I'm going to entertain some of this I hope you AGIers don't mind... >for this job. I'm not going to use windows, for obvious reasons.
I've seen this before, the ruling out of Windows for this type of task. I disagree, Windows IS the OS to use for many reasons. Although some may rule out the use of Windows for philosphical ideology. Despite the bad publicity towards MS, MS has been very open about their technologies. The argument used to be "Use Unix because Windows can't handle it." Windows CAN handle intense realtime applications and with the slew of other advantages brought along with it the decision should be an easy one. > >can see and use these applications just as the human user does? One >would like to create a virtual desktop which is mirrored to the >physical console and then have the AI take its input from what it >displays. On this >desktop the AI can run games and other instructional >software as well as communicate >with the human operator. >The development of such a system is still very chalenging as nobody >writes software to run in the configuration I just described. This >problem is not insurmountable, it will only require a great deal of >money. Here is where I make my make my first logical step. This virtual desktop problem should actually be a minor hurdle in relation to your other objectives. If using Windows this can be approached in different ways. One way would be to use the inherent desktop objects built into Windows and interact with them. Another method could be to graphically snapshot the desktop image in response to desktop changes. The analysis of these snapshots would be the intimidating task. > >Software is too hard to develop. The curent state of software is that >there are high barriers to entering the circle of developers. >Furthermore once one has made a comittment to devel software you are >faced with C++ which I have been told requires 7 years of daily >experience to truly master or with the nightmare of getting a better >language to work with an operating system which is literally built to >support C and C++. Switching to a better OS makes things worse because >once you get out of the mainstream you can't find support and you find >yourself having to write/port more of your applications. While the OS >you choose may be much much better than linux (which isn't hard at all) >such as BeOS your costs will go up because you have to do alot more Software is less difficult to develop if you leverage the existing work done by previous developers. For example: do we need to write video card drivers any more? Comm drivers? Database objects? GUI objects? Basic Math libraries? Network protocols? Electomechanical interface boards? Do you need to do C++? No - Delphi, Kylix, Visual Basic, C#, Java, etc... maybe try something easier. I've written some advanced telephony switching software with 16 bit VB 3. Everyone said at the time VB was just for prototyping and couldn't handle 8 T1's of voice. Now VB is in Version 7. Don't rule these technologies out. C++ does it all and it is the fastest but you may have to reinvent many wheels. Take a look look at C#. Personally I'm doing a lot of Delphi now. Though C++ really works well with equations - so you can do mixed language programming and write your math routines in C++ dll's and COM objects that are called from something easier. Or you can even hook into the Maple or Matlab engines via COM for computability. > >In conclusion, I am about to go against my reservations and fears and >plunge head-long into a virtual world project because I beleive, by >this convoluted >logic, that it is vital to advancing the development >of AI. > >Bottom line: I need $5,000,000 to start, and another $10,000,000 to go >on-line. > If you can get $5 to 15 mil that's all fine. Many tech start-ups came up with much more than that and flopped. With hard work and persistance you could come up with a protoype or a toned down product or service the generates immediate revenue for a more incremental proof-of-concept. These are just some ideas.... judging from your email it looked as if you needed some... ------- To unsubscribe, change your address, or temporarily deactivate your subscription, please go to http://v2.listbox.com/member/?[EMAIL PROTECTED]
