Microsoft and the Associated Press have officially launched their AP Online Video Network, an advertiser-supported Internet video news service built on Microsoft’s MSN Video.
Announced back in November 2005, the AP Online Video Network aims to provide video summaries of breaking news stories for Internet Web sites. The service will carry about 40 clips produced by the Associated Press every day, covering national and international news, technology, business, technology, and entertainment. According to the AP, the AP Online Video Network will reach a global audience of about 45 million users, and the clips will be available for free to AP members and other customers, with revenue generated by advertisements placed before and adjacent to the news clips in branded player windows. (Unlike many news organizations, the AP is a cooperative owned by U.S. news organizations rather than a news division of a larger corporate entity. It’s one of the world’s oldest and largest news organizations.)
MSN Video is supplying the networking back-end for the service, and the video will be delivered by Windows-only technologies built into Windows Media: users without Windows, IE6, Microsoft Media Player 10, and Flash 7 aren’t able to view materials from the AP Online Video Network.
In 1950, Alan Turing asked whether machines can think. Rather than argue over definitions, he turned the question into a party game, where an interrogator trades typed messages with hidden players and tries to work out who is who. Since then, chatbots have gotten so good that they have already fooled humans in modern versions of the test.
So, four researchers from Paris Cité University asked the obvious follow-up question in a new study published in Computers in Human Behavior Reports: can AI at least catch its own kind?
Mozilla is giving Firefox’s Smart Window two new tricks. If you haven’t tried it yet, Smart Window is an optional AI mode in Firefox with a built-in chat that helps you get things done while you browse. With this update, it can fill out online forms using details from your tabs and keep an eye on websites for you.
Tired of typing the same details into every form?
The absolutely absurd idea of putting a touchscreen display on a mouse isn't exactly new. Turtle Beach already did it with its Command Series MC7, which features a 2.25-inch control screen. But apparently, even that wasn't ridiculous enough for Arctic Fox Technologies. Its new Super Mouse looks like someone took the chunky old Atari ST mouse, slapped a touchscreen and scroll wheel on it, and called it an upgrade.
The result is a rather unusual-looking mouse that is now on Kickstarter, starting at $199. And as ridiculous as it looks, some of its features are genuinely intriguing.