Chatbots try to impersonate humans - and fail

Alan Turing once said that “if, during text-based conversation, a machine is indistinguishable from a human, then it could be said to be ‘thinking’, and therefore could be attributed with intelligence”. This became known as the Turing test and yesterday five chatbots tried to pass the test. They failed spectacularly.

Every year since 1990, the Loebner Prize has been held to determine if there is a computer bot out there which is indistinguishable from a human being. The top prize of a gold medal and $100,000 is still waiting for the inventor of a computer bot which is indistinguishable from that of a human. So far, no one has won but people have won the bronze medal and $2000 for the prize of most human-like.

The winner yesterday was Elbot and I’ve been trying him out. He answered my questions quite well. When I asked him if he had feelings, he responded : “I think I have feelings. I cried when they killed the robot in Terminator“!

There’s no sound card in the website so everything is text-based. The Loebner judges decided though that he was only 25% accurate. So he didn’t even come remotely close to passing Turing’s test.

I think we can safely say that the possibility of something like Skynet, Terminator and cyborgs are probably a long way off. I don’t see Elbot taking over the world, do you?

iPhone 3G will be launched in India on August 18

Oh Finally we get the news that iPhone 3G will released in Indian on August 18. Vodafone will launch the iPhone 3G first on the 18th of August. And after 15 days you can also get it from Airtel too.
Pricing and other essentials are still unknown. But will update you ASAP.........

Email large files using Docstoc OneClick

DocStoc OneClick, the new app allows you to right click any documents on your desktop have them automatically uploaded to Docstoc, where a link is generated and inserted into a new message in your default email client (Gmail my case). OneClick also lets you simultaneously upload multiple files, grab embed code, and add other meta data your documents.

How to Use:

Step 1: Download Docstoc OneClick and Create a Profile on Docstoc

Step 2: Select the documents (.doc, .pdf, .xls, .ppt) you want to send in an email (you can select multiple documents). The documents can be up to 50MBs each.

Step 3: Right click and select “Email as Private” or “Email as Public”. “Email as Private” stores your files privately on Docstoc so no other users can access them without the secret URL link. “Email as Public” will publically display the document you send via email, and they can be accessed via docstoc and search engines.

Step 4: An email is auto-generated using your default email client. You can simply add the recipient(s) e-mail address(es).

Step 5: Your documents will be uploaded and processed in the background. Make sure not to close the OneClick application in your system tray.

Step 6: You will have a backup copy of your documents that you can access anytime by visiting your “my documents” on Docstoc.