Wednesday, June 5, 2002

Computer predicts World Cup result. Scientists point to a Brazilian victory in the football World Cup 2002 in a final against Italy. [BBC News: sci/tech] And I bet the simulation would have never predicted the U.S. beating Portugal. These kinds of simulations are all flawed because they apply probability to a one-time event. Sure if matches were played over and over, then the best team statistically most often comes out on top. But the match is only played once and an unlikely event might happen. I bet they will be wrong. 12:32:15 PM    comment []

These bots were made for scoring. Scientists believe a team of humanoid robots could one day beat the real world football champions. [BBC News: sci/tech] Would we really want to match up against machines? I want to see humans play. Besides, humans would very quickly figure ways to out smart the robots. Humans can adapt quickly, robots cannot. Maybe robots of the future will adapt better than they do now, but artificial intelligence has a long way to go. Now if you cn invent a robot that will do my gardening, vacuuming and cleaning, that would be useful. 12:28:00 PM    comment []

Spy cameras target school vandals. Digital CCTV is saving schools in Wales thousands of pounds wasted on dealing with vandalism. [BBC News: sci/tech] Some would consider this a potential invasion of privacy, but the results are worthwhile and the cameras are only in public places. They actually save more money in prevented vandalism than the broadband connection for the cameras costs them a year and they use this broadband for educational purposes. 12:23:03 PM    comment []

Closing in on bacteria. A technique to observe molecules on the surface of living bacterial cells offers new ways to fight infection. [BBC News: sci/tech] Atomic force microscopes give us the closest look yet at microogranisms. It will be interesting to see how close we can get. 12:19:08 PM    comment []