Wikipedia:Reference desk/Archives/Computing/2015 December 20

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December 20

Finger print open source software

Hello,

I hope you all are well.

I'm searching for a reliable software that I can use via a touchscreen laptop monitor. A phone to PC, PC to phone synchronization facility/functionality is advantageous/desirable. Can someone help me please?

Space Ghost (talk) 07:38, 20 December 2015 (UTC)

Your question is fairly confusion. I don't think any touch screen monitors have the ability to read fingerprints as part of the touch function. They may have a seperate fingerprint sensor but that doesn't mean the touchscreen itself can read fingerprints. It's also fairly unclear what you want the finger print detection function for and how this related to the synchronization facility/functionality. Actually it's fairly unclear what you want the software to do point blank. Nil Einne (talk) 08:02, 20 December 2015 (UTC)

[[File:|20px]] I saw it on television.

I was actually thinking of a system for MS Office login, and or, say for a customer's ID purpose. So far to date I've come across a 'Blood pressure checker' for diabetes on a smart phone. The sync I'm talking about is for 'read only' and or 'editing' purpose while you are on the go in a phone, under a present customer's permission, then of course you sync the data from phone to PC with the computer thereafter whenever... I don't know what I'll use, could be a Laptop or could be a phone.

Space Ghost (talk) 18:42, 20 December 2015 (UTC)

To be clear - it's not a matter of software. The physical hardware of the touch-screen sensor isn't capable of reading fingerprints. You could possibly do it by taking a photo of your fingertip with one of the on-board cameras - but I doubt the resolution is high enough without you holding your finger so close to the lens that the picture would be too blurry to resolve.

IMHO, fingerprint scanning is a really stupid idea for security or personal identification. The "gummy bear" hack makes it easy for anyone with a sample of your fingerprint to reproduce it perfectly and fool these devices. Finding one of your fingerprints to use is really easy because your fingerprints are all over the very phone you're trying to protect! But the worst thing of all is that if your password is compromised, you can at least change it so security violations won't continue - but good luck with changing your fingerprints! You can also limit the scope of a password exposure by using different passwords on different systems - but you only have ten fingers to get prints from!

This flaw makes fingerprint scanners (and many/most other biometric approaches) not just bad security - but potential disasters for their users. It's beyond belief that companies are still promoting these terrible techniques to the public.

SteveBaker (talk) 15:44, 21 December 2015 (UTC)

Lol.

The best thing I've seen so far to date is the 'three option security system' i.e. eye scan, fingerprint scan and a pin code. I could be wrong however...

Anyway, I'm not going to get into the fingerprint thing anymore, cause I recalled the existing issues; as you stated. It's just, its one of those "I want it for myself too" thing for me.

Thanks guys. Regards. -- Space Ghost (talk) 19:33, 21 December 2015 (UTC)

Open source AI

I'm searching for a reliable software, something like Jarvis from Iron Man movie. Can you help me please?

Regards.

Space Ghost (talk) 07:38, 20 December 2015 (UTC)

Such things to not yet exist - Iron Man is a work of fiction. SteveBaker (talk) 16:10, 20 December 2015 (UTC)

How lame. This world is boring...

Btw, thank you all (Wikipedians) for making my life interesting and a smart one... Regards.

Space Ghost (talk) 18:44, 20 December 2015 (UTC)

There is Siri, which is real, or take a look at another fictional AI program like Her (film) or Ex Machina (film). --Jubilujj 2015 (talk) 19:30, 20 December 2015 (UTC)

Saw Ex Machina - now I know why the world is boring... -- Space Ghost (talk) 19:39, 21 December 2015 (UTC)

There are things like Siri and home automation is gaining ground lately but the communication between the two technologies isn't there yet. So, currently, there are a lot of the pieces that you might be after but those pieces don't all work together like Jarvis. Dismas|^(talk) 03:33, 21 December 2015 (UTC)

I've added what you stated to my "If I ever have enough money to swim on" list. And thank you, I get the idea of what you are saying... -- Space Ghost (talk) 19:39, 21 December 2015 (UTC)

...and there are no services like Siri or Google-voice that are open-sourced. Note that Siri doesn't run inside your phone - the phone sends your voice to Apple's cloud servers. To have something even as good as Siri for yourself would require you to invest millions in server equipment and billions in search engine technology.

It's unclear whether the fictional "Jarvis" runs in small devices - but I think the implication is that Iron Man has enough money to own gigantic cloud compute systems that he can use for his private purposes.

SteveBaker (talk) 15:34, 21 December 2015 (UTC)

In the most recent film that I saw (and I have no idea which one it was), Jarvis was depicted as a worm that replicated itself across devices. That is how it was able to move from device to device to avoid being destroyed. Of course, it also implied that Jarvis felt pain and had the intelligence to change how it operated to hide and protect itself from pain. 209.149.113.52 (talk) 18:12, 21 December 2015 (UTC)

Giving full power to 'an AI' then letting it roam on the Earth will inevitably be the most stupidest thing to do in the Universe. -- Space Ghost (talk) 19:39, 21 December 2015 (UTC)

Are less people using laptops due to smartphones?

In the same way that laptops took away market share of desktops, could it be that smartphones/tablets are doing the same with laptops?--Jubilujj 2015 (talk) 19:26, 20 December 2015 (UTC)

Define use. Do you define use as physically touching a laptop at least once in a 365 day period? The answer is no, the amount of people who use a laptop has not drop. If you ask instead "Have the usage of laptops dropped because of smartphones" then the answer is yes because usage is defined as the number of seconds in a 365 days period in which a laptop is utilized for the purpose it was designed for. 175.45.116.66 (talk) 22:43, 20 December 2015 (UTC)

Do you have a source for any of those assertions? 82.44.55.214 (talk) 01:25, 21 December 2015 (UTC)

smartphone-more-popular-than-laptop-ofcom-2015175.45.116.66 (talk) 02:24, 21 December 2015 (UTC)

desktop-suffers-drastic-decline-mobile-soars 175.45.116.66 (talk) 02:29, 21 December 2015 (UTC)

People are using their laptops less because of smartphones and tablets, but it's not true that fewer people are using laptops. Apologies for the pedantry. I know this isn't the language desk. Dbfirs 08:02, 21 December 2015 (UTC)

Yes, I resisted the urge to correct the title to say "fewer people", despite "less people" sounding like some kind of insult (something like "I'd like to thank all the little people"). StuRat (talk) 08:15, 21 December 2015 (UTC)

We have to be careful about this question.

The OP didn't ask whether there are fewer laptops in use than previously - we are being asked about the market share - meaning "Did the percentage of people using laptops versus phones shift?"

Since cellphones have penetrated markets where computers were never used in the past and laptops continue to be sold - the number of people using laptops can still increase while the market share of laptops could decline when compared to cellphones.

Let's look at some numbers:

• This QZ source says that in 2013 there were an astounding 6.8 billion active cellphone subscriptions - and only 7 billion people in the world. We're pretty close to 100% market penetration - evidently some people own more than one cellphone - but even in places like Africa, 85% of people own one.
• This Statistia source shows that the number of laptops sold in the world started to decline from 210 million/year in 2011 down to 174 million/year in 2014 but predicts slow growth from 2015 onwards.  :* Since the sales of laptops has been fairly flat for at least the last 5 years - and 5 to 8 years is the typical lifespan of most electronic devices - we may estimate that the total number of them that are still in use cannot exceed around a billion to a billion and a half.
• If around 200 million laptops are sold each year - then each one would have to last for an average of 34 years for there to be as many in use as there are cellphones - and since the first laptops were first sold in the early 1980's, even if every laptop every made were still working and in active use - there could not possibly be as many as there are cellphones.

So - we can conclude that there are perhaps four to five times as many cellphone users as there are laptop users. So the market share for cellphones is vastly larger than laptops.

In terms of absolute numbers - the number of cellphone users has pretty much reached as high as it can reasonably get - 6.8 billion phones for 7 billion people (many of whom are babies and would not be expected to own one)...but the number of laptop sales seems to be fairly flat...and predictions for the future seems to offer only very modest growth. My guess is that the market is only for people replacing broken or outdated machines - so the number of laptop users is probably stuck at 1 to 1.5 billion...but it's hard to say for sure.

Interestingly, the decline of desktop PC sales is very slow - it could easily reflect improving reliability - and the fact that the shift to cloud-computing means that people aren't needing faster machines anymore - so they are replacing them less frequently.

The really interesting figures are the growth of tablet computers - which are rocketting up - and outselling laptops and desktops combined.

Conclusion: Market share of cellphones is as near to 100% as it can reasonably get. Market share of laptops is around 20% and will probably stay that way for a considerable time - whether they'll gradually become more popular as tablet users feel the need to have a keyboard - or whether tablets will gradually replace them - that's hard to say. Honestly, these days, it's hard to say whether a device is a true laptop or a tablet-with-detachable-keyboard anyway.

SteveBaker (talk) 15:22, 21 December 2015 (UTC)

I think I should point out that not all cellphones are smartphones (excuse me while I pet my flip phone lovingly). This is particularly the case in less-developed countries. The OP specifically asked about smartphones. --71.119.131.184 (talk) 16:11, 21 December 2015 (UTC)