Space the final frontier

Japanese robot that can be controlled using Kinect even if you're not in the same city!

2011-11-24T16:26:00.001-08:00

Move over Kinect - Displair from Russia is kicking it!

2011-11-24T16:22:00.001-08:00

FogScreen - laser touch system from SCREENRENTAL.EU on Vimeo.

Language localized in the brain

2011-08-31T15:12:00.000-07:00

MIT researchers have found that there are parts of our brain dedicated only to language, a finding that marks a major advance in the search for brain regions specialized for sophisticated mental functions.

Functional specificity refers to the idea that discrete parts of the brain handle distinct tasks. Scientists have long known that functional specificity exists in certain domains: in the motor system, for example, there is one patch of neurons that controls the fingers of your left hand, and another that controls your tongue.

But what about more complex functions such as recognizing faces, using language or doing math? Are there special brain regions for those activities, or do they use general-purpose areas that serve whatever task is at hand?

To determine this, the researchers analyzed each subject individually using fMRI, making sure that patterns of activity in one brain would only ever be compared to patterns of activity from that same brain. The researchers spent the first 10 to 15 minutes of each fMRI scan having their subject do a fairly sophisticated language task while tracking brain activity. This way, they established where the language areas lie in that individual subject, so that later, when the subject performed other cognitive tasks, they could compare those activation patterns to the ones elicited by language.

After having their subjects perform the initial language task (a “functional localizer”), the researchers had each one do a subset of seven other experiments: one on exact arithmetic, two on working memory, three on cognitive control and one on music, since these are the functions most commonly argued “to share neural machinery with language.”

Out of the nine regions they analyzed — four in the left frontal lobe, including the region known as Broca’s area, and five further back in the left hemisphere — eight uniquely supported language, showing no significant activation for any of the seven other tasks. These findings indicate a “striking degree of functional specificity for language,” the researchers said.

The researchers said the results don’t imply that every cognitive function has its own dedicated piece of cortex. However, they said the results give hope to researchers looking to draw some distinctions within the human cortex.

'Anonymous’ plans to ‘destroy’ Facebook on Nov. 5

2011-08-10T14:56:00.000-07:00

A user named “Anonymous” has issued a YouTube press release announcing a plan dubbed “Operation Facebook” to “destroy” Facebook on Nov. 5.

“Facebook is the opposite of the Antisec cause,” the press release reads. Facebook “knows more about you than your family, has been selling information to government agencies and giving clandestine access to information security firms so that they can spy on people from all around the world,” the announcement says.

Nov. 5 is the date commemorating Guy Fawkes (of V for Vendetta fame) and his co-conspirators’ failed plot to blow up England’s House of Lords in 1605.

One-way sound transmission system allows for sound control, energy-harvesting

2011-07-28T15:10:00.000-07:00

Researchers at the California Institute of Technology (Caltech) have created the first tunable acoustic diode — a device that allows acoustic information to travel only in one direction, at controllable frequencies.

The researchers used experiments, simulations, and analytical predictions to demonstrate one-way transmission of sound in an audible frequency range for the first time.

This new mechanism brings the idea of true soundproofing closer to reality, the researchers said. This enables someone in room A to hear sound coming from room B; however, it would block the same sound in room A from being heard in room B.

To obtain a sharp transition between transmitting and non-transmitting states, the team created a periodic system with a small defect that supports this kind of quick change from an “on” to an “off” transmission state. The system is very sensitive to small variations of operational conditions, like pressure and movement, making it useful in the development of ultrasensitive acoustic sensors to detect sound waves. The system can also operate at different frequencies of sound and is capable of downshifting, or reducing the frequency of the traveling signals, as needed.

The system is based on a simple assembly of elastic spheres — granular crystals that transmit the sound vibrations — that could be easily used in multiple settings, can be tuned easily, and can potentially be scaled to operate within a wide range of frequencies. Its application could reach far beyond soundproofing, the researchers said.

Potential uses include architectural acoustics for sound control within buildings, biomedical ultrasound devices, advanced noise control, and thermal materials aimed at temperature control.

“We propose to use these effects to improve energy-harvesting technologies,” she says. “For example, we may be able to scavenge sound energy from undesired structural vibrations in machinery by controlling the flow of sound waves away from the machinery and into a transducer. The transducer would then convert the sound waves into electricity.” Daraio says the technology can also shift the undesired frequencies to a range that enables a more efficient conversion to electricity.

Researchers identify seventh and eighth bases of DNA

2011-07-26T15:20:00.000-07:00

Researchers from the University of North Carolina (UNC) School of Medicine have identified the seventh and eighth bases of DNA.

For decades, scientists have known that DNA consists of four basic units — adenine, guanine, thymine, and cytosine. In recent history, scientists have expanded that list from four to six.

Much is known about the “fifth base,” 5-methylcytosine, which arises when a chemical tag or methyl group is tacked onto a cytosine. This methylation is associated with gene silencing, since it causes the DNA’s double helix to fold even tighter upon itself. Last year, the researchers found that Tet proteins can convert 5 methylC (the fifth base) to 5 hydroxymethylC (the sixth base) in the first of a four-step reaction leading back to cytosine.

However, the researchers could not continue the reaction on to the seventh and eighth bases, called 5 formylC and 5 carboxyC. The problem was that their experimental assay wasn’t sensitive enough. They redesigned it and were able to detect the seventh and eighth bases — called 5-formylcytosine (5fC) and 5 carboxylcytosine (5caC) — which are actually versions of cytosine that have been modified by Tet proteins, molecular entities thought to play a role in DNA demethylation and stem cell reprogramming.

The researchers then examined embryonic stem cells as well as mouse organs and found that both bases can be detected in genomic DNA.

Their findings could have important implications for stem cell research, since it could provide researchers with new tools to erase previous methylation patterns to reprogram adult cells. It could also inform cancer research by giving scientists the opportunity to reactivate tumor suppressor genes that had been silenced by DNA methylation.

Touchscreen keyboard morphs to fit your typing style

2011-07-26T15:05:00.000-07:00

Typing on a touchscreen is not one of life's pleasures: the one-size-fits-all nature of most virtual keyboards is a hassle that puts many of us off using them. I've lost count of the number of times I've seen journalists put down an iPad, for instance, and pick up a laptop or netbook to do some serious notetaking or writing.

IBM, however, says it doesn't have to be that way. In a recently filed US patent application, three IBM engineers posit the notion of a virtual keyboard in which the position of the keys and the overall layout is entirely set by the user's finger anatomy. That way, they argue, people will be better able to type at speed, with all keys within comfortable range and so end up, with fewer errors.

After an initial calibration stage, in which the keyboard asks users to undertake a series of exercises to set response time, anatomical algorithms get to work, sensing through the touchscreen the finger skin touch area, finger size and finger position for the logged in user.

As this information is gathered - IBM does not say over what period this learning takes place - the virtual key buttons are automatically resized, reshaped and repositioned in response.

The patent shows a keyboard with some keys subtly higher than others, and with some fatter than others. This "adapts the keyboard to the user's unique typing motion paths" governed by their different physical finger anatomies, says IBM, which suggests the idea being used in both touchscreen and projected "surface computing" displays.

There does seem scope for such ideas. In a review of the Apple iPad, review website MacInTouch said: "A touch typist found it frustratingly glitchy versus a real keyboard, producing all sorts of ghost characters when the screen repeatedly misinterpreted his fingers' intentions."

Perhaps anatomical profiling is just what's needed.

Brain scans reveal why some people feel your pain

2011-06-01T14:14:00.000-07:00

Researchers at Monash University in Melbourne, Australia, have observed atypical neurophysiological activity in amputees who experience synesthetic pain (pain synesthetes) when observing pain in another.

The researchers found that reduced alpha and theta brainwaves in pain synesthetes may reflect inhibition of normal inhibitory mechanisms (neurotransmitters involved in the processing of observed pain) as well as increased synesthetic pain.

The researchers used EEG to record brain activity in eight amputees who experienced both phantom and synesthetic pain, 10 amputees who experienced just phantom pain, and 10 healthy people with no amputations while they looked at images of hands or feet in potentially painful and non-painful situations.

When viewing the images, the researchers found that the pain synesthetes exhibited decreased theta and alpha brainwaves compared with the other volunteers. The researchers said that such a decrease reflects an increase in neural activity, suggesting that their mirror systems (neurons that fire when an animal observes the same action performed by another) are activated more strongly.

They said the traumatic experience associated with losing a limb may heighten the sensitivity of pain synesthetes to others’ pain. When threatened, our body naturally becomes hypervigilant to pain: our pain threshold lowers, which can make even small triggers painful. Pain synesthesia may be a symptom of an abnormal, ongoing hypervigilance, the researchers said.

Mining patterns in search data with Google Correlate

2011-06-01T14:10:00.000-07:00

Google Correlate has been launched on Google Labs. Users can now upload their own data series and retrieve a list of search terms based on popularity to see what best corresponds with a real world trend.

In the example below, official flu activity data were uploaded from the U.S. CDC over the last several years. The data reveal that people search for terms like [cold or flu] in a pattern similar to actual flu rates. Finding these correlated terms, a Google Flu Trends graph was built.

Users can also enter search terms such as [ribosome] and find other terms with activity that correspond well over time.

A white paper describes the methodology behind Google Correlate. How can Google help with the flu? Find out here.

Gestural interfaces: a step backwards in usability?

2011-06-01T14:08:00.000-07:00

Usability researchers from the Nielsen Norman group have pointed out that well-tested and understood standards of interaction design are being “overthrown, ignored, and violated” in the rush to develop natural gestural interfaces that can lead to “usability disaster.”

“The first crop of iPad apps revived memories of Web designs from 1993, when Mosaic first introduced the image map that made it possible for any part of any picture to become a UI element,” said Norman Nielsen. “As a result, graphic designers went wild: anything they could draw could be a UI, whether it made sense or not. It’s the same with iPad apps: anything you can show and touch can be a UI on this device. There are no standards and no expectations.”

“One of the worst designs last year was USA Today‘s section navigation, which required users to touch the newspaper logo despite the complete lack of any perceived affordance that the logo would have this effect….

“I thought I’d driven a stake through splash screens many years ago and eradicated them from the Web, but apparently splash screens are super-vampires that can haunt users from beyond the grave.”

Transformer robot turns into a helicopter

2011-05-26T08:02:00.000-07:00

A transformer robot that turns into a helicopter has been developed by researchers at the University of Minnesota’s Center for Distributed Robotics.

The robot uses separate motors to run the wheels and the rotors rather than a complex system. Although the first prototype is fragile, future designs will have simpler and more robust folding mechanisms, according to the researchers, including an extendable boom with a tail rotor, similar to those used by helicopters, to provide more stability in flight.

‘Survival protein’ protects the brain against effects of stroke

2011-05-25T06:50:00.000-07:00

A “survival protein” that protects the brain against the effects of stroke in rodent brain tissue has been discovered by scientists at Johns Hopkins University. The finding has implications for treating stroke as well as Parkinson’s Disease, diabetes, and heart attack.

When brain tissue is subjected to a stressful but not lethal insult, a defense response occurs that protects cells from subsequent insult. The scientists dissected this preconditioning pathway to identify the most critical molecular players, including the Iduna protein. This protein increased three- to four-fold in preconditioned mouse brain tissue following an insult to the tissue, the scientists said.

The team exposed mouse brain cells to short bursts of a toxic chemical, and then screened these “preconditioned” cells for genes that turned on as a result of the insult. Focusing on Iduna, the researchers turned up the gene’s activity in the cells during exposure to the toxic chemical, which induced preconditioning. Cells deficient in Iduna did not survive, but those with more Iduna did.

The scientists found that the Iduna protein interferes with a particular kind of cell death that’s implicated in complications from diabetes and heart attack as well as stroke. By binding with a molecule known as PAR polymer, Iduna prevents the movement of cell-death-inducing factor (AIF) into a cell’s nucleus.

“Apparently, what doesn’t kill you makes you stronger,” says Valina Dawson, Ph.D. “This protective response was broad in its defense of neurons and glia and blood vessels — the entire brain. It’s not just a delay of death, but real protection that lasts for about 72 hours.”

Tiny variation in one gene may have led to crucial changes in human brain

2011-05-16T14:53:00.001-07:00

A tiny variation within a single gene may determine the formation of brain convolutions, the deep fissures and convolutions that increase its surface area and allow for rational and abstract thoughts, researchers at Yale University have discovered.

A genetic analysis of a Turkish patient whose brain lacks the characteristic convolutions in part of his cerebral cortex revealed that the deformity was caused by the deletion of two genetic letters from 3 billion in the human genetic alphabet. Similar variations of the same gene, called laminin gamma3 (LAMC3), were discovered in two other patients with similar abnormalities.

An analysis of the gene shows that it is expressed during the embryonic period. This period is vital to the formation of dendrites, which form synapses or connections between brain cells, the researchers said.

They said that although the same gene is present in lower organisms with smooth brains, such as mice, somehow over time it has evolved to gain novel functions that are fundamental for human occipital cortex formation. Its mutation leads to the loss of surface convolutions, a hallmark of the human brain, the researchers said.

Tiny variation in one gene may have led to crucial changes in human brain

2011-05-16T14:53:00.000-07:00

‘Master switch’ gene for obesity and diabetes discovered

2011-05-16T14:51:00.000-07:00

A gene linked to type 2 diabetes and cholesterol levels is in fact a “master regulator” gene that controls the behavior of other genes found within fat in the body, researchers at King’s College London and the University of Oxford have found.

The researchers examined over 20,000 genes in subcutaneous fat biopsies from 800 UK female twin volunteers.

They found an association between the KLF14 gene (inherited from the mother) and the expression levels of multiple distant genes found in fat tissue. This means that it acts as a master switch to control these genes, the researchers said. This was then confirmed in a further independent sample of 600 subcutaneous fat biopsies from Icelandic subjects.

Other genes controlled by KLF14 are in fact linked to a range of metabolic traits, including body-mass index (obesity), cholesterol, insulin and glucose levels, highlighting the interconnectedness of metabolic traits, the researchers said.

Removable ‘cloak’ for nanoparticles helps them target tumors

2011-05-04T13:55:00.000-07:00

A new type of drug-delivery nanoparticle that could target nearly any type of tumor and carry virtually any type of drug has been developed by chemists at MIT.

The new nanoparticles are cloaked in a polymer layer that protects them from being degraded by the bloodstream and can survive in the bloodstream for up to 24 hours.

This outer layer falls off after entering the slightly more acidic environment near a tumor, revealing another layer that is able to penetrate individual tumor cells.

The tumor acidity is a byproduct of the tumor’s intensified metabolism. Tumor cells grow and divide much more rapidly than normal cells, and that metabolic activity uses up a lot of oxygen, which increases acidity. As the tumor grows, the tissue becomes more and more acidic.

To build their targeted particles, the researchers used a technique called “layer-by-layer assembly.” This means each layer can be tailored to perform a specific function.

When the outer layer (made of polyethylene glycol, or PEG) breaks down in the tumor’s acidic environment, a positively charged middle layer is revealed, allowing the nanoparticle to penetrate the negatively charged cell membrane.

The nanoparticles’ innermost layer can be a polymer that carries a cancer drug, or a quantum dot that could be used for imaging, or virtually anything else that the designer might want to deliver.

These particles are the first that have been successfully tested in living animals by targeting acidity, the researchers said.

Wearable scanner opens new frontier in neuroscience

2011-03-23T14:52:00.000-07:00

A tiny wearable positron emission tomography (PET) scanner has been used to track chemical activity in the brains of unrestrained animals while an animal behaves naturally; it could be modified for people.

By revealing neurological circuitry as the subjects perform normal tasks, researchers say, the technology could greatly broaden the understanding of learning, addiction, depression, and other conditions.

A conventional PET scanner is so large that these studies have to be performed with the subject lying inside a large tube.

New app displays the latest earthquakes worldwide

2011-03-23T14:40:00.000-07:00

Earthquake Lite, a free iPhone/Android app, displays global seismic activity and lists of events that you can filter by location, magnitude, and time, writes blogger Bob Tedeschi.

For example, the app listed nine significant tremors near Japan’s east coast, and one in western China for the week of March 14. You can sort the list according to magnitude, date, and location of the earthquake using free USGS data, and drill down to see the epicenter and more details.

iPhone users of the paid version can receive notifications of any tremor registering 6.0 or more on the Richter scale.

Surveillance robot knows when to hide

2011-03-23T14:29:00.000-07:00

A surveillance robot that knows when to hide has been developed by Lockheed Martin’s Advanced Technology Laboratories.

The robot avoids visible detection by sentries of known locations, potential detection by sentries whose positions are unknown, areas in which the robot has no means of escape, and areas that are well lit.

It builds a computer model of its surroundings and incorporates information on lines of sight. A laser scanner covertly maps its environment in 3D, and acoustic sensors distinguish nearby footsteps and their direction.

"Lockheed Martin's approach does include a sort of basic theory of mind, in the sense that the robot makes assumptions about how to act covertly in the presence of humans," says Alan Wagner of the Georgia Institute of Technology in Atlanta, who works on artificial intelligence and robot deception.

But the level at which the robot's software operates is probably limited to task-specific instructions such as, "if you hear a noise, scurry to the nearest dark corner", he says. That's not sophisticated enough to hide from humans in varied environments.

"Significant AI will be needed to develop a robot which can act covertly in a general setting," Wagner says. "The robot will need to consider its own shape and size, to have the ability to navigate potential paths, [to be aware of] each person's individual line of view, the impact that its movement will have on the environment, and so on."

FDA approves eyesight-enhancing technology

2011-03-21T12:02:00.000-07:00

The FDA has approved the use of a refractive surgery technology called the Rochester Nomogram, says Scott MacRae, M.D., who helped develop the formula at the University of Rochester Medical Center.

With the aid of the Nomogram, 99.3 percent of the eyes that MacRae operates on using LASIK surgery have vision of 20/20 or better. The Nomogram was first created and tested about five years ago by MacRae working together with Manoj Venkiteshwar, Ph.D.

Venkiteshwar and MacRae helped to create a field known as customized ablation, a form of LASIK that corrects subtle imperfections, bringing about a super-crisp quality of eyesight. Beyond making vision on the order of 20/15 or 20/16 possible or even commonplace in some groups of patients, the technology also increases the eye’s ability to see in situations where there is low light or little contrast.

They calculated the subtle effects that customized ablation can have on the eye and how the eye shunts around light. Specifically, they found that fixing subtle imperfections that hadn’t even been recognized before offered new opportunities for enhancing a person’s vision. They developed the Rochester Nomogram to allow surgeons to take advantage of this information during refractive surgery.

The FDA approval is the latest development in a nearly 20-year-long project by University of Rochester scientists and physicians to study and improve human vision, explains MacRae. MacRae is the author of two best-selling books on customized ablation, including Customized Corneal Ablation: The Quest for Supervision.

Gene therapy for advanced Parkinson’s reduces symptoms

2011-03-21T11:47:00.000-07:00

A multi-center gene therapy trial for patients with advanced Parkinson’s disease has demonstrated reduced symptoms of progressive movement disorder, reports Andrew Feigin, MD, associate professor of neurology and molecular medicine at The Feinstein Institute for Medical Research in Manhasset, NY.

The study was designed to deliver the gene for glumatic acid decarboxylase (GAD), packaged in inert viral vectors, into an area of the brain called the subthalamic nucleus. GAD makes an important inhibitory chemical called GABA. The subthalamic nucleus is abnormally activated in Parkinson’s disease, leading to debilitating movement problems.

All participants in the study had a positron emission tomography (PET) brain scan before the surgery to confirm the diagnosis of Parkinson’s disease. Each patient in the active treatment received about a billion viral vectors.

The treated group showed a 23 percent improvement on the United Parkinson’s Disease Rating Scale (which assesses motor symptoms), compared to a 12 percent improvement in those who received sham surgery.

Their work appears in the journal The Lancet Neurology.

Army deploying ‘Individual Gunshot Detector’

2011-03-21T11:42:00.000-07:00

U.S. Army forces in Afghanistan will begin receiving the first of more than 13,000 gunshot detection systems for the individual dismounted soldier later this month, according to the U.S. Army.

The Individual Gunshot Detector (IGD), made by QinetiQ North America, consists of four small acoustic sensors worn by the individual soldier and a small display screen attached to body armor that shows the distance and direction of incoming fire. The system weighs just under two pounds.

The small sensor, about the size of a deck of cards, detects the supersonic sound waves generated by enemy gunfire and instantaneously alerts soldiers to the location and distance toward the hostile fire.

In the future, the Army plans to integrate this technology with its Land Warrior and Nett Warrior systems. These are network-situational-awareness systems for dismounted units, complete with a helmet-mounted display screen that uses GPS digital-mapping-display technology.

As we sleep, speedy brain waves boost our ability to learn

2011-03-09T14:04:00.000-08:00

UC Berkeley researchers have found compelling evidence that bursts of brain waves known as “sleep spindles” may be networking between key regions of the brain to clear a path to learning.

These electrical impulses help to shift fact-based memories from the brain’s hippocampus — which has limited storage space — to the prefrontal cortex’s “hard drive,” thus freeing up the hippocampus to take in fresh data. Spindles are fast pulses of electricity generated during non-REM sleep, and they can occur up to 1,000 times a night.

“Sleep spindles predict learning refreshment,” said Matthew Walker, associate professor of psychology and neuroscience at UC Berkeley. “A lot of that spindle-rich sleep is occurring the second half of the night, so if you sleep six hours or less, you are shortchanging yourself. You will have fewer spindles, and you might not be able to learn as much,” said Bryce Mander, a post-doctoral fellow in psychology at UC Berkeley and lead author of the study.

The study found that spindle-driven networking was most likely to happen during Stage 2 of non-Rapid Eye Movement (NREM) sleep, which occurs before we reach the deepest NREM sleep and the dream state known as Rapid Eye Movement (REM) sleep. This shallow stage of dreamless slumber can account for half our sleeping hours, and happens most frequently during the second half of the night, or in the latter part of a period in which we sleep.

Electroencephalogram tests measured electrical activity in the brains of the nappers and showed that the more sleep spindles the nappers produced, the more refreshed they were for learning. Researchers were able to link sleep spindles to brain activity looping between the lobes of the brain that house the hippocampus and prefrontal cortex — two critical areas for memory.

As for broader societal ramifications, researchers said evidence that brain waves during the latter part of the sleep period promote our capacity to store fact-based memories raises the question of whether the early school day is optimal for learning.

How to ‘print’ a nylon bike

2011-03-09T14:03:00.001-08:00

EADS, the European aerospace and defense group, has unveiled the world’s first bike “grown” from powder, allowing complete sections to be built as one piece.

Known as the “Airbike,” it is made of nylon but strong enough to replace steel and requires no conventional maintenance or assembly. It can be built to rider specification and requires no adjustment.

The “revolutionary” manufacturing process is known as Additive Layer Manufacturing (ALM). It allows single products to be grown from a fine powder of metal (such as titanium, stainless steel or aluminum), nylon or carbon-reinforced plastics. Similar in concept to 3D printing, the bike design is perfected using computer-aided design and then constructed by using a powerful laser-sintering process that adds successive, thin layers of the chosen structural material until a solid, fully-formed bike emerges.

The technology is likely to be employed in industrial applications such as aerospace, the motor industry and engineering. Studies show that for every 1kg reduction in weight, airlines can save around $3500 worth of fuel over the lifespan of the aircraft, with corresponding reductions in carbon-dioxide emissions.

The company claims the process itself uses about one-tenth of the material required in traditional manufacturing and reduces waste, and allows products to be produced quickly and cheaply on “printers” located in offices, shops and houses. It would allow replacement components to be produced in remote regions, improving logistics on humanitarian relief and military operations.

World's First Eye-controlled Laptop Presented At CeBIT 2011

2011-03-07T15:27:00.000-08:00

Computer manufacturer Lenovo has partnered with Swedish startup Tobii Technology to launch the world's first eye controlled laptop which will be on display as from today at CeBIT in Hannover.

The prototype is a fully functional model and according to the manufacturer provides with a more intuitive interface as it relies on the human eyes to point, select and scroll and complements, rather than replace, existing control interfaces.

Henrik Eskilsson, CEO of Tobii Technology, says that it is only a matter of years before the technology becomes an integral part of the average computer as the tracking technology is mature enough and only needs to be miniaturised and mass produced to cut down on price.

Only 20 eye controlled laptops have been produced for demonstration and development purposes; one of the more obvious applications of the laptop would be help people with special needs.

Others include the capability to zoom pictures or maps and automatically centre on the area you wish to look at; glance at an icon or widget to bring up more information.

In addition, the screen's brightness can be auto dimmed and brightened as it recognised the user's eyes, in order to save power.

Tobii's technology relies on 13 patent families that cover aspects such as sensor technology, illumination methods, data transfer mechanisms and eye control interaction techniques.

Amongst them is what it calls a physiological 3D model of each individual's eyes which it calls TrueEye, something that could be used for biometric applications.

Barbara Barclay, general manager of Tobii North America, hinted at future collaborations saying that "what we find most exciting are the opportunities that eye control as part of multi-modal interfaces offer consumer electronics manufacturers in a range of product categories".

These could include more intuitive user interfaces for smartphones and mobile devices as well as gaming applications (integration with accessories like the Kinect for example).

Scripps Research study points to liver, not brain, as origin of Alzheimer’s plaques

2011-03-07T15:22:00.000-08:00

Unexpected results from a Scripps Research Institute and ModGene, LLC study could completely alter scientists’ ideas about Alzheimer’s disease—pointing to the liver instead of the brain as the source of the “amyloid” that deposits as brain plaques associated with this devastating condition. The findings could offer a relatively simple approach for Alzheimer’s prevention and treatment.

The study was published online today in The Journal of Neuroscience Research.

In the study, the scientists used a mouse model for Alzheimer’s disease to identify genes that influence the amount of amyloid that accumulates in the brain. They found three genes that protected mice from brain amyloid accumulation and deposition. For each gene, lower expression in the liver protected the mouse brain. One of the genes encodes presenilin—a cell membrane protein believed to contribute to the development of human Alzheimer’s.

“This unexpected finding holds promise for the development of new therapies to fight Alzheimer’s,” said Scripps Research Professor Greg Sutcliffe, who led the study. “This could greatly simplify the challenge of developing therapies and prevention.”

An estimated 5.1 million Americans have Alzheimer’s disease, including nearly half of people age 85 and older. By 2050, the number of people age 65 and over with this disease will range from 11 million to 16 million unless science finds a way to prevent or effectively treat it. In addition to the human misery caused by the disease, there is the unfathomable cost. A new report from the Alzheimer’s Association shows that in the absence of disease-modifying treatments, the cumulative costs of care for people with Alzheimer’s from 2010 to 2050 will exceed $20 trillion.

How to make a digital microscope for £15

2011-02-22T14:42:00.000-08:00

A new high-resolution method for imaging below the skin using a liquid lens

2011-02-22T14:41:00.001-08:00

University of Rochester optics professor Jannick Rolland has developed an optical technology that provides unprecedented images under the skin’s surface.

The aim of the technology is to detect and examine skin lesions to determine whether they are benign or cancerous without having to cut the suspected tumor out of the skin and analyze it in the lab. Instead, the tip of a roughly one-foot-long cylindrical probe is placed in contact with the tissue, and within seconds a clear, high-resolution, 3D image of what lies below the surface emerges.

Rolland presented her findings at the 2011 annual meeting of the American Association for the Advancement of Science in Washington, D.C., on Feb. 19.

“My hope is that, in the future, this technology could remove significant inconvenience and expense from the process of skin lesion diagnosis,” Rolland says. “When a patient walks into a clinic with a suspicious mole, for instance, they wouldn’t have to have it necessarily surgically cut out of their skin or be forced to have a costly and time-consuming MRI done. Instead, a relatively small, portable device could take an image that will assist in the classification of the lesion right in the doctor’s office.”

The device accomplishes this using a unique liquid lens setup developed by Rolland and her team for a process known as Optical Coherence Microscopy. In a liquid lens, a droplet of water takes the place of the glass in a standard lens. As the electrical field around the water droplet changes, the droplet changes its shape and therefore changes the focus of the lens. This allows the device to take thousands of pictures focused at different depths below the skin’s surface. Combining these images creates a fully in-focus image of all of the tissue up to 1 millimeter deep in human skin, which includes important skin tissue structures. Because the device uses near infrared light instead of ultrasounds, the images have a precise, micron-scale resolution instead of a millimeter-scale resolution.

The process has been successfully tested in in-vivo human skin and several papers on it have been published in peer-reviewed journals. Rolland says that the next step is to start using it in a clinical research environment so its ability to discriminate between different types of lesions may be assessed.

Mind Control puts you in charge of a driverless car

2011-02-22T14:37:00.000-08:00

Detroit to get its RoboCop statue — no kidding

2011-02-22T14:35:00.000-08:00

According to Reuters: ”From sci-fi cult film, to Twitter phenomenon to Detroit landmark-in-the-making. Plans for a statue honoring RoboCop, the half-man, half-machine crimefighter of the 1987 movie, are moving ahead after a group of artists and entrepreneurs in Detroit, Michigan raised more than $60,000 via Facebook and an online fund-raising site.”

And here’s a quote from a February 21, 2011 interview exclusive from io9 (the article is worth a read) — “With materials like this to work with, this statue is going to be as close to a perfect depiction of RoboCop as is possible by non-augmented arthropods.”

IMDB | In a dystopic and crime-ridden Detroit, a terminally wounded cop returns to the force as a powerful cyborg with submerged memories haunting him. Impervious to bullets and bombs, and equipped with high-tech weaponry, Robocop quickly makes a name for himself by cleaning up the streets of violence-ravaged Detroit. Tagline: “Part man. Part machine. All cop. The future of law enforcement. Justice gets an upgrade.”

It may have started as a joke, but now they’re completely serious about this: check out ”Detroit Needs RoboCop,” the website. Go RoboCop. Half Peter Weller, half cyborg bad-guy-killing-machine, all hero.

Art hacktivists take on Facebook

2011-02-11T09:51:00.000-08:00

An Italian artist duo responsible for "scraping" profiles from Facebook for a mock dating website have been asked by Facebook to cease their activities.
Digital artists Paolo Cirio and Alessandro Ludovico revealed to CNN that the billion-dollar corporation issued them with a "cease and desist" letter regarding the mock site, which is called Lovely-Faces.com.

At the time of writing, the website was temporarily unavailable, though Cirio and Ludovico are seeking legal advice on the status of their "conceptual art provocation," which they say uses publicly available information and is therefore legal.

Scraping is a way of grabbing the computer code that makes up the words and images you see on a web page, which can then, for example, be presented on other websites.
In a prepared statement to CNN, a spokesperson from Facebook said: "Scraping people's information violates our terms. We have taken, and will continue to take, aggressive legal action against organizations that violate these terms.
"We've already been in touch with Lovely-Faces to demand that they delete the data and we will take additional action as necessary."

Their work, they say, exposes the "vulnerability" both of people's online data and the internal mechanisms of major internet companies -- as well as questioning the ownership of the data they use.

What separates them from ordinary hackers, they say, is that the information they are using is publicly available and that they are not out to harm or benefit financially from the people whose information they filter.
Lovely-Faces.com, part of the artists' Face to Facebook project, was two years in the making and was unveiled as part of an installation at the digital art festival Transmediale in Berlin.

It involved using automatic browsing software to select one million Facebook profiles, and then cutting-edge face-recognition software to match profile pictures according to gender and a bizarre variety of social traits and types.
"I like to demonstrate how this information could be copied, could be manipulated, could be arranged, can be shaped, in a way," said Cirio.

A spot of video shooting on the Slopes

2011-01-13T14:10:00.004-08:00

New video googles costing $400 which come fully equipped with a high definition camera and a wide-angle lens built into the frame above and between the eyes have been launched on the market by the company Liquid Image. Check out the quality with the video below.

Blood vessels for lab-grown tissues

2011-01-12T15:11:00.001-08:00

Researchers from Rice University and Baylor College of Medicine (BCM) have broken one of the major roadblocks on the path to growing transplantable tissue in the lab: They’ve found a way to grow the blood vessels and capillaries needed to keep tissues alive.

Scientists find evidence for ‘chronesthesia,’ or mental time travel

2011-01-04T15:32:00.000-08:00

Researchers have found evidence for “chronesthesia,” which is the brain’s ability to be aware of the past and future, and to mentally travel in subjective time. They found that activity in different brain regions is related to chronesthetic states when a person thinks about the same content during the past, present, or future.

In their fMRI study, the researchers asked subjects to repeatedly think about taking a short walk in a familiar environment in either the imagined past, the real past, the present, or the imagined future. By keeping the content the same and changing only the mental time in which it occurs, the researchers could identify which areas of the brain are correlated with thinking about the same event at different times.

The results showed that certain regions in the left lateral parietal cortex, left frontal cortex, and cerebellum, as well as the thalamus, were activated differently when the subjects thought about the past and future compared with the present. Notably, brain activity was very similar for thinking about all of the non-present times.

Because mental time is a product of the human brain and differs from the external time that is measured by clocks and calendars, scientists also call this time “subjective time.” Chronesthesia, by definition, is a form of consciousness that allows people to think about this subjective time and to mentally travel in it.

Your genome in minutes

2010-12-21T04:46:00.000-08:00

Scientists from Imperial College London are developing technology that could ultimately sequence a person’s genome in mere minutes, at a fraction of the cost of current commercial techniques.

The researchers have patented an early prototype technology that they believe could lead to an ultrafast commercial DNA sequencing tool within ten years. Their work is described in a study published this month in the journal Nano Letters and it is supported by the Wellcome Trust Translational Award and the Corrigan Foundation.

The research suggests that scientists could eventually sequence an entire genome in a single lab procedure, whereas at present it can only be sequenced after being broken into pieces in a highly complex and time-consuming process. Fast and inexpensive genome sequencing could allow ordinary people to unlock the secrets of their own DNA, revealing their personal susceptibility to diseases such as Alzheimer’s, diabetes and cancer. Medical professionals are already using genome sequencing to understand population-wide health issues and research ways to tailor individualised treatments or preventions.

Dr Joshua Edel, one of the authors on the study from the Department of Chemistry at Imperial College London, said: “Compared with current technology, this device could lead to much cheaper sequencing: just a few dollars, compared with $1m to sequence an entire genome in 2007. We haven’t tried it on a whole genome yet but our initial experiments suggest that you could theoretically do a complete scan of the 3,165 million bases in the human genome within minutes, providing huge benefits for medical tests, or DNA profiles for police and security work. It should be significantly faster and more reliable, and would be easy to scale up to create a device with the capacity to read up to 10 million bases per second, versus the typical 10 bases per second you get with the present day single molecule real-time techniques.”

The 10 most powerful tweets of 2010

2010-12-15T08:26:00.001-08:00

The 10 Most Powerful Tweets of the Year 2010

Top tweets of 2010

2010-12-15T05:14:00.000-08:00

Twitter has analyzed the 25 billion tweets sent in 2010 to derive the top 10 twitter trends of 2010, top news, top technology topics, and several other categories of tweets.

Top topics

1. Gulf Oil Spill
2. FIFA World Cup
3. Inception
4. Haiti Earthquake
5. Vuvuzela
6. Apple iPad
7. Google Android
8. Justin Bieber
9. Harry Potter & the Deathly Hallows
10. Pulpo Paul

Top news:

1. Gulf Oil Spill
2. Haiti Earthquake
3. Pakistan Floods
4. Koreas Conflict
5. Chilean Miners Rescue
6. Chavez Tas Ponchao
7. Wikileaks Cablegate
8. Hurricane Earl
9. Prince Williams Engagement
10. World Aids Day

Top technology tweets:

1. Apple iPad
2. Google Android
3. Apple iOS
4. Apple iPhone
5. Call of Duty Black Ops
6. New Twitter
7. HTC
8. RockMelt
9. MacBook Air
10. Google Instant

Amazon hits Hollywood

2010-11-22T16:15:00.000-08:00

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.

Now I See You

2010-11-22T16:14:00.001-08:00

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.

Headphones Built Into Your Hoodie N other Tech Clothing

2010-11-22T16:09:00.000-08:00

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.

Pimp up your Kinect Controller

2010-11-22T16:07:00.000-08:00

Taking movies beyond Avatar - for under £100

2010-11-10T17:21:00.000-08:00

Beardyman at the Beatbox Convention 2008 (mic & kaos pad)

2010-11-10T10:16:00.000-08:00

New class of Malware will steal Behavioural Patterns

2010-10-12T14:46:00.000-07:00

Computer scientists predict that a new generation of malware will mine social networks for people's private patterns of behavior.

It's not hard to find frightening examples of malware which steals personal information, sometimes for the purpose of making it public and at other times for profit. Details such as names, addresses and emails are hugely valuable for companies wanting to market their wares.

But there is another class of information associated with networks that is potentially much more valuable: the pattern of links between individuals and their behavior in the network--how often they email or call each other, how information spreads between them and so on.

Why is this more valuable? An email address associated with an individual who is at the hub of a vibrant social network is clearly more valuable to a marketing company than an email address at the edge of the network. Patterns of contact can also reveal how people are linked, whether they are in a relationship for example, whether they are students or executives, or whether they prefer celebrity gossip to tech news.

This information would allow a determined attacker to build a remarkably detailed picture of the lifestyle of any individual, a picture that would be far more useful than the basic demographic information that marketeers use today that consists of little more than sex, age and social grouping.

Today, Yaniv Altshuler at Ben Gurion University and a few pals argue that the value of this data makes it almost inevitable that malicious attackers will attempt to steal it. They point out that many companies already mine the pattern of links in their data for things like recommender systems.

"There is no reason to think that developers of malicious applications will not implement the same method and algorithms into future malware, or that they have not already started doing so," they say.

The idea would be to release some kind of malware that records the patterns of links in a network. This kind of malware will be very hard to detect, say Altshuler and co. They've studied the strategies that best mine behavioral pattern data from a real mobile phone network consisting of 800,000 links between 200,000 phones. (They call this type of attack "Stealing Reality".)

In conventional attacks, malware spreads most efficiently when the infection rate is high, and this maximises the amount of information it can steal. But it also makes the malware relatively easy to spot.

In a behavioral pattern attack, their surprising conclusion is that the most effective way of mining data is to have a low infection rate, so the malware spreads slowly. That's because it takes time to collect good information about an individual's behavior patterns. Also, a slow spread is less likely to be picked up by network administrators and antivirus software.

Perhaps the most worrying aspect of this new kind of theft is its potential impact. If malware steals your credit card details or online banking passwords, you can easily change them and this limits the damage.

But if a malicious attacker steals your behavioral patterns, there's almost nothing you can do. You can't change your network of friends or family, for example.

What's more, once this information is released, it is more or less impossible to contain--how would you ensure that every copy had been deleted?

The prospects for avoiding this new threat look bleak. As Altshuler and co point out: "History has shown that whenever something has a tangible value associated with it, there will always be those who try to malevolently 'game' the system for profit."

We'll almost certainly have to deal with this one sooner or later.

Ultimate Social Persuasion Device

2010-10-12T14:43:00.000-07:00

In the near future, all citizens will wear a centrally-controlled, super iPhone that tracks your movements and can scan everyone around you to divulge their net worth, their shopping history and their dating potential.

The so-called äppärät is an invention of Gary Shteyngart, author of the satiric novel "Super Sad True Love Story." The main character works in the post-human services industry and he falls in love with a younger woman who constantly "teens," or text chats, with her friends. Is there an äppärät in your future? Will a fictional mobile device have a cautionary impact on today's designs?

How does the apparat rank people?
So you walk into a bar, let's say I'm walking into a bar. Everyone automatically ranks me and so I'll be the seventh ugliest man in the bar, but I'll have the fourth-best credit rating so it's very exciting you know. So everyone tells me that, you know -- who I am.
It also ranks your "personality" and your attractiveness. Your personality is how extroverted you are, how much of your own personal stuff you have out there. So it's constantly -- that's what a "good personality" is -- just somebody who just constantly spews things about her or himself. That's one focus.

Then there's something, there's a kind of emote pad so if you see somebody you're attracted to, it measures your heartbeat as it goes up when you're looking at them. And that woman or man immediately knows how much you want them, and then he or she can reject you or not.

Scary!!!!!

2010-10-12T14:39:00.000-07:00

Texting with no Hands!

2010-10-04T15:58:00.000-07:00

2ND GENERATION EXOSKELETON ROBOTIC SUIT

2010-09-29T13:09:00.000-07:00

Portable laser devices to improve disease diagnosis

2010-09-25T07:12:00.000-07:00

Portable devices that use a laser beam to probe bones, teeth, and other parts of the body for early signs of diseases like osteoporosis and tooth decay may seem like something out of science fiction. But those devices are moving closer to reality, according to Chemical & Engineering News (C&EN).

These new diagnostic tools will have the ability to see beneath the skin and detect disease, without exposing patients to X-rays. They embrace a technology that involves focusing a laser beam painlessly through the skin onto a bone or onto the surface of a tooth. After hitting its target, the beam returns to an electronic detector with imprinted information that can reveal whether disease is present. Called Raman spectroscopy, the technology is a mainstay tool in chemistry laboratories that is finding a new life in medicine.

The article describes growing medical interest in Raman-based devices, especially for diagnosing osteoporosis and other bone diseases, and for tracking the effectiveness of treatment. Another application may be in very early detection of tooth decay, so that dentists can treat soft spots on tooth enamel before “drill-and-fill” becomes the only option. The technique could also mean blood tests done without taking blood samples, the article indicates.

Ultra High speed Process

2010-09-22T08:10:00.000-07:00

Researchers at Sun Yat-Sen University in China have demonstrated a way to record on ferromagnetic films using laser-assisted ultrafast magnetization reversal dynamics. The development will allow for practical use of new technology for recording more than 6,000 terabits (6 petabits) of data on a single 5-inch disc, using ultra-high-density magneto-optical storage devices.

The new ultrafast recording technique uses “time-resolved polar Kerr spectroscopy” combined with an alternating magnetic field strong enough to re-initialize the magnetization state of gadolinium-iron-cobalt (GdFeCo) thin films. The researchers showed that the magnetization reversal could occur on a sub-nanosecond time scale, which implies that next-generation magneto-optical storage devices can not only realize higher recording densities but also ultrafast data writing of up to a gigahertz — at least thirty times faster than that of present hard disks in computers.

Laser-assisted magnetic recording was demonstrated on a sub-picosecond time scale under a saturated external magnetic field. “We found that the rate of magnetization reversal is proportional to the external magnetic field,” says Tianshu Lai, “and the genuine thermo-magnetic recording should happen within several tens to hundreds of picoseconds when we apply a smaller magnetic field than the coercivity of the recording films.”

Rescue Robot in Action

2010-09-21T09:37:00.000-07:00

You Tube Time Machine takes you back in Time

2010-09-18T07:52:00.000-07:00

While YouTube has only been around for just over five years, video and moving pictures date back to the late 1800s, and some of those hundred-year-old videos are available on YouTube to view. At the same time, it's a little difficult to just go searching for all YouTube videos that were created in 1912. That's where the YouTube Time Machine comes in. If you're looking to just take a trip back in time and see some notable videos from a specific era, or you're just curious about the evolution of motion pictures over the years, YouTube Time Machine can help you see.

Simply drag the scroll bar at the top of the page to the year you'd like to travel back in time to, and you'll get a YouTube video that was made in that year. Of course the videos themselves have been uploaded much more recently, but you can, for example, watch the 1944 trailer for the movie Going My Way, or footage of the Titanic docked in Belfast from 1912, or even a 2005 Welsh's Grape Juice commercial.

This is where the YouTube Time Machine is both a time-suck and a useful tool for history buffs. While the collection of videos can't compare to a purely educational and reference site like CriticalPast, the YouTube Time Machine is useful for people who are curious about what types of videos were made in different time periods, and even see some notable footage from the years they select.

The YouTube Time Machine is fun, without a doubt, especially if you want to see, for example, what may have been news, popular movies, or hot music the year you were born. The trouble with it though is that once you've done things like look up your birth year or the year you graduated high school or something, you'll be there forever just scrolling around for interesting things to watch.

Future Food for Cities

2010-09-13T12:59:00.000-07:00

Within the next decade you will be able to grow all of your vegetables in a box barely larger than your refrigerator. This surprising statement is the result of a class project at Singularity Universitythis summer. Here’s how they came to believe that this is true.
Click here for full post.

Study Links More Time Spent Sitting to Higher Risk of Death

2010-07-29T15:08:00.000-07:00

A new study from American Cancer Society researchers finds it’s not just how much physical activity you get, but how much time you spend sitting that can affect your risk of death.

Researchers say time spent sitting was independently associated with total mortality, regardless of physical activity level. They conclude that public health messages should promote both being physically active and reducing time spent sitting. The study appears early online in the American Journal of Epidemiology.

To explore the association between sitting time and mortality, researchers examined the amount of time spent sitting and physical activity in relation to mortality between 1993 and 2006. They found that more leisure time spent sitting was associated with higher risk of mortality, particularly in women. Women who reported more than six hours per day of sitting were 37 percent more likely to die during the time period studied than those who sat fewer than 3 hours a day. Men who sat more than 6 hours a day were 18 percent more likely to die than those who sat fewer than 3 hours per day. The association remained virtually unchanged after adjusting for physical activity level. Associations were stronger for cardiovascular disease mortality than for cancer mortality.

When combined with a lack of physical activity, the association was even stronger. Women and men who both sat more and were less physically were 94% and 48% more likely, respectively, to die compared with those who reported sitting the least and being most active.

“Several factors could explain the positive association between time spent sitting and higher all-cause death rates,” said Dr. Patel. “Prolonged time spent sitting, independent of physical activity, has been shown to have important metabolic consequences, and may influence things like triglycerides, high density lipoprotein, cholesterol, fasting plasma glucose, resting blood pressure, and leptin, which are biomarkers of obesity and cardiovascular and other chronic diseases.”

Less Than 1 Year Until The Internet Runs Out of Addresses

2010-07-29T15:07:00.001-07:00

With a maximum of just over 4 billion unique addresses, the Internet will run out of Internet addresses in about 1 year’s time, due to an explosion of data about to happen to the Web — thanks largely to sensor data, smart grids, RFID and other Internet of Things data; the increase in mobile devices connecting to the Internet; and the annual growth in user-generated content on the Web.

The solution: IPv6, the next generation Internet Protocol, which uses a 128-bit address, vs. 32 bit with the current IPv4.

Chicken Came Before the Egg: "Scientific Proof"

2010-07-24T15:07:00.000-07:00

British scientists claim to have solved one of the great mysteries of life, the universe and everything in it: The chicken came before the egg, they say, and they're not mincing words.

"It had long been suspected that the egg came first, but now we have the scientific proof that shows that in fact the chicken came first," Sheffield University's Dr Colin Freeman, according to a report in the Metro.

Researchers from Scotland and England used a supercomputer called HECToR to look in such detail at a chicken eggshell that they were able to determine the vital role of a protein used to kick-start the egg's formation.

That protein is only found, wait for it... inside a chicken.

Freeman, who worked on HECToR with counterparts at Edinburgh's Warwick University, said the protein had been identified earlier by scientists and was known to be linked to egg formation, "but by examining it closely we have been able to see how it controls the process," he added, describing it as a catalyst.

Professor John Harding, who also took part in the research, told Metro the discovery could have other applications.

"Understanding how chickens make shells is fascinating in itself, but can also give clues towards designing new materials." he said.

Which is good, because in spite of HECToR's hard work and the "scientific proof" it yielded, the study offered no explanation as to how the chicken got there in the first place.

If not from an egg, perhaps it just came from across the road.

India develops 35-dollar 'laptop' for schools

2010-07-24T15:05:00.000-07:00

India has come up with a 35-dollar touch-screen "laptop" -- a computing prototype that it aims to make available to students from elementary schools to universities.

The gadget, developed by the elite Indian Institute of Technology and the Indian Institute of Science, is part of a push to give students a better education and technical skills needed to boost India's economic growth.

The first users are expected to be university students with introduction of the Linux-based computing device targeted for next year.

The ministry is going to install broadband Internet at all of its 22,000 colleges so students can use the 1,500-rupee (35-dollar) device, government spokeswoman Mamta Verma told AFP on Friday in New Delhi.

The tablet gadget, which can be run on solar power, is equipped with an Internet browser, video-conferencing capability and a media player, among other facilities.

"This is part of the national initiative to take forward inclusive education," Human Resource Development Minister Kapil Sibal told reporters on Thursday.

"The solutions for tomorrow will emerge from India," he said.

Sibal said the cost of the motherboard, chip, processing and other components cost a total of around 35 dollars but the government may subsidise 50 percent of the price for students.

Sibal said the government, which hopes the cost of the device can eventually fall to 10 dollars, is in discussions with global manufacturers to start mass production of the device.

India, whose 63 percent literacy rate lags far behind many other developing nations, such as China with 94 percent, is making efforts to improve its troubled education system, which lacks investment in schools and teachers.

RIP MALCOM MCLAREN

2010-04-08T15:28:00.000-07:00

RIP MALCOM MCLAREN

2010-04-08T15:25:00.000-07:00

Why HOT water freezes quicker than COLD water

2010-03-26T09:17:00.000-07:00

HOT water sometimes freezes faster than cold water - but why? This peculiar phenomenon has baffled scientists for generations, but now there is evidence that the effect may depend on random impurities in the water.

Fast-freezing of hot water is known as the Mpemba effect, after a Tanzanian schoolboy called Erasto Mpemba (see "How the Mpemba effect got its name"). Physicists have come up with several possible explanations, including faster evaporation reducing the volume of hot water, a layer of frost insulating the cooler water, and differing concentration of solutes. But the answer has been very hard to pin down because the effect is unreliable - cold water is just as likely to freeze faster.

James Brownridge, who is radiation safety officer for the State University of New York at Binghamton, believes that this randomness is crucial. Over the past 10 years he has carried out hundreds of experiments on the Mpemba effect in his spare time, and has evidence that the effect is based on the shifty phenomenon of supercooling.

"Water hardly ever freezes at 0 °C," says Brownridge. "It usually supercools, and only begins freezing at a lower temperature." The freezing point depends on impurities in the water which seed the formation of ice crystals. Typically, water may contain several types of impurity, from dust particles to dissolved salts and bacteria, each of which triggers freezing at a characteristic temperature. The impurity with the highest nucleation temperature determines the temperature at which the water freezes.

Brownridge starts with two samples of water at the same temperature - say, tap water at 20 °C - in covered test tubes and cools them in a freezer. One will freeze first, presumably because its random mix of impurities give it a higher freezing point.

If the difference is large enough, the Mpemba effect will appear. Brownridge selects the sample with the higher natural freezing temperature to heat to 80 °C, warming the other to only room temperature, then puts the test tubes back in the freezer. The hot water will always freeze faster than the cold water if its freezing point is at least 5 °C higher, Brownridge says.

It may seem surprising that moving the finish line by only 5 °C makes enough of a difference, when the hotter sample starts out 60 °C behind in the race. But the bigger the temperature difference between an object and its surroundings - in this case, the freezer - the faster it cools. So the hot sample will do most of its cooling very quickly, helping it to reach its own freezing point of -2 °C, say, before the cooler water gets to its freezing point of -7 °C.

Wireless 'thought-to-text' cap

2010-03-24T16:06:00.000-07:00

LONDON — A team of researchers from IMEC, the Holst Center and the lab of neuro- and psychophysiology at the Katholieke Universiteit Leuven has presented Mind Speller, a thought-to-text device intended to help people with motor disabilities.

A number of research institutes are working on similar devices which make use of electro-encephalogram (EEG) brainwaves and positive biological feedback so that individuals can use thought processes alone to control a cursor or a computer action.

The Mind Speller,uses a portable device, the size of a matchbox, connected to a cap that contains electrodes located at specific positions on the head to capture the relevant EEG-signals. The electronics in the matchbox are developed by IMEC and the Holst Center. It contains IMEC's and Holst Center's proprietary eight-channel EEG-chip to process the EEG signals, a commercially available microcontroller that digitizes the EEG signals and a 2.4-GHz radio that transmits the EEG signals wirelessly to a nearby PC. The data is interpreted on the PC by signal processing algorithms developed by the team of Professor Marc Van Hulle at the lab of neuro- and psychophysiology of the Katholieke Universiteit Leuven.

"The Mind Speller is a generic device that can be easily adjusted to different users. Therefore, it could be a cost-efficient communication solution for people with temporal impairments for whom the existing solutions are too expensive. Moreover, the Mind Speller may help those patients that are not helped with the existing devices driven by motor activity, as the Mind Speller is based on a different principle, using P300 EEG potentials to read people's thoughts," said Professor Van Hulle.

IMEC is adapting the electronics to allow it to work with dry electrodes, thus making the system less difficult to use.

Your Life: The Shirt-Pocket Movie

2010-03-23T15:32:00.000-07:00

by Eirc A Taub

Think of it as Twitter with pictures. With a miniature wearable camcorder called the uCorder, you can document every mundane aspect of your life, from tying your shoes to going into the subway.
uCorder

The uCorder is about the size of a stick of gum. You can attach it to your belt, put it on a lanyard around your neck or slip it into a shirt pocket. Additional flash memory can be added to either of the two models, the $80 IRDC150 and $100 IRDC250, which come with 1GB and 2GB of memory, respectively, giving you either 36 or 72 minutes of video. The larger-capacity model can also double as a Web cam, using the included mount.

The uCorder records in 640 by 480 resolution using the AVI format. A built-in LED can help in low-light situations.

Playing videos from the device was simple. I just connected the uCorder to my Mac and double-clicked on the file that appeared on the desktop. In my tests, I found the video to be of good quality, but the audio was filled with lots of background noise and hum. While the device comes with a lanyard, don’t dangle the uCorder from it while you’re walking around, or you’ll be taking a lot of pictures of your shirt as the device twirls around your neck.

While the video quality was certainly acceptable watching in a small computer screen, don’t expect to use the uCorder to record life’s important events. Leaving a camcorder to find its own way around your neck or in your pocket will not make for the most compelling imagery. However, if you’re interested in recording a college lecture or the interaction between you and your date, it might do the trick.

THE NEW DORK

2010-03-21T14:05:00.000-07:00

It is now a well established fact that geeks and dorks are cool so here we hear it loud and clear with the a spoof on the Jay-Z/Alicia Keys "New York".

The Blue Brain Project

2010-03-01T16:07:00.000-08:00

Bing Maps kicks Google Maps

2010-02-19T13:39:00.000-08:00

Looks can't kill but might control your phone

2010-02-19T13:15:00.000-08:00

The advent of wireless headsets has led to the sometimes confusing sight of people who look like they're talking to themselves, until you realize they're on a phone call.

If a technology demonstration by NTT DoCoMo goes anywhere, we may have to get ready for another odd sight: people who quickly flick their gaze sideways and roll their eyes for no apparent reason.

They'll be controlling their phones or their music players. NTT DoCoMo has created headphones that sense eye movements. For instance, you can look from right to left to pause your music. Look right, then right again, to skip to the next track. Roll them clockwise to raise the volume.

NTT DoCoMo, a Japanese wireless carrier, demonstrated the headphones this week at the world's largest wireless trade show, Mobile World Congress in Barcelona. It doesn't have any specific plans to get the technology into the market.

The headphones look much like regular earbuds, connected by a cable to a phone. They sense the movements of the eyeballs by measuring tiny changes in electric charge. It turns out that the cornea, the outer surface of the eyes, has a positive charge. When you look left, the resulting shift in the electrical charge can be detected as far away as the ears. And no, this is not the source of the expression "electrifying gaze."

Bill Gates talks on Energy

2010-02-19T13:09:00.000-08:00

Near-threshold computing could enable up to 100x reduction in power consumption

2010-02-19T13:06:00.000-08:00

Using Moore’s law as the metric of progress has become misleading: starting around the 65-nm node, improvements in packing densities no longer translate to proportional increases in performance or energy efficiency. Researchers predict that near-threshold computing could restore the relationship between transistor density and energy efficiency. Credit: Dreslinski, et al. ©2010 IEEE.

(PhysOrg.com) -- While electronic devices have greatly improved in many regards, such as in storage capacity, graphics, and overall performance, etc., they still have a weight hanging around their neck: they’re huge energy hogs. When it comes to energy efficiency, today’s computers, cell phones, and other gadgets are little better off than those from a decade ago, or more. The problem of power goes beyond being green and saving money. For electrical engineers, power has become the primary design constraint for future electronic devices. Without lowering power consumption, improvements made in other areas of electronic devices could be useless, simply because there isn’t enough power to support them.

Spray-on liquid glass is about to revolutionize almost everything

2010-02-03T14:23:00.000-08:00

Spray-on liquid glass is transparent, non-toxic, and can protect virtually any surface against almost any damage from hazards such as water, UV radiation, dirt, heat, and bacterial infections. The coating is also flexible and breathable, which makes it suitable for use on an enormous array of products.

The liquid glass coating is breathable, which means it can be used on plants and seeds. Trials in vineyards have found spraying vines increases their resistance to fungal diseases, while other tests have shown sprayed seeds germinate and grow faster than untreated seeds, and coated wood is not attacked by termites. Other vineyard applications include coating corks with liquid glass to prevent “corking” and contamination of wine. The spray cannot be seen by the naked eye, which means it could also be used to treat clothing and other materials to make them stain-resistant. McClelland said you can “pour a bottle of wine over an expensive silk shirt and it will come right off”.

Read more.....

Multitouch 'Skin' Transforms Surfaces Into Interactive Screens

2010-02-03T14:20:00.000-08:00

A new large-format multi-touch technology launched today by DISPLAX, a developer of interactive technologies, will transform any non-conductive flat or curved surface into a multitouch screen.
The DISPLAX Multitouch Technology, believed to be the first of its kind, has been developed based on a transparent thinner-than-paper polymer film. When applied to glass, plastic or wood, the surface becomes interactive. Significantly, this new multitouch technology can be applied to standard LCD screens as well, making it an attractive choice for LCD manufacturers. The new technology will also be available for audiovisual integrators or gaming platforms to develop innovative products.

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The blurry lines of animated news

2010-02-03T13:57:00.000-08:00

Farewell Michael Jackson

2010-01-23T08:22:00.000-08:00

Copyright Kriminals

2010-01-14T17:15:00.000-08:00

A documentary about digital samplings head-on collision with copyright law, features many of hip-hop musics celebrated figures—including Public Enemy, De La Soul, the Beastie Boys...

You can now smell a terrorist a mile away

2010-01-14T16:00:00.000-08:00

A new intelligent system has been developed to help identify terrorists carrying explosives. Sensitive electronic noses capture the smell of the explosives; the system processes the acquired data, correlates it with individuals' movements... and ultimately tracks down the suspects.

Literally hundreds of people are hurrying through the long airport corridor between Terminals A and B. Among them are two terrorists, who've hidden themselves in the crowd. They're carrying small containers of chemicals in their jacket pockets, individual components for an explosive. But there's something the criminals don't know. As well as being observed by security cameras, they're also being "sniffed out" by chemical noses hidden in the corridor wall.

The smell sensors sound the alarm when the terrorists walk past, alerting an airport security guard who notes the problem on his monitoring equipment. At this point in time, he can't tell precisely who is carrying hazardous chemicals - but he knows the sensor network will continue to "sniff out" and track down the suspects.

Researchers at the Fraunhofer Institute for Communication, Information Processing and Ergonomics FKIE in Wachtberg have built a prototype security system to replicate just such a scenario. They've named it HAMLeT, which stands for Hazardous Material Localization and Person Tracking. "HAMLeT will alert security personnel to suspicious individuals," says head of department Dr. Wolfgang Koch from the FKIE. The system involves a network of highly-sensitive smell sensors which follow an explosive's trail. There are oscillating crystals on the sensor chips, and whenever the electronic noses capture chemical molecules, their oscillation frequency changes. The precise nature of the change is different for different substances.

A further component in the system - the sensor's data fusion function - traces the explosive's path and ferrets out the carrier. A second sensor network is needed to track the route the individual takes; for this, the researchers have used laser scanners. "HAMLeT's real achievement is its ability to collate all the data and convert it into a clear and accurate overall picture," says Koch. The sensor data fusion process employs complex algorithms which allow HAMLeT to build up a precise image of pedestrian flows and connect a particular smell with a specific individual.

In a trial involving the German Armed Forces, researchers at the FKIE proved the system's ability to track down five "terrorists" carrying hidden explosives. The scientists are now working to refine the prototype's algorithms in order to reduce the false alarm rate.

DARPA Spends €51 Million

2010-01-14T15:54:00.000-08:00

According to soldiers, consistent and realistic drill forms the foundation of any successful military action. But where an infantryman can hone his aim at a firing range, America's Internet warriors don't have a similar venue for developing their skills at cyberwar. But DARPA hopes a $51 million network simulation, complete with computer programs that behave like human targets and adversaries, will provide the perfect arena for developing the next generation of cyberwar weapons and tactics.

The simulation, National Cyber Range (NCR), first went public last year, but just yesterday the cash needed to get this project moving was finally doled out. Johns Hopkins received $24.8 million for the project, while Lockheed Martin walked away with $30.8 million. The Lockheed contract is significant, as its defense industry competitor Northrop Grumman actually won the Phase I grant in 2009.

According to DARPA, the NCR will "realistically replicate human behavior and frailties," and provide "realistic, sophisticated, nation-state quality offensive and defensive opposition forces." Basically, computer programs acting like real people will populate a the virtual world that the cyberwarriors will attempt to disrupt or save, depending on the mission. Paging Agent Smith...

Even more impressive than the automation of the virtual population is the size of the simulation. DARPA hopes that the NCR will be able to simulate the entire Internet, allowing soldiers to drill in virtual simulations ranging from a small scale computer virus to a World War III-sized conflict.

The project just entered Phase II testing, so there it's still going to be a wait before the NCR starts running at full capacity. In the meanwhile, let's just hope someone remembers to teach the computer how to play tic-tac-toe.

This will bring a smile

2010-01-06T16:06:00.000-08:00

HOW CUTE IS THIS WEE LITTLE THING!

Transcendent Man

2010-01-04T16:44:00.000-08:00

Douglas Smith mechanically stretches living nerves to grow resilient transplants

2010-01-04T16:32:00.000-08:00

In a lab at the University of Pennsylvania, a plastic dish holds two rows of tiny black dots, pairs of them connected by dozens of thin, hairlike filaments. Each dot is a cluster of thousands of neurons, explains Douglas Smith, who is a professor of neurosurgery and the director of Penn's Center for Brain Injury and Repair. The fibers that stretch between them actually comprise thousands of axons, long, slender projections that conduct electrical impulses away from each neuron's central body. These bundles--each one a lab-engineered nerve--represent physical bridges that Smith hopes will help researchers like him mend previously irreparable injuries.

To make the long nerve transplants, Smith and his team first collect sensory neurons--cells that transmit information to the brain--from the spinal cords of fetal rats. Research technician Kevin Browne then pipettes a gelatinous pink protein called collagen onto two adjacent films in a specially built chamber. About the size of a shoebox, it houses a stretching apparatus made up of a vertical block attached to metal rods. One of the small, clear films, called the towing membrane, is suspended at one end by the block and curves down almost to the base of the chamber, where it overlaps the second membrane. Browne places one set of neurons in the collagen on the towing membrane and another on the bottom membrane. At this point, the two groups are less than 100 micrometers--two hairs' width--apart. He puts the whole setup into a humming incubator that runs at 37 °C, mimicking the internal temperature of a rat.

Microsoft patent filing: Control a computer by flexing a muscle

2010-01-04T16:26:00.000-08:00

Depeche Mode, O2 Dublin, December 2009

2009-12-11T09:41:00.000-08:00

Went to see the fab Depeche Mode in concert last nite in the O2 Dublin - first visit there this year and gotta say it lives up to all its promises, the old Point was a shed but the new O2 is a Proper Venue. Dave Gahan is still girating his hips and his voice is great and the rest of the band are top notch. Enjoy a bit from last nite!

Surgery but not as we know it!

2009-11-22T14:54:00.000-08:00

Check out the nurses of the future - nice uniforms!

The Specials

2009-11-16T15:38:00.000-08:00

Went to see the Specials perform in the Olympia Sunday 15/11/09. Gig of the year so far...They still sound the same and give a great live performance.

Rude Bits from Rainbow

2009-11-12T13:08:00.000-08:00

Back to the days of innocence when balls were balls! If you have problems viewing this just click here.

Worst Band Ever

2009-11-12T13:02:00.000-08:00

This will cheer you up!

Water is good for U

2009-10-01T15:06:00.000-07:00

Look at these kids go!

Robo_one, Toyama City, Japan Sept 09

2009-10-01T15:01:00.000-07:00

Cool robot that can flip its head back so you can ride it!

Crazy Girl on Train Remix

2009-09-28T14:18:00.000-07:00

Girl terroizes old lady on an Atlanta Bus

2009-09-28T14:06:00.000-07:00

iCub The Robot Child

2009-09-10T07:04:00.000-07:00

The humanoid iCub robot, which explores the world like a real child to model the human mind -- has demonstrated that it can change roles in a game....

Classic Donna Summer, I Feel Love

2009-09-08T14:10:00.000-07:00

For all those of you worried about Swine Flu

2009-09-03T15:27:00.000-07:00

A new iPhone application, created by researchers at Children's Hospital Boston in collaboration with the MIT Media Lab, enables users to track and report outbreaks of infectious diseases, such as H1N1 (swine flu), on the ground in real time.

The application, "Outbreaks Near Me," builds upon the mission and proven capability of HealthMap, an online resource that collects, filters, maps and disseminates information about emerging infectious diseases, and provides a new, contextualized view of a user's specific location – pinpointing outbreaks that have been reported in the vicinity of the user and offering the opportunity to search for additional outbreak information by location or disease.

Additional functionality of Outbreaks Near Me is the ability to set alerts that will notify a user on their device or by e-mail when new outbreaks are reported in their proximity, or if a user enters a new area of activity

Some Bad Taste Michael Jackson jokes

2009-08-28T16:14:00.000-07:00

How Does Michael Jackson Pick His Nose?
From a catalogue.

What time does Michael Jackson go to bed?
When the big hand touches the little hand.

Why did Michael Jackson stop breathing?
His nose fell off.

Disney expressed their sadness over Michael Jackson’s death, and also celebrated that now only Disney movie’s will be the only things to touch children.

What was Michael Jackson’s last hit?
The floor.

Wireless Electricity

2009-08-26T15:05:00.000-07:00

Watch this talk from Eric Giler on TED TV who explains how wireless technologies are advancing at a rapid pace and we could soon have wireless TV's, mobile phones which could be charged with wireless technology.......

Summer is Over

2009-08-25T15:04:00.000-07:00

Well as if you didn't already know it summer is over! It didn't really start but looking out the window tonite while watching the 9.00pm Big Bro catch up it was dark, almost black outside. The long stretch is over. I took a long break from my blog over the summer due to a wonderful month long holiday in Greece but before that and since work pressure took the fun out of posting to a blog as my eyes were "Beeling" from working on the computer all day. Pressure had eased so now I'm back, so for all of you interested in Robots....Look what they do now!

A New Style of Country Music Video

2009-05-19T16:33:00.000-07:00

FRED ASTAIRE WOULD BE 110 IF HE WERE HERE TODAY!

2009-05-10T15:04:00.000-07:00

CLASS ACT!

ABBA have been partially reformed

2009-05-08T15:13:00.000-07:00

ABBA stars Benny Andersson and Björn Ulvaeus are set to premiere their first newly written pop song in 15 years.

The song, called 'Story Of A Heart', will be released on July 6. It is available as part of a 14-track album by Andersson's 16-strong group The Benny Andersson Band.

Vocals on the track have been translated into English, and are sung by Swedish star Helen Sjöholm. As well as the Andersson/Ulvaeus song, 'Story Of A Heart' takes in Swedish folk music, polka, waltzes and Celtic folk.

The Benny Andersson Band have also announced their first UK performance, to take place at London's Hampstead Heath on July 4 as part of the Sweden On Stage festival. No tickets are required for the event.

Estrogen controls how the brain processes sound

2009-05-08T15:01:00.000-07:00

Scientists at the University of Rochester have discovered that the hormone estrogen plays a pivotal role in how the brain processes sounds.

The findings, published in today's issue of The Journal of Neuroscience, show for the first time that a sex hormone can directly affect auditory function, and point toward the possibility that estrogen controls other types of sensory processing as well. Understanding how estrogen changes the brain's response to sound, say the authors, might open the door to new ways of treating hearing deficiencies.

Previous studies have hinted at a connection between estrogen and hearing in women who have low estrogen, such as often occurs after menopause, says Pinaud. No one understood, however, that estrogen was playing such a direct role in determining auditory functions in the brain, he says. "Now it is clear that estrogen is a key molecule carrying brain signals, and that the right balance of hormone levels in men and women is important for reasons beyond its role as a sex hormone," says Raphael Pinaud, assistant professor of brain and cognitive sciences at the University of Rochester and lead author of the study.

Touch Screens with Pop-up Buttons

2009-05-05T15:25:00.000-07:00

Touch-screen technology has become wildly popular, thanks to smart phones designed for nimble fingers. But most touch screens have a major drawback: you need to keep a close eye on the screen as you tap, to make sure that you hit the right virtual buttons. As touch screens become more popular in other contexts, such as in-car navigation and entertainment systems, this lack of sensory feedback could become a dangerous distraction.

Now researchers at Carnegie Mellon University have developed buttons that pop out from a touch-screen surface. The design retains the dynamic display capabilities of a normal touch screen but can also produce tactile buttons for certain functions.

Graduate student Chris Harrison and computer-science professor Scott Hudson have built a handful of proof-of-concept displays with the morphing buttons. The screens are covered in semitransparent latex, which sits on top of an acrylic plate with shaped holes and an air chamber connected to a pump. When the pump is off, the screen is flat; when it's switched on, the latex forms concave or convex features around the cutouts, depending on negative or positive pressure.

To illuminate the screens and give them multitouch capabilities, the researchers use projectors, infrared light, and cameras positioned below the surface. The projectors cast images onto the screens while the cameras sense infrared light scattered by fingers at the surface.

Simpler systems, such as those that use a flexible material like latex and a pneumatic pump, have also been explored by researchers in the past. However, these systems haven't had all the capabilities of the Carnegie Mellon project, Harrison says. He explains that the display is the first to combine moving parts (the pop-up buttons), display dynamic information, and be touch sensitive. Other projects and products usually achieve two of these three criteria, he says.

The next Big Thing - Friend Feed

2009-05-05T15:18:00.000-07:00

Paul Buchheit built the first version of Gmail in one day. Then he built the first prototype of Google's contextual advertising service Adsense, in one day as well. Now he's working on a much-watched startup called FriendFeed that he believes just brought to market the next big form of communication online: flowing, multi-person, real-time conversations.

"The open, realtime discussions that occur on FriendFeed," he says, "are going to become a major new communication medium on the same level as email, IM and blogging." That's a pretty ambitious claim, but Buchheit has the credibility to make it.

Things are changing fast at FriendFeed. Buchheit says that the company believes aggregation to be less important than real time conversation. "The open, realtime discussions that occur on FriendFeed are going to become a major new communication medium on the same level as email, IM and blogging. The aggregation component of FriendFeed is a convinient feature and a component of that openness, but not as central as the discussions."

Do you buy that? I'm not sure. But if anyone can lead the charge against incumbent technologies with a new paradigm that combines powerful richness and ease of use - Paul Buchheit might be that person. He did it with Gmail, now time will tell if he can do it with FriendFeed.