IBM's Jeopardy Computer or Old Technology on a Faster Machine?

Alright, so here's the deal. Jeopardy lets this smart computer play against humans in a three episode ordeal. Sounds awesome, right? Maybe some new breakthroughs in technology, or better yet more enhanced AI technology. The problem with this scenario is that the computer is fed text messages with the questions on them. Whoop-di-do, can we say pre-built databases of information. Basically this thing searches like Google through it's stored memory and regurgitates the answer. Now the only possible advancement I see in IBM's creation is that they spent years in putting together all sorts of different American English phrases into this machines memory so it can process the question correctly to find the answer, so I'll give them a half point for trying. Still, no big changes in technology, only time consuming nerds who need to get a life for once and kick-back their feet instead of wasting IBM's money in research that Google is already coming up with...oh wait, already applied in some of their web-searching servers. Good job IBM! Your balls aren't any bigger than anyone else's yet. So they say it's faster than who knows how many smart computers but that still is a who cares feature. So what if the computer can generate and push the button faster than humans. It may just be a crazy thing called electrical energy faster than human reflexes. So we're 2.5 of 3 for failure so far. Now here's the best part. Many people thought it was voice recognition until that one leaked all over the Internet and the news. Why didn't IBM use voice recognition? Now that would be an improvement. Right now scientists (nerds with money who can say they're scientists) are researching and already advancing with breakthroughs of social robots. Whoa, now that's pretty cool. Instead of talking with your friends and family you can talk to a robot that is programmed to understand human body language and expressions (such as facial expressions and hand movements) and will react to the human accordingly with such or similar expressions and body language. Now put those robots with voice recognition and IBM's human speech pattern recognition and you would have yourself an ideal piece of technology. Go soak your brain on that one Steve Jobs. Maybe you can put that into an iPhone. Adding the Internet's resources of the ever growing society of information this thing would be the first, almost flawless AI. Then we'll have to program it on how to learn through conversation and experience, and then BLAMMO, Star Trek here we come (or Star Wars, whatever your fancy). So all in all I give IBM's success a .5 out of 4.

Graphics card review

This post may be particular interesting to readers that have a more technical background. I recently purchased a new graphics card for my desktop computer. Now, I know that graphics cards are far from gadgets (in my mind it must be mobile), but many people find them interesting (including myself), so I will give a general review of my new purchase. A graphics card, or chip, is what you plug a monitor into on a desktop. Laptops also have graphics chips, but they are not user replaceable, meaning the manufactures decides what chip you are going to use and you stick with that chip for the life of laptop. Desktop graphics cards are replaceable. You can choose from a wide range of speeds and features, and in some cases, you can even have more than one. Graphics cards are like computer processors. They go up in value the faster they get. Their primary purpose is to allow for very computing intense video games. I purchased a Radeon 6970, which cost me $350 after it was all said and done. That may sound like a lot, and it is, but I bought top-of-the-line equipment because I have a non standard computer setup. I knew that I would be spending quite a bit on the graphics card when I chose that setup design. So far, I love it! It plays all my computer games quite well (on the highest setting in most cases). I just wish I had more time to play them. I have had trouble with other brands of cards in the past, hopefully this purchase will work out better. Next post, I will talk about other more helpful uses of these very expensive gadgets.

A Look into Otoscopes

So, other than the audiometer, what other gadgets do Speech Language Pathologists use to screen hearing? Let's start with a more familiar gadget: the otoscope. This is the device that, when you go to the doctor, is used to look inside your ears. It is a fairly simple gadget consisting of a magnifying lens and a light. It uses a disposable tip that fits into the ear canal easily when the ear is pulled up to straighten the ear canal (which rests at an angled position). Using the otoscope, you can see the ear canal up to the tympanic me
mbrane (eardrum) and can usually tell pretty easily if there are problems such as infection or wax buildup. An otoscope alone will not give you any information about what the client can actually hear, or what they are not hearing, but provides further insight into what may be going on inside the client's ears.

I. personally, do not have a lot of experience with otoscopes, but it is one of the gadgets often available for Speech Pathologists to use.

Has anyone ever wondered what set top boxes do?

In most households and apartments today, whether they be on cable or broadcast, you most likely have a set top box.  Everyone knows we switched to DTV for broadcast television a few years back. Why did we switch, and what does the box do?  During the summer of '09, you had to start using a converter box to get signal over the air if you had an older TV.  Those boxes cost money. Who is paying for this stuff?
Up until the summer of '09, we were using a broadcasting system as it was developed in the 40's and 50's. Back then, there were plans for many more stations in both VHF (very high frequency) and UHF (ultra high frequency). Each station got 6 MHz of bandwidth to broadcast programing.  Back then, the regulators picked prime bandwidth for broadcasting so you could have more people served per station.  Fast forward to modern times. Things did not work out as well as they had hoped. There were far fewer broadcast stations than they had planned, and therefore, there was a lot of wasted air waves.  Other companies wanted to use the wasted bandwidth for other purposes.  So they came up with a plan. They were going to move all of the tv broadcasts to digital, rearrange the tv stations so they were closer together on the EM spectrum, and then use the cleared up space for other technologies, which would pay for the transition.

Old televisions, of course, would not be able to pick up a digital signal, and it did not know where the stations were because they changed location in the EM spectrum.  They fixed the problem by making a box that had a  digital tuner for the new TV broadcast, that would piggy back on the analogue tuner inside a tv.  Also, if you think this DTV conversion is only a USA thing, then I've got news for you.  Below is a map of the world with an overlay of DTV transition. As you can see, most of the world is still switching to the new standard. I borrowed this image from wiki commons.

How to pick a great laptop

Most everybody I know owns one. There are people who swear by one brand or another. Today, we are going to talk about laptops. I will try to think of the average consumer when I consider laptop features. This means we are not talking about 2000 dollar gaming laptops or Macbook pros.  These laptops clearly have better specs than your average laptop, but are out of the price range for most people.  In the last five years, I personlly purcahsed two laptops and a netbook.  My first laptop broke after only 2.5 years. 

The first thing to consider is the screen size.  Laptops start at about 12 inches and run up to 17 inches.  The most common sizes are 14 and 15 inch notebooks.  If you are looking for a new laptop, I would start with these sizes first.  Few people have reason to buy a laptop smaller than 14 or larger than 15. You may, however, find you want somthing very portable or very powerful; that is your choice. 

Next, let's look at what you will be using it for. Are you going to carry it with you a lot? If you do, I would look at laptops under 6 pounds and below 1.5 inches thick.  How about photo editing?  Maybe you should look for a computer with a separate graphics card.   For most people, a 5 to 7 hundred dollar laptop should last several years. Now comes personal taste. I like to have a nice screen on my laptop, and I will pay more for it, or inversely, buy a slower computer to get a better screen. What is the purpose of buying a laptop that you can't read very well on? What about processing power? The number of processors determines the number of tasks you can complete at one time. They do have 4 core processors for laptops, but I see very few reasons to have one. A 2 core processor will work for 90% of the laptop users. Other people think brand is very important. I once bought an Acer, and, as I said earlier, it died after a couple years. HPs have had some problems in the past, but are usally recalled if something goes wrong with the model.  Dells are okay, but are less adavnced than the other brands. If you buy a Dell, you get last year's hardware at this year's price. Right now, I have a Samsung Q series notebook, which I would recommend to everybody willing to listen.   One last point is looking at warranties. For the most part, I do not think they're worth the money.  I know someone, however, who bought a warranty and used the warranty 5 times before they gave her a brand new laptop. . 

Overall, buying a laptop is a personal preference. Make sure you know how you will use it so that you can look for the combination that suits you best.