Ever wonder if certain social networking sites could be broken down into more simpler terms? Or in Despair Wears case, more sad pathetic terms?

Well here you go. Poor guy, I think he needs a hug.

Comes to show you that even professionals mess up. And look! It seems like the news media has it all wrong from the beginning. According to @swineflew’s bio:

“Swine flu? You’ve got it all wrong. They said swine flew in Mexico. We do it all the time. Get over it.”

Watson, IBM’s latest silicon creation has been tasked with taking on humans in a slightly different setting than it’s used to. Playing chess against grandmasters is all in a days work for the computer that would be human (or is that destroy them?) but IBM’s next goal is to go head to head against human contestants in an attempt to “..get Watson to think and interact in human terms,” IBM’s Dr David Ferrucci is quoted as saying.

“It will try to understand a user’s question and intent and understand it at a rudimentary level and provide and accurate and confident answer.”

Of course buzzing in with a wrong answer in Jeopardy is costly and so Watson must be absolutely sure before answering. This kind of open ended question answering is something that hasn’t been tackled successfully in the past. Playing chess means calculating millions of chess moves to find the best solution to a fixed problem. Answering questions on a game show like Jeopary requires a very different skill set, something computers are not naturally good at requiring broad general knowledge, quick prompt analysis of meaning, irony, riddles and other natural language subtleties that are at a pinch out of the remit of a computer. Matching words to words is something a computer excels at but matching meaning to meaning is still something that although we take it for granted in our own lives, computationally is exceptionally hard.

Hit the read link for more on what could become your computer overlords in the near future.

(more…)

In 4chan we lul

Beating out President Barack Obama’s “hope” fans, beating out Oprah Winfrey’s followers, and beating up Pop Singer, Rain, moot was officially named Time’s more influential person of 2009.  Even after the 4chan founder’s votes were criticized and found to be fake, moot is still #1.

“Christopher Poole, received 16,794,368 votes and an average influence rating of 90 (out of a possible 100).”

Congratulations /b/tards.  Once again, you have proven that the internet is your playground and you are able to leap out of computer screens and make real world differences.

[via Time via Mashable]

Congrats to that lucky boy. He will be receiving a HUGE present from Apple that I think most of us will be jealous about. A $10,000 iTunes gift card, an iPod touch, a Time Capsule and (the cherry-on-top) a MacBook Pro.

Special Guests from Night Zero will be on the show to talk about their photographic novel and the super viral Left 5 Dead photoshoot.

Tonight’s topics:

• San Diego Comic Con’s Friday single-day passes sold out
• Jamie’s Street Fighter 4 National Tournament experience
• Carousel video and the 21:9 phillips screen
• Ashton Kutcher and his 1 million Twitter followers
• and more

Go to PixelatedLive.com at 7:30pm (pacific) to join us.

The viral marketing doesn’t seem to stop for the Burger King.  I just found the full two minute music video of the Spongebob Squarepants, Sir Mix-a-lot, and the Burger King.  Great job to Burger King and the agency they hired for this campaign.  IF you want to take a look at past viral campaigns they have done, read this post.

Someone got into Tila Tequila’s Twitter and told everyone she was dead. However, the Why-Is-She-Famous-Exactly? personality did not get shot. (Tila Tequila shot – do you see what I did there?)

Anyhow, here are some of the Twitter feeds via Radar Online:

“Pt1 This is Tila. I am deeply sorry for the earlier post about me being dead. I don’t know who logged into my account and wrote that.”

“Pt.2 but someone did indeed break into my house. It’s been a very scary night for me. it’s 4:10am now and have been dealing with it all.”

“Pt.3 too much has happened. I am scared, exhausted and drained but I am ok! Want to apologize to my fans who were worried about me”

“Im moving into a different house very soon because I have a stalker who is very much so endangering my life at the moment….I love u all.”

“They Broke everything in my living room….EVERYTHING IS SHATTERED! I’m so sad right now….this sucks.”

“Then I found my dog locked in the trunk of my car!!!!!!!!!! I’ve been crying all night. THis is fucked up. I’m sad and shocked and bye”

“Im still shaking and crying! My dog in the trunk of the car, house is shattered, everything is smashed! I’m staying at a friend’s house 2nite.”

Thanks again to Joe the Peacock for being a guest co-host. As always, the reason why you don’t see my co-hosts on the recorded stream is because USTREAM can’t do that yet. So, to see who I’m talking to, watch it live!