Geek Peek – Pocket Mind Reader

Written By: Digigirl on November 9, 2007 No Comment

I decided to take the word “Weekly” off the Geek Peek title. Apparently, despite my best intentions, I am incapable of producing a Peek on a weekly basis! So, in the interest of honesty and complete disclosure, we’ll just call it a Geek Peek and go from there.

That said, on to the latest Geek Peek! Today we’re looking at a totally useless and yet completely fascinating little gadget called the 20 Questions Pocket Mind Reader.

The Pocket Mind Reader is a very clever little computer that attempts to guess what’s on your mind. It’s quite simple. You just think of a thing. You can even say it aloud for others in the room, after all, the Pocket Mind Reader can’t hear you! It will ask you 20 questions, starting with the usual “Animal, Vegetable, Mineral or Other” and narrow things down until it gives you a guess as to what you were thinking.

My boss brought one of these in to work one day and we wasted a good 45 minutes putting it through it’s paces. Despite our best efforts to stump it’s little brain, it guessed right almost every time and when it guessed wrong, it was very close. I chose what I thought would be difficult things for it to decipher – things like dragons and violins – and it still nailed them right on.

The Pocket Mind Reader is a spin off from the 20q.net web site. The cool thing about this program is that it actually learns the more it plays. It actually has a neural-net, just as a human does, only smaller (we have about 100 trillion synaptic connections, the online 20Q has about 10 million and the pocket version only 250,000), so each time someone plays it, it remembers and makes additional connections which helps it guess better the next time it plays.

I’m thinking about getting several of these as stocking stuffers for the upcoming holiday season, but I think it would also make a great host/hostess gift and would be the perfect ice-breaker at a party. If you see one around, give it a shot! You’ll be surprised and amazed at how addictive it is and just how accurate it can be.

Hmm, maybe we should be looking more closely at that book on How to Survive a Robot Uprising….

Possibly Related Posts:

If you enjoyed this post, make sure you subscribe to my RSS feed!