SoylentNews is people
SoylentNews
Arthur T Knackerbracket has found the following story:
Appearing first in Google Assistant and Google Photos, Google Lens uses artificial intelligence (A.I.) to specifically identify things in the frame of a smartphone camera.
In Google's demo, not only did Google Lens identify a flower, but the species of flower. The demo also showed the automatic login to a wireless router when Google Lens was pointed at the router barcodes. And finally, Google Lens was shown identifying businesses by sight, popping up Google Maps cards for each establishment.
Google Lens is shiny and fun. But from the resulting media commentary, it was clear that the real implications were generally lost.
The common reaction was: "Oooh, look! Another toy for our smartphones! Isn't A.I. amazing!" In reality, Google showed us a glimpse of the future of general-purpose sensing. Thanks to machine learning, it's now possible to create a million different sensors in software using only one actual sensor -- the camera.
In Google's demo, it's clear that the camera functions as a "super-sensor." Instead of a flower-identification sensor, a bar-code reader and a retail-business identifier, Google Lens is just one all-purpose super-sensor with software-based, A.I.-fueled "virtual sensors" built in software either locally or in the cloud.
Talking about the Internet of Things (IoT) four years ago, the phrase "trillion sensor world" came into vogue in IT circles. Futurists vaguely imagined a trillion tiny devices with a trillion antennas and a trillion batteries (that had to be changed a trillion times a year).
In this future, we would be covered in wearable sensors. All merchandise and machinery would be tagged with RFID chips that would alert mounted readers to their locations. Special purpose sensors would pervade our homes, offices and workplaces.
We were so innocent then -- mostly about the promise and coming ubiquity of A.I. and machine learning.
-- submitted from IRC
(Score: 0) by Anonymous Coward on Monday May 22 2017, @05:57AM (8 children)
I hope someday you code a brilliant app in JavaScript, and just so you are hoisted by your own petard, I hope everyone refuses to use it, because everyone believes as you do that scripts are worse than a hostile shitweasel in a toilet.
No word yet on whether Michael Duddits Crawford is or is not Jonesy? I still think MDC is Eris Discordia Blastar in fantasy life.
(Score: 1) by anubi on Monday May 22 2017, @06:41AM (2 children)
If they do, they will know who gave it to 'em.
I will not run my little shitweasel behind someone's back like a lot of websites do.
I won't eat things if I cannot verify it came from a trusted source. Does not mean I do not eat. I watch what I eat.
If I crafted up something and take responsibility for it, I would imagine others may try it. If I try to sneak it on their plate when they are not watching, I would imagine the restaurant that let me try such a thing would soon be avoided like the plague.
Do not eat that little cylinder you do not know whats in it. They say its candy. The one I got was powdered roach. It made me sick and took me three days to get the stench out of my mouth. Had to reformat my disk drive and restore from backup too.
"Prove all things; hold fast that which is good." [KJV: I Thessalonians 5:21]
(Score: 0) by Anonymous Coward on Monday May 22 2017, @07:48AM (1 child)
Here, have a gift horse!
https://raw.githubusercontent.com/ErisBlastar/Internet-plus-Equality/master/internet-plus-equality.user.js [githubusercontent.com]
(Score: 1) by anubi on Monday May 22 2017, @09:45AM
Even though ErisBlastar does not appear to have any malicious intent from my preliminary research of the URL you gave, I would still be leery of running something an AC gives me in response to the post I just wrote. It *might* be another roach... but I won't find out until I eat it.
Like a cat that's been trapped before, I am a little skittish.
It might be a really nice program, but I would have to trust the person giving it to me.
Just as I would have to trust a person giving me a fruitcake, especially if word's out that people are making fruitcakes with rabbit pellets for shits and giggles. ( or worse ).
"Prove all things; hold fast that which is good." [KJV: I Thessalonians 5:21]
(Score: 3, Informative) by Arik on Monday May 22 2017, @12:39PM (4 children)
Anyway not the other poster and don't speak for him but we do seem to share some ideas here. And I don't think it has much to do with 'javascript' (really ecmascript) itself, per se. It's tempting to say it's a crummy language, but that's not the point, and it's not even totally true - it's not a bad language per se it's just constantly misused. When your only tool is a hammer, every problem looks like a nail, and if javascript is what you think of as 'programming' then every programming assignment looks like 'make this webpage unbearably awful.'
But that's not really the point. Replace ecmascript with the most elegant and functional replacement known to man, I still don't want it. The fundamental concept of routinely embedding programs in documents is dangerously wrong, no matter what language the programs are written in.
And, the obverse, if you want to use ecmascript to write your 'apps' and distribute them with a standalone interpreter knock yourself out. The issue comes when you assume that you can send me your app instead of a web page, and expect it to run without my intervention, inside my browser. No, no, no.
Browsers *should* require user confirmation before running any sort of ecmascript, and that *should* have prevented it from becoming too exploitable, but in the real world sanity and security got stampeded by a crowd of drooling lunatics with money in their hands demanding everything be made easier.
If laughter is the best medicine, who are the best doctors?
(Score: 0) by Anonymous Coward on Monday May 22 2017, @04:50PM (2 children)
Well let me see do I want to maintain:
Android app
iOS app
Linux app
macOS app
Windows app
Or do I want to maintain:
JavaScript app
(Score: 2) by Arik on Monday May 22 2017, @06:33PM (1 child)
Come on.
If laughter is the best medicine, who are the best doctors?
(Score: 0) by Anonymous Coward on Wednesday May 24 2017, @01:14AM
JavaScript isn't just cross-platform, it's pre-installed on every platform. Convenience makes it the best choice for developers and for users.
(Score: 1) by anubi on Tuesday May 23 2017, @02:36AM
That is the whole problem in a nutshell! Beautifully said.
"Prove all things; hold fast that which is good." [KJV: I Thessalonians 5:21]