Monday Links: Happy 50th, Artificial Intelligence!
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Written By Reprise Media | July 17, 2006 | Share This
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Well, happy anniversary to the workshop that spawned the movement, anyway, which was held at Stanford during the summer of 1956. Coincidentally, the mediocre film of the same name celebrates its fifth anniversary this summer. We’re still technologically somewhere between “nothing” and robotic Haley Joel Osments, since thinking machines can so far just kick our butts at chess. So savor your superiority over computer-kind, then proceed to the links:
Can we please refrain from calling him “The Hoff?” We’re talking, unfortunately, about David Hasselhoff. He’s enjoying a resurgence on the show “America’s Got Talent,” for which he performs the unlikely duty of evaluating the artistic abilities of hopeful contestants. As if that weren’t enough, Sony BMG is trying to push Hasselhoff’s new cover song on Google Video, according to Loren Baker. Says the description, “It’s Hofficial…” honestly, we can’t continue. If your patience for this kind of double-double-ironic sub-Shatnerian celebrity doofery isn’t totally depleted, the Google Video is here.
“This is United States, are we reaching…” Some folks across the pond are having trouble connecting to Big G, confirms the UK-based Danny Sullivan. He can’t access a number of services, including Google.com, Gmail, AdSense, AdWords and Google Analytics - although he can connect to Google UK. Many others are having similar problems. Google engineers are aware of the difficulties, but they’re not sure what the issue is at this time (or they’re just not saying).
Sullivan reports, though, that he can get to Google’s Blogger - which can’t be reached by anyone in India. The Government there apparently moved to block a number of blogs, including those in Blogger, Typepad and Geocities. The ban seems overreaching, and is reportedly tied to investigative efforts into the Mumbai commuter train bombings. CNBC’s Moneycontrol blog has coverage.
Note use of the word “probably” There are many ethical dilemmas surrounding the notion of human cloning, but let’s take them on one at a time, hmm? How would clones feel about being clones? The BBC says that a British/Austrian study of identical twins is trying to answer that question, suggesting that a “cloned human would probably consider themselves to be an individual.” Comforting words. Another fact from the study reveals something possibly even more important: the secret twin language slang for a non-identical twin is a “singleton” (pass it on).
Topics: Technology |