Odyssey Online

Entries from February 2011

Watson as Search Engine

February 16th, 2011 · Comments Off on Watson as Search Engine

…this in the current issue of Nature, an article on Watson, the computer that recently did so well on the game show Jeopardy. The thesis is essentially that Watson could be a prototype for the next leap in search engines, namely, engines that are able to finally actualize natural language searching.  That is, computers you’d converse with and be doing so search databases.

Tags: Essay on Technology · Information Studies · Research How-To

Information Overload

February 7th, 2011 · Comments Off on Information Overload

…this from the Boston Phoenix around Christmas, a convincing and frightening piece about how federal, state, and local governments are “drowning in data.” From the article, “Even with millions being spent on storage solutions, public workers warn that at the bottleneck of information flow sits a good old-fashioned shortage of manpower.”

Tags: Computer Security · Essay on Technology · Information Studies

Library At Alexandria

February 2nd, 2011 · Comments Off on Library At Alexandria

…with the news this morning out of Cairo turning ominous, this from the Library At Alexandria.  A “know hope” moment, but with today’s violence one wonders what will happen…

Tags: Books · Essay on Bibliography

Titles on Egypt

February 1st, 2011 · Comments Off on Titles on Egypt

…here’s a short list of newer titles in ODY on contemporary Egypt. While of course none of these titles can take into account the events of the last week, they may provide useful background on how things have unfolded.

Tags: Books · Recommended Book

St. Lawrence University