Semi

Goodyear decided to kick off this year's IAA Commercial Vehicle show in a gigantic way with the reveal of a life-size Lego big rig. While you cannot drive this mock truck, at least we can marvel at the fact that it weighs 1,631 pounds and contains a quarter of a million Lego bricks. … Read more

Monster Trucks Nitro 2 is the sequel to popular game Monster Trucks Nitro, both with the object of racing through courses littered with obstacles to compete for the best time. In Monster Trucks Nitro 2, you're challenged to work your way up through the ranks by completing early novice courses on up to championship races using different types of vehicles depending on the race. The control system gives you a throttle control across the bottom of the screen (which you'll rarely change from full power) and the accelerometer to control flips while in the air. Though MTN2 is … Read more

I'm just sooo happy to be sitting here reading through an eight-page PDF on algorithms. Seriously. Nothing in this world makes me happier than poring over phrases like "detailed results of the 5-fold cross validation of various components of the algorithm are summarized in Table 2."

If a new sarcasm-detecting algorithm out of Jerusalem's Hebrew University really knows what it's doing, it should be able to tell that I was just kidding there. Yeah, right. No, actually I was.

After an exhaustive look at word, syntax, and punctuation patterns in written user-generated content, the researchers came up with SASI (PDF), or Semi-supervised Algorithm for Sarcasm Identification, which can recognize sarcasm in online sentences and assign each sentence to a sarcastic class (not all sarcasm is created equal, of course). Meager attempts at sarcasm aside, this is a pretty novel idea that could possibly aid those pure souls who lack a sarcasm and irony meter--and could even have commercial applications.

One idea here is that automated sarcasm recognition could help improve review summarization and opinion-mining systems, since the inherently subtle and ambiguous nature of sarcasm sometimes makes it hard even for humans to decide whether a comment is sarcastic. According to the researchers--Oren Tsur, Dmitry Davidov, and Ari Rappoport--studies of user preferences suggest some consumers find sarcastic reviews biased and less helpful.

The Hebrew University team--which will present its findings next week at the International Conference for Weblogs and Social Media in Washington, D.C.--closely examined some 66,000 Amazon reviews for 120 products including books, music players, digital cameras, camcorders, GPS devices, e-readers, game consoles, and mobile phones.

Identifying cues common to sarcasm in online communication (excessive use of capital letters as in: "Well you know what happened. ALMOST NOTHING HAPPENED!!!"; puns; and explicit contradictions), the researchers created a complex algorithm in which a small number of sarcastic sentences "teach" the software to recognize sarcasm. They say the software precisely identifies sarcastic sentences 77 percent of the time--no small feat given the elusive nature of sarcasm, its intractable relationship to cultural context, and differences between the spoken and written varieties. … Read more

Google and Apple continue to find themselves on opposite sides of the world, as Google has apparently agreed to buy a chip-design start-up populated by former Apple employees.

Thomson Reuters' PEHub reported Tuesday that Agnilux, a stealth chip start-up in San Jose, Calif., is Google's latest acquisition. A company spokesman confirmed the parties had reached a deal but provided no further details on one of Google's more curious acquisitions in recent memory.

Little is known about Agnilux other than the fact that it was founded by former employees of P.A. Semi, the chip start-up Apple bought in … Read more

Dan Dobberpuhl, the PA Semi founder and CEO who came to Apple with the acquisition of his company, has apparently jumped ship to work at a chip-related start-up.

Apple acquired PA Semi in April of 2008 for $278 million. At the time, Apple CEO Steve Jobs said the company was purchased to design system-on-chips for iPhones and iPods. Dobberpuhl was the leader of the team Apple hired.

Apple did not respond to inquiries about whether Dobberpuhl was still at Apple. Several sources said Dobberpuhl's departure was not recent and may have happened as long ago as last fall or … Read more

As Intel readies its most potent chip yet for small devices, Apple may already be using competing technology.

One of the themes of the upcoming Intel Developer Forum (starting Tuesday) will be the chip giant's foray into the smartphone and mobile Internet device (MID) markets. Intel's current Atom chip is fine for Netbooks but has had little impact on MIDs and zero impact on smartphones, where it is simply too power hungry to be usable.

Enter Moorestown. A much more power efficient Atom chip, due by 2010, that should find its way into high-end LG smartphones, MIDs from … Read more

The Apple tablet has been rumored for years, but bits of information leaking here and there over the last few months indicate it could be for real. A new report from AppleInsider now says the device is on track to be introduced early next year.

The report on Friday said that the last few important hurdles in bringing the tablet to fruition have been cleared. As the Wall Street Journal reported earlier this year, AppleInsider says CEO Steve Jobs has personally been overseeing the project, and is on schedule for a launch sometime between January and March 2010. AppleInsider says … Read more

As you probably know by now, I'm a sucker for videos full of fast cars. And as you may have noted a couple of weeks ago, I'm also a fan of the show "Jesse James is a Dead Man" on Spike TV. In a recent episode, Jesse takes his custom-modified muscle car on a chase through the desert, with the object being to see if the police can actually catch him. Apparently, real police officers from Orange County were used in performing this stunt, and sure enough, the police finally catch Jesse when his tires give … Read more

The Apple rumor mill kicked into high gear again Monday regarding the much discussed, yet still mythical Apple tablet. But a significant new piece of information emerged.

Tech blog Venture Beat is reporting that PA Semi, the chip company Apple bought last year whose specific function within Apple has thus far been unclear, will be designing the chips for an Apple tablet in house. Dean Takahashi wrote Monday, "PA Semi's team was split into two parts, one designing portable ARM-based processors for iPhones and iPods, and another designing a processor for the tablet device."

The PA Semi … Read more