标签: Machine

The concept of the Turing test was first mooted by the legendary Alan Turing in his 1950 paper Computing Machinery and Intelligence . The idea is that a conversation takes place between a human and a machine using a text-only channel like a computer keyboard and screen.   In the classical form of this test, an evaluator observes the conversation and all three participants are separated from each other. If the evaluator cannot reliably tell the machine from the human, then the machine is said to have passed the Turing test.   The reason I'm waffling on about this here is that my chum Rick Curl recently put me in touch with a guy called Charlie Coultas, who is a volunteer at The National Museum Of Computing , in Bletchley Park, England.   Charlie is currently building a system to allow visitors to perform the Turing test for themselves, and to decide if they are communicating with another human or with a machine. When we first started communicating a couple of weeks ago, Charlie said to me in an email:   We get quite a few schools at the museum and the kids are always happy to get some “hands-on” experience. My Turing Test will drive a 1930s Creed teleprinter and keyboard, much like Turing would have used in the 1940s had he had the computing power to do it. The system -- which is based on a PIC 18F26K22 processor with 64K bytes of on-chip memory from Microchip Technology -- has a series of questions along with “intelligent” answers built in. I hope eventually to add idiomatic context, but initially I’ll see how it goes.   A 1930s Creed teleprinter. I have built in a random delay of a few hundred milliseconds between characters in the reply phase, which makes the teleprinter really look as though a human is typing. An external Flash RAM memory stores all the questions that have been asked, so I can download them into my laptop and then reprogram the on-chip Flash memory with the new questions and suitable answers. There will be a few tempting suggestions that a human might be on the other end; for example, a small UHF aerial will be visible near the teleprinter, thereby giving the idea that there is something “out there” (maybe a human?). A 1930s bell push will ring a distant bell to get things rolling. I really have no idea how this will all work out, but it should be fun.   Well, earlier today I heard back from Charlie, and it looks as though things are going swimmingly. In today's communication, Charlie said: Hi Max, the Turing test machine works, and works well. Even though it has only a few hundred question/answer pairs it is fairly convincing. It isn’t live at Bletchley Park yet, but we are working on it. Here's a photo of one of the short tests:     Charlie went on to say that he is looking for help with regards to the sort of questions people might ask so that he can prepare his answers ahead of time. In turn, I suggested that he couldn’t do better than members of our community.   So, imagine that you are sat in front of Charlie's 1930s teleprinter. You are allowed to pose five questions to determine whether you are communicating with a person or a machine (only text characters, not numbers). What five questions would you ask?

Machines can do a better job than people at making some calls in sports. Why do we hesitate to use them or embrace the information they provide?   Don't they get it in Baseball? On TV, I watch the umpire call a ball on a pitch that is clearly a strike. How do I know? Because they show in the background an automated strike zone that shows the pitch within the designated area. But the umpire's call rules. I feel frustrated by this inaccurate mechanism…using a human to decipher what a machine should be doing.   Why not adapt technology to do what it is best capable of doing and let the umpire handle judgments that technology can't? We know that eventually they will. Baseball is already trying to shorten the expanding length of the games that routinely go on for over three hours because fans—especially the young ones—have reacted by not embracing such a long drawn out event.   Baseball is one of those sports that have been most reluctant to change. In the image below, the batter struck out but none of the pitches were in the strike zone. The last pitch was called a strike but clearly, it wasn't. Sponsor video, mouseover for sound     The batter struck out without the pitcher never throwing a strike.   Frankly, today most sport events can be seen much more comfortably in front of a big TV than actually at the game. You get all the information from an overview sense. Baseball telecasts routinely cut away to other critical games, showing plays at other stadiums that affect the results. You have difficulty sitting in a ballpark with 25,000 to 50,000 people to seeing outside or inside plays. You do get the experience of the live event by being immersed in it and perhaps seeing some plays directly without alteration. But in our data fed world, that experience is becoming less relevant.   Accurate data flow from any game seems a given today. Tennis and football are just two of the sports where measurement technology has been generously adopted. Line calls in tennis, complete passes in football all rely on measurement technology to get it right. It eliminates the extended arguing and gets the contests on target.   I recently attended the first two days of the Masters Golf Tournament in Augusta, Georgia. The experience was beyond expectation of being there and seeing the event up close. Now how can we see much with 30,000 other folks wanting to see as well? The answer is that you can only see within your eyesight and only that which is unobstructed. Let me say it is difficult and strenuous over the beautifully manicured park-like setting.   Golf on TV is, frankly, much better. The TV networketwork uses technology extensively to show aspects of the game in player’s swing, driving length accuracy, tracking ball flight, etc. You also see the whole picture of the event, not a narrow focus on a single play in front of you. In my case, we hurriedly made the trip back home to see the last two days of the event on glorious wide screen TV.   Another aspect of technology at the Masters is that you are not permitted to bring a phone or camera to the event. It's amazing. You feel cut off from the world. All attention is on golf in front of you. Where else in today’s world do you see 30,000 folks not on their cell phones, or the Internet? It is like going back in time. But the secret of the Masters is that the event holds such great allure in this single yearly ritual that the experience wins, at least for the attendees. Of course the TV presentation, seen in real time around the world, provides the funds to strengthen this event.   As someone who sees our measurement technology used in industrial, scientific, and medical applications to the most precise specifications, it's in-roads into sports is a continuous assault to the old ways. The objective is to give better information for understanding how to compete. The nice part is that we are part of the process. In many ways we are better informed than the actual athlete.   Industry's measurement technology has played a big part in this continuing evolution/revolution. I just wish they would make it happen faster, especially in baseball!   Fred Molinari President CEO Data Translation

Several days ago, I was chatting with my mother on the phone. She's all excited that I'm coming over to visit for a week in November. "I'll be seeing you in only seven weeks," she trilled happily, immediately followed by "How's your diet going? Have you lost much weight?"   Dang. I'd forgotten that I'd told her I was going on a diet following my last visit a year ago. The problem is that my mom has a mind like a steel trap. Her memory is so good that sometimes she remembers things that haven't even happened yet.   So I started sipping at a beer while I pondered the problem. I used to worry that drinking beer made me put on weight, but I've discovered that, after a few beers, I don't worry nearly as much.   I think I want what all reasonable men want -- some way of losing weight without having to commit any time or effort to the problem. More specifically, without having to do any exercise or change my diet or lifestyle in any way.   You may feel that this is a bit of a pipe dream, but I'm an optimistic fellow by nature, and -- believe it or not -- I may have stumbled across a viable solution.   On Monday, while I was beavering away in my office, my chum Paul from the next bay dropped by to chill out for a few minutes. While we were chatting, Paul mentioned that he'd been looking at some form of exercise machine that causes you to lose weight by jiggling you around. Of course, I immediately thought of the old machines involving a belt strapped around the user's bottom. The belt would vibrate and shake and was supposed to simply "melt the fat away."     Paul assured me that this wasn't what he was waffling on about. Apparently, a new type of vibration machine is starting to appear in fitness centers. The idea is that a platform vibrates under your feet with a frequency that automatically varies back and forth from 10 Hz to 60 Hz. Your muscles react automatically to balance your body against the machine's changing motions and speeds.   It seems that Paul has been researching this quite a bit, cumulating in his finding a very affordable version on Amazon -- the Confidence Fitness Full Body Vibration Platform .   These machines usually sell for thousands of dollars, but this one is only $250 with free shipping. Of course, one is always worried that something is too good to be true, but I'm a big fan of real-world customer reviews, and the Amazon reviews for this machine are pretty darned good. It's got a rating of 4.5 out of five stars with 680 customer reviews (456 of whom gave it the full five stars).   Reading these reviews, we see countless comments along the lines of "I have had the product just over three weeks and my wife has already mentioned improvements in my appearance" and "My clothes fit better" and "I sleep better at night."   Paul and I decided to buy one between us to see if it works. We ordered it around lunchtime Monday, and it arrived Wednesday morning. You can't argue with service like that.   The machine is reasonably rugged and very easy to assemble. It takes up hardly any room, and it's amazingly quiet. It's also very easy to move around, because it is equipped with two small wheels. All you do is tilt it up a little and trundle it around to your heart's content. Paul and I wheeled it into a spare office. No one even knows you are using it unless you tell them.   Reading the instruction books (yes, I'm that sort of person), we are informed that a 10-minute session on this machine is the equivalent of a one-hour regular workout. Also, one should not exceed the 10-minute time limit.   To be honest, I took all this with a grain of salt. I've been exposed to myriad marketing -- let's say fantasies -- over the years, and I've grown used to disappointment. However, I have to say that, in the case of this jiggle machine, I've changed my mind.   All you are doing is standing on a jiggling platform. "How hard can it be?," you ask. But after my first 10-minute session, my thigh muscles were burning and my heart rate was way up there (there's a heart monitor built into the handles and a display on the main control panel). A little later, while sitting at my desk, I realized that I felt like I'd had a really good workout. I did a second session a couple of hours later, and I really, really felt that one.   The great thing about this is the short amount of time it takes. When I arrive at my office in the morning, I start my computers powering up, set the coffee machine going, and then spend 10 minutes on the jiggle machine listening to the news on the radio. Quite apart from anything else, this is much less frustrating than staring at my computer screens muttering, "Come on you... little beauties" (or words to that effect). In the middle of the afternoon, I do the same thing again.   But how will we know if this machine works? Well, I'm going to use the little scamp twice a day leading up to my trip to the UK. In the spirit of scientific curiosity and investigative journalism, I'm not going to change my diet or my lifestyle otherwise. (I dare to be different.) This means that, if I do end up losing weight, we can have some level of confidence that the jiggle machine is performing its magic.   Now, I'm hoping against hope that I will be able to surprise my mother with a slimmer, svelte version of her firstborn son. Keep your fingers crossed for me. In the meantime, have you heard about -- or had experience with -- these jiggle machines?

With regard to my previous blog " Check these out: 1bit processor and an ultra-cool Turing Machine ", I've been bouncing around the Internet discovering all sorts of cool things... But before we hurl ourselves headfirst into the fray with gusto and abandon, let's make sure that we're all tap-dancing to the same drum beat by briefly remind ourselves as to just what a Turing machine is when it's at home. According to the Wikipedia: A Turing machine is a device that manipulates symbols on a strip of tape according to a table of rules. Despite its simplicity, a Turing machine can be adapted to simulate the logic of any computer algorithm, and is particularly useful in explaining the functions of a CPU inside a computer. The "Turing" machine was described by Alan Turing in 1936, who called it an "a(utomatic)-machine". The Turing machine is not intended as a practical computing technology, but rather as a hypothetical device representing a computing machine. Turing machines help computer scientists understand the limits of mechanical computation. The bottom line is that a Turing machine is something that uses very, very simple rules to perform computations. As originally conceived, Turing machines are not physical objects but mathematical ones. Having said this, lots of folks have constructed some jolly interesting physical realisations. For example, consider this entry from legoofdoom.blogspot.com . Or how about this offering , which is described as "A mechanical Turing machine built from scrap metal." I must admit that this little rascal does have a certain "agricultural charm" (grin). However, the tastiest one I've seen thus far was created by a guy called Mike Davey. Since Mike could not find the infinitely long tape required for the project (as specified by Alan Turing), his solution was to use 1,000 feet of white 35mm film leader and a dry erase marker. As you will see in this video , the result is absolutely incredible. Although Mike's Turing machine is controlled by a Parallax Propeller microcontroller, this little scamp is emulating the actions of the theoretical Turing engine (sometimes the convolutions involved in all of this really make your head spin). Now, even though I really, REALLY like Mike's solution, I must admit that I'm still drawn to the idea of a physical engine moving back and forth along tracks. We could increase the length of the track by implementing some sort of serpentine arrangement as illustrated below.   Top-down (bird's eye) view of model railway track I'm imagining a mechanical engine something like the Lego implementation shown at the beginning of this column, but maybe moving a bit faster, trundling back and forth along this track reading and writing "something". Based on the fact that I'm always saying "Cool Beans", someone suggested that my Turing machine operates by moving beans around ... I like it! I can really visualise something like one of these this on a table in my office trundling along performing some humongous calculation that will take years to complete... we could chart it's progress against a simulation running on a PC. Alternatively, instead of restricting ourselves to a 1D environment, like a tape or a train track, in which our Turing machine can move only in the Forward and Backward directions, how about a 2D environment like a large chess / checkers board? In this case, our Turing machine could move Forward, Backward, Left, or Right. Or here's another suggestion – imagine a 3D structure formed from miniature scaffolding presented in a cubic arrangement. Now imagine a Turing machine that can climb through the structure and move Forward, Backward, Left, Right, Up, and Down. In addition to clambering around, there would have to be some way for the machine to read / write data into each cube (maybe using coloured beans that it hangs from the scaffolding). My initial thought was that the machine would have to be battery-powered, which would mean it would have to come out of the framework occasionally to recharge itself. But after a moment's reflection I realised that we could use the framework itself to provide power. Just imagine how awesome this would look beavering away in the corner of my office. OK, I've done the hard part conceiving this little beauty. All that is left is to design and build it ... any volunteers (grin)?  

My friend Alvin (my co-author on several books) just showed me a rather interesting website that describes a 1bit processor. Since it's a 1bit processor, this little scamp supports only a single type of instruction. Before you read further, if you were doing this, which instruction would you choose to implement? ...tick tock... tick tock... tock tock... Well, the creator of this little beauty opted for a Copy then Branch-If type of instruction. The idea is that the machine copies the current bit to one address, and if that bit was one, then it branches to a second address. Click Here to read more... But wait, there is more, because someone who was commenting on one of my blogs on MicrocontrollerCentral.com mentioned a really interesting article on the BBC Technology website ( Click Here to see the original BBC article). This article describes the "goings on" at the annual Maker Faire in Newcastle, England. It seems that this year there were a plethora of exhibitions to tempt the curious and the geeky – everything from mushrooms that make music to Steampunk Jewelry. One item that really captured my attention was a mechanical computer that is programmed by the movement of ball bearings.   Students of computer history will recognise this as a Turing Machine , just like the one Alan Turing envisaged and explored in his mathematical paper that kicked off the computer age. I don't know about you, but I am REALLY tempted to build one of these for myself. I can imagine it chuntering away executing some program here in my office...