The way you type could be your computer’s password

Keyboard_Typing

Experts are trying several approaches to determine users’ identities solely through their computer behavior.

Imagine sitting down at your work keyboard, typing in your user name and starting work right away – no password needed. The Defense Advanced Research Projects Agency, part of the defense department, wants to turn that vision into a reality. It will distribute research funds to develop software that determines, just by the way you type, that you are indeed the person you say you are.

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Universal translator lets you speak a foreign language in your own voice

foreign language

Research software from Microsoft synthesizes speech in a foreign language, but in a voice that sounds like yours.

Researchers at Microsoft have made software that can learn the sound of your voice, and then use it to speak a language that you don’t. The system could be used to make language tutoring software more personal, or to make tools for travelers.

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Surveillance video becomes a tool to help business owners study customer behavior

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Software from Prism Skylabs processes surveillance footage to show how busy a place is without compromising customers’ privacy.

Giants like Amazon and Google have led the huge success of online shopping and advertising thanks to software that logs when you visit Web pages and what you click on.  Prism Skylabs is a startup that offers brick-and-mortar businesses the equivalent—counting, logging, and tracking people in a store, coffee shop, or gym with software that works with video from security cameras.

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Researchers teaching computers how to listen for lies

TRUE-LIES

The person’s speech provides all the cues to detect deception.

A professor of computer science at Columbia University, Julia Hirschberg, may spell trouble for a lot of liars. That’s because Dr. Hirschberg is teaching computers how to spot deception — programming them to parse people’s speech for patterns that gauge whether they are being honest.

 

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Marc Andreessen explains why software is ‘eating the world’

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Groupon, Facebook, and LinkedIn investor Marc Andreessen.

Hewlett-Packard announced this week that it is exploring jettisoning its struggling PC business in favor of investing more heavily in software, where it sees better potential for growth. Google plans to buy up the cellphone handset maker Motorola Mobility.  Hewlett-Packard and Google’s  moves surprised the tech world.  Marc Andreessen (board member at Hewlett-Parckard) explains why software is eating the world.

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Road trains are the future of hands-free driving

roadtrain

 Vehicle platoons (aka “road trains”) will allow software-equipped cars to automatically follow a professional driver in a “lead car”.

There will be platoons of vehicles lead by a professional driver that will let you take your eyes off the road and save fuel before cars are driven fully by computers.  By 2020 they will be on the road in Europe. (video)

 

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‘Digital Ant’ Army Could Offer Foolproof Protection Against Computer Viruses

digital ants

Digital ants are one of the top “ten technologies that have the power to change our lives”.

Computer experst have been so inspired by how ants protect their colony when it is threatened they are currently testing a program which they say could offer foolproof protection against computer virus attacks.

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‘That’s What She Said’ – Scientists Develop Software That Tells Dirty Jokes

TheOffice-ThatsWhatSheSaid-Michael

TWSS

Since the days of Chaucer and Shakespeare, double entendres have been making us laugh. B ut computers haven’t had the capability to tell jokes until now.  Two computer scientists at the University of Washington, Chloé Kiddon and Yuriy Brun, have developed a system for recognizing a particular type of double entendre – the “that’s what she said” joke. The double entendre are seemingly innocent sentences that can be transformed into lewd utterances by appending just four short words.

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Ushahidi: Crisis Mapping Software Meets Check-in

crisis mapping

This crisis map, created using Ushahidi software, is keeping track of unfolding events in Libya.

From Libya to Japan, a Web-reporting platform called Ushahidi has helped human rights workers and others document and make sense of fast-moving crises. The platform allows reports from cell phones and Web-connected devices to be collected and displayed on Web-based maps.

 

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