On 2007-04-29, Kaizen  wrote:   
      
   > Hi, I'm a newbie to fuzz logic & fuzzy sets. Searching in the web, the   
   > pages that talk about fuzzy are last actualized about 2005/2006 and   
   > before. Nothing new, forum, blog or something (I don't find them). Only   
   > "fossils".   
   >   
   > What's happening? The fuzzy was a bubble? The golden age of fuzzy it's   
   > over? Why?   
      
     You're seeing the results of not knowing what you're looking for. There's   
   tremendous output of fuzzy logic controllers, but they're so mainstream now   
   that it's not worth mentioning.   
      
     There are also many approximate reasoning models in a variety of business   
   and scientific fields. These continue to be proprietary implementations of   
   fuzzy inference engines so you're not going to see them advertised as   
   available in shrink-wrapped packages. Many business applications provide a   
   competitive advantage to the companies for whom they're developed, so   
   there's no major news stories there. Not long ago, The Economist published   
   their Technology Quarterly. This included a fascinating (to me, at least)   
   story of a company that writes software to advise retailers when to mark   
   down merchandise, and by how much to mark it down. Nothing in the article   
   mentioned fuzzy sets or fuzzy logic, but it's obvious to those of us who   
   work with these models that this is the only way to create a functioning   
   model. This product, by the way, sells in the 7-digit range per customer.   
      
     As far as academia is concerned, I've no idea. Historically, the research   
   and other writings from this venue have little relationship to the   
   non-control applications in the real world of business and commerce.   
      
   Rich   
      
   --- SoupGate-Win32 v1.05   
    * Origin: you cannot sedate... all the things you hate (1:229/2)