Amazon.com is getting into the movie business by opening Amazon Studios, with the goal of using the Internet to put fresh movies on the big screen.
The new Internet movie studio will allow writers to upload screenplays to its website, where the global Internet audience can read them and offer feedback, or producers/directors can use them to make test movies. The test movies, which must be at least 70 minutes in length, can also be uploaded.
Amazon Studios will also award monthly cash prizes to the top submissions of $100,000 for the best movie each month and $20,000 to the two best scripts. They’ll also be an annual award of $1 million for the best movie and $100,000 for the best script.
Monday, November 22, 2010
Now I See You
Weill Cornell Medical College researchers have built a new type of prosthetic retina that enabled blind mice to see nearly normal images. It could someday restore detailed sight to the millions of people who’ve lost their vision to retinal disease.
They used optogenetics, a recently developed technique that infuses neurons with light-sensitive proteins from blue-green algae, causing them to fire when exposed to light.
The researchers used mice that were genetically engineered to express one of these proteins, channelrhodopsin, in their ganglion cells. Then, they presented the mice with an image that had been translated into a grid of 6,000 pulsing lights. Each light communicated with a single ganglion cell, and each pulse of light caused its corresponding cell to fire, thus transmitting the encoded image along to the brain.
In humans, such a setup would require a pair of high-tech spectacles, embedded in which would be a tiny camera, an encoder chip to translate images from the camera into the retinal code, and a miniature array of thousands of lights. When each light pulsed, it would trigger a channelrhodopsin-laden ganglion cell. Surgery would no longer be required to implant an electron array deep into the eye, although some form of gene therapy would be required in order for patients to express channelrhodopsin in their retinas.
They used optogenetics, a recently developed technique that infuses neurons with light-sensitive proteins from blue-green algae, causing them to fire when exposed to light.
The researchers used mice that were genetically engineered to express one of these proteins, channelrhodopsin, in their ganglion cells. Then, they presented the mice with an image that had been translated into a grid of 6,000 pulsing lights. Each light communicated with a single ganglion cell, and each pulse of light caused its corresponding cell to fire, thus transmitting the encoded image along to the brain.
In humans, such a setup would require a pair of high-tech spectacles, embedded in which would be a tiny camera, an encoder chip to translate images from the camera into the retinal code, and a miniature array of thousands of lights. When each light pulsed, it would trigger a channelrhodopsin-laden ganglion cell. Surgery would no longer be required to implant an electron array deep into the eye, although some form of gene therapy would be required in order for patients to express channelrhodopsin in their retinas.
Headphones Built Into Your Hoodie N other Tech Clothing
A phone built into the sleeve of a dress. Gloves that enable you to swipe a touchscreen on the ski slope. Solar-powered backpacks. Here are nine examples of apparel that blurs the line between clothing and tech gear.
Wednesday, November 10, 2010
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