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The Military

NSA and Army On Quest For Quantum Physics Jackpot 110

coondoggie sends this excerpt from NetworkWorld: "The US Army Research Office and the National Security Agency (NSA) are together looking for some answers to their quantum physics questions. ... The Army said quantum algorithms that are developed should focus on constructive solutions [PDF] for specific tasks, and on general methodologies for expressing and analyzing algorithms tailored to specific problems — though they didn't say what those specific tasks were ... 'Investigators should presuppose the existence of a fully functional quantum computer and consider what algorithmic tasks are particularly well suited to such a machine. A necessary component of this research will be to compare the efficiency of the quantum algorithm to the best existing classical algorithm for the same problem.'"

Comment Harm (Score 1) 1109

From the 'No Military License':
"... The Program and its derivative work will neither be modified or executed to harm any human being nor through inaction permit any human being to be harmed. This is Asimov's first law of Robotics."

Aside from the obvious direct military applications, would this restrict its use by people who create laws which allow harm to come to humans? The "harm" clause is quite subjective in its definition. How they perceive harm may be different from how others percieve harm. This may be struck down in the courts as being "too broad" and find it is not a valid license as has been done many times in the past in regards to laws (both state and federal laws).

-- The software industry is driven by wanting more while using less; which is why Microsoft products provide successively more options and features while leaving you with less free drive space, less free memory, less stability and less peace of mind. --me
sTc

Comment A little ingenuity (Score 2, Interesting) 446

I got my nano a few weeks ago, and managed to avoid all problems with screen scratches by using a screen protector bought for my palm pilot. I had to trim the protector to fit on the nano, but it's barely noticeable that it's on there and I have not had a single scratch on the screen.

True, I shouldn't have to do that; maybe Apple should have used a better material for the screen. In the end I see this as another frivolous lawsuit that's destroying this country.

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