Cryptosmith

Cousin Jon e-mailed me a New York Times article on the latest version of desktop speech recognition using Dragon technology. We have a sort of familial interest in speech recognition, since both of us worked for Dialog Systems in the 1970s.

By the time I had left, Dialog had developed speech recognition systems that worked over phone lines and recognized ‘isolated’ words. In other words, the systems did tolerably well as - long - as - you - paused - between - each - word. There was also an R&D demo system (paid for via Rome Air Development Center) that listened to continuous speech and identified specific words (perfect for monitoring phone conversations for words like “terrorism” or, back then, “Russian spy”) Continue Reading »

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I have been reading the ACM’s Model Curriculum on Information Technology (a prototype “IT” major) with a special eye towards the information security coverage. I’ve been teaching information security courses and recently developed a major in the area.

The curriculum provides minimum times to cover major topics in the field, like 3 hours to cover “Fundamental Aspects” including the “history” of information assurance and security. After factoring out the other dozen ‘learning outcomes’ for that topic, one is left with six minutes to cover the “history” of information security. Continue Reading »

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A site called “Live Science” has posted a “Top 10 Revolutionary Computers.” This was obviously written by someone who doesn’t know a lot about what makes a computer significant, beyond advertising.

The TRS-80 (aka the Trash 80)? The latest IBM parallel monster? Give me a break. These were all reruns of well-understood concepts. Nothing new. They listed the Alto, so why list the Macintosh?

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