The Incredible Mind!! (Warning : Slight Nudity)

guardian: Fans wearing Daft Punk helmets arrive at a venue in...

Sat, 18 May 2013 20:29:22 -0400

Fans wearing Daft Punk helmets arrive at a venue in Australia’s tiny town of Wee Waa prior to the French band’s album launch this morning. Wee Waa, better known for cotton-picking than culture, was relishing the limelight as thousands of electo-pop fans descended on it. The cotton town’s population will more than double for the event.

Photograph: Shanna Whan/AFP/Getty Images

digg: The world’s most powerful computer network is being...

Sat, 18 May 2013 20:29:19 -0400

digg:

The world’s most powerful computer network is being wasted on Bitcoin.

…and all those loose wires are giving us a headache.

ebookfriendly: Cool stuff - not only for ebook geeks...

Sat, 18 May 2013 20:29:14 -0400

ebookfriendly:

Cool stuff - not only for ebook geeks http://bit.ly/12pRfj5

phonesandgadgets: I Pledge Allegiance, To My...

Sat, 18 May 2013 20:29:11 -0400

phonesandgadgets:

I Pledge Allegiance, To My Device

http://phonesandgadgets.tumblr.com

gregcohn: EFF: Who has your back?

Sat, 18 May 2013 20:29:06 -0400

gregcohn:

EFF: Who has your back?

thecontentbrief: The future of Google Glass?Digital creative...

Sat, 18 May 2013 20:29:01 -0400

thecontentbrief:

The future of Google Glass?

Digital creative agency Playground knows that Glass is in its early days, but they imagine a future in which Glass helps with navigation, shopping, hobbies and much more. And according to Playground, “All of our examples are actually possible right now. Smartphones (batteries not included) have enough raw processing power to run this software today. If only current batteries were ten times more efficient and there was a robust native hardware API for Glass. Well, it’s coming. Sooner than we think.”

emergentfutures: In Cisco’s Classroom Of The Future, Your...

Sat, 18 May 2013 20:28:52 -0400

emergentfutures:

In Cisco’s Classroom Of The Future, Your Professor Is Just An Illusion

New telepresence software could let you take a class from anywhere and appear as if you’re in the classroom.

Full Story: FastCoExist

cnet: People watch more than 4 billion videos per day on...

Sat, 18 May 2013 20:28:47 -0400

cnet:

People watch more than 4 billion videos per day on YouTube

crutmon: http://www.highsnobiety.com/2013/04/30/volkswagen-aqua-...

Sat, 18 May 2013 20:28:42 -0400

crutmon:

http://www.highsnobiety.com/2013/04/30/volkswagen-aqua-hovercraft-concept-by-yuhan-zhang/

ebookporn: EARL, the toughest ereader in the world. It is an...

Sat, 18 May 2013 20:28:37 -0400

ebookporn:

EARL, the toughest ereader in the world.

It is an ereader, a GPS, a walkie talkie, a weather station, waterproof to 3 feet under water, has a touch screen that you can operate while wearing gloves, and a whole host of other functions and abilities that you might well need should you be running around in the Karakorums or the Amazon.

nationalpost: World’s first plastic gun, made with 3D printer,...

Sat, 18 May 2013 20:28:32 -0400

nationalpost:

World’s first plastic gun, made with 3D printer, successfully fired in the United States
The successful firing of the world’s first plastic gun made with 3D printing technology, has brought immediate calls for a ban on so-called “undetectable weapons.”

The gun, called “The Liberator”, was made and developed in Austin, Texas by a non-profit organization called Defense Distributed, which claims its purpose is to “produce and publish information related to the 3D printing of firearms.”

The weapon was made with a 3D printer brought on eBay for just $8,000, and constructed by assembling 15 printed components made from ABS plastic. According to the BBC, which witnessed the weapon’s first test, only the 16th piece, the firing pin, is made from metal.

Lighting Books (by Bryce Wolkowitz)

Sat, 18 May 2013 20:28:23 -0400

Lighting Books (by Bryce Wolkowitz)

wildcat2030: Hoping to give new meaning to the term “natural...

Sat, 18 May 2013 20:28:18 -0400

wildcat2030:

Hoping to give new meaning to the term “natural light,” a small group of biotechnology hobbyists and entrepreneurs has started a project to develop plants that glow, potentially leading the way for trees that can replace electric streetlamps and potted flowers luminous enough to read by.

The project, which will use a sophisticated form of genetic engineering called synthetic biology, is attracting attention not only for its audacious goal, but for how it is being carried out.

Rather than being the work of a corporation or an academic laboratory, it will be done by a small group of hobbyist scientists in one of the growing number of communal laboratories springing up around the nation as biotechnology becomes cheap enough to give rise to a do-it-yourself movement.

The project is also being financed in a D.I.Y. sort of way: It has attracted more than $250,000 in pledges from about 4,500 donors in about two weeks on the Web site Kickstarter. (via A Dream of Glowing Trees Is Assailed for Gene-Tinkering - NYTimes.com)

mightyhunter: This 17-Year-Old Coder Is Saving Twitter From TV...

Sat, 18 May 2013 20:28:14 -0400

mightyhunter:

This 17-Year-Old Coder Is Saving Twitter From TV Spoilers

Imagine you forget to watch a new episode of Game of Thrones the night it airs. Even if coworkers stay mum about important plot points, Twitter is abuzz with spoilers. Fortunately, there’s Twivo, a new program that allows Twitter users to censor their feeds from mentioning a certain TV show (and its characters) for a set time period. Jennie Lamere, a 17-year-old girl, invented the software last month—and won the grand prize at a national coding competition where Lamere was the only female who presented a project, and the only developer to work alone. Internet: Meet the reason we need more women in tech.

(From Mother Jones)

iheartapple2: Kevo Uses Your iPhone For Keyless Entry

Sat, 18 May 2013 20:28:09 -0400

iheartapple2:

Kevo Uses Your iPhone For Keyless Entry

perscientiamlibertas: Image: Invelox Invelox wind turbine...

Sat, 18 May 2013 20:28:06 -0400

perscientiamlibertas:

Image: Invelox

Invelox wind turbine claims 600% advantage in energy output

News on the wind power front! The US-based energy technology company SheerWind claims that, during tests, their “Invelox” wind turbine generated six times as much energy as its traditional equivalent, as well as with cheaper costs that allow it to compete with natural gas and hydropower.

According to a news release by SheerWind the Invelox wind turbine can also:

operate at wind speeds “as low as 1 mile per hour”

features an installation cost of “less that $750 per KW”

increases “energy production capacity to record high of 72%”

minimised environmental impacts

What makes Invelox different? According to gizmag:

“Invelox takes a novel approach to wind power generation as it doesn’t rely on high wind speeds. Instead, it captures wind at any speed, even a breeze, from a portal located above ground. The wind captured is then funneled through a duct where it will pick up speed. The resulting kinetic energy will drive the generator on the ground level. By bringing the airflow from the top of the tower, it’s possible to generate more power with smaller turbine blades”

As with all emergent energy technologies, especially those claiming a performance breakthrough, there results need to be treated with caution. Especially as

“SheerWind makes the claim based on its own comparative tests, the precise methodology of which is not entirely clear.”

Large-scale availability of the Invelox turbine is slated for 2014.

Continue reading / SheerWind Press Release

Further reading:

Rethinking wind power - Harvard research suggests real-world generating capacity of wind farms at large scales has been overestimated

Japan to replace nuclear plant with world’s largest wind farm

Wind, solar power paired with storage could be cost-effective way to power grid

Japanese breakthrough will make wind power cheaper than nuclear

neurosciencestuff: Brain implants: Restoring memory with a...

Sat, 18 May 2013 20:28:01 -0400

neurosciencestuff:

Brain implants: Restoring memory with a microchip

William Gibson’s popular science fiction tale “Johnny Mnemonic” foresaw sensitive information being carried by microchips in the brain by 2021. A team of American neuroscientists could be making this fantasy world a reality.

Their motivation is different but the outcome would be somewhat similar. Hailed as one of 2013’s top ten technological breakthroughs by MIT, the work by the University of Southern California, North Carolina’s Wake Forest University and other partners has actually spanned a decade.

But the U.S.-wide team now thinks that it will see a memory device being implanted in a small number of human volunteers within two years and available to patients in five to 10 years. They can’t quite contain their excitement.

“I never thought I’d see this in my lifetime,” said Ted Berger, professor of biomedical engineering at the University of Southern California in Los Angeles. “I might not benefit from it myself but my kids will.”

Rob Hampson, associate professor of physiology and pharmacology at Wake Forest University, agrees. “We keep pushing forward, every time I put an estimate on it, it gets shorter and shorter.”

The scientists — who bring varied skills to the table, including mathematical modeling and psychiatry — believe they have cracked how long-term memories are made, stored and retrieved and how to replicate this process in brains that are damaged, particularly by stroke or localized injury.

Berger said they record a memory being made, in an undamaged area of the brain, then use that data to predict what a damaged area “downstream” should be doing. Electrodes are then used to stimulate the damaged area to replicate the action of the undamaged cells.

They concentrate on the hippocampus — part of the cerebral cortex which sits deep in the brain — where short-term memories become long-term ones. Berger has looked at how electrical signals travel through neurons there to form those long-term memories and has used his expertise in mathematical modeling to mimic these movements using electronics.

Hampson, whose university has done much of the animal studies, adds: “We support and reinforce the signal in the hippocampus but we are moving forward with the idea that if you can study enough of the inputs and outputs to replace the function of the hippocampus, you can bypass the hippocampus.”

The team’s experiments on rats and monkeys have shown that certain brain functions can be replaced with signals via electrodes. You would think that the work of then creating an implant for people and getting such a thing approved would be a Herculean task, but think again.

For 15 years, people have been having brain implants to provide deep brain stimulation to treat epilepsy and Parkinson’s disease — a reported 80,000 people have now had such devices placed in their brains. So many of the hurdles have already been overcome — particularly the “yuck factor” and the fear factor.

“It’s now commonly accepted that humans will have electrodes put in them — it’s done for epilepsy, deep brain stimulation, (that has made it) easier for investigative research, it’s much more acceptable now than five to 10 years ago,” Hampson says.

Much of the work that remains now is in shrinking down the electronics.

“Right now it’s not a device, it’s a fair amount of equipment,”Hampson says. “We’re probably looking at devices in the five to 10 year range for human patients.”

The ultimate goal in memory research would be to treat Alzheimer’s Disease but unlike in stroke or localized brain injury, Alzheimer’s tends to affect many parts of the brain, especially in its later stages, making these implants a less likely option any time soon.

Berger foresees a future, however, where drugs and implants could be used together to treat early dementia. Drugs could be used to enhance the action of cells that surround the most damaged areas, and the team’s memory implant could be used to replace a lot of the lost cells in the center of the damaged area. “I think the best strategy is going to involve both drugs and devices,” he says.

Unfortunately, the team found that its method can’t help patients with advanced dementia.

“When looking at a patient with mild memory loss, there’s probably enough residual signal to work with, but not when there’s significant memory loss,” Hampson said.

Constantine Lyketsos, professor of psychiatry and behavioral sciences at John Hopkins Medicine in Baltimore which is trialing a deep brain stimulator implant for Alzheimer’s patients was a little skeptical of the other team’s claims.

“The brain has a lot of redundancy, it can function pretty well if loses one or two parts. But memory involves circuits diffusely dispersed throughout the brain so it’s hard to envision.” However, he added that it was more likely to be successful in helping victims of stroke or localized brain injury as indeed its makers are aiming to do.

The UK’s Alzheimer’s Society is cautiously optimistic.

“Finding ways to combat symptoms caused by changes in the brain is an ongoing battle for researchers. An implant like this one is an interesting avenue to explore,” said Doug Brown, director of research and development.

Hampson says the team’s breakthrough is “like the difference between a cane, to help you walk, and a prosthetic limb — it’s two different approaches.”

It will still take time for many people to accept their findings and their claims, he says, but they don’t expect to have a shortage of volunteers stepping forward to try their implant — the project is partly funded by the U.S. military which is looking for help with battlefield injuries.

There are U.S. soldiers coming back from operations with brain trauma and a neurologist at DARPA (the Defense Advanced Research Projects Agency) is asking “what can you do for my boys?” Hampson says.

“That’s what it’s all about.”

alexob: Could the long-awaited flying cars finally become a...

Sat, 18 May 2013 20:27:54 -0400

alexob:

Could the long-awaited flying cars finally become a reality?

This is a flying hybrid vehicle! Who wants one?!

The next-gen TF-X will be a street legal plug-in hybrid car that has collapsible wings, retractable propellers, and is capable of driving and flying on its own in the event of an emergency.

tjneon: Freakin’ LOVE Fallout 3. One of the best games EVER....

Sat, 18 May 2013 20:27:48 -0400

tjneon:

Freakin’ LOVE Fallout 3. One of the best games EVER. NEED FALLOUT 5 IN MAH LIFE RIGHT MEOW!!!!!

futurescope: Titan arm Exoskeleton for lifting 50 lbs in each...

Sat, 18 May 2013 20:27:43 -0400

futurescope:

Titan arm Exoskeleton for lifting 50 lbs in each arm that costs under $3000

The Titan Arm system costs under $3,000 to make. It can hold a static load via a braking system, or lift at 3 rad/s (for a 44 cm forearm+hand length, this works out to about 132 cm/s or 4.3 ft/s — pretty fast. The motor is mounted in the backpack area; the elbow joint is driven by a cable system.

[from nextbigfuture] [Titan Arm]