Uses for your on-machine Camera

The fad of including a Web camera on your laptop seems to be expanding. Most of the laptops I looked at recently seem to carry them. This isn't a bad idea and it does save you the bother of carrying one around with you should you actually need one. The thing is, up until today, I hadn't actually used mine.

The use I put it to wasn't exactly what it was designed for but it was really valuable. Sitting at my desk, I became aware of a pain developing in my left eye. The sort you get when a rogue eyelash migrates away from it's usual position and decides to have a poke (literally) around the inner sanctum of your eyeball. Without a mirror, you are a bit stuck for finding the little critter and getting it outta there before the pain gets to great to bare.

One useful feature of my built-in webcam, is the ability to zoom in on the subject it is capturing. I used this feature to magnify my eye so I could see what was in it and retrieve that little sucker. Of course, the zoom is valuable because if you just go right in to the camera, you can't actually see what is on the screen.

I know, Genius huh!

The Robot uprising is coming - Are you prepared?

I've been reading Daniel H Wilsons book entitled "How to survive a Robot uprising". Up until today, I thought it would be years before the, rather tongue in cheek outcomes depicted in the book would happen. After seeing the following two robots :

 

http://video.google.com/videoplay?docid=2949093547034908878

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=b2bExqhhWRI

I'm not so sure! With the advances in Artificial intelligence coming on in leaps and bounds (For example the great work the University of Hertfordshire are doing), it may already be here. The limiting factor, IMHO, for a robot world has always been mobility. These two developments overcome that obstacle. I should point out that both these examples where developed some years ago so I guess the projects have advanced even further now. Two things worry me about this. Firstly, we don't really have to wait for AI to catch up. The machines don't have to be self aware to take over the world. All it takes is a person with enough money to develop enough single application (ie, "Kill all Humans"), robots and the shear numbers would be a problem. The idea of a self aware machine created by man is an interesting one. I mean, isn't that just another form of evolution anyway so what is so far fetched about it?

A couple of curios things though. Why are the Mars Rovers so outdated? Surely, something like BigDog or QRIO could be far better suited to the Martian terrain. A limiting factor for BigDog would be the nature of it's energy source (A gasoline engine). This could, I assume be replaced with Solar power with a slight loss (due to weight increase) of mobility. With it's increased mobility, It could cover so much more terrain, reached places inaccessible to the current rovers and perhaps even clean itself so that it can run for far longer. I wouldn't want to see it licking another BigDogs butt though, know what I mean?

I think the holy grail of Robotics research has to be a nano-machine that cooperates with other nano-machines. An example would be the replicators in the TV series "Stargate".

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=wyuMtpoG7eQ

After all, the physical elements of humanity are just a collection of nano-sized chunks of matter that somehow cooperate with one another.

 

Technorati Tags: Stargate,AI,replicate,nanomachines,robots

 

BBC and ISP's clash

A story carried by the BBC new website :

http://news.bbc.co.uk/1/hi/technology/7336940.stm

ISP's are suggesting the BBC should pay for the extra bandwidth required because of it's iPlayer on demand service. What a load of crock! For a start, what about all the other high bandwidth applications, 4OD as an example and all the legal movie download sites (iTunes?), or even youtube? You might say that consumers are supporting the ISP's by charging for the service but all these providers give a vast amount of free content. For a lot of people, watching online TV is a major part of what they do on the internet. The ISP's are effectively asking the tax payer to pay for their short sightedness. For years, they have all been competing for people to sign up to their service, often cutting the cost of the service to virtually nothing just to win you over. Did they not expect the web to develop to the point where many content providers would supply video and audio on demand? Why target the BBC? If ISP's are in the business of providing the mechanism for content delivery, like rail services, Electricity or Water suppliers, they should foot the bill out of their profits for the enhancement of the service they offer, not the taxpayer. If that means the silly deals many people get have to stop, then so be it. If a service is worth it, people will pay. The many ISP's out there can then all compete on a level playing field and they can stop penalising content providers (and targetting the BBC in particular) for trying to provide people with what they want. Get your act together dopey....