TCC 7.78 (Full Moon Edition) -- comp.ai distribution
Kenneth I. Laws
_________________________________________________________________
AI Vol. 7, No. 78
IS November 13, 1997
CS THE COMPUTISTS' COMMUNIQUE
"Careers beyond programming."
1> Technology news.
2> Robotics.
3> Pentium bug.
4> Apple news.
5> Other platforms.
6> Research software.
7> Job services.
8> Computists' news
_________________________________________________________________
The worst thing that can happen to you as an enthusiastic adult
is that you could appear foolish to people who need to criticize.
Let me assure you -- enthusiasm is worth this risk. If you
allow yourself to be enthusiastic, you'll be so full of wonder,
you won't care what people think. -- Barbara Sher, "I Could
Do Anything If I only Knew What It Was." [Thought, 16Oct97.]
Goood morning, Computists!
1> Technology news:
Carnegie Mellon's 'Digital Ink' is a 'pen' that lets you
write on paper but records the strokes, applies handwriting
recognition, and stores the text. (412) 268-7890. [New Visions
of Human-Computer Interaction, Sep97. NewtNews. Bill Park.]
Alan Gelperin has patented a supermarket scanner
(or small chamber) that recognizes fruits and vegetables
by their smell. The scanner would communicate with a cash
register, ringing up the correct price. NCR holds the patent.
[NYT. SJM, 11Nov97, 2C.]
Mugspot software searches video of crowded scenes such as
airline terminals, looking for specific faces. The software
watches for the best view of a face over 13 seconds or so,
but is able to work from partial views and can even deal with
changed mustaches, beards, hair styles, and glasses or sunglasses.
Mugspot won 1st place in recent Army competitive trials,
performing remarkably well in poor lighting conditions.
It was developed by USC and UBochum with funding from the
Army Research Laboratory (ARL), and is already in use (as ZN-Face)
by Deutsche Bank and others. The current implementation can
search eight video frames/second for a match to any of several
hundred faces. [Eric Mankin <man...@usc.edu>, (213) 740 9344;
Science NEWS, 05Nov97. Jeffrey Waters <wate...@mail.firn.edu>,
comp.society.privacy, 07Nov97.]
Sandia National Labs has a 3D representation of complex
computer programs, for virtual-reality visualization and
manipulation of software. [Science News, 25Oct97. EduP.]
If organic molecules can be coaxed to form wires and
transistors, a single beaker could hold more transistors
than the chip industry has yet produced. Mark A. Reed has
a team at Yale working on the problem of measuring current
at molecular scales. So far they've managed it for a single
benzene molecule. [Susan jackson, BW, 03Nov97, p. 160.]
IBM has announced a PC hard drive holding up to 16.8GB.
The new drives use the "giant magneto-resistive" (GMR) effect,
discovered in 1988. [Janet Rae-Dupree, SJM, 10Nov97, 7E.]
Bart Kosko's latest book, Nanotime, is a good read
for science fiction fans or the general public. It's a
techno-thriller about personal intelligent agents, a crisis
in the Middle East, and smart warfare. [Wyatt Brown
<wbpar...@hotmail.com>, com.ai.neural-nets, 25Oct97.]
2> Robotics:
Could nanites fly? How about insect-sized robots?
Charles Ellington, a zoologist from UCambridge, has been
studying this. "For the average insect, flying through air
is like swimming through treacle." That's why insects
don't have airfoils. Still, there's no reason flight should be
impossible. <http://www.newscientist.com/nsplus/rnr/rnr.html>.
[New Scientist, 11Oct97. Alex Zivanovic <a.ziv...@ic.ac.uk>,
comp.robotics.misc, 16Oct97.]
The Fuzzy Logic in Autonomous Robotics (FLAR) website
collects resources on the uses of fuzzy logic techniques
for autonomous robot navigation. There's also a 40-page
survey of the field by Alessandro Saffiotti.
<http://iridia.ulb.ac.be/FLAR/>. [<asa...@ulb.ac.be>,
comp.ai.fuzzy, 02Nov97.]
Cybernetics Research Consortium (CRC) has a web page
on cybernetics and AI, at <http://ic.net/~holston/>.
[R.M. Holston <hol...@ic.net>, comp.ai, 27Oct97.]
3> Pentium bug:
Intel has confirmed an "F0" bug in its Pentium and
Pentium MMX processors (but not Pro or II chips) that causes
a loop if a certain sequence of invalid opcodes is encountered.
That wouldn't happen normally, but the sequence could be
introduced by virus or trojan programs. [SJM, 11Nov97, 1C.]
For more about the "FOOF" bug, tune in to comp.sys.intel or to
comp.sys.ibm.pc.hardware.chips or comp.sys.ibm.pc.hardware.misc.
There's also an Intel Secrets Web Site, <http://www.x86.org>,
with articles about Intel's x86 microprocessors. It gets
over 1M hits/month. The bug is triggered by the instruction
"F0 0F C7 C8" -- hence the name. (C8 can be replaced by 0xc9
to 0xcf.) In C, you can demonstrate it with "char x[5] =
{0xf0, 0x0f, 0xc7, 0xc8}; main() {void (*f)() = x; f();}"
or "long main [] = {0xc8c70ff0};" or "void bug(void);
#pragma aux bug="DB 0xf0, 0x0f, 0xc7, 0xc8"; void
main(void){bug();}". The chip flaw is that it doesn't raise
an exception condition, so the operating system can't
intercede (or even log the error). Processor reboot by
power-cycling is necessary. Sysops won't even know which
processes was responsible. It could be an ordinary user,
a denial-of-service attack, or an ActiveX control on a Web page.
(Not a Java applet, though, since Java is pseudocode
interpreted by trusted code.) The origin of the bug is subtle,
having to do with bus-locking, 64-bit addressing, instruction
lookahead, and L1 cache management in the Pentium's parallel-
pipelined superscalar architecture. Newer chips and clones
of Pentium chips don't seem to have the problem. [Bill Park
<pa...@netcom.com>, 10Nov97.] (Bill suggests that the Pentagon
of NSF may have increasing interest in AI-based design techniques
for provably correct systems.)
4> Apple news:
Steve Jobs has announced three new Macs based on the "G3"
PowerPC 750 chip, which runs at 233MHZ to 266MHz. Jobs says
the G3 is similar in capability to Intel's Pentium II/300MHz chip,
but with 1/3 the size and 1/7 the power requirements. The new
Macs are $2K-$3K, or $5700 for a 250MHz PowerBook G3, and are
about twice as fast as previous high-end Macs. (Future versions
may add a faster internal bus for real-time video applications.)
Apple is now selling made-to-order G3 models through a website
-- The Apple Store -- offering over 300 possible configurations
of the G3 mini-tower. [Jodi Mardesich, SJM, 11Nov97.]
(No word yet on a cheap "network computer," which will most likely
be announced in January. Rumor has it that Oracle will offer
server software to support the NCs. [NYT, 11Nov97, 1C. EduP.])
The PowerPC 750 chip -- codenamed G3 by Motorola
and Arthur by IBM -- takes only five watts at 250MHz,
versus 20 watts for a 604e processor at 200MHz. It's optimized
for integer instructions and for MacOS 8, but is a bit slower
for floating-point operations. The processor can run at 2-8 times
the computer's clock speed -- or up to 528MHz in theory,
for these models -- and can be made to slow down if overheating.
Data and instruction caches have been increased to 32K each.
Branch prediction has been improved -- allowing the processor
to guess an answer and work ahead, throwing away the result
if it guessed wrong -- and there's a fast "backside"
or Level 2 cache for frequently used instructions and data.
<www.mot.com/SPS/PowerPC/products/semiconductor/cpu/750.html>,
<www.chips.ibm.com/products/ppc/documents/datasheets/750
/604_750.html>. A G4 processor is expected in 1999;
<www.apple.com/powermac/technologies/ppcroadmap.html>.
[Geoff Duncan <ge...@tidbits.com>, TidBITS, 10Nov97.]
Apple's new website store is at <http://store.apple.com/>,
and appears to offer most of Apple's product line. There's even
a Special Deals page with some refurbished Macs and clearance
items. International shipping and support haven't been
addressed yet. [TidBITS, 10Nov97.] (You can also order
from (800) 795-1000.)
The Apple Store logged over 4.4M hits and booked $500M
in orders during its first 12 hours. [PRNewswire, 11Nov97.
Bill Park.] (Apple's next big problem may be how to keep
its retail sales outlets happy.)
RHAPSODY is a discussion list about Apple's new
Rhapsody operating system. Send a "subscribe rhapsody
your name" message to <ly...@clio.lyris.net>. Archives
are on <http://clio.lyris.net/rhapsody/>. [Vince Sabio
<lis...@telephonet.com>, NEW-LIST, 18Oct97.]
MacTech Magazine has added 3000+ pages to their website.
<http://www.mactech.com>. [NewtNews, 04Nov97.]
5> Other platforms:
When Palm Computing developed its PalmPilot electronic
organizer, they had to find someone to manufacture it.
Former partner Tandy/Radio Shack turned them down, since
it had lost money on the Zoomer. Palm didn't approach Casio,
Sharp, or HP, since all had competing products. Negotiations
with a telecom company and a PC company broke down over who
would control the technology. Finally U.S. Robotics
showed interest. Palm was asking for a $5M investment to cover
production, but accepted a counter offer of $45M in stock
for the company. Early buyers were mostly tech-savvy men,
35-45 and making over $100K/year. They liked it and told others,
creating holiday sales of 350K units. (Zoomer had only sold 10K
the previous season.) This year there are over 200 companies
creating add-on software or hardware. 3Com, which bought U.S.
Robotics, has licensed the PalmPilot to IBM, which sells them
as the IBM Workpad. Now 3Com is working on specialized devices
for vertical markets such as inventory work, parcel delivery,
and medical charts. [Janet Rae-Dupree, SJM, 10Nov97, 1E.]
(And of course there are competing units that cost less,
store more data, or offer additional functions. Some customers
want the best buy, others buy into the community experience.)
ASK-ABOUT-BE is a help desk mailing list for people with
Be OS questions, especially the "newbies" who are installing
Be OS on their Macs. Also tips, tricks, short cuts, error
messages, etc. Send a "subscribe ask-about-be your name"
message to <list...@home.ease.lsoft.com>.
[Albert Buys <ab...@jersey.net>, NEW-LIST, 20Oct97.]
(Not run by Be or Apple.)
PC-NEWBIE is a PC/Mac hardware and software support forum.
Formerly a daily digest, it's now a real-time mailing list.
Send a "subscribe pc-newbie" message to <majo...@world.std.com>.
<http://www.users.interport.net/~czguris/pcnewbie.htm>.
[Christopher Zguris <czg...@interport.net>, NEW-LIST, 24Sep97.]
Inside Solaris is a monthly electronic and print newsletter for
Sun Unix administrators. Subscribe at <http://www.cobb.com/sun/>.
[newjour, 21Oct97.]
OPENBSD-MAC68K is a discussion of the free UNIX BSD
implementation for the 680x0-based Macintosh. Send a
"subscribe openbsd-mac68k your name" to <list...@associate.com>.
[Glen Stewart <glen_s...@associate.com>, NEW-LIST, 23Aug97.]
Techie is an unmoderated discussion and newsflash list
for computer science students, MIS instructors, programmers,
web publishers, and CIS pre-professionals (seeking professional
certifications such as MCP/MSCE/MCT, CNA/CNE/MCNE/CNI/CIP and A+).
Help forum, free training resources, career planning, and free
software for CIS professionals. Send a blank subject line to
<join-...@marketserv.com>. [Jon Hulett
<marke...@marketserv.com>, NEW-LIST, 11Nov97.]
Jesse Liberty's "Clouds To Code" (Wrox Press, 1997)
documents the design, implementation, testing, and rollout
of a real C++ project, from start to finish. "This is
programming in the trenches." <http://www.libertyassociates.com>.
[<jlib...@libertyassociates.com>, comp.object, 28Oct97.]
6> Research software (in our CRS 7.39 digest this week):
MOLE 2.1: mobile agent system for Java 1.1.
Malaga NLP engine for English, German, Italian, and Korean.
WML 1.3: website meta language for HTML generation.
WEDS 1.0.5: Java-based microprocessor/DSP simulator.
SOM Toolbox 1.0 beta for Matlab 5: self-organizing map data
analysis code.
LAIPE parallel linear system solver package.
Book: The Handbook of Discrete and Computational Geometry,
ed. by Goodman and O'Rourke.
Book: Connectionist-Symbolic Integration,
ed. by Sun and Alexandre.
Book: Learning to Learn, ed. by Thrun and Pratt.
Book: An Introduction to Natural Computation, by Dana Ballard.
Book: "Mind Versus Computer -- Were Dreyfus and Winograd Right?",
ed. by Gams, Paprzycki, and Wu.
7> Job services:
ECM Selection claims to offer "the pick of the UK's
top software R&D opportunities in alife, intelligent games,
neural network design, and search agents/Web robots,"
at <http://www.ecmsel.co.uk>. ECM Selection Ltd
<top...@ecmsel.co.uk>. [<van...@ecmcel.demon.co.uk>, 04Nov97.]
Depending on your ambitions, consider signing up for
the Senior Executive Service Vacancy Announcement list from
<emp...@odcsper-nt1.hqusareur.army.mil>. Openings for 05Nov97
included Deputy Dir. of NIST's Information Technology Laboratory,
(301) 926-4851; Assoc. Dir. for Air Force Modeling, Simulation,
and Analysis, (703) 693-6499; Program Dir. of Command, Control
and Communications Systems for the Naval Sea Systems Command
(San Diego), (703) 607-1745; and Dir. of Physical Sciences
at the Office of Naval Research (Arlington, VA), (703) 696-0972.
[J. Delancy <jdel...@tecnet1.jcte.jcs.mil>.]
Computists' news:
Joaquim A. Jorge is chairing the31Aug98 EUROGRAPHICS '98
conference in Lisbon, <http://www.eg98.gpcg.pt>, and would
appreciate hearing from Computists who are interested. Draft
papers are due by 09Jan98. [<Joaqui...@inesc.pt>, 10Nov97.]
Happy prime-numbered birthday (on Friday) to Brian "captain"
Murfin, <cap...@armadillo.net>!
-- Ken
The objective of the enterprise is to make money
and to have fun doing so... Any of our business teams
that are making a lot of money seem to be having a lot of fun.
Any team working on developing product or business that
they anticipate will make a lot of money appear to be having
still more fun. -- W. L. Gore & Associates Inc.,
makers of Gore-Tex. [SJM, 17Sep95, 1PC. QOTD3, 3Nov97.]
_________________________________________________________________
ISSN 1084-015X. Publisher/Editor: Dr. Kenneth I. Laws,
4064 Sutherland Drive, Palo Alto, CA 94303; (650) 493-7390.
Internet: <la...@computists.com> or <la...@ai.sri.com>.
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