Category: Computers

Researchers at the Eindhoven University of Technology in the Netherlands have been developing a new language that they hope will be easy for both robots and humans to learn. ROILA (Robot Interaction Language) was designed because modern speech-recognition software -- as anyone who has tried to use Voice Control on the iPhone or similar software -- is not refined enough to understand the nuances of ...

If you're not particularly observant and are more than a tad stubborn, we can easily see the following scenario playing out: trying to plug your iPod, camera or flash drive into your computer's USB port, while the plug is upside-down. Rather than check why the cable isn't simply sliding into the port, you force it harder and harder until eventually the port, the plug or both are broken. You might ...

digg_url ='http://www.switched.com/2010/07/15/netsploitation-the-internet-in-film/'; You can always count on Hollywood to warp real-life technology into something wholly unrecognizable. Whether it's virtual reality or social networking, we can be sure that, once translated to the big screen, representations will become exploitative or far-fetched. As for such movies that deal with the ...

You know the drill. Buy a laptop, grab the requisite warranty and tech support guarantee, and then spend endless minutes of your life on the line with said tech support every time your new baby starts to sputter. Why, you may ask yourself, is my laptop's tech support so gosh darn un- supportive? Well, Laptop Magazine did some extensive research on the subject, contacting tech support units at ...

Share If the whole space exploration gig doesn't work out, NASA might have a future in solving crimes... on Earth. According to Popular Science, a NASA rover equipped with ground-penetrating radar technology recently helped solve an 18-year-old California murder case. Back in 1991, Dawn Sanchez vanished after having last been seen in the car of her boyfriend, Bernardo Bass. Bass was a suspect, ...

Americans are understandably captivated by the Russian spy scandal that has rocked the already strained post Cold War relations between Washington and the Kremlin. The first ten spies have already been sent back to the motherland in a prisoner swap and the eleventh is still at large, having disappeared from the island nation of Cyprus. But a twelfth spy has been discovered working at the Redmond, ...

Back in January, President Obama outlined a five-year plan in which all of the country's medical records would be digitized. By streamlining and introducing electronic standards to health data, mistakes like duplicate tests could be avoided. But, considering that only "20 percent of doctors and 10 percent of hospitals use even basic electronic health records," -- according to Kathleen Sebelius, ...

Here's your perfect little design of the day: the USB Clip memory stick. Designer Arman Emami just won a Red Dot Design Award for this adorable piece of utilitarian consumer tech, and we think it's just lovely. Like an over-sized paperclip, USB Clip attaches to documents, letters, press materials or what-have-you for an economic and ecological alternative to stapling yet more paper. As we at ...

While the West's tiff with the Reds might have cooled in recent years, such is not the case in Asia, where South Korea and North Korea eye one another with suspicion and animosity. So, leave it to South Korea, which clearly has the whole technology thing figured out, to deploy robot soldiers along its northern border. Based on the testimonies of unidentified South Korean military officials, ...

Share It may seem like a trivial choice to some, but picking out the perfect wedding ring is actually a pretty major decision. This is the piece of jewelry, after all, that your future spouse will be wearing (in theory) til death do you part, so it probably shouldn't look like a Ring Pop. Even more importantly, this ring could one day serve as an immediate deterrent to any bar flies or hussies ...

Windows XP refuses to die. Nine years after the OS first landed on the scene, an approximate 74-percent of business users are still saddled with it. To make matters worse, the average age of the PC running the outdated software is 4.4-years old, which means a vast majority of users are running already outdated software on hardware that is quickly approaching obsolescence, itself. Windows 7 is ...

Here's a scenario: you're cruising along in your submarine at a depth of 1,200 feet, and one of the fresh-faced midshipmen does a spit-take all over your commanding officer's face after he asks the young cadet to wipe the leaking stopcocks in the engine room. You grab your cell phone to send a text to your buddies ashore: "LOLZ!!1 Swabbie spits on CO, hilarity/the brig ensues." You hit 'send.' No ...

For those who miss (and can still remember) the quaint thrill of receiving honest-to-goodness snail mail in their mailbox, manufacturer Brando, known for what may be the world's smallest mouse, has made the USB Mailbox Friends Alert. The miniaturized plastic mailbox connects via USB to a user's computer, syncing via software to a variety of common e-mail programs (Yahoo, Gmail, Outlook and POP3 ...

Take this as yet another reason to be careful about what you say and do at work. Chances are that your IT guys are digging a little deeper than they should. A survey conducted by Cyber-Ark Software found that 41-percent of IT pros admitted to "abusing" their administrative privileges. This means using passwords to access HR records and customer databases and finding other confidential ...

The engineers at Willow Garage already taught their astounding PR2 bot to play pool, and now those same developers have added a new capability that corresponds perfectly with the PR2's stick-shooting, barroom skill. While bartender-bots and beer-pouring "kegs on wheels" grow increasingly commonplace, the PR2 adds an entirely new dimension to cybernetic drinking. Using a Web interface, thirsty ...