Artificial Intelligence

"Artificial intelligence (AI) is defined as intelligence exhibited by an artificial entity. Such a system is generally assumed to be a computer." (Wikipedia: Artificial Intelligence)
This slowly evolving concept is being used now in a variety of fields: from genetic research, to search engines, from complex computers in space stations to amusing pet robots. The fact that it is so much used, and it is playing such a big role in our lives, can only mean that, somewhere in the future, the ultimate breakthrough will be made, and humans will be able to create machines with more "natural intelligence". By natural, meaning that the machines will be able to give the same answers and arguments for questions, as would normal human beings. Only a better understanding of the human mind could allow for such machines to exist. The fact that we still now so little about how we achieve thinking, how we are able to draw generally valid conclusions is the most important thing that keeps this new phenomenon from happening.
But what are the actual tasks that an artificial mind cannot do? At first glance, it would seem that it should be easier for the machines to do the things we do, because they would only have to think, they will never get tired and there won't be any natural laws to limit them.
The human thinking process is, from my inner observations, composed of several smaller tasks and aided by different capabilities. These all must be implemented in a machine, for it to function as we do. As an example, let's say that the light in our room has suddenly disappeared. How do we react when this situation occurs? The infinite number of circumstances can lead to an infinite number of thoughts that could go through our mind. But we can draw the basic ideas of how the human brain works from any scenario. The light has disappeared. This fact was established also by our brain from analyzing sensory receptors, but we'll ignore this for now. After the light gone out, in an instant, our mind started an inner "dialog". The "dialog" contained questions and answers like these: "Why has the light gone out? Hmmm.. the computer is still running, so it isn't a power failure. The switch is still on, so nobody is toying with me. I wonder if the light bulb got toasted..". This dialog isn't so obvious when dealing with simple, common situations like these. But try to see when you are solving a math problem, or are faced with a hard decision to make. See how you simply talk to yourself and try to reach a conclusion. The most important thing about our brain is that it has a language. A language is composed of abstract entities that have exterior and physical existence. Our Brain has to deal with the facts, but it can't do so, without giving labels. This layer of thinking seems to be already present in machines, in the form of software languages. However, software languages only label machine internal concepts, like the different hardware parts. So, a machine can't use software languages to label physical entities. The next step that was made was to manually implement such a language that could deal with real objects. This is the phase in which Artificial Intelligence is now. An AI capable machine is generally composed of hardware and software. The software has the "exhausting" responsibility to provide the machine with a good natural language. It does this by "brutally robotizing" the English language.
To be continued...

No more free mp3s?

The recent cascade of law suits started by the RIAA (Recording Industry Association of America) and targeted at individuals uploading or downloading considerable amounts of copyrighted material over P2P networks, surely made a lot of people think twice before searching and downloading new songs from networks like FastTrack. With this unpreceeded number of lawsuits, and the ambitiousness with which the RIAA is trying to end this phenomenon, the future of file sharing is certainly a bit cloudy. Without the massive amounts of mp3s and videos, I doubt that these P2P networks could be of any use to anyone. Some claim that P2P Radio Networks will become the next attraction, as they would allow people to host their own radio shows without illegal bindings, but it isn't that sure that after removing illegal file sharers, people will consider themselves forced to buy CDs or online mp3 subscriptions.
Hundreds of individuals have been sued, many of them settling without trial, as the RIAA is using the controversial method by which it can subpoena an individual or ISP, without any court order and can then demand the identity of the user.

Is Google taking over the Net?

These past years, Google has targeted different areas on the web. They first started with their search engine, then, after hitting big with the AdWords system they invested in all types of services. So far, they have launched Gmail, Print, Blogger, Maps, Base and Analytics which quickly became popular, all benefiting from the fact that Google is the no 1 search engine. Rumors say that Google will buy another company, Riya, for their photo recognition technology.
So, could it be that Google is trying to monopolize the Internet, by covering all these areas and taking advantage of its popularity as a search engine? But what could make them succeed, in favors of other giants, like Microsoft or Yahoo!? By looking at the services listed above, they all seem to have something revolutionary, something that wasn't present at any other application before. For example, Gmail became popular because it offered 1GB of storage, now it is well above 2GB, Print is the first service to digitize books and make them available for free on the Internet. Why is Blogger special? Well, first, it is pretty easy to use, it was among the first blogging services to launch, it is free and associated with the Google brand. These all are worthy advantages, but the plus comes from the integration withe AdSense. Users can easily generate revenue from their blog by showing ads. This is so popular now, that a new type of spam has emerged, sblog, where machine generated blogs try to take advantage of AdSense or other ad services. Google Maps has two main advantages. First, the fact that it is well organized, complex with a lot of information and uses the power of Google's search engine. The second main advantage is that it can be easily integrated by any application from outside Google. They have taken the effort to develop the interfaces so that anyone can use their service. This can now be seen in a variety of website that use Google Maps, combined with GPS technology to show, for example, the location of cabs in New York, or even show at all times where felons on parole are. Google Base, is also very revolutionary and very promising. It has the unique feature that allows any user to post his information directly into Google's database, without creating any website. Analysts say that Google Base will offer a very structured and well organized database which will surpass search engines. I am having doubts about this, but nevertheless it is a good service. Finally, Google Analytics, which has been recently launched, offers all that is needed to see how a website is doing, from visitor statistics to website content statistics, down to every detail. On top of this it is free for everyone. No-one can compete with this. They are having some problems now, because of the large number of accounts that have been created, in just one week of its launch.
So, to conclude, it is my opinion that as long as advertisements can fuel Google's engines, it can take-over the Internet by continuously adding to its free web services list and making profits from the popularity of its free products.

What's the deal with Microsft Live.com?

I heard about this a couple of times. It seems it has been recently launched, so I decided to take a closer look. In the articles I read, Microsoft kept going on and on about the new web revolution, were internet services like Live.com are becoming the newest attraction. After I logged on, using my Microsoft Passport of course, no chance otherwise, I saw a small sidebar on the left with a couple of content generating items and the main page which already had some panels installed, like Mail and Weather. When I was reading about this, I imaged the site would be more like a Windows Desktop, with some small useful programs, but nothing like this. There are just a couple of panels, with news, stock quotes, weather, mail inbox, all sort of different websites, a clock and that's about it. It turned out to be a more complex version of Google's personal page system, or Yahoo!'s news page, where the user can add some panels and then log in every time he needs something from there. However, it's a Beta release so far, so maybe more items will be added soon. Anyway, Microsoft seems really anxious about this new service. After the number of defeats on the search engine market, and on the software market they need something to keep them alive.
One more funny thing I noticed. When I first hit the "What's new" link on Live.com, an interesting error message appeared, saying: "Wow, we must have screwed up..." I don't recall the rest. Pretty interesting from the arrogant software giant.

Software renaissance II

New ways of funding and making revenue from software products are surfacing these years. One of them is by showing advertisements to consumers and generating revenue from that. This method works if the software product is popular enough to be acquired by a large group of people which will be the target of the ads. So the more popular the product, the more revenue you can achieve. Microsoft recently announced that it has given serious thought to giving their products away for free and generating income only from advertisements. This is an obvious cause of the Open Source phenomenon, which brought many old-time software vendors to completely rethink their strategies. Big corporations, like Oracle and Microsoft are now offering free products to their customers and thinking of new ways to promote and popularize their applications. Microsoft is even considering a free version of their operating system, Windows, to be launched and to depend solely on the advantages of its popularity to bring cash from other companies' ads. So, it is possible that in the near future, you could download a version of Windows that will show a small Rolex ad in the Start Menu, and the more you click it, the more money you send to Microsoft. Software products are becoming more close to web applications, by integrating a number of patterns which link them to the whole internet community. Popularity is turning out in the new criteria that will measure a software application. The more it is downloaded the more its value is raised. This brings a bit of Hollywood essence in the IT world, a program being able to use its popularity to earn cash. A Windows version showing ads on the Desktop could be like a movie star doing commercials for Pepsi.

Software renaissance

New perspectives are reshaping the way software is created and delivered. In the era of Open Source "revolution", people are starting to glimpse back at the past when software was being sold on CD-ROMs for $x a license. Often buggy and difficult to install, the program tried its best to do the job it was bought for. Although it was created to suit the needs of as many it was possible, every user would have wanted it done another way, whether it was rearranging some buttons or adding a new feature. On top of the fact that sometimes the consumer had to make changes to accommodate and work better with the program, there were the update and maintenance fees and different license schemes aimed to draw as many bucks as it could.
Nowadays, however, big changes are taking place. People are coming closer to developing their own applications, based on their own needs. Taking advantage of the Open Source idea, now you can easily assemble your personalized application. More reliable, being the result of the work of a community, an open source application has the flexibility to allow everyone to use it at its full best.

Chunks of Open Source code found in Sony's copy protection software

As if the root-kit wasn't enough, now, after unraveling the source code of the controversial CD copy protection software, programmers found functions identical to ones used by an open source mp3 encoder called LAME. A Dutch article was posted this week, saying that experts found undeniable evidence of code coming from LAME. They say they found a string in the code representing a website, http://mp3dev.org and several other strings which point to the open
source mp3 encoder. However, they didn't find any notice of this in the licence of the copy protection program, as the GPL under which LAME was released needed.
Here is an excerpt from the Dutch article, translated online:

"Sony have only satisfied to none of these requirements, but provide a
feasible programme. A computer expert, of whom the name is confessed at the
redactie, discovered that on the cd Get Right With The man of Van Zant
strings from the library version.c of Lame sits. This is make up from the
string: http://www.mp3dev.org/"," 0.90 "," LAME3.95 "," 3.95 "," 3.95.
But the expert has more proof. This way sits there at a place in the
programme go.exe so-called array largetbl. This is a part that is used in
the module tables.c of libmp3lame. "

Some interesting research about this copy protection program is being carried out here: http://hack.fi/~muzzy/sony-drm/

Sony teams up with NEC

Sony and NEC announced today they will set up a joint venture for optical disk drives. According to Reuters: "Sony and NEC will transfer their optical drive businesses to a new entity due to start operations on April 1. Sony will hold a 55 percent stake in the venture, which will design and make DVD and CD drives for personal computers and other products". The market is growing quite strongly, as a NEC spokesman said, and the competition is tough while the prices are falling. But gaining a larger market share might not be the only purpose of this partnership. This could also bring more support to the upcoming blu-ray DVD format developed by the Blu-ray Disk Group which is said to launch soon. Sony, amongst other 16 companies like Hitachi and LG, is on the Group's board of directors and is one of the leading companies who supported this new format. The other competing format, HD DVD, promoted by Toshiba, Microsoft and Intel and also by major movie studios enjoys more popularity from companies eager to get a piece of the multibillion dollar market, by adding support for this new format in their software applications. So, as PC manufacturer no. 2 in the world, Hewlett Packard hasn't yet decided which of these two formats to support, the newly formed partnership between Sony and NEC could be a boost in the blu-ray DVD's future.