1981 Internet report

Freakishly realistic telemarketing robots are denying they're robots

This is how it starts, people. First we get our chatbots to sound and act realistic — and then we get them to convince everyone they're actually human. Listen to this crazy conversation between Time's Michael Scherer and a telemarketing robot who refuses to admit her true artificial nature.

Recently, Time Washington Bureau Chief Michael Scherer received a phone call from an apparently bright and engaging woman asking him if he wanted a deal on his health insurance. But he soon got the feeling something wasn't quite right.

After asking the telemarketer point blank if she was a real person or a computer-operated robot, she chuckled charmingly and insisted she was real. Looking to press the issue, Scherer asked her a series of questions, which she promptly failed. Such as, "What vegetable is found in tomato soup?" To which she responded by saying she didn't understand the question. When asked what day of the week it was yesterday, she complained of a bad connection (ah, the oldest trick in the book).

Here, listen for yourself:

i09

The Black Budget

Covert action. Surveillance. Counterintelligence. The U.S. “black budget” spans over a dozen agencies that make up the National Intelligence Program.

The Washington Post

Space Oddity- Commander Chris Hadfield

The Future Will Be Silent-OMD

Russia Censors Sites Like Facebook, Twitter to Protect Children

Russia is using a new law to block certain internet content that is considered unsafe for children's eyes.

The law, passed in November 2012, allows the Russian government to remove internet content on websites like Facebook and Twitter if it is deemed harmful for children.


DailyTech

Arthur C. Clarke Predicts the Internet & PC

Futureworld-Com Truise

The Annotated Toffler

Think you've heard it all about the global financial crisis, the Internet distracting us into stupidity, dysfunctional and self-destructive politics, the demise of the nuclear family, and degenerating cities? Well imagine having predicted, written about, and imagined the consequences of all of these postmodern maladies -- before they ever happened. Meet Alvin and Heidi Toffler, the accidental futurists who have lived to see so many of their foresights become our daily reality.

Foreign Policy

The Modular Man would like to tell you that we told you so.

Rocket Man

Here's to 50 years since Gagarin went into the cosmos: First Orbit - the movie

Japan quake shortened length of days on Earth: NASA

The massive earthquake that struck Japan last Friday was so powerful that it accelerated the Earth's rotation speed, shortening the length of the day by 1.8 microseconds, a new analysis by NASA has claimed.

According to scientists at the US space agency, the 8.9-magnitude quake shifted the way the Earth's mass is distributed, which made the planet spin a little faster, cutting the 24-hour day by an estimated 1.8 microseconds. That is less than two millionths of one second.

The initial data suggested that the quake moved Japan's main island about eight feet and shifted the Earth's figure axis, around which the Earth's mass is balanced, by about 17 centimetres, said Richard Gross, a geophysicist at NASA's Jet Propulsion Laboratory in Pasadena, California.

Earlier, scientists have estimated that the quake has shortened the day by 1.6 microseconds.

IndianExpress.com

“I, for one, welcome our new computer overlords."

Ken Jennings, contestant on Jeopardy! famous for winning 74 games in a row, borrowing a line from The Simpsons to congratulate his computer opponent, Watson, for handily winning a three-day competition.


New York Times

NASA - The Frontier Is Everywhere

Everything Counts

We Dance to the Beat-Robyn

Space tourism agents lined up

LAS CRUCES - They're like your neighborhood travel agents - except their package tours' most unique feature is nowhere to be found on earth.

A group of actual "space agents" is touring Spaceport America and the surrounding Mesilla Valley through Thursday during the New Mexico Spaceport Authority's annual forum.

The agents are taking a guided tour spanning three counties to help impress upon potential customers what the area has to offer: Las Cruces, Mesilla, Hatch, Truth or Consequences, White Sands Missile Range and White Sands National Monument, the National Solar Observatory at Sacramento and the New Mexico Museum of Space History.

Currently under construction near Truth or Consequences, Spaceport America has been providing commercial launch services since 2006 and its state-of-the-art launch facility, which counts Lockheed Martin, Moog-FTS, Armadillo Aerospace, and UP Aerospace as tenants, is expected to become fully operational next year.

Spaceport America's anchor tenant Virgin Galactic plans to provide sub-orbital space flights and commercial service via its WhiteKnightTwo and SpaceShipTwo vehicles. Only Virgin Galactic-affiliated agents will be able to book travel on SpaceShipTwo, which is progressing in development and will fly from Spaceport America when testing completes, according to a news release.

"Spaceport America is going to be a major destination for tourists from all over the world, whether visitors or Virgin Galactic customers," said Spaceport Authority Executive Director Rick Homans. "These (Virgin Galactic-)accredited space agents will help spread the word about New Mexico by promoting the spaceport."

Las Cruces Sun-News
Spaceport America

Cybercrime is Rampant Around the World, Says Study

A new study by security vendor Symantec reports that Internet crime has grown into a widespread problem globally. It also provides intriguing insights into consumers' lax attitudes toward online piracy, plagiarism, and other illegally or unethical activities.
Some 7,000 adults in 14 nations participated in the Norton Cybercrime Report: The Human Impact, which was released Wednesday.

The study says that cybercrime is quite commonplace; more than 65 percent of participants say they've been a victim of online crime, including virus or malware attacks, online scams, phishing, social network profile hacking, credit card fraud, and sexual predation.

PC World

Radiohead: Live from the basement show

The Menace of Mechanical Music

"I foresee a marked deterioration in American music and musical taste, an interruption in the musical development of the country, and a host of other injuries to music in its artistic manifestations, by virtue -- or rather by vice -- of the multiplication of the various music-reproducing machines."


John Philip Sousa, "The Menace of Mechanical Music," Appleton's Magazine, Vol. 8 (1906).