Eleven ‘90 Computer Trends That Will Make You Grateful For Modern Technology

Remember that Window 95, Netscape Navigator and dial ups? The window came up with window ten now, Netscape had a natural death (of course Mozilla Firefox revived it with Linux), and dial-up paved the way for Wi-Fi. Yahoo was reigning and no Google to search. What a nostalgic situation, time to ponder on the development of computer for the last three decades. The Even calculator was a luxury. Configuring the email account was a Herculean task. Where did the 386 and 486 before Pentium vanish?

Eleven of the trends that computers witnessed are interesting to ponder:

1. Strangely Convoluted Screensavers

Screen savers did have a good time then with limited options though.

2 .Manually Installing Programs

No automatic installations, no update, no patch up – that is the time we lived happily, that too with that manual toil.

3. Glowing Green Text

Monochrome was the ruling screen, but we looked at colour screen with jealousy

4. The “You’ve Got Mail!” Alert

An old lady rushing to fetch mail from her mailbox at the door when she hears the ‘You’ve Got Mail’ alert from the computer was the joke then.

5. Saving Everything to Floppy Disks

Where did those cute 31/2 inches floppy discs vanish?

6. Windows 95

You know all the windows from 95 to 10.

7. Kid Pix

What is the equivalent for kidPicx now?

8. “Free” Internet Mailers

Just like the free lunch, there was no free internet as well even though you were bombarded with those offers.

9. Encarta ’95

Microsoft transformed itself from Encarta to Cortana but that was the best artificial intelligence we had then.

10. Skifree

What a skiing game we had then but now redundant!

11. Dial-Up

We were patient enough to get a dial-up connection established. Now millisecond booting up is the demand.

Maybe after three decades from now, we will be further ridiculed for bracing obsolete technologies. 

Reference URL: https://www.bustle.com/p/11-90s-computer-trends-that-will-make-you-grateful-for-modern-technology-51618

English, Computer Language And Artificial Intelligence (AI)

The influence of AI on language and Computer language is a bit tricky to comprehend. Computer algorithms have hijacked the already biased English, making us flabbergasted. The AI Brain is a computer and when that starts mixing with the mathematical wizardry, the human language sometimes starts getting jittery.

The English Language is full of biases, logics, and judgments. Invariably, computer will be using a bit of human passion. Over 2.3m words in 840bn instances were analysed to assess how AI will react. Strangely, computers were showing emotions and meaning beyond literary implications. The use and definition did not have much of correlations.

The value judgments embedded into the ordinary language will reflect with computers a bit differently. Flowers are pleasing to human beings but insects and stings are not. Music is more pleasant than gunshots. Even some names would be more pleasant than others. Some words’ usage in one language would be less hurtful than in other languages.

The gender bias is more rampant. Female names invariably projected as subdued, loving and family oriented. On the other hand, male name spells dominance and arrogance. The machine learning tries to pick up the bias bit slowly but more carefully. The prejudices associated with languages, expressions and context shall be analysed by the AI to arrive at a conclusion unknown to us.

Algorithms are self-correcting to some extent. The word sex shall be picked up by the computer with an algorithm to almost same meaning as what we infer. On the social engineering front, even as human beings shift the meanings of words over a period, AI will also will. Like the word gay will have negative projections when it comes to the algorithm.

The cultural difference between Russia and EU will be difficult to get into the Computer, but it will learn in due course. The use of the algorithm is becoming universal, and it is easier for the computers to interpret the bias better than we poor, brainy creatures.

Reference URL: https://www.theguardian.com/commentisfree/2017/apr/14/the-guardian-view-on-computers-and-language-reproducing-bias

Vulnerable For Hacking

Computer security has become a toss up, and they are very much vulnerable to hacking.

Both amateurish hackers and professional hackers have entered the arena. The Bangladesh Central Bank lost a cool $81 million, followed by America’s National Security Agency (NSA) seeing its hacking tools leaked all over the internet by a group calling themselves the Shadow Brokers. The Russians have supposed to have manipulated American elections. Some software called Mirai could stop social media websites.

Vandal, criminals and unscrupulous elements are rampant on the internet. The mobile apps are becoming a worrisome scene.

The vulnerabilities of computers start with IT, the tendency of software development, the breakneck pace of online business growth. The economic incentives enjoyed by computer firms and the divided interests of governments etc. should encourage remedial action

One defective Chines made chip was about to ground all US military helicopters. The chip designers do not show diligence to the vulnerability factor. The defense is weak, and hackers are becoming smarter,  as the NASA website is hacked easily. The mobile phone pressure can transmit data.

Thankfully, there are some potential remedies available. Microsoft insists on updating software frequently. CHERI, a new kind of chip that can attempt to bake security into hardware, rather than software is one development. Another remedy is Sandboxing technology in writing. The lapses in computer security can kill banking, insurance, etc.

Let us hope that the new initiatives by governments, private players and ethical hackers would bear fruits, in making the computers and internet less vulnerable.

Reference URL: http://www.economist.com/news/science-and-technology/21720268-consequences-pile-up-things-are-starting-improve-computer-security

Meet the Computer: Better at Learning Than Human Beings!

Artificial intelligence (AI) is getting into the human ‘nerves’ and starting to play games like chess, poker, and bridge enthusiastically. Human machine synchronization is becoming far more real now. Possibly Frankenstein is reborn?

When the world chess champion grand master Garry Kasparov was beaten by a super computer at the end of the last millennium that made the headlines. Go, and Poker is the new favorite of computers’ games. That means now those who want to improve their gaming skills can seek help from computers and AI.

Such contests include chicken, prisoner’s dilemma or alternator game. The winners go scot free from a jail sentence. Human beings are asked to play against computers which are trained with 25 machine learning algorithms. The earlier fuzzy logic has changed to machine learning algorithm. Subsequently modified prewritten sentences were picked up by the computers faster than expected.

The players could automatically search for correlations between their moves and results thereof. Even though the algorithm was unable to collaborate and correlate, they could inspire biological inspiration. With the addition of communication commands the computers are tuned for better learning algorithm. One of the machine-learning algorithms learned to be loyal beating humans to a ratio of 100:65.

Such dependability could be an advantage for algorithms that learn to make decisions for autonomous cars, drones, or even weapons on the battlefield. Now, most work has focused on creating autonomous technologies that can surpass human abilities, from facial recognition to playing poker. The future of AI is bright as Machines are expected to do more than competing but to teach a person to ‘behave.’ Soon, all activities including games, machine learning, and crisis management will be taught to human beings by the computer with algorithm skills.

At last computers have taught themselves how to cooperate in games in which the objective is to reach the best possible logical conclusion for all players.

Reference URL: http://www.sciencemag.org/news/2017/03/computers-learn-cooperate-better-humans