Happy Friday, yet again.
Nary a day goes by when I don't think about eating my computer, or at least biting it out of frustration. I hope I'm not alone.
This week's audio/video weekend starter is straight from the brains of Jim Henson and Frank Oz. Enjoy watching the Cookie Monster's green brother do what we all want to do from time to time: eat the hell out of a computer.
Matthew Aslett continues to put out one of the best open-source blogs around. Today, his predictions for LinuxWorld made me laugh.
We really are predictable as an industry, aren't we?… Read more
If you tend to zone out and leave your computer on to suck energy needlessly, Local Cooling (download it from CNET Download.com) helps you tell your Windows XP beast when to rest, giving the electric company a break, too. I've been using this free download on two PCs for a couple of weeks. It lets you time automatic snoozes or shutdowns for precise periods of neglect (also see Earth2Tech). Use Vista? Check out this battery saver.
By bringing hidden details about consumption to the surface, Local Cooling encourages you to relax your energy usage with little effort. Otherwise … Read more
If the number of shark documentaries on cable is any indication, people love to obsess about man-eating fish. Now, Australian scientists are taking the obsession one step further.
Scientists in the New South Wales Department of Primary Industries are developing a 3D computer model to test the "bite force" of the Great White, the world's largest predatory fish. Taking data from sharks caught off the Australian coast, the researchers are attempting to illustrate the cranial mechanics, bite force and feeding behavior of the sharks through the use of computer simulations, according to a news release from Science … Read more
What I hope you will agree on is the new look for the Top 5. The CNET video labs worked day and night to pop out a cleaner, more refreshing presentation for the list. Tell us what you think about that, too. So here are the easy steps for expression your outrage/agreement at my top 5 and its new look.
Step One: Watch the Top … Read more
In a poker contest of man vs. machine, the results are in. Humans-2. Polaris-1. (And one draw.)
On Tuesday night, Phil Laak and Ali Esmali, two professional poker players, faced off against a computer program called Polaris, which was developed over 26 years at the University of Alberta. The contest, held at the American Association for the Advancement of Artificial Intelligence (AAAI) conference in Vancouver, Canada, was one of the first scientific poker contests involving real players.
In the end, Polaris beat Laak and Esmali in the first match of 500 hands; tied the second match; then lost the last … Read more
A team of researchers has developed a computer program that can learn to decipher sounds the way a baby does.
The impetus behind the program was to better understand how people learn to talk, or more specifically, to see whether language is hard-wired in the brain.
Tests of the computer model back up a theory that babies learn to speak by sorting through different sounds until they understand the structure of a language, according to James McClelland, a psychology professor at Stanford University who wrote a paper on the subject that appeared in the Proceedings of the National Academy of … Read more
Beware of JEALOUS COMPUTERS! Apparently they have started to attack (particularly N95 owners)... here you see a few poor victims of a laptop bite and a keyboard to the face. Not pretty. Well Nokia has really gone all out on this viral N95 site... I just wrote up a big piece on this over at NOTCOT, and it was too hilarious, bizarre, and nicely designed not to share with you CNET readers too. Basically they have created a whole series of PSAs, posters, tshirts, and even a mug (well, half mug, and well they have a cool pic, but it … Read more
A group of computer scientists from Canada said Thursday that they've managed to crack the "code" of the checkers board game so that a computer program can win or draw against any opponent, according to a story from the BBC.
Even though a computer program by the name of Chinook won the World's Checkers Championship in 1994, that software would lose the game occasionally.
The Canadian team, which was led by Jonathan Schaeffer, chair of the department of computer science at the University of Alberta, said that checkers has been the most challenging game to beat … Read more
LeapFrog's new ClickStart My First Computer may not run Windows, Linux or the Mac OS, but it's designed to introduce kids aged 3-6 to the whole concept of computing without messing with daddy or mommy's expensive PC. The $60 system features a "child-friendly" wireless keyboard with nice big buttons, a console and a mouse that converts for right- or left-handed play. The console comes with a few built in games and activities, and you can buy additional software cartridges ($19.99) that plug into the top of the console.
Not surprisingly, there's a friendly … Read more
Politics and Law
Internet & Media
Microsoft
216Facebook Likes
435Tweets
111Google Plus Shares
CNET's Galaxy S4 giveaway spectacular!
CNET's publishing another supercharged e-book. "Mastering the Galaxy S4" is almost here, so we're celebrating with a huge S4-related giveaway.
Manage updates with the Download App