What is Artificial Intelligence?

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Computers Help Deaf Children Learn New Sign Language

Posted by William On October - 23 - 2009
Electronic Learning Environment (ELo) teaches deaf children learn new sign language

Electronic Learning Environment (ELo) teaches deaf children learn new sign language

The are about 28 million deaf and hard-hearing americans. Most of them use the natural hand signals to communicate. However, new technologies are on the rise to help these deaf individuals learn new ways to communicate. One technology that is getting more popularity is the use of computers integrated with intelligent systems to convert sign language into written text or images or even speech.

Researchers at TU Delft developed an intelligent application integrated in the computer which can recognize sign language in real time and can therefore be used to teach children who are deaf and hard of hearing new signs more quickly.

Using a camera that is mounted on the computer, children communicate through the normal hand signals, then the computer recognizes and interprets this information. The Electronic Learning Environment (ELo) application displays a picture for the deaf to identify the correct hand signal. In a study conducted for ages three to six, the deaf respondents showed a remarkable increase in sign language vocabulary compared to a control group.

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World’s Smallest Computers made of DNA

Posted by William On October - 19 - 2009
DNA Computers

DNA Computers

From Mainframes and Super-computers that NASA and the military used to perform on large volume of data to hand-held gadgets like your palmtop, now come the latest in nanocomputers- super small computers made of DNA, also known as Biomolecular computers! So small that a trillion fit in a drop of water!

It was developed by a team of three from Weizmann Institute’s Biological Chemistry and Computer Science and Applied Mathematics Departments. The first version was developed in 2001 to do simple computations of 0s and 1s.

A newer version of the device, created in 2004, detected cancer in a test tube and released a molecule to destroy it. A sort of ‘doctor in a cell’ locating disease and preventing its spread – biomolecular computers could possibly be injected into the human cells and conceived to perform millions of calculations in parallel. Now, team in a paper published online August 3 in Nature Nanotechnology, have devised an advanced program for biomolecular computers that enables them to ‘think’ logically.

Click here for the full World's Smallest Computers made of DNA story

Now that IntelliJ has gone open source I thought it would be helpful to see how it compared to the other popular JAVA IDEs NetBeans and Eclipse. I'm personally have been using NetBeans & Glassfish for many years now but I'll try not to let it cloud my judgement.

IntelliJ IDE

IntelliJ IDE

Code Formatting:

Intelli J IDE, Eclipse IDE and Java NetBeans IDE perform similar in Code formatting. Both of these technologies format whole source, format selected part only and user`s specific formatting of code.

Finding and Replacing:

All the three IDE`s support finding and replacing with options such as case matching, regular expressions, etc.

Eclipse contains a common dialog box for both finding and replacing. The dialog box overlaps the editor’s window.

Intelli J has special dialog window for replacing and a fast pop-up top bar for finding. Intelli J has cleverly designed it.

NetBeans has a similar approach but the pop up window is at the bottom of editor’s window.

NetBeans IDE

NetBeans IDE

Code Completion:

Code completion is similar in all of the three IDE`s and they have the same design. Intelli J has a special feature which is called “Camel Hump” which searches an appropriate text amongst the list of words.

Use Hints:

Eclipse: - A bulb icon appears on the left side bar with line numbers on appropriate line. When the cursor is hovered on the bulb a text with hint explanation pop`s up and a whole list of solutions are displayed.

IntelliJ: - IntelliJ user needs to practically click on the hint text available for List of solutions which are made public.

NetBeans: - In NetBeans user needs to scroll on the hint text for possible solutions.

Macros:

NetBeans: - Netbeans supports Macros editing and support. User can remove, rename, edit and set shortcut. Good thing is user can edit shortcut for a macro on every two places, bad thing is user cannot run a macro without setting a shortcut.

IntelliJ: - In IntelliJ user can record, edit and rename the macro. User cannot set the Macro shortcut. Once the user sets the macro`s name it is automatically added.

Eclipse: - Eclipse IDE does not support the Macros feature.

Syntax highlighting:

All the three IDE`s support syntax highlighting. They allow the user to change the pre defined colors.

Eclipse IDE

Eclipse IDE

Code Navigation

Navigator:

Some of the various features which are present are:
1) Structured view
2) Filters
3) Quick search
4) Pop up navigator

NetBeans IDE, IntelliJ and Eclipse support structured view, filters and quick search. Pop up navigator feature is not supported by NetBeans IDE and IntelliJ whereas Eclipse supports this feature.

Tasks Management:

There are certain sub sections for tasks management which are:
1) List of tasks in active source file
2) List of tasks in project
3) Filtering
4) New task definition

Eclipse: - It has classical view of tasks. It allows the user to sort out tasks by available fields such as description, resource, path, location and priority. It supports List of tasks in the project, Filtering and new task definition.

NetBeans IDE: - NetBeans IDE has similar approach like Eclipse but it does not support task priority. NetBeans IDE shows the errors in different window.

IntelliJ IDE: - It has a tree view of tasks. Leaves of the tree are tasks whereas the nodes are files. Moving from one task to another task is difficult and a complex process. There is a default TODO command in the settings.

Refactoring:

There are certain sub sections for refracting such as
1) Find usages
2) Rename
3) Move
4) Safe delete

Eclipse IDE: - Eclipse IDE supports find usages, rename and move features. When the user wants to change or rename a method, identifier will be highlighted and user can change the name of the method.

IntelliJ: - IntelliJ supports Find usages, Rename, Safe delete and Move. A single view is presented before the user they are new name, refractor, preview and cancel button.

NetBeans IDE: - NetBeans supports all the four functions which are find usages, rename, move and safe delete. Netbeans preview is similar to the Eclipse design. The preview window is displayed at the bottom of the screen which makes it difficult for the coder to view.

Automatic Code Generation:

Automatic code generation has two sub sections which are
1) Constructor
2) Setters/Getters

NetBeans IDE: - NetBeans IDE supports the functions constructors and

setters.

IntelliJ IDE: - Supports the functions Constructors and setters.

Eclipse: - Eclipse has similar design and supports constructors and setters. It has some other capabilities such as insertion point where code can be generated.

Frameworks and Technologies Supported IntelliJ (Community Edition free) NetBeans Eclipse
OSGi Yes no yes
Grails no yes no
Rails no yes
JSP no yes yes
Servlets 3.0 no yes yes
JavaServer Faces 1.0, 1.2 no yes yes
EJB 3.0, 3.1 no yes yes
Web Beans no no ?
Bean validation no yes yes
Flex, Air no no ?
GWT 1.X, 2.0 no yes yes
Struts 1.2, 2 no yes yes
Spring 2.5, 3.0 no yes yes
JBoss Seam no yes yes
Hibernate no yes yes
JPA 1.0, 2.0 no yes yes
JAX-WS, Apache AXIS no yes yes
REST WebServices no yes yes
Tapestry no no no
Google App Engine no no no
Application Servers
Apache Tomcat no yes
GlassFish v2, v3 no yes
JBoss no yes
WebLogic no yes
WebSphere no no
Geronimo no no
Resin no no

What is Artificial Intelligence?

Posted by William On August - 28 - 2009

So you may be wondering just what is artificial intelligence? Many people think of AI and relate it to movies about robots traveling through time, killing people, or other outlandish tales.

What is Artificial Intelligence

What is Artificial Intelligence?

One of the best movies that perhaps relates to AI, especially in the relatively near future would have to be the actual movie A.I. This describes a whole generation of androids that think for themselves, and some not even knowing they were robots in the first place.

If you type 'what is artificial intelligence' into a search engine on the computer you will be bombarded with so much scientific information you may have your own system overload. There is talk about the brain, and intelligence, and computers. It is greatly overwhelming and hard to understand most of it. It takes time and creative thinking to find information that you can relate too.

What is artificial intelligence?

Put simply it's the study of programming software to make computers and other items smarter. It also means that programming software to learn from mistakes, or errors and fix them automatically.

Making computers learn on their own is much less time consuming than having to reprogram it all the time. Robots too have learning capabilities as well. Using censers, cameras, and other kinds of information gathering, they can perform a wide range of different motions, including being able to walk up stairs, dance, and interact with people.

"Put simply it's the study of programming software to make computers and other items smarter."

What is artificial intelligence? Well you can see it in action every day. It started out teaching strategy games to computers, like chess. The basic principles of the game were programmed in, as well as what each pieces movements were. As people play against the computer, it learns from your techniques and using that knowledge calculates the best way to beat you.

It can also use what it learns to predict what possible moves you may make, and adjusts strategies accordingly, often calculating many moves ahead. With the human factor, sometimes we do things that are unpredictable, and so if you make a move that wasn't predicted by the computer, it will extrapolate accordingly.

When we play on gaming stations against the computer, this is a form of artificial intelligence as well. With the newer gaming platforms the computer brain uses knowledge programmed into it to act accordingly to your moves, and tries different ways to defeat you, or to help you out. Signals sent from the controller are relayed to the gaming brain and is translated into movement, shooting, etc.

What is artificial intelligence? Making computers and other devices smarter, faster and using your input to do things that make life easier.

You see artificial intelligence in a variety of applications, from smart appliances that will automatically save electricity, to a whole house wired to turn lights on automatically when you enter a room, and turning them off when you leave. Refrigerators than can sense when you are getting low on something and reminds you using a monitor and key pad on the outside of the door.

"You see artificial intelligence in a variety of applications..."

Coffee makers and other small appliances often have small computers in them that can turn on automatically at a certain time, and have your coffee ready for you when you get up.

The field of artificial intelligence is growing by leaps and bounds. If you have the skills and knowledge, it is possible to get into one of these exciting careers.

You will have a hand at new breakthroughs in robotic sciences, for consumer or military applications, as well as medical and manufacturing technologies. There is a wide array of opportunities that can await you, but will not wait for you.

You can find out more information through the internet, but as I said before, make sure you type in exactly what you're looking for, or you may get more than you bargained for.

You can find out what is artificial intelligence and how it works for you, find a job in this field, and even buy 'smart' products the make daily activities easier to do. There are assortments of robots that you can buy, from small figures that can interact with you, to smart vacuums that can pick up around the house by themselves.

About Me

I am a computer programmer that loves technology, gadgets, making & learning new stuff. I love to read & basically to figure crap out.

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