Even if the article is entertaining, this project at USU is far more ambitious. In fact, they want to design RFID-enabled robots mounted on mobile carts which will welcome blind persons at the entrance of a supermarket and guide them through the store. Read more for other details, references and pictures about these RFID-equipped robots designed to help blind people.
:: posted by Roland Piquepaille, 9:00 AM | Comments (1)
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Friday, January 28, 2005
These results have important implications for preventing the spread of STDs in teenage populations. Unlike in adult populations, in which there are cores of sexually active people who are the main conduits of disease and you can focus prevention efforts on them, you need to educate the whole teenage population. Read more for other details, references and illustrations about this fascinating research.
:: posted by Roland Piquepaille, 5:32 AM | Comments (0)
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John D. Halamka, the CIO of both the Boston's CareGroup Health System and the Harvard Medical School, decided to take the plunge. Health Data Management reports that he's now a RFID-Enabled CIO. He was successfully implanted with a VeriChip in the arm in December 2004 during a painless, 15-minute procedure. He said that RFID readers can identify him even if he wears several layers of clothing.
He added he wanted to check how the chip could be used in future medical applications, such as retrieving information from a nonresponsive patient or checking if a medication or procedure was given to the correct person. Read more for other details and references.
:: posted by Roland Piquepaille, 5:29 AM | Comments (1)
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Tuesday, January 25, 2005
Xerox is already using these dataglyphs for several projects, including one in Latin America to reduce check fraud. The company also has started an experiment named 'GlyphSeal' for two-sided documents, one for human eyes, and the other for machines. Read more for other details, references and a dataglyph carrying -- and hiding -- the title of this entry.
:: posted by Roland Piquepaille, 6:53 AM | Comments (0)
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Sunday, January 23, 2005
Many modern cars already have voice-animated systems allowing the driver to control a CD-player, fans or heaters. With the addition of this new voice recognition software, our cars will detect when we're too quiet and try to wake us up. If we start to be too excited, for any reason, like because we're stuck in a traffic jam or listening to great rock music, the car will automatically switch the stereo to 'calming' music.
Would you like to drive such a car, or do you hate the concept? Read more and let me know what you think.
:: posted by Roland Piquepaille, 3:41 PM | Comments (0)
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This research has implications for transport of contaminants, especially of radioactive materials, but also for oil or ore recovery. This overview contains more details, references and a picture of a device used to grow and monitor nanocrystals important for our environment.
:: posted by Roland Piquepaille, 3:37 PM | Comments (0)
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Wednesday, January 19, 2005
This is a double whammy: it will reduce existing carbon dioxide, almost certainly responsible for the global warming effect, while reducing future emissions. Of course, time will pass between this discovery and its practical applications. But ultimately, this will greatly beneficial to all of us. Read this overview for more details, references and a diagram showing the process.
:: posted by Roland Piquepaille, 6:32 AM | Comments (0)
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He argues that we soon should be prepared to order CPUs by the thousands and be ready for some new language. "Do we say: 2.5 kilo CPUs? Do we call this kilo core, or mega core processing? And since it goes way past current multi-core technology, do we call it poly-core technology?"
Jon Udell, from InfoWorld, also commented Khan's views in "VM-enabled polycore computing." This overview contains more details and comments.
:: posted by Roland Piquepaille, 6:30 AM | Comments (0)
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Monday, January 17, 2005
They add that you need a "trained eye" to spot the animals, and believe me, it's true. They released images which look like a bunch of messy pixels to my "untrained eyes." You can see what I mean by checking this overview which contains one image where they spotted a giraffe, but also more details and references.
:: posted by Roland Piquepaille, 6:09 AM | Comments (0)
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The Scottish company behind the Robopax opened its website only a couple of days ago. It hopes to sell 20,000 units per month starting this summer for a price of about £80 (around $150 or €115). Would you be interested? Read this report before deciding.
:: posted by Roland Piquepaille, 6:04 AM | Comments (0)
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Friday, January 14, 2005
The system mixes the advantages of both computer-assisted translation (CAT) and machine translation (MT). When you use the computer-assisted system, you start your translation, and several suggestions are offered to you while you're typing, reducing your number of keystrokes and saving you time. Today, TransType2 allows bidirectional translations between English, French, German, and Spanish. Other European languages could easily been added.
The EU is now thinking to bring this tool to us either as a commercial product or a Web service. Read more for other details, links and screenshots.
:: posted by Roland Piquepaille, 3:01 AM | Comments (0)
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In this news release, the Biotechnology and Biological Sciences Research Council (BBSRC) writes that this discovery may have major implications for the pharmaceutical industry.
Better and more efficient drugs would only deliver the signals to our cells that will activate a desired behavior. Sounds like science fiction? Read more for other details, references and pictures.
:: posted by Roland Piquepaille, 2:58 AM | Comments (0)
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Monday, January 10, 2005
Admission is free and details are here. As Chicago is far from Paris, France, I doubt I'll see these quilts. But if you happen to see them, please let me know. In the mean time, check this overview for more details and images from some robot-inspired quilts.
:: posted by Roland Piquepaille, 1:47 PM | Comments (0)
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The latest images delivered by NASA include Australia, New Zealand and many islands in the South Pacific. NASA adds that these new maps are vital to mitigate "the effects of future disasters such as the Indian Ocean tsunami." I don't really know if this statement is true. Mother Nature is certainly stronger than NASA.
Anyway, don't miss this fly-around movie above New Zealand (Quicktime format, 2 minutes, 6.42 MB). And check this overview for more details and images from Bora Bora.
:: posted by Roland Piquepaille, 1:43 PM | Comments (0)
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But the real breakthrough is that it will permit to catch five more times energy from the Sun, up to 30 percent from the 6 percent achieved today by the best plastic solar cells. Hats off to these researchers... This overview contains more details, comments and references.
:: posted by Roland Piquepaille, 1:05 PM | Comments (0)
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But here, I'm confused. Last September, in "Simulating the Whole Universe," I mentioned another simulation done by the Virgo Consortium which used 10 billion mass points. The goals were different. The Virgo team wanted to simulate the entire life of our universe while the Korean team is trying to understand the evolution of the universe during its first 80 days.
Still, the Virgo simulation used more mass particles than the Korean one. Am I missing something here? Read more
and help me to understand why 8.6 billion is larger than 10 billion...
:: posted by Roland Piquepaille, 1:01 PM | Comments (0)
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Friday, January 07, 2005
The radiologists who developed the software chose the Apple platform because of the high performance of the Mac graphics. With OsiriX, you can store and manipulate images on your iPod the same way you handle music files with iTune. And then, you can transfer these images or movies to any other Mac, using iChat to discuss a diagnosis with a colleague. Pretty neat...
This overview contains other details, references and a very impressive heart image.
:: posted by Roland Piquepaille, 5:27 AM | Comments (0)
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Wednesday, January 05, 2005
In Viva Mesh Vegas, a long article from IEEE Spectrum, you'll discover many details about the three-tier resilient mesh network architecture used in this program. The pilot test covers 5 square kilometers for a cost of about $170,000. If Las Vegas decides to expand it to the whole city, it will cost about $6 million.
Read the original article for more details or this summary for selected excerpts, other references and pictures.
:: posted by Roland Piquepaille, 5:25 AM | Comments (0)
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Monday, January 03, 2005
In "Holographic projector for your future PDA," PDA Live.com writes that the holographic laser technology used by the company relies on very few components, meaning these future projectors should be cheap to produce. The company says these projectors should be on the market in the next two to four years.
Instead of showing the minuscule screen of your phone to your friends, you'll be able to project it on almost any surface. This overview contains more references and pictures.
:: posted by Roland Piquepaille, 9:50 AM | Comments (0)
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Saturday, January 01, 2005
You'll see that some people are so convinced that this kind of human enhancements will happen that they predict than in a few decades, all sporting events 'will be split up to accommodate enhanced and unenhanced athletes.' And they will be safer than today's drugs. Read more for selected excepts and happy 2005!
:: posted by Roland Piquepaille, 7:46 AM | Comments (0)
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