Technology « eripsa

Redesign my site!

I’ve upgraded my wordpress install and reskinned the website, and as you can see I need to make some new title bars to give the blog the character and style it deserves. The theme I am using (Atahualpa) is just incredible, and it will let me cycle through title images. I want to generate [...]

also, on cory doctorow

Cory Doctorow gave the best speech hands down at the Singularity Summit a few years ago. But he isn’t really talking about the singularity; its pretty clear he just sees it as a beacon that attracts the similarly technologically inclined, perhaps as a means to form an interest group that takes digital [...]

i spent spring break thinking about the singularity

Discussing the singularity is often confusing because it makes claims about both technology and artificial intelligence, and its hard to see how the two fit together. In fact, some philosophers have argued that technology is entirely irrelevant to studying the mind using the techniques of artificial intelligence. The idea is that cognitive science is [...]

this robot uses language

From Chaos filter helps robots make sense of the world

The Oxford group’s FabMap software tackles those problems by having a robot assign a visual “vocabulary” of up to a thousand individual “words” for each scene, every two seconds.

The “words” describe particular objects in a scene, for example a bicycle seat, and the software learns to link words that occur together into groups that are given words of their own. For example, the word “bicycle seat” is almost always found associated with the words “bicycle wheel” and “bicycle chain”, so they linked together in a so-called “bag of words” – “bicycle”.

That means when the robot revisits a scene that now lacks, say, a bicycle, it notes a single change rather than the disappearance of many smaller features. That prevents too much significance being attached to the bike’s disappearance and means the robot is more likely to recognise the scene as familiar, says Newman.

Video of this bot posted below the break because its shitty ad autoplays.
Continue reading this robot uses language

people do not understand technology

or the brain, for that matter. In this case, the sensible, anti-pseudoscience guy has the wrong position, for the same reason, as the other wrong person.

5 points extra credit for listing each scientific, theoretical, conceptual, or practical confusion the motivates this [...]

you don’t have a right

This is sort of interesting:

New Kindle Audio Feature causes a stir (WSJ)

Kindle 2 is smaller than the first version of the product.The new device also features a five-way navigation element, faster wireless service for downloading books and the ability to wirelessly sync between Kindles and cellphones.

Some publishers and agents expressed concern [...]

meta

recent comments

friendly blogs

server manifests

Syndication