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Online 'Smiley Face' :-) Turns 20 Thu Sep 19,12:58 AM ET By Andy Sullivan WASHINGTON (Reuters) - It was 20 years ago today that Scott Fahlman taught the 'Net how to smile. The IBM researcher has devoted his professional life to artificial intelligence, the practice of teaching computers how to think like humans. Fahlman is known for his work with neural networks -- a computer technique designed to mimic the human brain -- and helping develop Common Lisp, a computer language that uses symbols instead of numbers, but the bearded scientist is perhaps best known for a flash of inspiration...

Typically software makers like Microsoft provide a simple means of uninstalling software--particularly software such as Media Player 9 Series that has yet to be officially released. The Redmond, Wash.-based company released the public beta version last week amid much fanfare in Hollywood. Windows Me and XP users must rely on a feature called "System Restore" to roll back their Windows installation to a time before they installed Media Player 9 Series if the want to uninstall it. The clunky alternative doesn't really remove all Windows Media Player 9 Series files and could potentially wipe out other system changes. David Caulton,...

...I have a question....we're changing my email address - will I also have to give up my FR name and sign-up date? How do I go about changing all this on FR - but hopefully, keep my name/date ...searched and couldn't find an answer, altho I'm sure there is a solution. Sorry to be so stupid about all this, but I'm in a panic since I thought about it.

<p>Mind control: Do companies own the thoughts of their employees? According to one Texas judge, Alcatel, the French manufacturer of telecom equipment, does.</p> <p>In a case tied up in the Texas court system for five and a half years, Judge Curt B. Henderson of the Collin County, Texas, District Court found that Alcatel owned a former employee's software idea that had never been written on paper.</p>

Astronomy Picture of the Day Discover the cosmos! Each day a different image or photograph of our fascinating universe is featured, along with a brief explanation written by a professional astronomer. 2002 July 30 A Star Cluster in Motion Credit: Adam Block (NOAO) Explanation: Star clusters are a swarm of complex motions. The stars that compose globular clusters and many open clusters all orbit the cluster center, occasionally interacting, gravitationally, with a close-passing star. The orbits of stars around the cluster are typically not as circular as the orbits of planets in our solar system. Cluster stars frequently fall...

Reading an interview with Neil Trevett from 3D Labs, in Maximum PC (August 2002). He is talking about the technology of the new 3D Labs graphics proccessors and its uses, when this question comes up: MPC: What about in a 2D application? Will virtual memory Make your desktop faster? NT: Yes, it'll definitly make your desktop faster, particularly as we go to the new generation of Windows. Longhorn [the code-name for Microsoft's proposed 3D operating system] proposes a really intractable problem when you think about it. If you have a high-resolution screen that's double-buffered, you can absorb 64 megabytes of...

The monopoly of foreign office software over Chinese market will be broken, as domestic software developers have jointed hands to start a project of "Chinese version" office software. The Beijing IT Industry Promotion Center announced on Thursday that two programs named "Yangfan" and "Qihang" (both means to "set sail") were kicked off, aiming at working out an operation system equivalent to Win 98 within a year. The Center said that 18 companies and universities joined the programs and its first desktop operation system "Yangfan 1.0" had been gradually put into use in offices of government departments. As reported, in...

New Computer Model Promises Detailed Picture of Worldwide Climate Capping two years of research, a nationwide group of over 100 scientists has created a powerful new computer model of the Earth's climate. The model surpasses previous efforts by successfully incorporating the impact of such variables as ocean currents and changes in land-surface temperatures. Researchers will use the model, called CCSM-2 (Community Climate System Model, version 2) to probe how our climate works and to experiment with "what-if" scenarios to predict what our climate may be like in the future. The model will also look at past climate. For example, researchers...

Has anyone any experience with the IncrediMail Email program? Are there any known problems or security issues related to the program? Thanks for any input you can provide.

WASHINGTON -- Attempting to woo computer-savvy young people, the Army will release on July 4 the first installment of an ambitious new computer game that will let players be all they can digitally be. The game, which will be free on many gaming Web sites and www.americasarmy.com, lets a player assume the role of a new recruit on an Army team pitted in an online battle against terrorists. While it is meant to be fun, the two-game set also was designed as a recruitment tool. "With this game we hope to educate young Americans and present them with a realistic,...

My Life As An International Arms Courierfrom mab@research.att.com (Matt Blaze) Fri, 06 Jan 95 as posted to the RISKS digest Under an obscure provision of US law, devices and computer programs that use encryption techniques to hide information from prying eyes and ears are considered ``munitions'' and subject to the same rules that govern the international arms trade. In particular, taking such items out of this country requires the approval of the State Department, which decides whether exporting something might endanger national security. In the past, these restrictions were of little concern to the average citizen; encryption found most of...

Record makers could win the right to carry out hack attacks on music sharing services if a US proposal becomes law. Californian congressman Howard Berman has drawn up a bill that would legalise the disruption of peer-to-peer networks by companies who are trying to stop people pirating copyrighted materials. If his idea becomes law, record companies will be able to carry out a variety of attacks on the sharing services to make them unusable or so irritating to use that people abandon them. Existing legislation makes it an offence for anyone to carry out many of the attacks mooted in...

A couple years ago, due to missing phone calls, while I was on the internet, I got a second phone line. I need to cut back on expenses now. So, what are the options? Software? Hardware?I'm especially interested in your personal experiences with the various solutions. Costs?

Thank you for clicking on this thread, and I beg your indulgence to read further. I am looking for a database-management-type software package on behalf of a children's summer-camp in Michigan. My problem is that I don't know where to begin my search, or whether an off-the-shelf product of this sort is even available. The requirements are quite simple, and I would imagine similar to the software one would use to run a baseball Little League. This software would have to have fields for such information as:name; address; phone; sex; age; birthdate; have forms been sent?; have forms been received?;...

Astronomy Picture of the Day Discover the cosmos! Each day a different image or photograph of our fascinating universe is featured, along with a brief explanation written by a professional astronomer. 2002 June 24 The Sun's Heliosphere & Heliopause Credit & Copyright: P. C. Frisch (U. Chicago) et al., U. Indiana Explanation: Where does the Sun's influence end? Nobody is sure. Out past the orbits of Neptune and Pluto extends a region named the heliosphere where the Sun's magnetic field and particles from the Solar Wind continue to dominate. The surface where the Solar Wind drops below sound speed...

<p>Maury Troy Travis, accused of killing two women and linked by court documents to the deaths of five more, was found dead Monday night in his cell at the St. Louis County jail in Clayton, sources said.</p> <p>A 10th (victim) was found May 25 when the letter to the Post-Dispatch led police to a skeleton in the West Alton area of St. Charles County."The letter was critical to our case," Hegger said.</p>

The 101 Dumbest Moments in Business By: Tim Carvell, Adam Horowitz, Thomas Mucha  Issue: April 2002 Print Article | Email This Article    In a perfect world, a list like this would not exist. In a perfect world, businesses would be run with the utmost integrity and competence. But ours is, alas, an imperfect world, and if we must live in one where Enron, Geraldo Rivera, and Cottonelle Fresh Rollwipes exist, the least we can do is catalog the absurdities. 1. Houston, We Have a Problem, Part 1: Enron states billions of dollars in extra revenue through aggressive accounting and complicated off-the-books partnerships managed by its own executives,...

NATIONAL Air Force, Army chastised for princely spending By LISA HOFFMANScripps Howard News ServiceMay 29, 2002WASHINGTON - A $24,000 sofa and armchair; an $1,800 pillow; and $45,800 in silver and china - such accoutrements would cause little surprise if found in the abodes of the wealthy and well-known. But government auditors discovered these pricey items - and many more - not in a mansion but at Air Force and Army bases in Saudi Arabia, the rest of the Persian Gulf, Europe and the Balkans. In a just-released report, the General Accounting Office informed Congress that its auditors found a number...

Having a lot of difficulty accessing the WorldNetDaily website lately (Source URL is linked above). Having no difficulty with any other websites. Anybody else having the same problem?

Here's the deal. It's new set up. Gigabyte GA-7VRXP board, 1500(1.33ghz) Athalon, ATI Radeon 7000 board, 256DDR RAM. When I boot the machine, I get...nothing. No signal to the monitor. Everything spins up but no signal. The monitor never comes off power-saving mode. Note: I have not set the jumpers for the processor because they didn't come with instructions for the settings for the chip. The voltage is set to something called "Auto"(by default). The FS is set to 100(by default). I have not changed any of the settings for the board. Note: This is the same thing that happened...