Sciencetext Tech Talk: “The search for intelligent television” plus 1 more

Posted: 30 Jun 2010 05:00 AM PDT

The electronic program guide (EPG) on my digital cable box is next to useless, it’s a vast scrollable entity with no search function, same goes for the PVR. There are categories and various ways to jump between days and pages, but it’s not like searching on the web, which is what you really want, that and a last.fm type recommendation engine, oh and social media connectivity so that I can see what my friends and contacts are watching, recording and recommending, or not as the case may be. It’s rumored that “Google TV” might revolutionize the televisual experience somehow and wrapped up in those rumors is the idea of it bringing search to the experience (and more ads, no doubt).

It’s all tied up in the notion of information overload and our ever increasing need to see, read, listen and experience as much as we can pack into our waking hours. Indeed, back in the 1980s when I was still a student, I borrowed a “subliminal” learning cassette tape from a friend that was supposed to help you cram for exams even while you slept (bullshit, of course, there are no such thing as subliminal messages and brainwashing, thankfully).

There is a simple answer to information overload, tune out, switch off and log out, but that’s not the answer for most of us who not only “want” to assimilate as much nuanced data as possible and to be entertained while doing so, but actually “need” to accrue that information for professional, domestic, and personal reasons.

As Google’s creators and many others before them recognized many years ago, as information grows exponentially so finding the information you want/need becomes increasingly difficult without some way to order, index, and abstract it. It’s not about location, location, location, we all know roughly where the information is – it’s on millions of computers scattered across the globe and connected with this structure we know as the Web, or strictly speaking the Internet for non-web data. It’s not even about gathering it up; anyone with large enough resources can aggregate all the data they care to. No, it’s about filtration, evaluation and integration.

On the day I learn that Google News is going to “employ” editors at major news outlets to select the best content for its aggregator and running in parallel with Rupert Murdoch’s imminent manual blocking of Google with a few quick tweaks of his robots.txt files, I read a research paper that says the goal is about developing intelligent agents to do the leg work for us.

Mila Nadrljanski and V. Batinica of the University of Split, in Croatia, point out that database users – whether trawling TV guides, web indexes, or research journals – don’t need a vast amount of information, they simply need just that data that correspond best to their needs and interests. While the concept of intelligent agents is not new, Nadrljanski and Batinica suggest that it is time to evolve this concept to fulfill their promise and to help us home in on the data we want, when we need it.

Research Blogging Icon Mila Nadrljanski, & V. Batinica (2010). Intelligent media agents Int. J. Intelligent Defence Support Systems, 3 (1/2), 128-138 : 10.1504/IJIDSS.2010.03368

Post from: David Bradley's Sciencetext Tech Talk

The search for intelligent television

Hack a GMail account. Not.

Posted: 30 Jun 2010 01:05 AM PDT

Some time ago, I wrote a post warning people about a piece of rather dangerous malware the publicity for which claims to be able to help you hack a GMail account. Ostensibly, it offers you a simple way to retrieve your email account if you have somehow lost your password, forgotten your security question, and failed to set a secondary email address. But, of course, wouldbe password crackers see the potential for breaking into other people’s accounts. Both parties are taken in and will lose access to their own email accounts.

Is it any surprise that phrases of the sort “hack a GMail account”, “crack a hotmail password”, “reset a windows live password”, are the most common hitting Sciencetext these last few months?

Perhaps not. There are bruteforce password crackers out there, but for sites like GMail that require users to enter a captcha word before they can try again, those simply aren’t going to work. That’s the first giveaway that the so-called password crackers are a scam. To all those who have emailed asking me to explain how to use them: read my lips. They are a scam, don’t download and run them.

Here’s how to retrieve your GMail password legitimately.

First, visit the password retrieval page, where you should see a box like this, enter your username as requested and click submit:

You should now see a “captcha” box, fill it in appropriately and again click the Submit button.

The next screen will present you with your secret question, if you happen to have set this, complete the answer and submit:

If you make a mistake too many times, you will be presented with an anti-bot captcha:

But, once you have got it right, you will be presented with the option to change your password. Similarly, if you have set a secondary email (recommended) you will be sent a message explaining how to reset your password.

If your account has been compromised there is a whole complete set of different procedures to follow at the appropriate GMail page.

Post from: David Bradley's Sciencetext Tech Talk

Hack a GMail account. Not.