News and other tidbits that Chad Cloman finds interesting enough to share
MIT researchers have developed a computer program that’s capable of reading and understanding the instruction manual for the computer game Civilization. Without any prior programming on how to play, the computer read the manual, then was not only able to play the game but went on to win 79 percent of the time.
Link #1: http://www.extremetech.com/…
(via TechRepublic)
Link #2: http://web.mit.edu/…
Adobe Flash is used all over the worldwide web and will continue to be popular for years to come. That being said, however, Flash will eventually be replaced by HTML5 (and its successors). This process is being hastened, in part, because Apple refuses to allow Flash on the iPhone or iPad. Even Adobe has seen the future and is embracing it—they recently released the beta version of a animation development tool that uses HTML5, CSS, and JavaScript. It’s called Adobe Edge.
Link: http://www.zdnet.com/…
(via TechRepublic)
I’ve never understood the US government’s reluctance to retire the $1 bill in favor of the $1 coin. The GAO estimates this would save $5.5 billion over 30 years. And while we’re discussing money, wouldn’t it make sense to kill the penny as well—inflation has made them pretty useless, and they cost more than a cent to manufacture.
Link: http://consumerist.com/…
The generally accepted age of the universe is slightly less than 14 billion years. Given that the speed of light is a barrier for how fast things can travel through spacetime, one would think that the size of the universe would then be about 28 billion light-years in diameter. Not so! Because even though matter travelling through spacetime cannot reach the speed of light, spacetime itself can expand much faster than lightspeed. Recent research puts the estimated size of the universe at more than 250 times that of the visible universe.
Link: http://www.technologyreview.com/…
(via Slashdot)
The linked article has a map of the world. It was created by tracing Facebook connections on a blank canvas—no boundaries were actually drawn, but they show up clearly nonetheless.
Google+ is Google’s latest attempt at a social networking site. And it appears they’ve done a really good job of it. Unfortunately it’s still in a field test period where membership is by invitation only, but they’ll be opening it up to the rest of us sometime in the near future. The linked article has more details about Google+ and why it will succeed.
Update: I received an invite from Eric, a friend of Chad’s News. If anyone would like to be invited, please contact me.
EA Sports publishes the popular Madden NFL video games. Each September, they run a simulation of the upcoming NFL season using the game. Their record is impressive—they’ve picked the correct Superbowl winner seven times in the last 8 years. Note that the linked article, written in September 2010, correctly predicted the Green Bay Packers as the champions.
Link: http://www.wired.com/…
(via Slashdot)
QR codes are two-dimensional bar codes that are becoming popular here in the United States. They can contain text, web links, calendar events, vCard addresses, and much more. Some people even put them on their gravestones! You scan them with your smartphone to pull up the desired information.
The linked website allows you to create custom QR codes. Josh, a friend of Chad’s News, suggests making one that contains your vCard data and then setting that image as the lock screen for your smartphone. Should you lose your phone, your contact details are right there for anyone who finds it and wants to return it.
Link: http://www.qrstuff.com/
The Chromebook is a “nothing but the web” laptop that runs Google’s Chrome browser on top of Google Chrome OS. It has the capability to upload and download files to a thumb drive but has almost no local storage. Any programs you run on it must be web applications that can be executed within a browser. With the increasing popularity of the cloud, however, it’s not too difficult to work within these constraints. Note that Chromebooks are manufactured by several different companies, and that Google itself is not one of them.
Last New Year’s Eve, a suicide bomber in Russia was preparing to blow herself up amongst the crowds in Red Square. The bomb was to be triggered remotely by a handler, who would send a text message to a cell phone attached to the explosives. Unfortunately for the bomber, the phone received an unexpected and unwanted text several hours before the planned detonation. The bomb exploded, killing her and no one else.
Link: http://www.telegraph.co.uk/…
(via Slashdot)
A man named Rodney Knight broke in to the home of Washington Post journalist Marc Fisher and stole two laptops, $400 in cash, and a winter coat. That alone does not qualify him for the coveted Chad’s News “stupid criminal” tag. What does qualify him is that, using one of the stolen laptops, he posted a picture of himself (with the coat and cash) on the Facebook page of Fisher’s son. Knight has been sentenced to 44 months in jail for the burglary and an unrelated charge of carrying a pistol without a license.
Link: http://www.theregister.co.uk/…
(via Neatorama)
Google and Facebook are offering two-factor authentication to help prevent your account from being hijacked. In both cases, you give them your phone number, then when you log in using your normal username and password, they send a code to your phone. You must enter the code as part of the login process. Gmail does this for every login, while for Facebook it’s only when you log in from a device that hasn’t already been verified.
Thanks to Josh for this topic.
Link #1 (Gmail): http://googleblog.blogspot.com/…
Link #2 (Facebook): http://www.facebook.com/…
(via Slashdot)
