Cool iPhone Apps

Handwriting recognition:

rackspace has APIs

API Features

• Launch and control Cloud Servers™ programmatically using a RESTful API.
• Assign server instances custom metadata using your own key/value pairs.
• Reboot servers with soft or hard (power cycle) restart options.
• Rebuild servers from any image you specify.
• Create custom images and schedule backups of your Cloud Servers™.
• Scale servers—choosing from a variety of configurations.
• Share IPs. Create a collection of servers that can share public IPs with other members of the group.

IBM's Watson and Robot Doctors

Image via CrunchBase

Building a Robot Doctor
The idea is not so far-fetched. Technology is emerging that could handle some medical diagnosis through a laptop or smart phone. And there's no question that a robot computer could be loaded chock full of information. IBM's massive Watson computing system, for example, has been loaded with millions of pages of information from everything from classic novels to Wikipedia to books of historical sports statistics.
But being a doctor requires more than just knowledge. At the heart of Watson is software called DeepQA, which allows the computer to understand Jeopardy's often-tricky questions, and in a split second find the most likely answer out of millions of possible answers in all that stored data. The software will be tested in public sometime in 2011, when IBM's Watson is expected to play on Jeopardy. As it is, the massive computing system has been playing practice rounds in a mock studio against former Jeopardy winners, and Watson has been winning more than half the time.
IBM believes DeepQA will have plenty of applications beyond talk shows – including health care. Imagine if the same kind of system was loaded with every medical reference book and scientific study and information about prescription drugs, along with the latest news about flu outbreaks, weather or other factors that might impact health. A patient could then access a DeepQA doctor over the Web, ask questions and get informed and knowledgeable answers.
There's already a crude version of this on the Web – a site calledDoctor Robot, created by Russian physician Aleksandr Kavokin. It asks patients to fill out a questionnaire, and attempts to match answers with a possible diagnosis.

See full article from DailyFinance:http://srph.it/cf8SZ3

Related articles

• Computer beats Jeopardy! champs (cbc.ca)
• IBM's Watson wins practice round of "Jeopardy!" (salon.com)

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Regular Expressions

Image by dberlind via Flickr

Today we are going to discuss regular expressions.

What are regular expressions (how do they differ from non-regular expressions?)

Here is a helpful definition from Wikipedia:

In computing, a regular expression, also referred to as regex or regexp, provides a concise and flexible means for matching strings of text, such as particular characters, words, or patterns of characters. A regular expression is written in a formal language that can be interpreted by a regular expression processor, a program that either serves as a parser generator or examines text and identifies parts that match the provided specification.

 

Who Needs regular expressions?

Situations where regular expressions shine:

• Say you have a long list of contacts in Last Name, First Name order. You want to switch the order, and loose the comma. This requires just one search and replace operation using regular expressions.

The above selling point for regex was adapted from the Bare Bones Software website. Bare Bones makes a free product called TextWrangler, that includes support for regular expressions, including the ability to search multiples files and directories.

Related articles

• Converting a URL into a Link in C# Using Regular Expressions | rickyrosario.com (rickyrosario.com)
• Derivatives of Regular Expressions (lambda-the-ultimate.org)
• Test Regular Expressions in Your Browser (mt-soft.com.ar)
• Regular Expressions - Don't Use Google Aanalytics Without Them (blueglass.com)

Voice to Text Applications Powered by Intelligent Voice Recognition | Vlingo

Turn Your Words into Actions!

Download

Update Facebook status;
Anyone want to catch a movie tonight?

Text Sharon;
Be there in 15 minutes.

Find Mexican restaurants
in San Francisco

Call Locksmith

Welcome to Vlingo!

Watch our video: "Vlingo 2011 - The Future of Virtual Assistants"

Tell your phone what to do!  The Vlingo Virtual Assistant turn your words into action.  Vlingo combines voice to text technology with its "intent engine" to help you quickly complete your desired action.   Simply speak to your phone or type a command through the ActionBar to get just about anything done while on the go.

via vlingo.com