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Hallucinating chatbots
From CS4FN (Computer Science For Fun)

Hallucinating chatbots

Chatbots that can answer questions and write things for you are in the news at the moment. These Artificial Intelligence (AI) programs are very good now at writing...

Protecting your fridge
From CS4FN (Computer Science For Fun)

Protecting your fridge

Ever been spammed by your fridge? It has happened, but Queen Mary's Gokop Goteng and Hadeel Alrubayyi aim to make it less likely with their work on detecting malware...

The gender shades audit
From CS4FN (Computer Science For Fun)

The gender shades audit

Face recognition technology is used widely, such as at passport controls and by police forces. What if it isn't as good at recognising faces as it has been claimed...

Playing the weighting game
From CS4FN (Computer Science For Fun)

Playing the weighting game

How do search engines find the best web pages. It is like a giant talent contest where you want the best web pages to win. Karen Spärck Jones worked out how best...

Collecting mini-beasts and pocket monsters
From CS4FN (Computer Science For Fun)

Collecting mini-beasts and pocket monsters

Satoshi Tajiri created one of the biggest money-making media franchises of all time. It all started with his love of nature and, in particular, minibeasts. It also...

“Tlahcuilo”, a visual composer
From CS4FN (Computer Science For Fun)

“Tlahcuilo”, a visual composer

A main goal of computational creativity research is to help us better understand how this essential human characteristic, creativity, works. By building computer...

Follow those ants
From CS4FN (Computer Science For Fun)

Follow those ants

Ant colonies are really good at adapting to changing situations: far better than humans. Sameena Shah wondered if Artificial Intelligence agents might do better...

The first computer wizard
From CS4FN (Computer Science For Fun)

The first computer wizard

Christopher Strachey did a series of firsts in computer programming, and that was just when he was playing.

A Godlike Heart
From CS4FN (Computer Science For Fun)

A Godlike Heart

A short story by Rafael Pérez y Pérez of the Universidad Autónoma Metropolitana, México translated from the original Spanish

Mary Clem: getting it right
From CS4FN (Computer Science For Fun)

Mary Clem: getting it right

Mary Clem was a pioneer of dependable computing long before the first computers existed. She was a computer herself, but became more like a programmer.

Black in Data
From CS4FN (Computer Science For Fun)

Black in Data

Careers do not have to be decided on from day one. You can end up in a good place in a roundabout way. That is what happened to Sadiqah Musa, and now she is helping...

Reclaim your name
From CS4FN (Computer Science For Fun)

Reclaim your name

In 2021 the Canadian government announced that Indigenous people would be allowed to use their ancestral family names on government-issued identity documents. For...

Al-Jazari: the father of robotics
From CS4FN (Computer Science For Fun)

Al-Jazari: the father of robotics

Science fiction films are full of humanoid robots acting as servants, workers, friends or colleagues. The first were created during the Islamic Golden Age, a thousand...

A PC Success
From CS4FN (Computer Science For Fun)

A PC Success

We have moved on to smartphones, tablets and smartwatches, but for 30 years the desktop computer ruled, and originally not just any desktop computer, the IBM PC...

In space no one can hear you …
From CS4FN (Computer Science For Fun)

In space no one can hear you …

Johanna Lucht could do maths before she learned language. Why? Because she was born deaf and there was little support for deaf people where she lived. Despite,...

The last piece of the continental drift puzzle
From CS4FN (Computer Science For Fun)

The last piece of the continental drift puzzle

A computer helped provide the final piece in the puzzle of how the continents formed and moved around. It gave a convincing demonstration that the Americas, Europe...

Digital lollipop: no calories, just electronics!
From CS4FN (Computer Science For Fun)

Digital lollipop: no calories, just electronics!

by Jane Waite, Queen Mary University of London Can a computer create a taste in your mouth? Imagine scrolling down a list of flavours and then savouring your sweet...

The tale of the mote and the petrel
From CS4FN (Computer Science For Fun)

The tale of the mote and the petrel

Biology and computer science can meet in some unexpected, not to mention inhospitable, places. Who would have thought that the chemical soup in the nests of Petrels...

Fran Allen: Smart Translation
From CS4FN (Computer Science For Fun)

Fran Allen: Smart Translation

Computers don't understand the instructions they are given in programs. They have to translate them in to actual computer languages first. Fran Allen won the top...

A gendered timeline of technology
From CS4FN (Computer Science For Fun)

A gendered timeline of technology

Women have played a gigantic role in the history of computing. Their ideas form the backbone to modern technology, though that has not always been obvious.
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