Tag archive: intelligence

Update: This so-called study was found to be a hoax by the BBC. Please, disregard. Original text: A newly released study has found that users of Microsoft's line of Internet Explorer browsers have the lowest IQs, on average, than people who regularly use other web browsers. Conversely, Opera users have the highest average IQ. The study (PDF) comes via Vancouver-based “psychometric consulting company” AptiQuant, who tested… Read More

The United Kingdom's intelligence service has pulled off an operation improbable enough to be worthy of James Bond's Q Branch. A team of hackers working for M16 recently successfully switched an Al-Qaeda bomb making guide for a far less incendiary cupcake recipe, according to The Telegraph. The operation rendered a 67-page guide on how to “Make a bomb in the Kitchen of your Mom” posted on Al-Qaeda's English-language… Read More

Is it good intelligence or simply more war on terror paranoia? We may never know. But the US intelligence agency, Intelligence Advanced Research Projects Activity (IARPA) has warned that terroristmight be using Second Life or other virtual communities to meet and plan ideas for the future, according to a report on Vnunet.   They’re so serious about it that they’ve recommended agencies put teams of operatives in virtual worlds to… Read More

When most people think of mass media, one item that almost always comes to mind is that perennial favorite, the television. From the almost quaintly naïve days of “Uncle Miltie” and Jack Parr through contemporary abominations like a channel dedicated to an aquarium and Rock of Love, for generations television has been the mass medium of choice for many cultures, and a perpetual best-seller. Would you believe it's… Read More

If artificial intelligence developers like Novamente have their way, virtual worlds like Second Life may soon become training grounds for self-directed artificial intelligence applications which learn by interacting with their environments—and with the virtual people populating them. And maybe users will be able to own their own AI-powered companions. Although artificial intelligence research dates back decades and famously split… Read More