Technology

$1M still up for grabs

By AMH

I am having the students in my introduction to programming class work with the Netflix recommendations data for their final project this term, so it was timely that the New York Times recently did an article reporting on the progress that has been made on the Netflix Prize over the past two years. Nobody has made the 10% jump yet, and while teams have managed over a 9% improvement the improvements are getting incrementally smaller. The fun part of the article, though, is the details about what it is making it hard to get that last 1%. One’s rating for … Continue reading $1M still up for grabs

Keep those keys in your pocket

By AMH

I think i love this story about researchers developing a system that can generate copies of keys based on photos because it illustrates how, even after centuries, a classic security technique can fall victim to new hacks. [via Make Magazine] The system, called SNEAKEY does not require a good close-up photo of the key, though they point out that you can find many such photos online at Flickr and other sites. Their front-page example photo is a somewhat blurry image of a set of keys laying on top of a book taken from 195 feet away, but they were still … Continue reading Keep those keys in your pocket

Rise of the Machines

By AMH

Before the election falls entirely out of memory, I wanted to note this interview with Dr. Barbara Simons of the Advisory Board of the Federal Election Assistance Commission about how eVoting went this election cycle. You get a nice summary of the role of the advisory board and the efforts underway to try to ensure reliable voting. Perhaps the most interesting quote was with respect to the composition of the advisory board: I was appointed by Senator Harry Reid to one of the four seats on the Election Assistance – on the Board of Advisors which are designated for technologists. … Continue reading Rise of the Machines

Like websurfing without all that irritating clicking

By AMH

Are you a dead-tree type of person? Like the idea of Web 2.0 but not all the gadgetry that goes along with it? Or maybe you have a portable device that does better with static pdf documents than dynamic websurfing – say while commuting by public transportation. Then you might like Tabbloid. Give it a set of RSS feeds and the service will create a pdf document for you out of those feeds that you can download or have emailed to you. If you like what you see, you can set Tabbloid to email you an updated pdf of the … Continue reading Like websurfing without all that irritating clicking

I think, therefore it moves

By AMH

I haven’t watched 60 Minutes in years now, but Lifehacker has a link to the story below from last week on controlling computers with thought and I was blown away. I’ve known there was research going on in this direction, but some of what they show here is amazing. Using just surface-level sensors one device can sense the brain pattern of “recognition”, allowing people to type or select words based as they are flashed onto a computer screen. The interface for that is pretty cool – I expected from the description a series of letters shown one at a time … Continue reading I think, therefore it moves

But what if it starts swinging independent?

By AMH

I somehow have the feeling the internet is going to be rife with election-related fun today. I won’t have time for a good websurf until later because I’m trying to get to the polls to vote before class, but this caught my eye: string red and blue lights up around your house for your election party and use this python script to scape CNN’s election results and indicate how the election is trending to change which lights are on so your lightly reflects the trending of the election. Your house will start out purple and end up…. well, slightly less … Continue reading But what if it starts swinging independent?

Copyright and Documentary through Comics

By AMH

Two Duke law professors and an expert in the public domain have written a comic, available under a Creative Commons license, about the impact of current copyright culture and its impact on creativity. They are particularly focused on how a trend towards a positive obligation to “clear copyright” and show that use of another’s work is fair use is, in reality, stifling fair use as studios refuse to take risks on including fair use content without permission and individuals cannot afford to defend legal cases if their fair use is challenged. There is example after example given of individuals filming … Continue reading Copyright and Documentary through Comics

One vote per person, more or less….

By AMH

I have been reading a fair bit about electronic voting machines recently because we are talking about them in one of my classes. While I’ve waded through some pretty dry accounts of the vulnerabilities of these machines, this report with an associated video showing the ease with which Sequoia voting systems machines can be hacked using a brief exposure the the configuring computer with a USB drive. [via Boing Boing] The video also shows how various types of exploits might look to the voter and could be designed to even work in the face of physical paper-tape confirmations of the … Continue reading One vote per person, more or less….

Build-a-Bot Workshop

By AMH

I cannot decide what if anything I want to use this for, but this is a very nice little tutorial on writing your own IM bot. [via Lifehacker] It presumes you know how to do the server-side scripting (though they do give a nice sample php script so you can see there really isn’t anything IM specific in there) and the tutorial just shows how to IMified service to host a bot for you. Right now IMified is in beta, so you can get an account free, but it looks like they may start charging later so if you think … Continue reading Build-a-Bot Workshop

Chrome, Day Two

By AMH

Oddly, Chrome actually imported all of my bookmarks except the one in my “Daily” folder to my weblog management system (I clear through spam comments and the like each morning). It took me probably ten minutes to figure out how to add a bookmark. There isn’t a Bookmark menu anymore. There is a Bookmark folder, but you can’t add a bookmark from there. Right clicking on the page, or it’s tab, doesn’t do it. Right clicking on the URL in the address bar doesn’t do it. It turns out there are two ways to do it – either click on … Continue reading Chrome, Day Two