Clipmarks | JohnWaterman's 'technology' clips

Thought control: it's the computer world's latest game plan

Sat, 19 Jul 2008 11:44:22 GMT

clipped by: wildcat
clipper's remarks: “This is the tip of the iceberg for what is possible,” said Tan Le, another of Emotiv's co-founders, during a recent press demonstration. “There will be a convergence of gesture-based technology and the brain as a new interface - the Holy Grail is the mind.”

Clip Source: technology.timesonline.co.uk

First came the joystick. Then came the motion-sensing Wii remote. Now get ready for another radical and rather unsettling leap in video games technology: thought control.

Satoru Iwata, the president and chief executive of Nintendo - which is expected to sell about 25million units of its successful Wii video games console this financial year - has no doubts about the next gaming boom. “As soon as we think something in our brain, it will appear within a video game,” he told The Times in an exclusive interview.

“You'll probably need to wear some kind of hat or helmet or something.”

As far-fetched as it sounds, Mr Iwata's claim - which brings to mind the plot of Craig Thomas's bestselling 1977 novel Firefox, about a mind-reading Soviet fighter aircraft - is already coming true: the world's first thought-controlled game is expected to be launched by the Sydney company Emotiv by the end of this year.

Tags: gaming, neuroscience, mind, emotiv

Iraq's cuneiform tablets getting "virtual life"

Fri, 30 May 2008 14:20:38 GMT

clipped by: invictus

Clip Source: dsc.discovery.com

May 29, 2008 -- A technology normally used in reconstructive surgery to create prosthetic limbs is now being applied to create reproductions of Iraq's precious and fragile cuneiform clay tablets, according to an Italian team of researchers.

Thousands and thousands of artifacts were stolen and broken at Bagdad's museums following the invasion of Iraq in 2003, in what has been called the most catastrophic theft of antiquities since World War II.

Called "Duplication and Rebirth," the project consist of an electronic catalogue with bibliographical references, photographs, and when possible, 3D images of the tablets. These three-dimensional models can then produce exact replicas of the original relics.

While scholars estimate that roughly five million of the tablets are still buried in the mounds of Iraq, some 500,000 are kept in museum and private collections worldwide.

Tags: archaeology, iraq, mesopotamia, writing, cuneiform, technology, science

How to stop annoying audiences with bad PowerPoint

Sat, 03 May 2008 18:49:11 GMT

clipped by: masbury
clipper's remarks: Survey of what annoys and how to fix it

Clip Source: www.indezine.com

Survey Shows How to Stop Annoying Audiences With Bad PowerPoint

The speaker read the slides to us	60.4%
Text so small I couldn't read it	50.9%
Full sentences instead of bullet points	47.8%
Slides hard to see because of color choice	37.1%
Moving/flying text or graphics	24.5%
Annoying use of sounds	22.0%
Overly complex diagrams or charts	22.0%

Three common themes emerged from the free-form comments:

Poor Preparation of the Presentation

Balance of Slide Elements

Not Knowing How to Use the Technology

41.5% of the respondents said that more than 40% of the presentations they see contain annoying elements

Microsoft’s statistics indicate that there are

30 million PowerPoint presentations done each day

Conclusions

Too many presenters have used PowerPoint slides as a substitute for themselves and think that the slides are the presentation

presenters must only put the key points on the slide and add to the point with the depth of information that they share verbally

Tags: powerpoint, business, presentations, communication, technology

The Technology of Mind and a New Social Contract

Sun, 03 Feb 2008 14:04:56 GMT

clipped by: Djiezes

Clip Source: jetpress.org

The Technology of Mind and a New Social Contract

Bill Hibbard

Abstract

The progress of biology, neuroscience and computer science makes it clear that some time during the twenty- first century we will master the technologies of mind and life. We will build machines more intelligent than ourselves, and modify our own brains and bodies to increase our intelligence, live indefinitely and make other changes. We live together according to a social contract, consisting of laws, morals and conventions governing our interactions. This social contract is based on assumptions we rarely question: that all humans have roughly the same intelligence, that we have limited life spans and that we share a set of motives as part of our human nature. The technologies of mind and life will invalidate these assumptions and inevitably change our social contract in fundamental ways. We need to prepare for these new technologies so that they change the world in ways we want

Tags: journal, technology, mind, biology, future, scifi, article, literature, morality, ethics

one step closer to building artificial human brain

Sat, 22 Dec 2007 01:19:12 GMT

clipped by: wildcat
clipper's remarks: Markram believes that with the state of technology today, it is possible to build an entire rat's neocortex, which is the next phase of the Blue Brain project, due to begin next year. From there, it's cats, then monkeys and finally, a human brain.

Markram is banking on Moore's law holding steady, as a computer with the power of the human brain, using today's technology, would take up several football pitches and run up an electricity bill of $3bn a year. But by the time Markram gets around to mimicking a full human brain, computing will have moved on.

Clip Source: www.guardian.co.uk

An ambitious project in Switzerland was scoffed at - but researchers have just succeeded in simulating a rat's brain in silicon

In a laboratory in Switzerland, a group of neuroscientists is developing a mammalian brain - in silicon. The researchers at the Ecole Polytechnique Fédérale de Lausanne (EPFL), in collaboration with IBM, have just completed the first phase of an ambitious project to reproduce a fully functioning brain on a supercomputer. By strange coincidence, their lab happens to lie on the same shores of Lake Geneva where Mary Shelley dreamt up her creation, Dr Frankenstein.

Some of Markram's peers said there simply wasn't enough data available to simulate a human brain. "There is no neuroscientist on the planet that has the authority to say we don't understand enough," says Markram. "We all know a tiny slice. Nobody even knows how much we know."

Tags: artificial brain, neuroscience

Five Innovations that Will Change Our Lives Over the Next Five Years

Wed, 19 Dec 2007 11:06:29 GMT

clipped by: wildcat
clipper's remarks: From IBM

Clip Source: physorg.com

IBM Reveals Five Innovations that Will Change Our Lives Over the Next Five Years

Unveiled today, the second annual "IBM Next Five in Five" is a list of innovations that have the potential to change the way people work, live and play over the next five years.

The list is based on market and societal trends expected to transform our lives, as well as emerging technologies from IBM’s Labs around the world that could make these innovations possible.

In the next five years, our lives will change through technology innovations in the following ways:

It will be easy for you to be green and save money doing it:

The way you drive will be completely different:

You are what you eat, so you will know what you eat:

Your cell phone will be your wallet, your ticket broker, your concierge, your bank, your shopping buddy, and more:

Doctors will get enhanced “super-senses” to better diagnose and treat you:

Tags: ibm, innovation, technology, life, science

Virtual world online

Sun, 16 Dec 2007 22:11:35 GMT

clipped by: Ruud-s-stuff
clipper's remarks: Nice details. Just a few cities in the US for now.
Might one day become more beautiful than reality.

Clip Source: www.everyscape.com

EveryScape isn't an online world, it's the world online. EveryScape takes you from the streets to the sidewalks and through the doors of the world's cities and tours. Letting businesses organizations and consumers build and share their world the way they see it.

Tags: technology, internet, virtual reality

Drive advance fuels terabyte era

Mon, 15 Oct 2007 13:02:57 GMT

clipped by: JohnWaterman

Clip Source: news.bbc.co.uk

A single hard drive with four terabytes of storage (4TB) could be a reality by 2011, thanks to a nanotechnology breakthrough by Japanese firm Hitachi.

The company has successfully managed to shrink the read-write head of a hard drive to two thousand times smaller than the width of a human hair.

The smaller head can read greater densities of data stored on the disk.

Hitachi said the advance would fuel the "terabyte era", with a 4TB drive able to hold more than a million songs.

To store an ever increasing amount of data, the magnetised regions on the disk are packed ever closer together, requiring smaller and smaller read-write heads.

Current hard disks can store about 200 gigabits of information per square inch (6.4sqcms) while Hitachi believes its new technology means it can store up to 1 terabit of data per square inch.

However, as the heads get smaller the amount of electrical resistance grows, generating noise output and adversely affecting the head's ability to read data off the disk.

Tags: technology, information, computers, computing, mass storage, hitachi, hard drives

World's Biggest Man-made Hole Sucks in Helicopters

Wed, 29 Aug 2007 22:32:03 GMT

clipped by: JohnWaterman

Clip Source: www.sreedhara.com

The suction above the hole resulted in several helicopter crashes, so all flight above the hole is prohibited now.

This gaint machine appears just a small point in the next image…

The gaint hole is actually a diamond mine in Eastern Siberia near the town Mirna. It is 525 meters deep and 1.25 km in the diameter.

Tags: technology, extremes, mines

Spinning particles hold the promise of almost unlimited computing power

Wed, 08 Aug 2007 10:07:52 GMT

clipped by: JohnWaterman

Clip Source: news.bbc.co.uk

When engineers flick the switch to turn on the world's fastest supercomputer later this year it will be capable of chewing its way through 1,000 trillion calculations every second

But this speedy number cruncher could soon look like the equivalent of a dusty abacus if scientists who have gathered in York deliver on their promises.

explore the future of spintronics (spin-based electronics), an area that could have profound effects

With quantum computing you are able to attack some problems on the time scales of seconds, which might take an almost infinite amount of time with classical computers,

Spintronics, also known as magnetoelectronics, is an emerging technology that harnesses the spin of particles.

by harnessing the twist and turns of particles - detected as a weak magnetic force - scientists hope to unlock almost infinite computing power and storage, without the heat

"You can store an almost infinite number of bits of information in one particle space," he added.

Tags: technology, science, computing, quantum, particle spin

Nazi Paleo-Futurism (1941)

Fri, 03 Aug 2007 22:55:37 GMT

clipped by: JohnWaterman

Clip Source: paleo-future.blogspot.com

Martin Kappler has scanned and uploaded a German poster from 1941 which shows Third Reich images of the paleo-future. The poster was in a book called Durch die weite Welt vol. XIX, one in a series of books for boys.

Heliport/Railway Station

The headline and main text read:

What new things will the technology of tomorrow bring?

Today still a venturous plan - tomorrow maybe reality

Technology and economy in the Greater German Reich have gone into an unexpected upswing. The largest network of Autobahn highways has been constructed in just a few years, whole new industries were created and great architectural and urbanistic tasks are about to be realised. Although the war, that was forced upon us, makes it necessary to concentrate our economy on the war efforts, the great plans for the buildup are drawn with the certitude of our victory in mind. Many keen inventions and many thoughts that still seem fantastic today will then be realised

Tags: history, futurism, nazism, nazi

Robotic fish fins to propell submarines

Tue, 31 Jul 2007 19:00:33 GMT

clipped by: JohnWaterman

Clip Source: news.bbc.co.uk

The distinctive swimming technique of a bony fish is being used to develop agile, propellerless submarines.

US researchers have created prototype mechanical fins that mimic the movements of the bluegill sunfish.

The robo-fin is based on the bluegill sunfish's movements

Robo-fin in motion

The robo-fins could recreate the fish's powerful forward thrust and its manoeuvrability, the Massachusetts Institute of Technology team said.

Further work is being carried out to see how other sunfish movements could help to improve underwater vehicles.

James Tangorra, a researcher at MIT's Bio-instrumentation Laboratory and a professor of mechanical engineering at Drexel University, said: "If we could produce AUVs that can hover and turn and store energy and do all the things a fish does, they'll be much better than the remotely operated vehicles we have now."

The bluegill sunfish

moves with great efficiency; its pectoral fins are able to propel it creating very little backwards thrust.

Tags: science, technology, engineering, robotics, propulsion, fish, submarines

New analog circuits could impact consumer electronics

Fri, 16 Feb 2007 22:20:33 GMT

clipped by: JohnWaterman

Clip Source: web.mit.edu

Advances in digital electronic circuits have prompted the boost in functions and ever- smaller size of such popular consumer goods as digital cameras, MP3 players and digital televisions. But the same cannot be said of the older analog circuits in the same devices, which process natural sights and sounds in the real world. Because analog circuits haven't enjoyed a similar rate of progress, they are draining power and causing other bottlenecks in improved consumer electronic devices.

MIT professor Hae-Seung Lee and his colleagues have developed new analog circuits -- comparator-based switched capacitor circuits -- that handle voltage differently than conventional analog ones, resulting in greater power efficiency. Enlarge image

Now MIT engineers have devised new analog circuits they hope will change that. Their work was discussed at the International Solid State Circuits Conference (ISSCC) in San Francisco Feb. 11-15.

Analog circuits are used to amplify, process and filter analog signals and convert them to digital signals, or vice versa, so the real world and electronic devices can talk to each other. Analog signals are continuous and they vary in size, whereas digital signals have specific or discrete values.

The reason the two different types of electronic signal circuits did not advance at the same pace, Lee said, is because they are very different. Digital circuits can be decreased in size more easily, for example, by using the popular complementary metal oxide semiconductor (CMOS) technology. And much of the design and performance enhancement can actually be done by computer software rather than by a human. That's not the case with analog circuits, which Lee said require clever designs by humans to be improved because of their variable nature.

Tags: technology, electronics, digital, mit