Column Archive

By ASHLEY DUNN

February 25, 1998

The Ontology of Checkers
At the highest levels of checkers, computers have now become a standard tool for game analysis. Even from the earliest days of human-machine games, the computer had discovered errors in long-accepted lines of play.

February 18, 1998

Which Are Smarter, Humans or Computers?
Checkers Matches Show It May Be a Draw
A few years before the showdown between the chess grandmaster Garry Kasparov and IBM's Deep Blue, a different battle between mind and machine took place at a London hotel — a checkers match.

February 11, 1998

This is Your Brain. This is Your Brain as a Computer Interface. Any Questions?
The need for a more dynamic interface has been brewing with the growth of the Net, which has inundated us with information. The latest entry is an interface that has been modestly named "The Brain" — the creation of a Santa Monica, Calif.-based company called Natrificial.

February 4, 1998

Electrical Lines Could Zap Data To (and Through) Homes
The shape of the Internet has been almost entirely defined by a web of wires that were laid long before most of us ever heard of the Web. What has been strangely left out of the picture are the lowly electric lines that carry power to our homes.

January 28, 1998

Thin Sheet Separates Today's Display From Tomorrow's
The search for monitors that are cheaper, smaller and brighter has begun to focus on a technology known as light-emitting polymers (LEPs) — in essence, glowing, semiconductive plastics.

January 21, 1998

Web's Evanescence Creates Challenge for Archivists
Our obsession with the flux of the Net is what has probably prevented most of us from thinking about the simple question, What will happen to my site when I die? Now a group called Afterlife is dedicated to preserving the Web sites of deceased surfers.

January 14, 1998

Is Freedom the Lowest Common Denominator?
In the virtual realm, the rule of law has given way to the rule of what is simply feasible. In essence, it is the rule of the lowest common denominator, since what is allowed in one country destroys the restrictions of all other countries.

January 7, 1998

More Phone, Less Computer, Behind New Generation of Internet Phones
In the past few months, the lesson that simple is beautiful has begun to creep into the minds of the small group of companies exploring the world of consumer-level Internet telephony.

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Mind & Machine Columns published in 1997.
Mind & Machine Columns published in 1996.

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