Rare Turing Notebook Sells for $1 Million

A page from a notebook of British mathematician and pioneer in computer science Alan Turing is displayed during an auction preview in Hong Kong March 19, 2015.


A long-lost notebook owned by British mathematician and World War II code breaker Alan Turing sold at auction in New York on Monday for $1 million, Bonhams auction house said.

 

A chat-bot named "Eugene Goostman" made headlines for "his" good showing during a Turing test, in which he was able to fool human judges into thinking he was a real person.

DCI

The sale of the recently discovered notebook comes at a time of enormous interest in Turing's life and work generated by Oscar-winning movie "The Imitation Game".

The manuscript, which sold for $1.025 million in two minutes of bidding, dates back to the mid-1940s when Turing was working to break the Nazi Enigma code at Britain's Bletchley Park.

An original 1944 Enigma Machine, still fully operational, sold for $269,000 at the same auction, smashing pre-sale estimates of $140,000-180,000.
Both winning bids were in the room, but both buyers wanted to remain anonymous, the auction house said.


Turing was a computer scientist, philosopher and cryptologist ahead of his time who played a crucial role in breaking Enigma.
"We have no idea how many lives he saved. It is estimated that he shortened the war by two years," said Cassandra Hatton, director of Bonhams' history of science and technology department.
The notebook is believed to be the only extensive Turing autograph manuscript in existence and gives an insight into the man whose work, when he was just 24, led to the universal computer machine.
It features 56 pages of Turing's notes on the foundations of mathematical notations and computer science, made during his leisure time at Bletchley Park.

It shows that Turing was examining the works of German philosopher Gottfried Wilhelm Leibniz, and French philosopher and mathematician Rene Descartes, among others.

Turing was prosecuted for homosexuality in 1952 when it was a crime in Britain. Forced to undergo chemical castration, Turing killed himself in 1954 at the age of 41.
He was officially pardoned by Queen Elizabeth II only in 2013, six decades after his death.

British actor Benedict Cumberbatch, nominated for an Oscar for portraying Turing in last year's film, has described the prospect of being able to hold one of his manuscripts as "thrilling".

 

What Chat-Bot's Turing Test Triumph Means for AI

A chat-bot named "Eugene Goostman" made headlines for "his" good showing during a Turing test, in which he was able to fool human judges into thinking he was a real person.

DCI

The notebook was bought from a stationers in the English university city of Cambridge, where Turing was a fellow at King's College.

It was among papers left by Turing after his death in 1954 to friend and fellow mathematician, Robin Gandy.

On blank pages of the notebook, Gandy wrote a journal in which he called Turing a "dead father figure." Bonhams said the document remained hidden among Gandy's personal effects until his death.

Before the sale, Hatton told AFP that she hoped the notebook can be made available to researchers.
"What I really, really hope for is that a collector buys it and makes it available to an institution, at least loans it for a few years and makes it available to scholars," she said.
Andrew Hodges, who wrote the biography that inspired "The Imitation Game" said Turing was "parsimonious with his words and everything from his pen has special value.
"This notebook shines extra light on how, even when he was enmeshed in great world events, he remained committed to free-thinking work in pure mathematics."

Bonhams said a portion of the proceeds will be donated to charity.

"The Imitation Game" won an Oscar in February for best adapted screenplay. It had been nominated for eight Academy Awards.

Beware the Cloned App, They may contain Malware

Cybercriminals can take advantage of the popularity of an app by creating a clone, which can extract personal data or even allow an attack to gain control of the device.

Malicious software is increasingly making its way into mobile phones through "cloned" versions of popular apps, and software weaknesses in legitimate ones, security researchers said Tuesday.

McAfee Labs said in its quarterly threat assessment that weaknesses in app security are becoming a growing problem for owners of mobile devices. In some cases, cybercriminals can take advantage of the popularity of an app by creating a clone, which can extract personal data or even allow an attack to gain control of the device.

This was the case with "Flappy Birds," a mobile game which saw a meteoric rise but was later withdrawn by its creator. McAfee Labs sampled 300 Flappy Bird clones and found that almost 80 percent contained malware.

"Some of the behavior we found includes making calls without the user's permission; sending, recording, and receiving SMS messages; extracting contact data; and tracking geolocation. In the worst cases, the malware gained root access, which allows uninhibited control of anything on the mobile device including confidential business information," the report said.

The McAfee report said some legitimate apps have security flaws which can be exploited by hackers. The researchers said they discovered an Android trojan "which exploits an encryption method weakness in the popular messaging app WhatsApp" and then steals conversations and pictures stored on the device.

"Although this vulnerability has now been fixed, we can easily imagine cybercriminals continuing to look for other flaws in this well-known app," the report said.

The researchers also said they identified malware that can steal money from a digital wallet. One of the malware programs identified "is disguised as an update for Adobe Flash Player or another legitimate utility app," and can take over a digital wallet to send a money transfer to the attacker's server.

Wearable Computers Make a Fashion Statement

A wearable computing trend is at the heart of the "quantified self" movement in which people track anything from how many calories they burn to how well they sleep or their moods at any given moment.

The notion of being fashionably smart is getting a makeover as internet-linked computers get woven into formerly brainless attire such as glasses, bracelets and shoes. A wearable computing trend is at the heart of the "quantified self" movement in which people track anything from how many calories they burn to how well they sleep or their moods at any given moment.

"We are heading for the wearable computing era," Gartner analyst Van Baker told AFP. "People are going to be walking around with personal area networks on their bodies and have multiple devices that talk to each other and the Web."

Google Glass and other augmented reality projects are about to break onto the scene. But what does an augmented reality look like and how can it enhance our lives.

Understandably, the trend has found traction in fitness with devices such as the Jawbone UP, Nike's FuelBand, and Fitbit keeping tabs on whether people are leading active, healthy lifestyles. The devices use sensors to detect micro movements and then feed information to smartphones or tablets, where applications tap into processing power to analyze data and provide feedback to users.

San Francisco-based Jawbone jumped into wearable computing years ago, building electronic brains into stylish wireless earpieces and speakers for smartphones. Jawbone recently added muscle to its lineup of fitness lifestyle devices with a deal to buy BodyMedia.

BodyMedia makes armbands used to track caloric burn of fat-shedding competitors on US reality television show "The Biggest Loser." "There's an enormous appetite for personal data and self-discovery among consumers that will only continue to grow," said Jawbone chief executive and founder Hosain Rahman.

A Forrester Research survey conducted early this year found that six percent of US adults wore a gadget to track performance in a sport, while five percent used a gadget like UP or Fitbit to track daily activity or how well they sleep. Worldwide shipments of wearable computing devices could climb as high as 30 million units this year, according to Forrester.