Hasta La Gadget!

Last week, AMD’s corporate vice president for product marketing, Leslie Sobon, published a piece entitled “Get a Geek in Five Easy Lessons.” The how-to guide was published on AMD’s blog, so I’ll be the first one to admit that I was shocked from the moment I started reading it. The piece (which you can and should read right here) is one of the lamest, most confusing things I’ve read on the internet in a very long time, and believe me: I read a lot of terrible stuff. Contained within this blog is Sobon’s “expert” advice on how a single and seemingly quite desperate lady (she assumes there are throngs of you) can snag a geek — no easy task if you believe what she’s got to say. Sobon’s advice for grabbing up a nerd for your very own? Change everything about yourself, lie through your teeth, pretend to be interested in super boring stuff, and before you know it: nerd happiness.

Now, before you tell me I have no sense of humor, I’ll admit freely that it’s possible that Leslie Sobon has written what she considers to be a joke piece worthy of The Onion. So I say to you: if this is a joke, why is it not funny, and why is it on the AMD blog? Likewise, of course, if she’s in any way serious… well, then why is it not funny and why is it on the AMD blog? Regardless, there are a lot of problems with Sobon’s piece, as you’ll see below. Read on if you care to travel to the depths of my cold, angry female mind.

Continue reading Editorial: AMD’s VP for product marketing probably shouldn’t give dating advice

Editorial: AMD’s VP for product marketing probably shouldn’t give dating advice originally appeared on Engadget on Mon, 27 Sep 2010 14:03:00 EDT. Please see our terms for use of feeds.

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Had your current cellphone for the better part of the this century? Turns out you aren’t the only one — according to new research gathered by J.D. Power and Associates, Americans are holding onto their mobiles for longer than ever these days. In fact, the study found that the length of time customers keep their traditional wireless cell phone has increased by 17 percent from 2009, with the average customer holding onto their phone for around 20.5 months. That’s the longest period since this study began tracking the data in 1999, when the average was 17.3 months. Kirk Parsons, senior director of wireless services at the company, feels that the recent economic downturn has a lot to do with folks keeping their existing phones longer, while we’re guessing that it has to do with existing phones simply being “good enough.”

Furthermore, anyone who is even remotely tuned into the mobile world knows that widespread 4G is just around the bend, giving folks reason to hold off on renewing their contract until WiMAX / LTE comes to their carrier of choice. Curiously, phone prices are lower than ever before, which should mean that it’s even less expensive to upgrade now than in the past. Of course, none of that matters if your existing phone contract isn’t up (or you aren’t due for a discounted renewal), and the savings on the hardware is likely being devoured by the extra fees we’re paying for messaging and data. So, are you in the “run it till it dies” camp, or are you wondering who on Earth this survey (shown in full after the break) is referring to?

Continue reading Study: we’re keeping our mobiles longer, despite sinking prices

Study: we’re keeping our mobiles longer, despite sinking prices originally appeared on Engadget on Mon, 27 Sep 2010 13:27:00 EDT. Please see our terms for use of feeds.

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by Mark Brown

In the latest episode of “stop teaching them so much,” scientists have created a humanoid robot that teaches itself how to accurately hit a target with a bow and arrow.

The cute, childlike robot, named iCub, was designed by researchers at the Italian Institute of Technology. Armed with a bow, an arrow, a cute (if politically incorrect) Native American headdress and a complicated computer algorithm, the robot learns from his missed shots iteratively, until he makes the bull’s-eye.

The task of firing an arrow, the researchers say, was picked for its inherent and obvious reward, and simultaneous marriage of motor control with image processing. Nothing to do with arming a bunch of human-hating robots to the teeth, allegedly.

ICub uses a learning algorithm called ARCHER, or Augmented Reward Chained Regression, which implements a camera to process the bull’s-eye image, and his previously fluffed attempts, to figure out the perfect angle, force and trajectory to make the winning shot.

The first iteration of iCub hit the bull’s-eye, standing three and a half meters from the target, in eight attempts. Here’s hoping the next few iterations don’t whittle it down to two or three trials while replacing the bow with a shotgun.

It’s the latest robot at the technology institute in Italy that learns complicated tasks through a series of iterative trial-and-error attempts. Earlier this year, the same institute taught a Barrett WAM 7 robotic arm to flip pancakes. That one took a slightly more lengthy 50 trials to master.

The archery-mastering iCub will be presented at the Humanoids 2010 conference in Tennessee this December. According to the conference’s program, he’ll be joined by a passenger carrying a biped, musical conducting robots, a Mini-Humanoid Pianist and a robot that can play table tennis.

Originally published on Wired UK.

Photo credit: Petar Kormushev/Wired UK

See Also:

• Robot + Super Gun = 'Crowd Control'
• Atlantan Builds Robot Vigilante
• Robot Cannon Kills 9, Wounds 14
• Wired 14.01: The 50 Best Robots Ever

Every tech freak, rich man and lazy boy wants to be able to control their house like a Bond nemesis controls his volcano. But…where do you start? Right. Here. More »

This is RuBot II. Learn his name, you will be working for him some day–if you’re lucky. RuBot II can solve a Rubik’s Cube. Really, really fast. He can do the thing in under 23 seconds. Not bad, considering that the standard cube has some 43,252,003,274,489,856,000 permutations.

The robot, the second such ‘bot (as the name implies) created by Pete Redmond, was on display at the Hall of Science in Queens this weekend, as part of the first World Maker Faire held in New York.

Before RuBot II solves the cube, a technician calibrates him, mixes up the cube, and then places it into his cold metal claws. The robot scans a side of the cube to see how it’s mixed up and then proceeds to solve it. The robot actually made it into The Guinness Book of World Records for his cube-solving skills.

Check out a video of him in action this weekend, after the jump.