Internet giant Google has fired another salvo in its ever-escalating competition with software titan Microsoft by unveiling a preliminary version of Google Spreadsheets, an online application which offers basic spreadsheet functions and simple data sharing capabilities.
For now, Google Spreadsheets is an invitation-only, preliminary product from Google Labs: although interested users can sign up to use and test the program, it’s not generally available to the public.
Google Spreadsheets offers basic spreadsheet functionality, offering traditional rows and columns in which users can store and organize numbers and text, as well as perform various calculations and manipulations. Google Spreadsheets supports changing number formats, column sorting, and basic formulas; users can also upload data to Google Spreadsheets in either CVS or Excel format, and Google says formatting and formulas will come through intact. Google Spreadsheets’ feature set currently does not come close to matching Microsoft Excel
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.