Techmonkeys welcomes Kenny94

Buy Vista Today - Get Windows 7 Next Year

Steven Fry Supports Better IT Knowledge

Full article at the BBC

Quote:

Last Friday the actor and self-confessed 'technophile' Stephen Fry was one of the more interesting contributors to a rather self-serving debate about Digital Britain held at the British Library. He offered an analogy between the early days of the motor car and the current development of a network society, noting that there were no agonised debates or high-level task forces convened to discuss the rollout of the car, so perhaps we should be more relaxed in our attitude to going digital. We might not have seen our cities damaged beyond repair in the interests of improving traffic flow if we'd stopped to think, of course. But even if the network is going to happen with or without government intervention, the end result is that most of us, most of the time, will be using computers to carry out activities that are pretty central to life in the modern world. And if we do not understand how they work then we will be in trouble. There are many reasons for knowing a bit about how cars work. You can tell if there's something wrong, and avoid driving a dangerous vehicle. You can decide whether the mechanic suggesting a thousand pounds worth of repairs is ripping you off. And you can even do some things yourself. It's almost 50 years since the writer CP Snow gave his famous lecture about the 'two cultures' at Cambridge University, where he outlined the dangers that come from the lack of understanding between literary intellectuals and the scientific community. Today things don't seem as bad, and there is clearly a much greater awareness of and interest in popular science. Unfortunately a new divide has opened up, that between those of us who know enough about our computers to look under the bonnet from time to time and those who use them without any real curiosity or awareness. The results could be far worse than being ripped off by unscrupulous engineers who offer them unnecessary upgrades, because these digital tools will increasingly shape society. Those whose understanding of IT stopped at learning how to use bold font in a word processor will be at a significant disadvantage, one that we should work hard to overcome before it is too late. We don't need a nation of programmers, but we do need to be confident that everyone knows what programmers do and what programs look like.

Is anyone else amused by the mental image of Steven Fry with a screwdriver in one hand, a thumbscrew between his teeth, and elbow-deep in a server case?

Of course, if all that came to pass, most of our tech support teams would be out of a job

First Trial Without Jury Approved...WHAT!

The Court of Appeal has ruled that a criminal trial can take place at Crown Court without a jury for the first time in England and Wales.
The Lord Chief Justice, Lord Judge, made legal history by agreeing to allow the trial to be heard by a judge alone.
Mmmm Hold on a minute...One judge alone

Quote:

It is the first time the power has been used since it came into force in 2007.

Eh? now i thought i was ok with a little bit of the Law, now this is the first time that i have "ever" heard that this Act had been passed.

Quote:

The case concerns four men accused of an armed robbery at Heathrow Airport in 2004. The judge said jury "tampering" was a "very significant" danger. Lord Judge told the court the cost of the measures needed to protect jurors from potential influence, such as the services of police officers, was too high and that such measures may not properly insulate them.

Its the ££££ money making machine working again!!
Surely it is easier to tamper with, or get to, one man than it is to get to twelve, isnt it?

Take away trial by jury and you remove all barriers to a totally corrupt, non-justice system, where laws mean nothing, corporate policy becomes the rule of the land. A jury of your peers "was" the final, tenuous grip, on the "law" as it was intended.

Let me explain in brief.
The right to a jury in law dates back to Magna Carta, which is fundamental law, and is the basic framwork upon which all other laws are hung. It makes the Monarch and Parliament subject to law.

We have always had the right to "trial by jury", by 12 men / women of good standing, yes? The jury decides your guilt not the Crown.

This is a Sad Day for our justice system!

http://news.bbc.co.uk/1/hi/uk/8106590.stm

Number 360 Alive!

As far as demos go, this one is mighty impressive!

Full article and video on the BBC website

Quote:

Project Natal is a fully hands-free control system that will use face recognition and motion sensors to allow users to play games. Film director Steven Spielberg, attending the launch, said it was "a window into what the future holds". Although still in the early stages, Microsoft has sent prototypes to all the main game developers. Speaking to the BBC, Mr Spielberg said he had always stated that "the main barrier stopping people getting into video games was the complexity of a games controller," and that Natal was "a whole new world". "There is technology now that recognises not just your thumb, it recognises your entire person. The technology knows who you are," he said. Mr Spielberg drew an analogy with the film industry, saying it was evolutionary step for games. "It's like the square screen we saw all of our movies on in the early 1950s. Then The Robe came out in Cinemascope. And then came CinRam and Imax followed. That's what this [Natal] is. During the demonstration, British developer Peter Molyneux showed how Natal could not only recognise faces, it could recognise facial expressions to determine what mood a player was in and react accordingly.

Now maybe the demo in this video is scripted, a specific scenario that has quite tight limits, but here's the sorts of things I'm thinking this technology would rock for:


1) Virtual secretary. I say this because at the end, Milo says "don't forget your mum's birthday" - which was not a part of the preceding conversation. The software has remembered that from a previous time. If your PC were constantly running this software, listening to you, encouraging you to establish a narrative. You casually mention an event, and it remembers. A few days before, it prompts you, you acknowledge and it stops, you don't and it prompts you more. Gently, verbally.

Also it's evidently got excellent voice recognition, so dictation might finally be practical. If it's losing track, change the secretary's expression to one of concern and people will slow down their speech.


2) Education. Think about doing virtual science experiments at home with one of these things teaching you. You can mix chemicals, set up apparatus, or ask for advice on maths. Build a rocket from virtual components, tweak it, launch it, re-launch it until it works. Fire cars at walls and watch the results in slow mo.


Makes me wish I were in school again so I could grow up with these things