Ask an expert what the mobile phone industry of the future looks like and you'll get what seems to be a dystopian vision straight from the dark imagination of sci-fi.
Face recognition and detection technology is becoming cheaper, faster, and much more commonplace, raising the question of whether people will be able to remain anonymous in the near future.
Earlier this week, Pete Cashmore, the founder of Mashable, published his top 10 trends for 2012. And while Cashmore's list is characteristically prescient, it misses one trend which I suspect will increasingly shape our attitude toward technology over the next year.
Google made its first foray into the growing field of social facial recognition technologies on Thursday, introducing Find My Face, a tagging suggestion tool for its Google+ social network.
On a recent summer Saturday, more than 200 developers gathered to spend 24 straight hours diving into the startup world's buzziest arena: photo hacking.
updated: Sun Sep 04 2011 10:00:00
Mashable Editor-in-chief Adam Ostrow explores your options to stay in the virtual world after you leave the real one.
How much do you know about your great-grandparents? In most cases, the answer to that question is "Not much." But that's something that will be forever changed as a result of the hundreds of thousands of pieces of digital content the average person will produce in his or her lifetime.
In the futuristic movie Minority Report, computers scan faces to display targeted advertisements to individuals when they walk down the street.
updated: Mon Jun 20 2011 12:08:00
Digital lifestyle expert Mario Armstrong explains the latest Facebook feature to spark privacy concerns.
Facebook's facial-recognition feature for automatically tagging uploaded photos with the names of those pictured sparked a backlash from privacy advocates. Now it's coming under scrutiny from Connecticut's attorney general, who sent a letter to company officials this week requesting a meeting.
It took mere hours to confirm that the person killed in a compound near Pakistan's capital was Osama bin Laden.
Imagine an ad that stares back at you when you glance at it -- analyzing your face, your age, and who you're with.
Google is working on a mobile application that would allow users to snap pictures of people's faces in order to access their personal information, a director for the project said this week.
updated: Wed Mar 09 2011 11:41:00
Ray Kurzweil predicts a dawn of total artificial intelligence in the not-so-distant future. Go to VBS.TV for more.
In the year 2050, if Ray Kurzweil is right, nanoscopic robots will be zooming throughout our capillaries, transforming us into nonbiological humans. We will be able to absorb and retain the entirety of the universe's knowledge, eat as much as we want without gaining weight, shape-shift into just about any physical form imaginable, live free from disease and die at the time of our choosing. All of this will be thrust on us by something that Kurzweil calls the Singularity, a theorized point in time in the not-so-distant future when machines become vastly superior to humans in every way, aka the emergence of true artificial intelligence. Computers will be able to improve their own source codes and hardware in ways we puny humans could never conceive. This will result in a paradigm shift that sees mankind coalescing with its own creations: man and machine, merging into one.
Last month, Google unveiled its latest innovation, an app for phones that can near-simultaneously translate speech from one language to another.
Facebook Photos, one of the social network's most popular features, is getting a big and potentially controversial upgrade with a new feature that automatically suggests who users should tag in photos based on facial recognition technology.
It's not even one day old, but the new Kinect video-gaming system was at the center of a potential controversy.
It's a typical classroom scene: Students working at their desks as the teacher calls out instructions. But, unlike your average teacher, this one is made of plastic and computer circuits.
Most of the time, Stacey Schlittenhard finds facial recognition technology to be extremely useful. When she uploads her family photos to the website Picasa, for instance, the program automatically tags her friends and family members. This lets her share the photos easily and saves her hours of organization.
Microsoft has pumped out voice recognition software for years, but the company has a curious aversion to publicizing the fact. With Windows 7, Microsoft's speech recognition has become a decent productivity tool and one that the company should be proud to proclaim as an OS feature. For the casual speech recognition user, nothing beats free -- especially when one considers the $100+ price points for third-party software.
The "semantic Web" does not sound like it's fun and easy to use, but it could make surfing Web 3.0 a more rewarding and interactive experience. Some believe it could even lead to a new form of artificial intelligence.
We have been taught to keep our electronic gadgets out of the sun, dirt and rain. So it is a surprise to come across a startup that wants its sophisticated gear subjected to everything nature can throw at it, at least within the confines of your yard.
The TechCrunch conference, like the blog that puts it on, is all about startups and the unabashed energy of the new. That means, of course, that some companies debuting at the three-day conference are more ready for prime time than others.
Jones built his first fortune in the early 1990s. A graduate of Indiana University, he was working as a research scientist at MIT's artificial intelligence lab when he met Greg Carr, a Harvard grad student. Carr believed that the 1984 breakup of Ma Bell would present some sort of opportunity, and the two 26-year-olds would just have to figure out what it might be. At a telecom conference in Atlanta, Jones saw the current state-of-the-art voicemail hardware: million-dollar refrigerator-sized machines invented in the early '80s. "I was coming out of MIT's AI lab, where everything was progressive, young, vibrant, energetic," says Jones with characteristic chutzpah. "These guys were toast."
Researchers at University College London (UCL) are helping to explain why humans see illusions.
Pick me! Pick me! The weakest children may no longer be left out of playground games. New technology may help to put kids on a more level playing field, which may in turn motivate them to learn and encourage competitiveness. Using modern artificial intelligence and robotics, new playground games can recognize a child's behavior and respond accordingly -- in real-time -- to make the game harder or easier.
It's an illusion, William Gibson says. A trick. Fiction is a construct that plays with your mind, creating a world within.
If you went around saying that in a couple of decades we'll have cell-sized, brain-enhancing robots circulating through our bloodstream, or that we'll be able to upload a person's consciousness into a computer, people would probably question your sanity.
As man-vs.-machine classics go, it had the crucial elements: The brash young champion. The new-and-improved computing powerhouse. That the champ was 17-year-old Ben Cook, anointed by the Guinness B...
Jeff Hawkins was just another junior engineer at Intel in 1979 when he stumbled across an issue of Scientific American magazine that would illuminate a path to what would become his life's work.
A car that can drive itself is the fantasy of any designated driver, but the dream of owning a vehicle that does all the driving while you sit back and relax is one step closer to reality, as in-car artificial intelligence being developed by a team at Stanford University is ready to be used on city streets in the ultimate test of robot cars.
A car that can drive itself is the fantasy of any designated driver, but the dream of owning a vehicle that does all the driving while you sit back and relax is one step closer to reality, as in-car artificial intelligence being developed by a team at Stanford University is ready to be used on city streets in the ultimate test of robot cars.
Where can the car take us this century? It revolutionized transportation in the twentieth century, but not without consequences.
"Does Artificial Intelligence pose a greater threat or benefit to humanity?"
Mention Artificial Intelligence and most people are immediately transported into a distant future inspired by popular science fiction.
Often referred to as "America's new national pastime," poker has exploded over the past couple of years -- specifically Texas Hold 'Em games, a popular poker variant that has spawned TV shows, online competitions and even poker chips sold at local convenience stores.
If Ray Kurzweil is right, the business landscape - indeed, the entire human race - is about to be transformed beyond all recognition.
Combine role-playing game action with familiar cartoon characters and you'll end up with "Kingdom Hearts II," a fantastic sequel to 2002's best-selling Sony PlayStation 2 game.
We all know that the company Sergey Brin and Larry Page founded a mere eight years ago is one of the new century's most cunning enterprises. If there were any lingering doubts, 2005 erased them. Go...
In the last years of the 21st century, humanity finally grasped the importance of They-Who-Were-Google. Yet as early as 2005, Their destiny was clear to any semi-hyperintelligent being. Technologists like Ray Kurzweil1 suggested that Strong AI (an intelligent program capable of upgrading its own code) would emerge from Google-like data mining rather than a robotics lab.
By 2020 exciting advances in bio-interfacing will make it possible for a wider range of diseases to be treated electronically.
Telephone conversations are difficult if you are hearing-impaired, but a group of scientists has created technology that makes things easier.
If you enjoyed playing 2003's "The Getaway," an action-adventure title that let you run and drive around a photorealistic London, then chances are you'll have fun playing Sony's new sequel, "The Getaway: Black Monday," as it's virtually the same game.
Bill Clinton was president at a time when Internet companies enjoyed an inordinate amount of hype.
A Florida scientist has developed a "brain" in a glass dish that is capable of flying a virtual fighter plane and could enhance medical understanding of neural disorders such as epilepsy.
All the while Jeff Hawkins was creating the PalmPilot, launching the era of handheld computing, and amassing hundreds of millions of dollars, a big part of his mind was somewhere else. It was somew...
Sounds like something out of "The Twilight Zone," doesn't it?
NEW YORK (CNN/Money) - Holographic projectors. Spinal input ports. Head mounted 3D displays. If the predictions of certain developers come true, the video game machines of 2025 are going to be remarkably different than what we use today. But what about the games themselves?
The first U.S. passport to feature facial-recognition technology should be produced by December, but the technology won't be widely distributed until late 2005, a State Department official told Congress on Tuesday.
"Imagine if you could convince a bunch of robots to act like ants, and further convince them that they really like land mines," observes James McLurkin. "That would be a boon to society."
Almost lost amid all the hoopla over the European Union's ruling against Microsoft was some interesting news: On March 24, Redmond unveiled its Speech Server product line, which it expects to begin shipping in the next few weeks.
Nobody won. Nobody even came close.
If ever there were a field in which machine intelligence seemed destined to replace human brainpower, the stock market would have to be it. Investing is the ultimate numbers game, after all, and when it comes to crunching numbers, silicon beats gray matter every time.
If ever there were a field in which machine intelligence seemed destined to replace human brainpower, the stock market would have to be it. Investing is the ultimate numbers game, after all, and wh...
Jeff Ready used a counterintuitive approach to win $5.5 million in funding from Sequoia Capital this fall. When invited to talk to members of the venture capital firm about his spam-fighting startu...
Fred Smith brushed aside the C he received on the college economics paper in which he outlined his idea for an overnight delivery service. His gut told him it would work anyway. (Besides, the Feder...
In October 1945, 5,000 people waited outside Gimbels Department Store in New York City for the chance to buy a revolutionary new writing tool, the first ballpoint pens sold in the U.S. This fall a ...
A.I., Steven Spielberg's new film about a robot who can love, seems to have about as much verisimilitude as his dinosaur movie. It features Jude Law as a robot gigolo, and David, a disturbingly lif...
Welcome to the Brave New Work Academy, the world's top institution providing advanced management courses for leading executives. As a global business executive, you understand that the most importa...
I once heard a standup comedian quip that no men's razor has a rotating head, lubricating strip, and stubble expunger, because it would weigh 45 pounds. If only Aqcess Technologies, creator of the ...
As a young engineer, Richard E. Morley grew frustrated at having to write program after program to automate customers' manufacturing controls. The era of electromechanical relays was ending, but th...
Why does Scotch tape stick? I confess, I don't know. It's one of many simple wonders of everyday life that I rarely think about and couldn't explain. How you are able to read this column is another...
Squinting into his crystal ball, futurist Adrian Berry envisions a revenge of the nerds: They--not politicians --will henceforth shape history. Berry suggests that's actually nothing new, since ner...
I WAS SITTING in a bikers' strip bar in Salem, Oregon, next to a naked young woman named Shelby when it struck me that this wasn't turning out to be a typical FORTUNE research project.
Maybe it's a good thing computers haven't evolved as fast as predicted in the movie 2001. Imagine the user's manual for Hal, the 1968 film's eerily intelligent computer. Worse, imagine how complex ...
Peter Ferrara, chief operating officer of Granum Communications, has plenty to keep track of. His company owns five radio stations in Orlando, Boston, and Dallas and just bought six new ones, pendi...
Make way for the technology revolution. Just as individuals are changing the stock market with their purchasing power, so too will the latest advances in computers change the way stocks are priced ...
IN A SUITE of small offices strewn with electronic equipment in an old building in downtown Palo Alto, California, the ten boyish-looking Ph.D.s who constitute Lexicus Corp. are making computer his...
Quants -- those games-loving computer nuts who trade securities with quantitative techniques -- first became part of the public parlance in Liar's Poker, the rollicking, 1989 tell-all book about Wa...
WHEN Jean Kovacs comes into the office each day, she dons a little headset and greets her computer with a brisk ''Good morning!'' In response, her Sun workstation lights up its screen. ''Start mail...
It sure is tough to be a hero to your spouse. Take Yoshihiro Fujiwara, the director of Matsushita's intelligent electronics laboratory. He has put the principles of fuzzy logic -- a form of artific...
The pioneers of artificial intelligence had in mind systems that are really intelligent in the way people and animals are -- systems that could see and hear. It turned out that higher-level tasks l...
ALMOST EVERYBODY has heard by now about artificial intelligence: computers that will be able to do things that dullard humans can already do instantly, such as spot a face in a crowd, understand sp...
The imaginary Acme Finance Co. has a problem. All its experts at evaluating credit applications suddenly quit, so Acme's managers need a way to predict which of their new customers will pay their l...
You wouldn't suspect that John Young lives life in the fast lane. He has worked for one company, Hewlett-Packard, for 31 years. He's been married to one wife -- they met in elementary school -- for...
PICTURE in your mind's eye (because American Express wouldn't let us photograph it) a giant computer room with row upon row of big blue IBM machines. The room is a storage bank whose treasure is ac...
STUCK WITH dusty old computer programs that are incompatible with the latest hardware? Want to peddle military software to the Army, but your package doesn't meet the Defense Department's new progr...
A COMPUTER CHIP that combines the knowledge of experts and the imprecision of amateurs could bring artificial intelligence down to earth. Developed at AT&T Bell Laboratories, the experimental chip ...
''WHAT DO most people know about speech recognition?'' asks Janet Baker. ''Well, they saw HAL in 2001: A Space Odyssey.'' Baker, 38, and her husband, James, 40, own Dragon Systems Inc., a tiny Newt...
IN A DIMLY LIT ROOM crammed with piles of black boxes and tangles of colored wires, a young scientist is talking to his computer screen in a loud voice as if it were a slightly deaf friend. Into hi...
MANY OF THEM didn't know Jerry Junkins. But when the memo went out announcing his promotion, workers at the Dallas headquarters of Texas Instruments privately applauded. To them his elevation to pr...
Recent advances in computer hardware and programming have given enormous commercial urgency to the ancient philosophical disputes about the nature of mind and thought. Nowadays, instead of Aristotl...
AT AT&T's famed Bell Laboratories in New Jersey, garden-variety slugs are nudging forward the frontier of computer science. Inspired by the discoveries of physicist John Hopfield, a team of Bell La...
ON A CLOUDY November afternoon, a visitor sat before a blank computer screen in an IBM laboratory preparing to dictate a message that the computer would try to transcribe. The IBM scientists demons...
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