Tuesday, June 20, 2006
Apple Computer is planning to sell full-length feature films for download via the online iTunes Music Store. The store currently sells digital music tracks, and more recently has begun to sell TV episodes.
Apple executives are in negotiations with film studios to arrange the deal and settle on pricing structures. It is expected that films will retail for around $9.99 US dollars, although some studios are reported to want to set a higher price.
iTunes is currently by the biggest online retailer of digital music, with its software tightly integrated with the popular iPod line of products. Newer versions of the iPod include a colour screen capable of displaying videos, and so consumers could watch the films on the devices, but it is not yet clear how many people will want to do this.
Apple CEO Steve Jobs is also the largest single shareholder of Disney, which now owns animation studio Pixar, however he could end up playing a wider role within the film industry if iTunes becomes the dominant online distributor.
A full-length TV movie, ‘High School Musical‘ from Disney, is already available on iTunes, suggesting that the technical infrastructure is already in place.
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Antioxidants Improve Fertility
by
Cate Stevenson
by Cate Stevenson
About one in 20 men suffers from a condition called
subfertility
. Subfertility is responsible for half of all delayed conceptions a figure that rightly causes concern for couples wanting to start a family. There are many treatments marketed for those suffering from this condition in fact, a whole industry has developed, including expensive and complex remedies administered at special clinics. But here s one solution to fertility troubles that is relatively simple and inexpensive: get more antioxidants into your diet.
New Zealand researchers conducted a review of 34 studies. In all, nearly 3,000 couples undergoing fertility treatments, including in vitro fertilization and intrauterine insemination, were included in the review. Each study investigated the potential role of one or more antioxidants.
Based on 96 pregnancies among 964 couples in 15 of the studies, the researchers found that antioxidant use by the male partner increased the odds of conception. How much was this increase? Odds were boosted as much as four-fold not bad!
The research team also found that men taking antioxidants improved the likelihood of their partners giving birth to a live baby by a factor of five though only three of the studies contained data on live births.
Unfortunately the studies included in the review didn t use the same types or numbers of antioxidants. As a result, the researchers couldn t determine the effectiveness of individual supplements.
The researchers theorized that
antioxidants
help fight oxidative stress, which happens when molecules known as free radicals (byproducts of cell metabolism) damage DNA and cells ability to function. Antioxidants, including certain vitamins and nutrients, help to protect sperm cells, for example, by stabilizing free radicals.
The researchers cautioned that couples should not count on antioxidants to overcome their fertility challenges based on the results of this one study. What is clear, however, is that antioxidants obviously play a beneficial role in reproductive health.
With that in mind, here are five antioxidants to add to your weekly diet:
Raspberries and blueberries are an excellent source of antioxidants, vitamins, minerals and fiber
Tomatoes are a rich source of lycopene one of the most powerful antioxidants
Broccoli is an antioxidant that contains more vitamin C than oranges
Red grapes contain the free-radical fighting antioxidant resveratrol
Garlic is full of sulfur compounds that make it a particularly potent antioxidant
To read more from Doctors Health Press, click here:
doctorshealthpress.com/
Article Source:
ArticleRich.com
Tuesday, April 19, 2005
On Saturday April 16, students at Simon’s Rock College in Great Barrington, Massachusetts and Dr. Richard Wallace of the A.L.I.C.E. AI Foundation for their first time tested Alan Turing’s thought-experiment. The Imitation Game, based on the original Turing model for testing the ability of humans to recognize artificial intelligence (AI), was carried out with nearly eighty human and AI participants.
The ‘Original Imitation Game’ is described in Turing’s 1950 paper. A popularized version now dubbed the “Turing Test” involves a judge knowingly interviewing a software program and a human person during a computer chat, and then trying to discern which is which. The Turing Test has been conducted many times as Artificial Intelligence programs developed. However, no study was ever published following the guidelines of the original thought-experiment itself.
The Imitation Game involved playing a “gender guessing game”, wherein two human subjects, a male and a female, communicate via computer chat to the judge. Both the male and the female would try to convince the judge that s/he is female. Turing’s original question was, if a gender guessing game were done with two humans, and then with an AI replacing the male, would the judge be more accurate in guessing who the real female was?
Three students at Simon’s Rock — Cameo Wood, Melissa Leventhal, and Allyson Sgro — wrote a grant to support the experiment, and shepherded the proposal through the Human Research Review Committee under the oversight of Professor Anne O’Dwyer. The experiment was funded by the departments of Natural Science and the department of Social Science at the college.
The experiment utilized a program called A.L.I.C.E., which is designed to hold one end of an interactive conversation. The program was provided by the ALICE Artificial Intelligence Foundation. Dr. Richard Wallace was on hand during the experiment to troubleshoot the AI robot, later gave a lecture about on The Anatomy of A.L.I.C.E. and blogged the event.
Six human subjects from Simon’s Rock composed the human players in the game; the judges were recruited from various non-technical internet communities. Roughly eighty individuals participated in the experiment, which required the organizers to maintain strict secrecy about the experiment until it was concluded. All subjects who participated in the experiment were required to be over 18, not affiliated with the college, and were not allowed any foreknowledge of the use of AI in the experiment. Roughly 70 interviews were conducted over a three hour period last Saturday, via AOL’s Instant Messenger, a messaging tool that allows individuals to write to one another online.
The research team at Simon’s Rock has started to analyze the data they acquired during the experiment and will be writing a paper for publication in the coming months. Inquiries regarding the experiment may be directed to researcher@theguessinggame.net.