 | Rajeev Motwani, beloved in high tech world — including Google — dead at 47
Sunday, June 7, 2009
Source: Mercury News
Rajeev Motwani, 47, the Stanford University computer science professor who mentored Google's co-founders when they were graduate students, has died from a freak accident at his Atherton home.
Motwani apparently drowned Friday morning in a backyard swimming pool at the home he purchased three years ago. Friends said he did not know how to swim, but was planning to take lessons. While little official information was available, friends speculated that Motwani may have slipped and fallen in the pool. Paramedics were called when his body was found, and he was pronounced dead at the scene at 12:28 p.m., according to the San Mateo County coroners office. [Read more...] |
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| AsiaInfo to implement BI systems for China Telecom
Monday, October 27, 2008
Source: TradingMarkets
AsiaInfo Holdings Inc (Nasdaq:ASIA), a provider of telecomms software solutions and IT security products and services in China, announced on Friday (24 October) that it has won a tender with China Telecom (NYSE: CHA), a wireline telecomms and broadband services provider in China, to develop Business Intelligence (BI) systems for China Telecom's Beijing, Henan and Heilongjiang subsidiaries.
The company said that the BI systems will integrate China Telecom's existing fixed-line business with its recently acquired CDMA business and are designed to improve the company's decision-making capability, efficiency and accuracy. [Read more...] |
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| Study of Data Mining for Terrorists Is Urged
Tuesday, October 7, 2008
Source: NYTimes
WASHINGTON — A federal panel of policy makers and scientific experts urged a government-wide evaluation Tuesday of programs that sift through databases looking for clues on terrorism, to determine whether the programs are effective and legal. [Read more...] |
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| Artificial intelligence won't happen (yet)
Friday, August 29, 2008
Source: Daily Toreador
We all remember the end of Pixar's recent masterpiece "Wall-E" (if you haven't seen it, shame on you). Just as our damaged, "dying" hero makes it back to Earth, his companion frantically searches through some spare parts and inserts a new motherboard into Wall-E's well-worn casing. At first, he wakes up as a brand new unit, devoid of the memories and personality that made him who he was. Then, after a sad, solemn "kiss," Wall-E miraculously grips his pearly lover's hand and intones a touchingly familiar, "Eve...?"
At this moment and throughout the film, Pixar deals with a fundamental question of recent history: can we transform a collection of circuits, wires and other assorted elements into an intelligent, sentient, even loving being? Thankfully, I have the answer: No ... not yet. [Read more...] |
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| Artificial intelligence 'could arrive within 40 years'
Tuesday, August 26, 2008
Source: Direct Response
Computers may be more intelligent than humans within 40 years, the chief technology officer with Intel has said.
Justin Rattner told the Intel Developer Forum that the organisation expected to create computers that rival human intelligence by 2048, reports Computing.co.uk.
Mr Rattner said: "In that time, machines from Intel will surpass human intelligence."
In news that may be of interest to the business telecoms industry, the technology needed for such advanced computers must overcome significant hurdles before this stage is reached. [Read more...] |
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| Court may reinstate prescription 'data mining' ban in NH
Friday, August 22, 2008
Source: FierceHealthcare
In mid-2007, a court struck down New Hampshire law banning the practice of collecting data on physician prescribing patterns and selling it to pharmaceutical company marketing departments. It sided with the so-called "data mining" companies, such as IMS Health, Verispan and McKesson Corp., who argued that the ban infringed on their free-speech rights. Not long after, a less-stringent Maine law also was overturned, leading some observers to conclude that such laws weren't going to make it nationally.
However, a federal judge in Boston is now considering the case in response to the state of New Hampshire's appeal, a decision that, if made in favor of New Hampshire's outright data-mining ban, could embolden other states to take similar steps. In fact, according to one tally, as many as 18 states could file such measures if New Hampshire's law is reinstated by the federal court. [Read more...] |
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| What Your Cell Phone Knows About You
Friday, May 23, 2008
Source: Forbes
Can your cell phone tell if you're happy or overworked? Researchers at the Massachusetts Institute of Technology think it can do that and more--separate the rich from the poor, the sick from the healthy, even the outgoing from the introverted. Sandy Pentland, director of MIT's Human Dynamics Research program, has focused his work on that unlikely task: using gadgets as simple as a cell phone to better understand the quirks and patterns of human behavior. [Read more...] |
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| We have met the enemy, and he is us
Thursday, May 8, 2008
Source: Computerworld.com
Who can forget the classic line uttered by Commodore Perry during the War of 1812's Battle of Lake Erie: "We have met the enemy and they are ours!" Perry, then age 28, kicked serious British naval butt in that decisive victory. Nearly two centuries later, the famed comic strip creator Walt Kelly twisted that line for the benefit of his seminal character, the possum Pogo. On an Earth Day poster in 1971, Pogo, looking at a polluted stream proclaimed, "We have met the enemy and he is us!" The same line was also used in a cartoon to lampoon the Nixon Administration, so the creator's use was to point a critical finger at things government, in Kelly's opinion, was doing wrong. You, dear Reader, are probably asking, Why are we going through this lesson? [Read more...] |
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| Microsoft Sets Sights on Data Mining Dominance
Wednesday, May 7, 2008
Source: MCP Magazine Online
When it comes to data mining and predictive analytics, Microsoft Corp. might not be the first company that comes to mind.
That could change, however, especially if Donald Farmer, Redmond's principal program manager for SQL Server Data Mining, has his way.
Microsoft has come a long way in the data mining and predictive analytics segment, Farmer says, and with a game-changing Excel 2007 release under its belt -- and a promising SQL Server 2008 revision in the pipeline -- Redmond hopes to challenge established powers SAS Institute Inc. and SPSS Inc. for data mining and predictive analytic bragging rights.
[Read more...] |
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| | House debates drug 'data mining' law
Tuesday, February 5, 2008
Source: VPR
The law in question limits the ability of marketing firms to obtain specific information about which drugs Vermont doctors are prescribing to their patients - this practice is known as data mining. Drug companies then use this information to target marketing campaigns to physicians who don't use their products. The Vermont law keeps this information private unless a doctor chooses to make it available. [Read more...] |
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| Social Networking for Zebras
Saturday, December 1, 2007
Source: Science News
Facebook hasn't yet opened up a site for zebras. Even so, social networking is taking off for them, too. By using social network theory to understand how zebras interact, scientists hope to explain why the plains zebra is thriving while the Grevy's zebra is endangered. [Read more...] |
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| Digging for Data Gold
Friday, November 30, 2007
Source: CRMBuyer
Focused advertising and upselling may be in the rudimentary stage now, but it is not out of the realm of possibility to one day see a level of directed advertisements as those seen in the futuristic movie "Minority Report," in which advertisements in public areas changed based on who was passing by them. [Read more...] |
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| Data Mining for the Bad Guys
Tuesday, September 11, 2007
Source: Technocrat
Spidering and linguistic analysis are just some of the tools being used now by enforcement and intelligence researchers to trawl the web looking for terrorist related information and contacts. Advanced computational power being thrown at this project is needed, due to the sheer volume of webtraffic that has to be looked at. [Read more...] |
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| FBI Data Mining Reached Beyond Initial Targets
Saturday, September 8, 2007
Source: New York Times
WASHINGTON, Sept. 8 — The F.B.I. cast a much wider net in its terrorism investigations than it has previously acknowledged by relying on telecommunications companies to analyze phone-call patterns of the associates of Americans who had come under suspicion, according to newly obtained bureau records. [Read more...] |
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| Information overdrive
Thursday, March 15, 2007
Source: What PC?
Information is the lifeblood of the modern organisation. Critical decisions depend on data from business intelligence systems about customers’ buying habits, product sales or the effectiveness of marketing campaigns. [Read more...] |
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| New York Schools Turn To Business Intelligence For Help
Monday, March 12, 2007
Source: iT News
In New York city's public school system, the largest in the nation, four out of 10 students don't graduate on time. Last week, school officials signed a five-year, US$80 million deal with IBM to develop a business intelligence system that can track and analyze performance by student and by school, to help spot problem areas. Whether it will result in better education--or just more finger-pointing and recriminations--remains to be seen. [Read more...] |
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| Will Machines Ever Be Conscious?
Monday, March 12, 2007
Source: MIT Technology Review
If only political debates were this interesting. A quick-witted moderator, two opposing but well-behaved thinkers, and a central question any MIT loyalist would love: will humans ever build conscious, volitional, or spiritual machines? [Read more...] |
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