Category: Computers, Science & Technology

Well, at least helping with the diagnosis!

What’s next for Watson? Or, should we say, Dr. Watson?

“IBM’s supercomputer Watson proved that it’s able to understand human language enough to stomp out the best contestants in Jeopardy history like they were a couple of high school freshmen. Now, it has its sights on a much more meaningful goal.

Watson became a household name this week during a three-day-long Jeopardy competition. While some may not have been blown away that it was able to parse together the often-verbose quiz show clues well enough to create a one or two word response, those who understand computer science should be able to appreciate what a breakthrough this is.

The way Watson works is by going through a highly complex series of algorithms to figure out what words in a sentence are the most important. For example, in a clue that reads, ‘This Ohio city shares the same name as a kind of bean,’ Watson can not only figure out that the word ‘city’ is the apex of the question, but also that it’s from ‘Ohio’ and needs to also be a type of ‘bean.’ (The correct response, by the way, would be Lima).

It’s more difficult than it sounds, as there are an infinite amount of potential questions and keywords. Yet, there’s only one correct response to each question.

IBM says the most parallel application of that in the real world is in medicine. Imagine a day when doctors can type in their patient’s symptoms, and feed it into a Watson computer that can comb through literally every medical journal ever published. Watson would be able to tell what the best course of treatment is and what the most likely diagnosis is.”

Yes, that is BEFORE the final release, when they will push it out via Windows Update. Pretty impressive! I guess it shows how much folks want Microsoft to support real web standards!

Without auto-update, 2 million users downloaded IE9 RC

“Raw first-week sales numbers are often used to indicate the efficacy of a product’s launch. But really, the thing these numbers best represent is the level of user excitement. Today, Microsoft revealed that users were very excited about Internet Explorer 9 RC, which launched last week.

According to Microsoft, IE9 RC was downloaded 2 million times in the six days following its launch. While a big number, it’s doubly significant because these were users who actively downloaded the software without a Windows Update auto update, or a system alert telling them an update was available. These users knew the update was there and went out and got it.

Starting on Friday last week, IE9 Release Candidate began rolling out as an Automatic Update to a small group of IE9 Beta users. The Internet Explorer Engineer’s blog said it will eventually expand to cover all beta users.”

“Anti-LASER?” Something that can cancel out a laser beam? Dewd! Cool! Now we can stop the alien invasion in its tracks!

Scientists Build First “Antilaser”

“The laser – a 50-year-old invention now used in everything from CDs to laser pointers — has met its match in the ‘antilaser,’ the first device capable of trapping and canceling out laser beams.

While such a device would seem most fitting in a science fiction movie, its real-world application will likely be in next-generation, optical computers, which will be powered by light in addition to electrons, U.S. researchers said on Thursday.

‘It’s a device which basically works like running a laser backwards,’ A. Douglas Stone of Yale University, who published his findings in the journal Science, said in a telephone interview.

While a laser takes in electrical energy and emits light in a very narrow frequency range, Stone said, his antilaser takes in laser light and transforms it into heat energy.

But it could be easily converted into electrical energy, he said.”

(SEE IMPORTANT ADDENDUM BELOW!!! AT “IMPORTANT UPDATE!”)

Yeeeesss! I have the secret code to add YouTube to your Roku box! (Don’t have a Roku box, you say!?!?! Then click on the Roku Advert here on the Blog and go get one!!!)

Here’s “The Skinny!”

NOTE: This is a secret code, kinda like an “Easter Egg” in games… no promises made with it! It falls under the “Private or Beta Channel” type on Roku.

1) On your computer, visit this link:

https://my.roku.com/account/add

2) Log into your Roku account

3) Enter the “secret code” for YouTube, which is: B8VVK

4) On your Roku, enter and exit the Channel Store to refresh your dashboard apps!

Mu-ha-ha! You now have YouTube!

AND, here are more “secret channel” codes! At this link: Roku Channel Database

IMPORTANT UPDATE!!! This code no longer works to add the YouTube Roku channel! If you did successfully add it, it still will work, but no more may be added. YouTube asked that the private channel be “pulled.” However, a new channel should be made available soon. In the meantime, if you install the PLEX channel from the Roku Channel Catalog, and add the PLEX add-on in Firefox, you can mark a YouTube video with “Plex-It!” and then it will show up in your Roku PLEX queue. This is a workaround! PLEX is a very useful, and FREE option to stream you local videos and other media via a PLEX server on your local LAN as well!

IMPORTANT UPDATE!!!
The new YouTube access channel is called “VideoBuzz“… the code word is “VideoBuzz.”

IMPORTANT UPDATE – NUMBER TWO!!!
Another option is “Twonky” – info on it is here: https://howto.cnet.com/8301-11310_39-57575819-285/how-to-watch-youtube-videos-on-roku/

IMPORTANT UPDATE – NUMBER THREE!!!
The best option to view YouTube now is to buy a Google Chromecast for $35.00. You can watch anything that you see on your Chrome Web Browser on your HD TV. Until there is a truly supported way to get YouTube on Roku, this remains the best way… Google Chromecast!
https://www.google.com/intl/en/chrome/devices/chromecast/

IMPORTANT UPDATE – NUMBER FOUR!!!
It’s really finally here, read all about it!
https://www.drbill.tv/2013/12/20/finally-a-youtube-channel-on-roku-official/

Yep, you can bet that I will be watching next week’s Jeopardy, with two human champions facing the IBM “Watson” computer! Dewd! It will rock, whoever, (or whatever) wins!

IBM’s Watson Faces Human Competitors on ‘Jeopardy’ Next Week

“Computer geeks everywhere will gather around their television sets next week to cheer on their most impressive representative yet. Ladies and gentlemen, the most anticipated Jeopardy! match of all time is about to air, a three-day blowout in which a non-human contestant could take all.

Three pre-recorded shows set to air February 14, 15, and 16 will pit IBM supercomputer Watson against Jeopardy’s two all-time biggest champions, Ken Jennings and Brad Rutter. Those who attended the taping have been sworn to secrecy regarding the outcome.

Watson’s ability produce the correct questions (host Alex Trebek provides the answers and the contestants must come up with the questions) goes beyond the reach of other mind-matching super computers, like the chess-playing Deep Blue. Unlike chess, Jeopardy requires the players to suss out the subtleties of language, from jokes and puns to irony and anagrams. In a January test, Watson was the winner.

$1.5 million is at stake. The winner will take home a cool million. The second-place contestant will receive $300,000, and the third-place contestant will get $200,000. IBM, which would receive the cash if Watson won, said it would give the money to charity. Rutter and Jennings both said they will keep half if they win and donate the rest to charity.

Futurist Ray Kurzweil has placed his bets on Watson winning the show.”

As you, I am sure, know, I am NOT a big fan of Internet Explorer, or anything Microsoft. BUT, I am looking forward to IE 9. Why? Not because I plan to use it, but because Microsoft will FINALLY support real web standards! FINALLY, we can write web pages that will be truly cross functional, without “programming” for Microsoft idiosyncracies!

Here is a neat article by Robert Johnson, on developing for IE9!

Five things that excite me about developing for Internet Explorer 9

“The IE9 Release Candidate, which Microsoft posted today, may change all that again. IE9 is the first Microsoft browser in years that has me excited about UI development. Finally, I can see a future void of the many CSS hacks necessary to get a page to play nice with IE. There are five features in this release candidate I am excited about as a UI developer.

Five Things
1) CSS 3. CSS 3 comes with loads of new features that will help make web-based apps feel and function more like desktop based apps. From a pure visual perspective, rounded corners comes to IE for the first time. At this time Safari 5 and IE9 are the only ones to implement it without special browser markup.

2) HTML5. With IE9 more developers can jump on the HTML5 bandwagon. Including myself. Support for canvas and video will go a long way towards making online video a ton easier to develop.

3) Hardware Acceleration. This one is huge. Not only does it bring with it significant speed increase, but it also results in fantastic looking graphics and text. No UI designer wants to design a great-looking site only to have it look terrible to most of the people who will see it. I’m a huge fan of TypeKit, and IE9 does an awesome job of displaying type from this service. In my opinion type looks better on the Mac, but most people don’t view the web on Macs. Most are on Windows PCs. And when it comes to IE9 vs. Chrome or Firefox, my sites (and hopefully yours too) look way better in IE9. Not only that, they load faster.

4) Jump Lists. I am particularly excited about this one. With IE9 sites can be saved onto the toolbar and launched just like any other application. With Windows 7 any icon on the toolbar has a jump list. IE9 allows developers to customize the jump list. For instance, if you run a sports site, you can store different sports categories in the list so that when a user clicks the NCAA Football link it will take them to that page. This feature is definitely blurring the line between desktop and web-based applications.

5) Developer! Developer! Developer Tools! I never really cared much for the developer tools in IE. In IE9 improvements were made and I think these tools are a lot easier to use now than before. While they won’t convert me from FireBug, I have to give Microsoft some credit here: the new Networking and CSS tab enhancements are welcome. The CSS tab organizes CSS files a lot nicer and will make debugging CSS issues a lot easier.

The new network profiler is another welcomed addition to the developer tools. The summary view will tell you the original URL requested, all resources requested by HTML and CSS, and all requests made through JavaScript. I no longer have to download add-ons when I need to quickly find out what’s slowing my UI down.”

So, the last official IPv4 IP addresses have been assigned. Time to move on, people! Nothing to see here!

Last of IPv4 addresses assigned as focus turns to IPv6

The last IPv4 addresses have been allocated, highlighting the need for companies and organizations to move to a new system amid the ever increasing number of net-connected devices. The Internet Assigned Numbers Authority (IANA) made the announcement at an event in Miami on Thursday.

Each of the five regional Internet registries has been allocated a single block of around 16 million addresses. While true exhaustion would be hard to gauge — a small number of IP addresses will be held for several years for the transition — the rate at which the different registrars will burn through their allocations will likely vary.

APNIC, the registrar in the Asia-Pacific region, will likely run out first in the next few months. ARIN (North America’s registrar) and RIPE NCC (controlling Europe, Middle Eastern, and Russian IP needs) are in a better position, likely being able to make it through the year on their current allocation.

In developing nations such as Africa and Latin America (AfriNIC and LACNIC respectively), the much slower uptake of connected devices could mean their allocations of IPv4 addresses last for possibly several years. Either way, officials with IANA stress it is time to start thinking about IPv6.”

So… make your plans now!

This link leads to an excellent article by eWeek contributor, P.J. Connolly!

Review: LibreOffice beats OpenOffice.org by a whisker

“The new LibreOffice open-source office suite ‘proves that forking isn’t always the kiss of death,’ says this eWEEK review. New features in the Linux-ready release — including wider document format support, SVG (Scalable Vector Graphics) import into Draw and Writer, enhanced presentation support, and an improved ‘save as’ feature — should give OpenOffice some robust competition.

In the open source movement, the forking of a project is often a contentious matter, and can lead to the demise or mothballing of the applications that spawn from the original software. In many ways, it’s a ‘nuclear option,’ as developers choose their allegiances and take their skills with them.

Often, the result is the loss of momentum as well as mindshare for all the spawned projects. But it’s not an inevitable one: the January release of LibreOffice 3.3 shows that sometimes forking can lead to a positive outcome.

LibreOffice 3.3 is as polished as one might expect in a project that, for all its novelty, has many years of development work behind it. Although it’s probably not going to gain widespread acceptance in the corporate world, any outfit that’s looking for a solid toolset for users who don’t require a lot of handholding, or integration with Microsoft’s Office server applications, could do much worse than to choose it.

For many users, this will have everything necessary in a desktop-productivity suite, for an unbeatable price: free, that is.”

I would encourage you to read this entire article, as it has excellent info on changes and enhancements available in LibreOffice! Good stuff!

Yesterday was the official end of the Apple Xserve server! The end of an era? Does anyone care to shed a tear? No? OK… I didn’t much notice, either!

Apple’s server biz relegated to ‘prosumer’ status with Xserve’s end

“As the company announced last November, no orders for the server hardware will be accepted beyond January 31.

While there is a community of server admins who use Mac server hardware, the discontinuation of Xserve has not been met with any wails of anguish from the IT community.

After Xserve is completely liquidated, Apple will only sell specially configured versions of its Mac Mini and Mac Pro as servers. This means the sole remaining part of Apple’s server business is OS X Snow Leopard Server, which is itself, not that different from client versions of Snow Leopard.

What’s left of the Mac server business is almost a ‘prosumer’ category, that is, where consumer hardware can be tinkered with to create something that could work in professional settings, as long as they’re not too demanding. Naturally, companies dealing with alternative Mac server products are popping up today to remind the world that there are options for the Mac Minis that Apple called it’s ‘most popular line of servers’ back in November.”

A trend seems to be starting to “scale back” on “cloud” file storage sites, due to rising popularity and usage.

Mozy’s move could bring storm to unlimited cloud storage

“Computerworld – Facing customers with an appetite for cloud storage that has increased 50% over the past year, the world’s largest consumer online storage provider said on Monday that it will no longer offer unlimited storage and will increase fees for the limited online storage it’s now selling.

While Mozy may be among the first to change its pricing model for consumers, one industry analyst said most other providers will soon be forced to follow suit.

“Others are already doing things like bandwidth throttling to help control the volume of data being stored and limiting the types of files you can backup, but as far as raising prices we haven’t seen that yet by others,” said Gartner analyst Adam Couture.

Mozy, which is owned by EMC, opened its MozyHome consumer storage service in 2006. Since then, it has charged $4.95 per month for unlimited online backup.

While the new price and capacity points take affect immediately for new customers, existing customers will have until March 1 before they’ll be required to change over to the new plans.

Today, however, Mozy services more than 1 million users, and while the majority of its customers don’t abuse the service, about 10% are considered “power users” who store everything and are eating up enormous amounts of capacity.”