Apple’s Siri has a lot of canned, cute responses for quirky situations hardcoded into it, but a big enough combination of cloud tech and canned dialog could make for a real AI.

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A funny thing happened to the folks at Android Police, the same group responsible for leaking some of the first screenshots of Ice Cream Sandwich. They’ve since come across a few apps from Google’s upcoming release — purportedly straight from a Nexus Prime. The first is Google Music 4.0.1 — a marked upgrade from the current 3.0.1 found in the Market today — which sports refined tabs, a contextual dialog and new player controls. For reference, the latest version is shown on the right, which is most likely installed onto a Gingerbread device. Best yet, the APK is currently up for download (which you’re able to grab for yourself from the source). There’s also a sneak peek of the upcoming Google+ 2.0, which suggests Messenger (formerly Huddle) and Conversations will be renamed to… get this… Chords. Feel free to take a peek after the break, or check out the full gallery at the second source link below.

Continue reading Ice Cream Sandwich leak outs Music 4.0.1 for download, previews Google+ 2.0

Ice Cream Sandwich leak outs Music 4.0.1 for download, previews Google+ 2.0 originally appeared on Engadget on Fri, 07 Oct 2011 17:34:00 EDT. Please see our terms for use of feeds.

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Firefox creates a kerfuffle in announcing it will drop version numbers from the popular web browser’s “About” dialog.

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When the dialog turned to chill businesses that one might work from home the subject turned to starting a house pc repair business.

As my wife and I have had many such chats through the years this one started out as just a routine brainstorming conversation. Then I Googled the thought and things changed.

I discovered that up to ninety five% of all Home windows computer systems at the moment online are plagued with information-mining, offline ad pop-ups, one thing called parasites, trojans, dialers, browser hijackers and plenty of stuff even meaner sounding than viruses.

In line with Earthlink, “the spy ware and virus problems are getting worse as a substitute of better. Problems with locked up computers are extra frequent and over 225 million computer systems are infected.”

I made a decision to start out an informal survey of my friends. I gave myself a very low key aim of 3 to five months to complete the project. I did not want to appear too pushy or obvious. All I requested was one question and the remainder of my presentation took a natural course from that point.

My dialog would begin casually and end with….have you noticed your computer is performing humorous?

Most often the response can be, “sort of. It takes longer in addition up and I get so many pop-ups even with a pop-up blocker, it makes me sick.”

My subsequent strategy is to say, properly the identical thing was occurring to me and nearly all of my friends. I made a decision to purchase a kit to wash out viruses, some nasty worms, and some stuff that’s onerous to pronounce. I all the time get fun with that line. Then I continue.

“Most of the time I simply charge for the program I take advantage of for each laptop which is about 20 bucks. I’ll check out your’s a while, just let me know when.

eight times out of 10 I make an appointment on the spot. Although I’ve solely carried out this a few dozen times, I’ve banked $600. This mostly because I’m getting referrals, one of which was a small accountant’s office just earlier than the tax season started.

I’ve always maintained a personal coaching practice so the money is not the primary thought behind my project. I needed to see if what I read had any value. It seems to be a true opportunity that may solely get bigger.

USA Right now reported recently that, “By the flip of the millennium, unparalleled growth in computer and Web usage resulted in a $300 billion pc service market, comparable in measurement only to the house enchancment market!

This sector of the computer trade is now experiencing double-digit development, and is projected to proceed doing so for the foreseeable future.” This was based on trade studies by Ziff-Davis.

If I ever decide to retire from coaching, I’ll have no downside shifting into a computer house business.

I just lately found an incredible little company that has designed a complete house computer restore package. If you know the way to setup an web connection on your pc, and entry the add/remove programs within the management panel, you are able to do this.

What’s even higher about that is my private experience signifies you’ll be able to pocket a day’s pay in less than a day.

tablet pc games, cheap computer monitors, acer tablet pc

Put simply, Avatar is the most visually fantastic film I’ve ever seen. It will be hailed as the groundbreaking 3D release of its time while setting a new standard by which all blockbusters are measured. Yes, it’s that good.

I’m not going to talk about plot (or that I thought to myself, Dances with Wolves in space more than once). I’m not going to talk about dialog or pacing (or that the limited narration was totally unnecessary). There are other reviews, more reviewy type reviews, that have all that covered. I’m not going to spoil anything, either. Heck, I’m not even going to talk about Avatar…not just yet.

I want to talk about Jurassic Park.

Jurassic Park was the first movie I remember being excited to an unhealthily obsessive level. My dad, a huge Michael Crichton fan, did his best to tempt my young self into reading the full-out book. So he told me a sort of good parts version, filling my head with tales of dinosaur resurrection from amber dug up deep in the Earth, all while I would do my best to get more and more out of him without actually having to crack open a book.

So when I heard Jurassic Park was becoming a movie, not only did that dash any chance of me reading the story, but I literally could not fathom a world in which I’d be patient enough to wait to see it (not that I had any other option). I mean, dinosaurs, theme parks, and terror? Jurassic Park was biologically engineered for young boys.

All of this is nice background, but my point is simpler. When I saw those dinosaurs on screen, knowing that, in many cases, they’d been modeled purely by computers—computers!—I felt like anything was possible. Yes, it’s a cliche feeling. That’s actually why I’m sharing it. Because ultimately, we all have that movie—be it Star Wars or Terminator or whatever—that movie we actually felt a bit humbled, even challenged, watching because it was was an amuse-bouche of the future, even if a bit cheesy at heart.

Avatar is that movie for the new generation.

I don’t expect you to believe me if you haven’t seen the film yet. I, myself, was a huge skeptic until a few hours ago. Blue people? Papyrus font?? What the fuck happened to dinosaurs and light sabers and killer robots from the future? Did we use all the cool stuff up?

But about 30 minutes in to the film, you realize that the marketing has undersold the movie. In an era when every great moment of a film makes its way to a trailer, Avatar surprised me with an endless amount of unparalleled optical overload. Every single shot is just so full of detail that you literally open your eyes wider to take as much in as you can before each cut.

Gizmodo readers will love the tech, especially as that about 50% of the film’s budget apparently went to rendering badass 3D curved displays and absurdly awesome cockpits. But sequences from Pandora’s woods at night…let’s just say they’re the first luminescent visual effects I’ve seen that made 1982′s Tron look like a 27-year-old movie.

Also, while shots of the Na’vi (the blue dudes) clearly deviate from a 50/50 balance between real footage and CGI depending on the scene, their body animation, even for motion capture, is unparalleled. While their faces and eyes especially can appear a tad cartoony at times, the overall effect is not done justice by YouTube trailers or that shot pasted above. Call the effect hyperreal or even unreal, but it’s certainly doesn’t look “fake.” I don’t know that I’ve ever witnessed complete humanoid models move so realistically, especially given their exposure (in both screen time and skin).

Of course, Avatar‘s 3D is the basis of my obnoxious zeal for the aesthetics. I viewed the film in a full-sized IMAX theater. And while I knew that a fair share of missiles would fly off the screen (and ZOMG the mechs look amazing), I couldn’t have expected the sheer tangibility that 3D—what I once supposed a gimmick—added to the experience. I mean, I saw textures in this film that I’ve never seen in a movie before, like wet, rubbery skin on the wildcats of Pandora that made people around me gasp more than once. There’s a more understated moment, too, when Sam Worthington shaves and you realize, wow, stubble is pretty remarkable in 3D. The jagged hairs bring a level of humanity to his character, adding something unexpectedly corporeal to what’s really a 30-foot-tall head in closeup.

So yes, 3D is more than a gimmick. The glasses are still a pain, but 3D is here to stay.

Avatar doesn’t handle this new technology perfectly, however, and I hope that other filmmakers learn from its mistakes. Especially early in the film during shots in close quarters, the direction allowed many objects to break frame (think of a person walking from one end of the screen to the other). For my untrained eyes, seeing a figure go from 2D to 3D to 2D was not only distracting, it was tiring. And the same can be said for a constantly shifting depth of field—based upon where the camera is focusing, you’ll need to figure out whether to look deep into the screen or right in front of you.

An out of focus shoulder breaking the corner of the frame is pretty much the worst implementation of 3D I could imagine. Luckily, the forest sequences that make up the majority of the film seemed to have been planned with a wider depth of field—more of the shot is in focus.

After 2 1/2 hours in the theater, I am exhausted far more than the same amount of time playing an FPS would make me, but Avatar was so remarkable that it was well-worth the work of watching it.

I still can’t imagine popping on a pair of glasses to watch the evening news after a long day of work, and I sympathized for the guy sitting beside me as he started rubbing his eyes about halfway through. As someone with a slight uncorrected astigmatism, my left eye was ready to fall out of its socket by the final climactic sequence.

But as viewers, we’ll adapt to the new tech. And as technicians, Hollywood will learn the rules of 3D as it writes them.

So for now, I’m not quite ready to see every piece of the world’s media in 3D. But Avatar? Yeah, I’ll be seeing it again…and maybe again…just in hopes of absorbing a bit more of the visual splendor.

The Ace Attorney series is a notable example of the overwrought emotionalism and character movements that characterize Japanese narrative culture. Play an Ace Attorney game and you encounter a tremendously surreal court system where legal arguments become epic, backed up by just-in-time realizations pieced together from obvious fragments of evidence.

My first encounter with this legal adventure game series saw me take on the role of Phoenix Wright, and I was a rookie defending attorney who became a master of cross examination. I even got help from the spirit of my murdered mentor, who somehow possessed her younger sister and made her more… womanly.

Whether or not you’ve played an Ace Attorney game, CAPCOM has made a short flash-based demo of Ace Attorney Investigations: Miles Edgeworth available online. While previous Ace Attorney games mostly cast the player character as the defense lawyer, AAI:ME’s protagonist is Miles Edgeworth, the so-called “demon” prosecutor. The demo literally provides a sneak peek, ending after you’ve made the first investigation breakthrough.

CAPCOM should’ve put more thought into this 3MB demo though. Without the ability to skip through the numerous dialog, playing the demo might prove tedious for those unfamiliar with the Ace Attorney series. In any case, click on the link below to download! The actual game itself, Ace Attorney Investigations: Miles Edgeworth, will debut outside of Japan this February 2010.

Ace Attorney Investigations: Miles Edgeworth Demo

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