Hasta La Gadget!

We haven’t heard much out of IBM and its impressive Watson supercomputer in a while. Watson is the supercomputer that IBM fielded as a contestant on Jeopardy back in 2011. Despite the fact that Watson was able to perform impressively well on the game show, it’s still been unable to pass the Turing test designed to determine if a computer can think for itself.

The Turing test says that a computer capable of carrying on a natural conversation without giving itself away can be considered intelligent. The problem for Watson is that human language has a lot of subtlety and is packed with slang. IBM research scientist Eric Brown decided to help Watson learn human slang by setting the machine free to ingest content from Urban Dictionary. You can see the beginnings of a problem about now.

As instructed, Watson gobbled up all of the material on Urban Dictionary. However, the supercomputer was unable to tell the difference between acceptable language and curses. According to the IBM scientists, Watson even use the word “bullshit” in response to a question posed to him by researcher. Apparently, the IBM researchers tried a filter to stop Watson from cursing but were ultimately forced to wipe all the content from Urban Dictionary from the supercomputers memory. I think they should have left it alone. I find the idea of a multi-million-dollar supercomputer cursing at scientists undeniably entertaining.

[via CNN]

In the future, we may not have any problems with carrying even full-sized tablets in our pockets because they’ll be as portable as plain old paper, as shown in this prototype technology called PaperTab. It was developed by Intel, Plastic Logic and Queen’s University’s Human Media Lab.

The PaperTab uses Plastic Logic’s flexible high-resolution 10.7″ electrostatic display, a flexible touchscreen and a Core i5 CPU. Like paper documents, PaperTab is meant to be used in groups. Each tablet is meant to run a single app, but users can also put multiple units together to form a big interactive display. Instead of just using gestures, users interact with the PaperTab by bending its portions. Transferring media and apps from one PaperTab to another is accomplished with a simple tap.

I wouldn’t be surprised if we actually end up with tablets this thin and bendy in the future. But I think having one app per device is a step backwards, and I wouldn’t want a permanently dog-eared and crumpled tablet. Then again the technology is in it’s very early stages so it’s too early to comment on its practicality anyway.

[Human Media Lab via Smarter Planet]

I’ve seen a lot of weird shoes in the past few years. Remember the Scary/Beautiful shoes that looked more scary than beautiful, and the pimp shoes with fish tanks in them? But I think none are quite as strange or interesting as Julian Hakes’ Mojito heels.

Hakes’ design went viral back in 2009 when he posted a concept that garnered widespread attention. His design explored the idea of how a shoe would look like if it were thought of as a bridge was certainly strange, but as you very well know, strange is ‘in’ and considered all sorts of awesome these days.

Models wrote asking for his shoes, blogs covered his design, and almost everyone was wondering the same thing: could it be turned into a reality? The answer is yes, and it has been a reality, for a couple of years now.

The design looks extremely uncomfortable, but then again, looks can be deceiving. A variety of colors are available for purchase online, with each pair costing between £125 – £175 (~$201 to $283 USD).

[via OhGizmo!]

You need to do more than just brush if you want to keep your pearly whites, well, pearly white. Aside from brushing, it’s also recommended that you floss regularly. Unfortunately, a lot of people ignore this advice and end up with overall bad dental health in the end.

The convenient solution? The UltiBrush.

This brush aims to be the king of all brushes because it doesn’t just come with the brush. Rather, it’s packed with toothpaste in an internal compartment and comes with a mirror and dental floss at the bottom. The UltiBrush also comes with a cap that doubles as a rinse cup to make it an even more complete package.

It’s perfect for travelers because this single brush can basically replace your entire dental kit. The UltiBrush is good for forty uses before it’ll need to be replaced. It’s currently up for funding on Kickstarter, where a minimum pledge of $12(USD) will get you your very own brush.

Even with cheap hard drives and scanners and all this talk of moving data to the cloud, the truth is most of the world’s offices still have tons of paper documents. A company called iMicroData aims to bring the convenience of digital filesystems to physical archives with the Smart Paper Filing System.

The Smart Filing System uses RFID tags and Wi-Fi to keep tabs on physical files. iMicroData claims that their system can keep track of up to 4 billion folders, the equivalent of 40 million standard size file cabinets. The drawers in a Smart Filing System file cabinet have conductive rails on which special folders with built-in LEDs rest.

The idea is for users to enter the name of a folder on the Smart Filing System’s program, along with any relevant keywords or tags. I’m not sure if the program then automatically reserves a space in a particular filing cabinet or if the user also has to mark the folder in some way. iMicroData just says that “[t]here is a motherboard installed in the cabinet, which generates the system address of a given folder.”

But after that mysterious indexing process the user is free to forget where he placed the folder. As shown in the top picture, when a user searches from the application the drawer that houses the folder automatically unlocks while an LED on its door blinks. Inside there’s another blinking LED that points to the folder itself. There’s also another LED that shows if a folder’s tab is properly connected to the conductive rails.

Users can also tell the smart cabinets when they have moved a file by pressing a re-file button on the cabinet, which prompts the system to save the new location.

According to C|NET, iMicroData is selling a master filing cabinet for $2,000 (USD) each, while secondary linked cabinets go for $1,500 each. It sounds like a primitive version of the file system on computer operating systems doesn’t it? Plus it still leaves a lot to humans. The indexing thing is the system’s weakest link. Not only does it depend on whether the person filing a folder uses tags and titles correctly, it sounds like a massive effort for companies with lots of existing files. I can say the same thing about the whole re-filing thing. But I suppose it’s a lot better than expecting a few people to know exactly where a single document is.

[via C|NET]