Tag: engineering
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The Emperor’s New AI
by
Andrew Orlowski
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“It looks like you’re trying to have a conversation with a computer – can I help? In the early 1970s, no science show was complete without predictions of HAL-like intelligent autonomous computers by the turn of the century. The Japanese, fearing their industrial base would collapse without a response to this omniscient technology, poured hundreds…
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Are Google’s glory days behind it? – Colly Myers
by
Andrew Orlowski
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Colly’s prognosis was sound. In December 2008, Google announced its intention to make “social search” a significant factor in its search results – the end of the hegemony of the algorithm. “It’s a well known aspect of man and machine systems. Complex systems with no control fall over. Every example of it you can think…
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Junk science – the oil of the new web
by
Andrew Orlowski
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There’s a case to made that James Surowecki’s The Wisdom of Crowds is the most influential book of the decade – The Selfish Gene for the noughties. Both have something else in common: the title of each book is profoundly misleading. Crowds aren’t wise, nor can genes be selfish – as one critic famously wrote,…
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Justice Dept slams ‘Machiavellian’ Microsoft
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Andrew Orlowski
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Vista’s fate foretold… by Machiavelli. A prophetic quote. trust settlement, and quoted Machiavelli to support its case for an extension to the monitoring program. As of 1 February, over 700 issues remained outstanding out of over 1,000 submitted to the monitoring committee, which was set up to ensure Microsoft keeps to its word in the…
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The worse Google gets, the more money it makes?
by
Andrew Orlowski
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Microsoft today is barely acquainted with how its software is produced. Now Google’s search results look similarly out of whack. It’s hard to imagine now, but there was a time when the mainstream press was barely acquainted with the genius and foresight of today’s technology leaders. Fifteen years ago Bill Gates appeared on the BBC’s…
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‘Lightweight, high-velocity and very connected’
by
Andrew Orlowski
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At ZDNet, it’s Microsoft’s “Pearl Harbor”! Forbes screams, “Google’s office invasion is on!” Only it isn’t – and we have the founder’s word for it. As we reported yesterday, Google has paid an undisclosed sum for a web-based document editor, Writely. It’s a product that seems as mature as the company which produced it, Upstartle.…