In the past there have basically been three ways to get TV programming to watch in your home. You can subscribe to Cable TV, you can subscribe to satellite TV, or you can get your TV programming off of over the air signals. The advantages and disadvantages of all three of these sources of TV programming are fairly well known, but now there's a new player attempting to provide TV service: telephone companies.
The Internet is the most revolutionary piece of technology that has come about in the past few decades. Nothing else can match it in terms of providing access to information, entertainment, or even goods and services. For all of these reasons you need to have the fastest Internet connection possible in your own home, and with Comcast's high speed Internet service you can have the fastest possible connection at the best possible price!
For television viewers the world over, the thought of being able to control when to watch television has always held appeal. The fact that some network executive decides which day and time to air a program and you must alter your schedule to fit these times chafes, especially when two competing networks both air their best shows at the same time in a ratings war. In this case you are stuck choosing only one show, even though you really want to be able to watch them both. Though it has always been possible to record programming with a VCR, who has really wanted to. After spending a long time fumbling with the VCR, you aren't even guaranteed that you'll record the correct program. Power outages, programming mistakes and other problems could cause your VCR to record programming that you wouldn't want to watch in a million years.
Microsoft does BitTorrent
Someone from Microsoft was kind enough to send us an email about an intriguing new networking technology, called Microsoft Secure Content Distribution (MSCD), that has just been released by the company's researchers at Cambridge University, UK.It's basically Microsoft's take on the peer-to-peer principles made popular by BitTorrent, which make it easier to download large files. The trick is that each downloader is simultaneously uploading bits of a file to other users, spreading out the load. A project at Cambridge called Avalanche has been exploring these ideas for some time and MSCD is the result. You can grab the client software here and use it to download the latest Beta version of the programming application Visual Studio.
BitTorrent is, of course, insanely popular. But it's also largely associated with downloading copyrighted material like movies, software and even pre-release copies of the latest Harry Potter book. So it's hardly surprising to see that MSCD has been designed from the start to protect publishers rights, although the precise details of this are a bit foggy.
Another reason I think this could be important is that Microsoft could - in theory at least - incorporate MSCD into the Windows operating system. It would then be much easier for anyone to deliver large files, including video, software and games, without incurring huge bandwidth costs.
Could robots' emotions help simplify things?
What if robots not only seemed emotional, but acted on their emotions too? This is the idea behind a project to give a robot called the iCAT, (one of Time magazine's best invention of 2005) "emotional logic", as outlined in this Technology Review article.The robot itself is made by a team at Philips Research as a tool for experimenting with human-robot interactions. It features speech recognition and servomotors that generate a wide variety of facial expressions to simulate different emotions. See videos of iCAT in action here and here.
And now, Mehdi Dastani and colleagues at Utrech University in the Netherlands are using the robot to test out 22 artificial emotions - including anger, hope, fear and joy - that determine its behaviour.
The Dutch scientists believe that assuming these "emotional" states could help robots perform complicated tasks without getting too bogged-down in planning and analysis. During navigation, for example, many sophisticated robots repeatedly analyse their position and strategy, requires plenty of computer power.
A robot with artificial emotions could perform much less analysis, relying instead on its "feelings". Once it sees that its current plan is going wrong it would become "fearful" and this would modify its behaviour from that point onwards.
Ultimately, Dastani thinks robot "emotions" could help machines interact with people in more sophisticated ways.
Return of the mechanical computer?
Is the mechanical computer about to make a comeback? It's an interesting possibility that is raised in a paper in the latest edition of the New Journal of Physics. In it, Robert Blick and colleagues at the University of Wisconsin-Madison explain how a fully-mechanical nanoscale computing device might be constructed.Blick and colleagues suggest that a nanomechanical computer (NMC) could be constructed by linking together lots of nanoelectromechanical single-electron transistors (NEMSETs), which would perform the most basic logical operations. These devices process information using the movement of a nanoscopic pillar (see image, bottom right). Many different NEMSET devices could, in theory, be connected mechanically to form a much larger, more complicated logical circuit, the researchers say.
The idea is a long way from the earliest computers, like the difference engine (see image, top left) or the analytical engine devised by Charles Babbage, or the Antikythera Mechanism of ancient Greece.
But Blick and colleagues say a nanomechanical computer could have several key advantages over a silicon computer architecture. It ought to waste less power, should be less vulnerable to electromagnetic interference, and could work at far higher temperatures, the team says.This could make the mechanical computer of the future ideally suited to use aboard spacecraft, in military devices, and inside high-temperature machinery.
Hollywood physics - is it all science fiction?
Are Hollywood movies contributing to scientific illiteracy? Costas Efthimiou and Ralph Llewellyn, two physicists at the University of Central Florida, US, certainly seem to think so.Efthimiou and Llewellyn just published a paper called Hollywood Blockbusters: Unlimited fun but limited science literacy, which highlights some glaring physical impossibilities in several popular films.
They say blockbuster films like Speed, Superman II, Spider-Man, The Core and the X-Men all break the laws of physics routinely. And, while this is hardly surprising, since most are "science fiction" movies, they suggest it could ultimately be damaging for some viewers. Especially younger ones who simply accept what they see as just a slightly modified version of reality.
Take, for example, The Core (trailer here, see image, left) a film in which the outer core of the Earth has stopped rotating due to military experiments. Members of a scientific team descend 1000 km into the Earth's interior, to help restore its rotation no less! And yet, they still walk and move normally. This is clearly impossible, Efthimiou and Llewellyn point out, since the force of gravity nearer the centre of the Earth would considerably less than that at its surface.
This blunder is just one of many described in the paper, which is an altogether amusing read. There's also a woeful misrepresentation of Newtonian physics in Spider-Man, when the Green Goblin holds Mary Jane in one hand and a tramway cable in the other (trailer here). And, in The Chronicles of Riddick (trailer here), there's a choice moment when Vin Diesel swings through 700ºC sunshine by dousing himself in water.
It might be amusing for people with a science background, but Efthimiou and Llewellyn aren’t too impressed. "Hollywood is thus reinforcing (or even creating) incorrect scientific attitudes that can have negative results for society," they write.
But it is all bad news? Perhaps not. The pair says that such mistakes can also be used to teach students abut the fundamental principles of physics. Indeed, Efthimiou and Llewellyn run a course together at Central Florida called Physics in Films that discusses these topics.
Dodging the Digg effect
I spent several hours last night trying to work out how to get my girlfriend's website back online after one of her blog posts got picked up by Digg.It wasn't actually the Digg effect that brought the site tumbling down. Rather, a concerned sys-admin pulled the plug after noticing a sudden and alarming upturn in network traffic. I think they thought a script had gone berserk or the site was suffering some sort of a DDoS attack. Someone then set up a redirect to a mirror, but for some reason it didn't work, and so the site was basically inaccessible.
To some degree, it's understandable, since the site is maintained on pretty basic hosting package. But it also highlights a frustrating Catch-22, which I suspect other small sites may suffer from. On the one hand, they can't afford a fancy hosting service until their site gets a more successful and, on the other hand, it'll never be a success unless they can carry on getting Dugg or Slashdotted.
I suspect there must be some sort of technical solution. Perhaps there's a way to automatically create a mirror once your site gets Dugg or Slashdotted. I haven't been able to find one yet, but maybe I just don't know where to look?
World Wide Web goes underground
Following on from last week's post about the Periodic Table of the Internet, here's another interesting re-imagining of the World Wide Web, this time in the form of a map of the Tokyo metro. It was created by Information Architects Japan and I think it's almost as confusing as the real thing.Unfortunately New Scientist is absent. Perhaps we'll have to create our own "map" of the web, just to get ourselves a prominent position.
The prosthetic limb revolution has arrived
Last week, a Scottish company called Touch Bionics unveiled a "bionic hand" for amputees, called the i-LIMB.It is billed as the most sophisticated prosthetic hand commercial available, as it lets the wearer assume different grips by sensing electrical impulses in the muscles in their upper arm. Even delicate grips, such as holding a key are possible, (see image, left).
You can see it in action, and hear a bit more about its capabilities, in the video below, which we created from footage provided by Touch Bionics.
It's an impressive-looking device, and it certainly seems to have made a big impression on those who have tested it. But it's also just one of many novel prosthetic technologies out there. Here's a quick round-up of some other interesting projects from around the world.
At Southampton University, UK, one team is working on a robotic hand capable of sensing as well as manipulation (see image, right. Credit: Southampton University).Small sensors fitted to each fingertip let the hand know when an object is being gripped too tightly or too gently, and even if it's too hot to handle. Currently, the hand must be programmed to respond to this information. But eventually, the researchers believe this sensory information could be fed directly back to the wearer.
In the US, a woman called Claudia Mitchel is testing a whole-arm prosthetic, which was developed by researchers at the Rehabilitation Institute of Chicago. The arm connects to muscles in her chest, rather than her upper arm, requiring various muscle nerves to be "rewired" beforehand. Eventually, however, this set-up could also let her "feel" feedback from the arm.
And finally, a thought-controlled bionic limb is being developed by a Massachusetts-based company called Cyberkinetics. The company has implanted 100-electrodes on top of the motor cortex of a paralysed man called Matt Nagle, allowing him to operate a computer, or a prosthetic arm, using his thoughts. An recent article from New Scientist magazine describes this project and similar efforts to connect prosthetics to the brain - Artificial limbs wired direct to the brain (subscription required).
Video: Sandrine Ceurstemont, online content editor
Words: Will Knight, online technology editor
No-limit artificial intelligence
Checkers (or "draughts") has just been cracked. Chess hasn’t yet, but it might as well have been. Inevitably, and for some time, poker has been on the cards (see what I did there?).Now even "no-limit" poker is being put to the test, as AI gurus pit their program (Polaris) against two human pros - Phil “The Unabomber” Laak and Ali Eslami - in a 500-hand competition being held at the AAAI-07 conference in Vancouver, Canada, tonight.
"Limit" Texas hold 'em, in which the bets in each round are of fixed amounts, has long been well-handled by computers. The parameters and probabilities can easily be quantified. In fact, if you log into any online poker site, the chances are that several players at the table are being told what to do by poker analysis software running alongside their game. "Pot limit", in which you can bet anything up to the amount already in the pot, adds a level of complexity.
But only "no limit" poker elevates the game to something of an art form. Sure, there are still probabilities to calculate, risk versus reward, speculation and so forth, but the sheer fact that, in any betting round, you can decide to push all your chips into the middle takes the game to another level altogether. This is the challenge facing Polaris in Vancouver.
However, anyone who knows poker – and I’ve been playing and studying the game for 15 years – will tell you that, over the course of one evening, even an average player may beat a top-ranking professional. This is because there is such a significant element of luck in the short-term. You can make the right decisions all night only to come out behind. Over time, however, the luck evens out and the good players rise to the top.
The team behind Polaris hope to eliminate "luck" in a clever way. The system will play both pros separately but simultaneously: the cards received by Laak will automatically be the same as those dealt to the computer playing against Ali Eslami. Similarly, the cards played by Eslami will also be the same as those dealt to the version playing Laak. It’s a nice idea and I am very curious to see how it turns out. The art of the bluff, much overplayed in Hollywood, is a very tough skill to develop. I wonder if the pros will sense a computer bluff, having no human opponent to scrutinise...
But I also have a worry. It may be cutting edge poker AI, and they may have evened out the luck to some extent, but poker is nevertheless a game where one session, even a 500-hand session, is a very brief experimental period.
If the pros win tonight, and I hope they do, it won't prove once and for all that humans still have mastery over poker machines. Likewise, if the machine wins, it certainly won't show that humans no longer rule no-limit hold ‘em poker. It is an interesting experiment, but we must keep it in perspective, whatever the outcome.
Are these the chemical elements of the web?
Are Yahoo and Wikipedia really the Hydrogen and Helium of the World Wide Web? And is Fark the rutherfordium?They sure are, according to this Periodic Table of the Internet.
It's a nice idea and I can sort of see the logic behind it. But I can't help thinking Google should be up there with Wikipedia at the top. I'm also a bit sad that NewScientist didn't make the table, especially since we're one of the most linked-to sites on the web. How about making us the equivalent of something like Mendelevium guys? Can anyone see any other glaring omissions?
Image wizardry may reveal Potter poster
The Times has an interesting follow-up article about the leaked version of Harry Potter and the Deathly Hallows that surfaced this week, and which I mentioned here.As you can see from the image, whoever leaked the book simply took a snapshot of every page using a digital camera and uploaded the images to BitTorrent.
Unluckily for them, it turns out these digital images also contain metadata - extra information buried within each image file - that could help investigators track down the culprit. The images have Exchangeable Image File Format metadata, which means they reveal date and time information, the camera model, settings like aperture and shutter speed, and, crucially, also the camera's serial number.
This won't necessary identify the camera's owner, unless they registered the device after buying it. But, since the camera is about three years old - a Canon Rebel 350 - it may well have been serviced, at which point the owner's name and address would have been recorded.
As a spokesman for Borders book store points out, the leak is only likely to add to the hype surrounding the release. And, it hardly seems worth pursuing the culprit now, since The New York Times decided to review the book a day early, and reveal some important plot points, after finding a copy for sale in a New York bookstore.
Testicular protein vaccine may fight ovarian cancer
Early trials suggest a vaccine based on a protein found in male testes can stimulate the body's immune system to stave off the recurrence of tumours
23 July 2007
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