Geek stuff Archive

And you think your operating system needs to be reliable. Check the interview here.

Here's an interview with Keith Davies of Find-A-Drug, a distributed computing project to find a cure for cancer. Anyone with a Windows, Mac, or Linux pc can run the client and pitch in for the cause.

Collaborating with co-workers in the same office is painful enough, but it's nigh impossible over a network. Now researchers at the University of North Carolina at Chapel Hill have designed a new system that cleverly blends a video-conference feed with a transparent image of a computer desktop into one full-screen window.

The Cambridge University mathematician laid the foundation for the invention of software. As part of its anniversary celebration, BusinessWeek is presenting a series of weekly profiles for the greatest innovators of the past 75 years. Some made their mark in science or technology; others in management, finance, marketing, or government. In late September, 2004, BusinessWeek will publish a special commemorative issue on Innovation. Elsewhere, there is also a special article for Turing.

If autonomic computing is the process of making computers behave like living, sentient creatures, then you, as a developer, are the doctor who makes sure your products and systems are performing properly. If there's an area of concern, you must diagnose it and make sure it has what it needs to function properly. The article gives a roadmap to integrate autonomic computing concepts into your products.

At ITU Telecom World, WaveReport got a sample of another view by NEC. It is based on the pen and called P-ISM. This concept is so radical that WaveReport went to Tokyo to learn more.

This study is going to be significant from the standpoint of OS development and the inability of governments to 'stem the flow of information'. Most, if not all, of the people in this survey want only a "turn key" solution for their computer activities.

Here is a great new, innovative product: a very intelligent 800-pound robot to help you at home, named NS-5. At least this is what the firm "3 Laws Safe" is promising for July 16th this year. The OS used in the humanoid robot is named "Teresa" and the version shipped "will be the 2.1.2. Future OS updates will be available for wireless download 24/7. All NS-5 owners shall receive free OS updates for the lifetime of their personal domestic assistant" their site claims.

They are stronger than steel and as flexible as plastic, conduct energy better than almost any material ever discovered and can be made from unexotic raw materials such as methane gas. Read the story.

"The most famous engineering brain models are "Neural Networks" and "Parallel Distributed Processing." Unfortunately both have failed as engineering models and as brain models, because they make certain assumptions about what a brain should look like." Read the article at TheRegister.

It dances. It can hold a conversation. And in about a year, humanoid robot Qrio will be knocking on doors, if Sony's plans fall into place.

The Xerox Alto, the computer that introduced us to the Graphical User Interface (GUI) and forever aliented Command-Line Interface (CLI) programmers everywhere, has reached the ripe old age of 30. So, Vintage and the Computer History Museum is celebrating this weekend it in grand style by having a panel of past and present Xerox PARC luminaries speak about the development of the Alto. They are also featuring a line-up of classic (and working) Xerox machines. Jef Raskin will speak on the second day of the event, so if you live in the Bay Area, don't miss it this weekend! OSNews featured a related retro article with many cool pictures a few months ago.

You're working into the wee hours trying to fix that bug. But by time the debugger catches it the original cause has long since passed. How are you going to figure out just what went wrong a billion instructions earlier? It's at times like these that you need a reversible computer. The idea is simple: a computer merely executes a sequence of elementary instructions. If we could just run through that list of instructions in reverse we could work backwards and find the original cause of our error. But of course things are never quite that simple.

Scientists are wrestling with individual atoms to develop molecule-sized computers, tiny cancer-fighting robots that travel the bloodstream and stain-resistant trousers.