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Posts Tagged ‘Prey’

Evolving robots navigate a maze, help each other, plot descruction of mankind
You’ll say the whole Robot Apocalypse meme is played out. We say it’s your lack of focus that’ll eventually be the downfall of society. Gurus at the Laboratory of Intelligent Systems in the Ecole Polytechnique Fédérale of Lausanne have been working on “evolving robots” for quite some time, but the latest breakthrough is easily the most astounding (and in turn, terrifying) of all. According to new research that was just made public, a gaggle of robots programmed to use Darwinian selection in order to learn, evolve and mutate have now successfully moved sans collisions through a maze and helped each other push tokens around in order to achieve a common goal. Moreover, some of the creatures even displayed early signs of a predatory-prey relationship, which effectively assures mankind that these cute little learners will one day assimilate to rule the world however they please. Keep laughing if you must — it’ll probably make the painful sting of reality a bit easier to take when Doomsday rolls around.

Continue reading Evolving robots navigate a maze, help each other, plot descruction of mankind

Evolving robots navigate a maze, help each other, plot descruction of mankind originally appeared on Engadget on Mon, 01 Feb 2010 07:49:00 EST. Please see our terms for use of feeds.

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Use your iPhone to scare a bear (right before it eats you)

Filed under: Humor, iPhone, iPod touch, App Review

Thanks to Stephen Colbert, we’ve become acutely aware of the dangers of bears, the “soulless, godless, rampaging killing machines” who patrol the forests of North America and prey on unwary hikers (some potentially not-safe-for-work language on that last site, FYI). Until now, your best defense against these furry terrors has been simply avoiding their killing grounds altogether. But Flying Jalapeño Software has introduced the latest weapon in the arsenal against the ursine menace: ScareBear Trail Companion [iTunes link].

ScareBear Trail Companion is an iPhone app that replicates the sounds of bells, clapping, and rocks in a tin can (yes), all of which are supposedly like kryptonite to bears and will scatter them from your path before you even encounter them. Should you happen to come across a bear immune to these charms and wards, ScareBear Trail Companion still has you covered – in an emergency, you can use the app to sound an emulated air horn, which may terrify the creature and send it scurrying away.

There’s only three slight weaknesses with this app that I can foresee. First is that it depends on your iPhone having a charge. If your iPhone’s battery goes dead in the woods, listen for the spooky soundtrack cues, because that is surely the very instant a bear will charge you from the undergrowth. Second, it takes a lot of concentration on your part to find and launch the app, wait for it to load, and then press the button to make noise; even if you can keep your wits about you when half a ton of teeth and fur is rearing up before you, anything slower than an iPhone 3GS will probably cost you critical seconds. By the time the app launches, you may already be halfway down the bear’s esophagus.

Third, and most damaging to the utility of this app, the iPhone’s speaker simply isn’t all that loud. I’ve generally found that even at the highest volume, I’ll often miss hearing my iPhone’s ringtone in a noisy environment – and environments don’t come much noisier than a roaring, hungry monster like the one pictured above. Bears may or may not have more sensitive hearing than humans; no one knows for sure, as all attempts to scientifically study these brutal creatures have ended in tragedy, with laboratories leveled to dust upon the bears’ inevitable escape from their bonds.

In any case, ScareBear Trail Companion probably isn’t going to save your life from a bear. If anything, it’ll probably just irritate it and make it angrier. You’d probably do more damage to the bear with your iPhone if you fed it to him. I haven’t been able to test ScareBear Trail Companion myself, as there are no bears in New Zealand outside of zoos. As a matter of fact, that’s part of why I moved here. Safe at last.

TUAWUse your iPhone to scare a bear (right before it eats you) originally appeared on The Unofficial Apple Weblog (TUAW) on Wed, 20 Jan 2010 19:30:00 EST. Please see our terms for use of feeds.

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MySQL Co-Founder: "Save MySQL from Oracle’s Clutches"

Several days ago, we called MySQL’s falling prey to Oracle one of the top 10 tech-related failures of 2009.

It seems we’re in good company, as one of MySQL’s founders, Monty Widenius, the man who spent the past 27 years creating and working on MySQL, is using his personal blog to incite mass letter-writing to the European Commission in order to ensure the open-source future of the popular database. We’re not the only ones who questioned whether MySQL would “succumb to corporate lameness” after a takeover by a major closed-source competitor. In fact, Widenius speculates that Oracle could close or even kill all or parts of MySQL.

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Although the U.S. Department of Justice approved Oracle’s acquisition of Sun Microsystems earlier this fall, the EC chose to open an investigation of the matter. The DOJ saw no problem with Oracle’s acquiring MySQL and focused instead on Java licensing issues.

Widenius, who split from Sun earlier this year after – and entirely because – MySQL was acquired by Sun, wrote in October about how MySQL could be shuttered.

“The easiest way to kill MySQL would be to not sell licenses any more or make their prices ‘really high’. Another scenario is that the development resources are drastically reduced in some important areas. Then people would stop believing in the future of MySQL, which slowly will kill the product… It’s safe to assume that both Sun and Oracle understand this.”

Now, Widenius says MySQL – hardly an underdog in the space – has grown and stabilized to the point that it “hurts Oracle every day… Oracle have to lower prices all the time to compete with MySQL when companies start new projects. Some companies even migrate existing projects from Oracle to MySQL to save money.”

Although Oracle has made several statements about the future of MySQL, here’s what Widenius says the companby has not guaranteed:

• That all of MySQL and its parts, modules and tools will remain under an open source license
• That MySQL license and support prices will remain the same
• That new versions and submitted patches will be released consistently and in a timely manner
• That dual licensing will continue and that affordable commercial licenses will be available
• That MySQL will be developed as an open source project
• That Oracle will work with the existing MySQL user community
• That discrimination will nor occur when MySQL patches compete with Oracle products
• That MySQL will continue to be developed in ways that make it even more competitive with Oracle’s main offering

In other words, by omitting certain language, Oracle has left itself more than enough ammunition to kill MySQL, if not execution-style then certainly over a long, slow, painful process of throttling innovation and freedom (as in beer and as in speech). Widenius points to Oracle’s handling of the InnoDB acquisition in 2005 as a possible sign of things to come. “In the end, he writes, “Sun had to fork InnoDB, just to be able to improve performance.”

So, without a list of users, Widenius is issuing a call to the entire open source community to help save MySQL from Oracle by emailing the EC and stating that either Oracle is not a fit steward for MySQL or that Oracle must make certain guarantees to ensure its open-source competitor’s success. EU Competition Commissioner Neelie Kroes is a known supporter of open-source technology; if user emails reach her before January 19 and make a significant impression, her office could shut the deal down.

As we’ve reported in the past, MySQL usage is expected to drop if the acquisition is complete. It seems that Oracle is putting a bad taste in the mouth of more than a few open-source geeks.

What’s your opinion? Do you think Oracle should be allowed to take MySQL and do with it as they please? Do you think Oracle should have to make certain guarantees to ensure the longevity and success of MySQL? Or do you think MySQL should simply go to a good home, a.k.a. a nonprofit foundation, and remain a standalone competitor to Oracle’s offering?

Vote below, and let us know your full thoughts in the comments.

Should Oracle Get MySQL?(surveys)

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Cartoon: For a Massive Fee, I’ll Show You How to Do It Right

I’m not sure what it is about social media. Here we are in this field that’s still emerging/exploding (or “explerging”, to use the trademarked term from my upcoming book, premium podcast, and $4,000-a-seat webinar) and constantly morphing. Yet there seems to be this powerful drive to lay down absolute laws about what works and what doesn’t.

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Blogging? You should be posting twice a day. No, actually that’s too often; it abuses people’s attention. Wait, actually that’s not often enough; other people will eat your lunch. Actually, blogging’s dead, so move to Twitter, where you absolutely must follow everyone who follows you, unless you absolutely mustn’t, so don’t, unless you do. And when they do follow you, sending them an automatic direct message will either lift you into the Twitter elite or damn you to eternal ridicule. Possibly both.

I’ve fallen prey to this temptation myself, so I say all of this with a certain amount of chagrin. But I hope I’m on the road to reform: embracing my uncertainty, and vacillating with confidence.

(By the way, the title of Chris Brogan’s smashing blog post inspired the Neanderthal’s line in this cartoon.)

More Noise to Signal.

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There Is A Difference Between Evil And Just Absurdly Profitable

Lots of negative feedback from our post the other day on Cash4Gold’s amazing growth and profitability. This year, their third year of operations, they are on track to make $160 million in revenue and $50 million or so in profits. All from encouraging people to send in gold jewelry in exchange for cash.

A handful of comments pointed out the very funny Onion spoof on the company where the U.S. government uses Cash4Gold to pay down the national debt. But many of the rest say the company is a scam.

Example: “They offer people significantly less money than their gold is worth and prey on people’s ignorance and desperation. If those profit margins are right, they’re basically stealing from the uninformed. Search online and you’ll find a ton of scam stories about them. It is a very, very shady business…”

Another: “There must be a difference between doing business and stealing from people. I can not believe that this company is still in business. goverment should bring some regulations and monitoring to this industry. due to the recession people are desperate and this company is taking advantage from people. how the owners can sleep at nights. they are taking advantage of people in need of money.”

And: “It appears they are litigious scammers. Running scams is a great way to rake in money.”

Etc.

The chief complaint is that the company offers customers too little money for their gold compared to the spot price at any given time. My understanding is the company aims to pay no more than 50% of the spot price to sellers. The rest, after operational and substantial marketing expense, is profit.

And there is certainly nothing wrong with a company making a profit. They are offering a convenient service to consumers (they send you the prepaid envelope to ship your gold, pay insurance, and ship the gold back to you if you don’t take their offer). If you don’t like what they offer to pay you, use another service. The site even tells you that pawn shops, local jewelers and online services like eBay and Craigslist may fetch you a higher price.

Overall I don’t see any serious ethical issues at all with Cash4Gold, with one exception. If the company is in fact not sending back jewelry promptly to customers who have declined the offer, that needs to be fixed. But hard bargaining and lowballing offers to consumers isn’t evil. It’s just a business decision.

There are no ethical issues here that you don’t see with Google’s business model that generates obscene profits. Or the Windows/Office franchise. Or the exorbitantly priced hot dog vendor at the baseball stadium. Or $30 wifi in a hotel.

I’d personally like to see them make a flat out promise to pay some percentage of the spot price of gold – say 50% or 66%. That way people can have a better idea of what they’ll be offered. Given how many competitors there are in this market, I wouldn’t be surprised for something like that to happen eventually anyway.

But let’s save the “this is evil” comments for the really insidious stuff. Like Jigsaw, who continues to make a killing of the sale of our personal information. Or the Intelius scam we reported on last year where consumers were being automatically signed up to useless credit card subscriptions.

Making obscene profits may make you jealous, but it isn’t evil. There’s a reason so many people are using the Cash4Gold service – it’s easy and convenient. They don’t make promises on their website that they don’t keep, and they aren’t tricking or scamming people. They are simply buying low and selling high, and that’s capitalism at its finest.

Crunch Network: CrunchBoard because it’s time for you to find a new Job2.0

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