:: posted by Mike Sugarbaker, 7:14 PM | Comments (1)
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Tuesday, July 26, 2005
In 'Satellites and the city,' NASA says that it can help to provide an answer. "Our research suggests that, using satellite data and enhanced models, we will be able to answer several critical questions about how urbanization may impact climate change 10, 25 or even 100 years from now," says for example a NASA scientist from the Goddard Space Flight Center.
But read more for other details, pictures and references about a phenomenon largely ignored by the majority of meteorologists today -- at least as far I know.
:: posted by Roland Piquepaille, 1:32 PM | Comments (0)
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This robot is called SAUVIM, short for Semi-Autonomous Underwater Vehicle for Intervention Missions. It's roughly the size of an SUV and it is designed to operate to a depth of about 4 miles. With its computers, its sensors, and a 5-foot, 150-pound autonomous manipulator, or robotic arm, it will be able to move towards a specific target, such as a wrecked pipe laying on the ocean floor -- and maybe fix it.
Right now, this robot has an autonomy of about eight hours, but this range should soon be extended when the researchers move from batteries to fuel cells to power the undersea vehicle. This overview contains other details, references and several pictures of this autonomous submarine engine.
:: posted by Roland Piquepaille, 1:28 PM | Comments (0)
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Monday, July 25, 2005
:: posted by Donald Melanson, 4:35 PM | Comments (0)
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Saturday, July 23, 2005
This is what have done researchers at England's University of Cambridge with their augmented maps, which add digital graphical information and user interface components to printed maps. Here is how this works: the printed maps are placed on a flat surface; an overhead camera linked to a PC tracks the map via the live video stream; and an overhead projector adds graphical information to the maps.
This could be useful for many applications, and the researchers have applied it to a flood simulation of the Cambridge area. Read more for selected details, references and pictures.
:: posted by Roland Piquepaille, 7:12 AM | Comments (0)
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Friday, July 22, 2005
:: posted by Mike Sugarbaker, 1:37 PM | Comments (1)
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Thursday, July 21, 2005
Sometimes, corn is named maize in Europe, and the brewer chose to use this unusual Bt maize to 'spice up' his beer. Of course, his goal is to produce a great new beer, but he also wants to introduce new technologies that will be good for the environment without compromising the consumers' health -- I guess he based his assumptions on a 'reasonable' number of bottles on a very warm day...
Anyway, GM food products have been approved by the European Union since April 2004 -- if they're properly labeled. So you might find this beer outside Sweden anytime soon. Read more for other details, references and a photo of a bottle of this brand new beer.
:: posted by Roland Piquepaille, 9:23 AM | Comments (0)
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Tuesday, July 19, 2005
I wrote this bit for Corante's Many-to-Many blog:
Cinema-On-Demand: Theater as Social Software
A darkened theatre. A full house. A heroic act. A mighty roar from the crowd. This is the delight of good cinema.
I love going to the movies with people, even people I don’t know. I love to hear others’ reactions, and discuss the movie with people afterwards. In fact, I love it so much, that when my neighbor shows movies in many languages from all over the world in his backyard on Saturday nights during the summer, I often go down for the movie and end up enjoying the wine, cheese, and conversation more than the images flickering across a bedsheet waving gently in the breeze.
So, I got to thinking: What if you could rent a theater for a night? Then I read this: “At this year’s Sundance Film Festival in Park City, Utah, filmmaker David LaChapelle screened his new hi-def movie, Rize, by streaming it from Oregon and then transmitting it through a WiMax station in Salt Lake City. It worked flawlessly - soon even theaters won’t have to rely on physical media anymore” (from http://www.wired.com/wired/archive/13.04/start.html?pg=2).
Improvements in bandwidth and compression will usher in the possibility of streaming movies directly to local theaters...
more...
:: posted by Paul B Hartzog, 4:09 PM | Comments (0)
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Sunday, July 17, 2005
Instead of typing words on these ridiculous small keyboards, with the SHARK, an abbreviation for ShortHand-Aided Rapid Keyboarding, you use a grid and a stylus. The grid appears on the screen of your portable device. You put a stylus on the first letter of the word you want to type. Then you drag the stylus to draw a line connecting all the other letters of the word. When you release the stylus, the word appears almost magically. With SHARK, you can type between 50 and 80 words per minute, which is almost miraculous.
So far, IBM hasn't yet decided to release this software as a product. But if enough of you download it, which is currently free, and say you want it, IBM could release it as a paying product within a few months. Read more for other details and references about this promising new technology.
:: posted by Roland Piquepaille, 6:53 AM | Comments (0)
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Now, according to the ANBA press agency, Miguel Nicolelis, the professor of neurology at Duke University who was behind the experiments with the monkeys, wants to go further. He plans to install chips in humans' brains in order to control prosthetic arms.
Of course, there is still some work to do with animals before this kind of surgery can be practiced on humans. But the first surgery in the world to implant a neuro-prosthesis inside a human being is expected to be performed in a Brazilian hospital by 2008. This overview contains other details, references and a diagram describing how a patient's brain can control the prosthetics.
:: posted by Roland Piquepaille, 6:37 AM | Comments (0)
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Friday, July 15, 2005
:: posted by Mike Sugarbaker, 6:08 PM | Comments (0)
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Wednesday, July 13, 2005
This system consists of a custom video-see-through head-mounted display (HMD), two color video cameras attached to the HMD that provide ultrasound, magnetic resonance (MR), or computer tomography (CT) pre-recorded images, and a third infrared video camera for tracking what's doing the surgeon.
Such systems could become available in three to five years. But they will not be cheap. A complete augmented reality system should cost as much as $400,000. This overview contains other details, references and illustrations of some Siemens technologies that will make patients appear transparent.
:: posted by Roland Piquepaille, 1:08 PM | Comments (0)
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The software itself is composed of three elements, two speech recognition components from Microsoft and a custom piece of software called 'Maestro.' When a driver says something such as 'nearest gas station,' Maestro converts speech to text, builds a search query and sends it to a search engine. It then converts back the results to spoken instructions for the driver.
More research needs to be done to know if the system is safe for driving. If it proves to be safe, a 'Maestro' might be the Web driver in your next car. Read more for other details.
:: posted by Roland Piquepaille, 1:05 PM | Comments (0)
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Tuesday, July 12, 2005
:: posted by Donald Melanson, 7:23 PM | Comments (0)
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Friday, July 08, 2005
:: posted by Mike Sugarbaker, 1:37 PM | Comments (0)
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Thursday, July 07, 2005
:: posted by Jonathan Swerdloff, 9:36 AM | Comments (0)
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Wednesday, July 06, 2005
And this week, the British Ech2o car will attempt to break this record. Its designers say that this car, also hydrogen-powered, "can travel on less electricity than it takes to power a light bulb." It will be driven by a 13-year old experienced go-kart driver." Read more for other details,references and pictures.
:: posted by Roland Piquepaille, 4:49 AM | Comments (0)
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These virtual Chinese brushes simulate in real time the ink dispersion and could be available on your PC within two years. This longer overview contains more details and references. It also includes pictures generated with MoXi. Finally, it looks at a potential trademark problem over the name MoXi.
:: posted by Roland Piquepaille, 4:46 AM | Comments (0)
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Several physicists from Sweden and Denmark have compared the complexity of finding an address in Manhattan and in several Swedish cities. Not surprisingly, Manhattan, with its checkered grid plan, is easier to navigate than the older European cities. The scientists think their model could be "used to allow city planners to see how street changes affect navigability."
But as cities don't change very fast, it's doubtful that this method can be used efficiently anytime soon. This overview contains more details and references. It also shows you the process used by the researchers to model how a visitor navigates through an unknown city.
:: posted by Roland Piquepaille, 4:42 AM | Comments (0)
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Friday, July 01, 2005
According to a new study from Cornell University, this is not true, and our mental processing is continuous. By tracking mouse movements of students working with their computers, the researchers found that our learning process was similar to other biological organisms: we're not learning through a series of 0's and 1's.
Instead, our brain is cascading through shades of grey. Read more for additional references.
:: posted by Roland Piquepaille, 3:21 AM | Comments (0)
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NASA wants to use this technology to reconfigure its satellites on the fly to perform new tasks. And its engineers have already built an SDR testbed allowing the quick development of new navigation algorithms.
These new communication schemes could be used within 3 to 5 years in SDR-enabled space missions. This overview contains more details about NASA's plans and its A-Train mission.
:: posted by Roland Piquepaille, 3:18 AM | Comments (0)
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