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).
Monday, March 7, 2011
Scripps Research study points to liver, not brain, as origin of Alzheimer’s plaques
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.
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.
Tuesday, February 22, 2011
A new high-resolution method for imaging below the skin using a liquid lens
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.
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.
Detroit to get its RoboCop statue — no kidding
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.
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.
Friday, February 11, 2011
Art hacktivists take on Facebook
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.
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.
Subscribe to:
Posts (Atom)