerving at the same time, and shows promise.

Google recently acquired the company to help it parse data from images, and all large tech companies including IBM, Microsoft, Apple, and others use deep learning to help their systems perform better whether it's financial analysis or speech recognition.

Bing.

The earlier post today was about Apple, so here's one tangentially related to Microsoft.

Actually, I'm just going to come out and say it. It's Bing. It's about Bing. It's almost like a confession - "My name's Darren, and I use Bing."

I won't start a big debate about whether Bing is better than Google or Yahoo is better than MSN or whoever is better than whoever, that's for you to do in the comments. Instead, I will focus on a very small aspect of the site's design, point out one of the things I like about Bing, one of the small touches that make their site appealing. Just as Google used a minimalist design to make the site appealing and showcase it's results (or at least said they did - note point #3), Bing tries to make their site visually appealing through the use of daily images.

However, while the images are nice, every once in a while they have one that is animated, using the new-in-Internet-years HTML5 standard. Sometimes they're subtle, sometimes they're more animated, but I'm always mesmerized by them.

If you go to Bing today, February 10th, you'll see the header image for this post with animated water. A nice, subtle touch. If you go after February 10th, you can click on the little left-arrow icon next to the (info) button at the lower-right of the screen, and it will cycle through the previous days' images. I've also included a couple of videos below that show animated wallpapers they've had in the past.

Then, if you really want to get the discussion heated, you can go to www.bingiton.com and do a blind comparison of  Bing v. Google to see which one reigns supreme. Do you dare? Just to show you I'm fair in my approach, here are my results from last year. I'm not proud of this.I still like Bing! Anyone ave any preference? Want to defend your search engine? This is the place!

Here are a couple of videos of some animated wallpapers they've had in the past. It was surprisingly, and sadly difficult to find any.

Apple's 1984 Super Bowl ad

As I mentioned in class, below is the 1984 advertisement for Apple that was shown during a commercial break during Super Bowl XVIII. Except for a local showing the previous year, this was the only time the advertisement appeared on television, but it began a storied marketing fable for Apple.

Honestly, the ad doesn't make much sense in terms of the times (the PC industry hadn't yet matured to the point where one could say there was attempt at conformity, except perhaps for the interface), but it was a brilliant way to get the company and the name noticed. It was years later with the iPod silhouette ad campaign that they again came right to the forefront of advertising. You can see all of them in the single YouTube clip below.

The thing about the 1984 ad is that some are now saying Apple is the giant oppressive company demanding you do things their way, which is the very thing the 1984 ad was showing they *weren't.* In fact, if you listen closely to the voice preaching to the gathered gray masses, you can hear him talking about the 'garden of pure ideology' they can all live and work in in, when Apple's platform has been referred to as a walled garden again and again and again. And again. And again and again. You get the idea.

Still, great ads. And when Microsoft tries to imitate them and be hip and edgy, it just doesn't work. Not at all. You can see their attempt to be Apple-like below, and while the dancing is impressive and I can appreciate what they were trying to do, that image doesn't sync up properly with Microsoft (although they're trying to change that). And frankly, if I worked at that company I'd be looking for a new job.

Here's an earlier one that, while still not saying anything about what the Surface actually does, didn't bug me as much as the one above.

Advertising is a funny thing. Not only does it have to represent the product, it has to represent the company and the public's perception of that company. Apple has always nailed it perfectly.

Pill-cam for getting the difficult images

Image source: Gizmag.com

This isn't an easy or necessarily pleasant subject, but it is a very important and perhaps even personal one. With colorectal cancer being the third leading cause of death in the United States, and actually the second when not considering gender differences (source), and over 52,000 people succumbing to it 2010, it's a condition that needs to be detected and diagnosed early. This is not news. The question is, why *doesn't* it get detected early when it could save so many lives?

That answer is complicated, but one of the reasons is very easy: The procedure of screening for it is, shall we say, unpleasant. The patient has to be put under general anesthetic, and a long camera snaked through their intestine to take pictures and check for lesions or polyps, both of which could indicate a potential problem.

Nothing about that sounds fun.

But it needs to be done when someone starts getting in to middle age, even earlier if there's a family history. It's understandable people don't want to go through that process even if they are asleep through it; if only there was a way to make it less...snakey.

Sadly, there's not. However there may be hope on the horizon. A new camera-pill that can be swallowed and will take pictures as it works its way through the digestive tract has been given FDA approval, and has been given he not-so-great name of PillCam Colon. In the event of a test being inconclusive, incomplete, or not possible because of other complications, the pill cam can be swallowed and pictures taken that way.

Watch it work!
It's pretty remarkable - it can take multiple images per second and contains LED lights that provide illumination because it's dark in there, and relays the images taken to a receiver on the patient's body. Also, these have been around in some form for at least 15 years, but this is th first time for FDA approval.

This wouldn't be a first line of defense, however, because the images are not of the same quality of a proper colonoscopy, it doesn't allow for real-time evaluation and interpretation, and it only takes pictures, no samples for biopsy. Still, we all know how fast camera-phones improve, so I suspect this might be a picture (get it?) of the future of this procedure. If it reduces the death rate, increases the early-diagnosis rate, and saves lives, then I hope to see its continued development and advancement.

Programming as a foreign language

Source: ajc.com

Now this is a novel approach. Kentucky has made it law that students can take programming to meet their foreign language requirements.

I think this is a great idea. One of the important things to remember when learning to program is that all programming languages follow standard syntax, structure and grammar just like regular spoken languages. You learn how to assemble phrases, sentences, and paragraphs that result in something being communicated. As we'll soon learn, it's communicated to the CPU first and then to the user, but it still needs to be written out properly.

I wonder if this will lead to other districts/municipalities/states doing the same thing?  I respect people who can speak multiple languages, I can speak a few words here and there in a few, but I can't speak one fluently. I also respect fluent programmers and their command of *those* languages. Hopefully, this will allow many students who already have an interest in technology - and perhaps already speak a second language or more - to get a head start in coding and begin to develop those skills formally to put into use later.

If you would like to experiment with code yourself, there is a great website over at code.org where you can learn all about programming - if you really want to see what a program looks like, you can go to the section on building an iPhone app in your browser and it will place you right into a programming environment complete with Objective-C code (the code apps are written in) to start. I like that because I think C++ and C# are the best languages out there right now, and Objective-C is as close to those as Code.org gets.

Or, if it's an emergency and you have to act like you know what you're doing right away, just go to this site and start typing anything you want - BAM! You're a programmer. Sort of.

Would you be willing to Skype with the deceased?

I don't know why this image popped in to my head when writing this, but it did.

Or at least sort of? We post so much information about ourselves online that it seems only appropriate that with the right algorithms and information gleaned from what you yourself post, it would be possible to recreate a digital version of you that can actually carry on a conversation in your voice, mentioning things that you actually did, or enjoyed, or followed. Right?

Apparently so. And now there's finally a use for just such a thing.

This post on nbcnews.com discusses a startup with the clever and slightly creepy name of eterni.me. This service will allow people to upload the various meaningful detritus (which I realize is an oxymoron) of their life, and the system will create a virtual representation of that person that will be able to carry on conversations, offer guidance and input, and generally act like that person after the actual person has passed away.

The system doesn't officially exist yet, by the way, but I assume it will in short order. It was created , according to a caption on the site, at an entrepreneurship bootcamp hosted by MIT. These can be very effective; UNLV's entrepreneurship program has resulted in several wonderful ideas, but nothing like this.

I can't figure out if this is clever or morbid or both. Many people worry about leaving behind a legacy, something they can be remembered for by future generations. If people are already sharing so much about themselves, maybe this is a clever idea. I wonder if given the chance to talk to my uncle, or grandfather, or friend who passed away just three months ago, even if it were them only in a digital form, but their voice and mannerisms and idiosyncrasies, would I?

I honestly don't know.

Satya Nadella, Microsoft's new CEO.

I had a couple of other posts ready to go when the news broke, and instantly took precedence over every other tech-related news story of the year so far. Microsoft has officially named Satya Nadella the new CEO of Microsoft, replacing Steve Ballmer who announced he was leaving the position last year. You can read Satya Nadella's email to employees here, and Steve Ballmer's email to employees here. Microsoft also moved board member and search chair John Thompson to the position of chairman.

Let me say right off the bat I am cautiously optimistic. An electrical engineer, he has been at the company a long time, 22 years to be exact, and has overseen Microsoft's attempts to compete at the consumer level including the acquisition and continued development of Skype, as well as the development of Bing, and Microsoft's cloud services, all of which I'm a big fan of. He also has significant experience in the enterprise sector of the company which is what drives almost two-thirds of Microsoft's revenue. He is well liked and respected within the company and the industry and has the support of many people both inside and outside Microsoft.

From Microsoft's Facebook page, a historic day at the company.
From left to right: Chairman John W. Thompson, CEO Satya Nadella, Bill Gates, Steve Ballmer

On the other hand, some of those very same issues are what prevent me from being too overly-enthusiastic. Both Bill Gates and Steve Jobs, as well as Google as a corporate entity, were and are well known for being very, very cutthroat when needed. This isn't an industry where being a nice, amiable person will get your company very far. He has already been pegged as a 'safe' choice for Microsoft, and that could be a good thing, or it could turn out to be exactly what the company doesn't need right now as it continues to struggle in the consumer devices and software sector.

He has said that it is important to bring new and innovative products and ideas to the market at a much faster pace and that is what we need to hear; in fact he states that the tech industry "does not respect tradition, it only respects innovation." Whether he is actually able to follow through with that is something that only time will tell. If he can, that will be good for the company. If not, if his influence and vision meets any roadblocks, that could further hinder the company just as it seem to be getting its products and services in line.

Satya Nadella's first interview as CEO of Microsoft

The reason I mention that is because none other than Bill Gates himself is increasing his role in the company after having been away for quite some time, and Steve Ballmer will still have significant presence. How that will impact the new CEO's ability to actually do his job in the way he sees fit is unclear, but their influence will undoubtedly be hanging thick in the air. That isn't necessarily a bad thing, by the way, they built Microsoft into what it is, but it is something that might need to be kept in check, or may very well need to be embraced. A much more serious concern is the under-the-radar news that Mason Morfit, Head of ValuAct Holdings, will be coming on as a member of the board of Microsoft and wants to seriously shake things up, including the selling off of Microsoft's hardware such as the Xbox and untying the software from the hardware. That makes me very, very worried.

Even so, I have high hopes. For all the grief it gets, Microsoft is a good, strong company. Their products are well designed, and although they've certainly had missteps, *no* company is innocent of that (Remember the Pippin? Or Newton? or Buzz?). I think this refresh of the executive ranks is needed, as long as the new CEO is able to lead and steer the company forward.