Microsoft has launched a tech preview of its Live Mesh service, which is designed to keep a person’s documents and media synchronized across a range of computers and mobile devices, while at the same time letting users selectively share items or folders, chat with friends and family, and keep up on news and current events. Live Mesh envisions using the Internet—or, rather, Microsoft’s Web-enabled services— as a central hub or “cloud” for a user’s documents, photos, and messaging, and lets users access those items from any compatible Internet-enabled device. The Live Mesh preview is initially limited to 10,000 users on Windows PCs, but Microsoft plans to extend the technology to selected mobile devices…and even Macs.
Live Mesh enables users to easily share documents and information between devices: computers and mobile devices registered with Live Mesh automatically pick up the latest versions documents and media stored in mesh folders. Users can create and delete mesh folders at will, and password-protect folders with their Windows Live ID; folders can also be shared with selected other users via Windows Live IDs, and file transfers are all protected from snooping by SSL security.
In addition to document-sharing, users can post comments or send instant messages to each other within mesh folders, and keep track of activities in their mesh, including the online status of friends, the status of various mesh devices, and view new comments on folders and documents.
Live Mesh has been spearheaded by Microsoft chief software architect Ray Ozzie, and is being viewed as a possible shift for Microsoft towards net-based computing. The company plans to roll out the service in a public beta by the end of 2008.
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.