Crumbs
Rich T finds some tasty titbits you might have missed in the week's news
Tuesday 24 July 2007, 6:10 PM
Infallible PCs
As if it wasn't bad enough to lose against a human at board games, now Canadian academics have written a computer program which will ensure that a PC never loses.
The game in question this time is draughts - a frighteningly more complicated game than it might look at first glance.
It's taken team of computative researchers 18 years to develop the programme, which will always win - or if it plays an opponent with perfect knowledge, like itself - draw.
The University of Alberta's Jonathan Schaeffer, who reported the findings to the BBC, and who confesses to be "awful" at playing draughts himself, began attempts to develop the perfect game in 1989.
He entered his program for the World Championship in 1994, and while the program became 'World Champion', there was still a possibility it could lose.
Now, 13 years on, the program can play the perfect game.
Computationally, the problem was a million times more complicated than that other kiddies favourite, Connect Four.
But not even Schaeffer is near producing software to play the perfect game of chess.
The game in question this time is draughts - a frighteningly more complicated game than it might look at first glance.
It's taken team of computative researchers 18 years to develop the programme, which will always win - or if it plays an opponent with perfect knowledge, like itself - draw.
The University of Alberta's Jonathan Schaeffer, who reported the findings to the BBC, and who confesses to be "awful" at playing draughts himself, began attempts to develop the perfect game in 1989.
He entered his program for the World Championship in 1994, and while the program became 'World Champion', there was still a possibility it could lose.
Now, 13 years on, the program can play the perfect game.
Computationally, the problem was a million times more complicated than that other kiddies favourite, Connect Four.
But not even Schaeffer is near producing software to play the perfect game of chess.
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