A new experiment conducted by researchers at the City of Paris Industrial Physics and Chemistry Higher Educational Institution (ESPCI) has shown that it's possible to focus light through opaque materials and detect objects hidden behind them, provided you know enough about the material.
They produced a numerical model called a transmission matrix, which includes over 65,000 numbers describing the way that a material scatters light in a layer of material. They could then use the matrix to tailor a beam of light specifically to pass through the layer and focus on the other side.
Alternatively, they could measure light emerging from the opaque material, and use the matrix to assemble of an image of an object behind it.
Sensecam, which contains a digital camera and an accelerometer to measure movement, can be used for life-logging and as a memory aid for people with Alzheimer's and other memory disorders.
Researchers at Johns Hopkins University have developed a way to monitor the progress of a patient's cancer treatment using a new technique for rapidly sequencing, or decoding, large amounts of DNA.
It uses mitochondrial DNA as markers of cancerous cells, based on the finding that more than 80 percent of cancers had mutations in their mitochondrial DNA.
Superluminal (faster-than-light) hyprcomputers could be created by taking advantage of the nonlocal phenomenon (instant changes to a distant entangled particle), say Volkmar Putz and Karl Svozil at the Vienna University of Technology.
For example, light traveling through a vacuum can be made to spontaneously form into an electron-positron pair--an entangled pair--which then recombine to form a photon again. This process happens instantaneously, allowing the photon to effectively "jump" across space.
I recently watched James Cameron's Avatar in 3D. It was an enjoyable experience in some ways, but overall I left dismayed on a number of levels.
It was enjoyable to watch the lush three-dimensional animation and motion capture controlled graphics. I'm not sure that 3D will take over -- as many now expect -- until we get rid of the glasses (and there are emerging technologies to do that, albeit, the 3D effect is not yet quite as good), but it was visually pleasing.
3D information visualization displays and interactive multitouch screens as featured in this scene from "Avatar" already exist and are in use today. (20th Century Fox)
While I'm being positive, I was pleased to see Cameron's positive view of science in that the scientists are "good" guys (or at least one good gal) with noble intentions on learning the wisdom of the Na'vi natives and on negotiating a diplomatic solution.
The Na'vi were not completely technology-free. They basically used the type of technology that Native Americans used hundreds of years ago - same clothing, domesticated animals, natural medicine, and bows and arrows.
They were in fact exactly like Native Americans. How likely is that? Life on this distant moon in another starsystem has evolved creatures that look essentially the same as earthly creatures, with very minor differences (dogs, horses, birds, rhinoceros-like animals, and so on), not to mention humanoids that are virtually the same as humans here on Earth. That's quite a coincidence.
Cameron's conception of technology a hundred years from now was incredibly unimaginative, even by Hollywood standards. For example, the munitions that were supposed to blow up the tree of life looked like they were used in World War II (maybe even World War I). Most of the technology looked primitive, even by today's standards. The wearable exoskeleton robotic devices were supposed to be futuristic, but these already exist, and are beginning to be deployed. The one advanced technology was the avatartechnology itself.
But in that sense, Avatar is like the world of the movie A.I., where they had human-level cyborgs, but nothing else had changed: A.I. featured 1980's cars and coffee makers. As for Avatar, are people still going to use computer screens in a hundred years? Are they going to drive vehicles?
I thought the story and script was unimaginative, one-dimensional, and derivative. The basic theme was "evil corporation rapes noble natives." And while that is a valid theme, it was done without the least bit of subtlety, complexity, or human ambiguity.
From the movie "Dances with Wolves" (MGM)
The basic story was taken right from Dances with Wolves. And how many (thousands of) times have we seen a final battle scene that comes down to a battle between the hero and the anti-hero that goes through various incredible stages -- fighting on a flying airplane, in the trees, on the ground, etc? And (spoiler alert) how predictable was it that the heroine would pull herself free at the last second and save the day?
None of the creatures were especially creative. The flying battles were like Harry Potter's Quidditch, and the flying birds were derivative of Potter creatures, including mastering flying on the back of big bird creatures. There was some concept of networked intelligence but it was not especially coherent. The philosophy was the basic Hollywood religion about the noble cycle of life.
The movie was fundamentally anti-technology. Yes, it is true, as I pointed out above, that the natives use tools, but these are not the tools we associate with modern technology. And it is true that the Sigourney Weaver character and her band of scientists intend to help the Na'vi with their humantechnology (much like international aid workers might do today in developing nations), but we never actually see that happen. I got the sense that Cameron was loath to show modern technology doing anything useful. So even when Weaver's scientist becomes ill, the Na'vi attempt to heal her only with the magical life force of the tree of life.
Harry Potter rides Buckbeak the Hippogriff (Warner Bros.) while Jake Sully rides a Mountain Banshee / aka Ikran (20th Century Fox)
In Cameron's world, Nature is always wise and noble, which indeed it can be, but he fails to show its brutal side. The only thing that was brutal, crude, and immoral in the movie was the "advanced" technology. Of course, one could say that it was the user of the technology that was immoral (the evil corporation), but that is the only role for technology in the world of Avatar.
In addition to being evil, the technology of the Avatar world of over 100 years from now is also weaker than nature, so the rhinoceros-like creatures are able to defeat the tanks circa 2100. It was perhaps a satisfying spectacle to watch, but how realistic is that? The movie shows the natural creatures communicating with each other with some kind of inter-species messaging and also showed the tree of life able to remember voices. But it is actually real-world technology that can do those things right now. In the Luddite world of this movie, the natural world should and does conquer the brutish world of technology.
In my view, there is indeed a crudeness to first-industrial-revolution technology. The technology that will emerge in the decades ahead will be altogether different. It will enhance the natural world while it transcends its limitations. Indeed, it is only through the powers of exponentially growing info, bio, and nano technologies that we will be able to overcome the problems created by first-industrial-revolution technologies such as fossil fuels. This idea of technology transcending natural limitations was entirely lost in Cameron's vision. Technology was just something crude and immoral, something to be overcome, something that Nature does succeed in overcoming.
Unimaginative, non-futurist props in the supposed future world of the movie A.I. (Warner Bros.). Most sci-fi films depict a few truly clever technologies representing a probable humanfuture, while leaving the rest too ordinary and undeveloped to be believable. The entire world of humantechnology will evolve in step, affecting all aspects of the way we work, live, play, heal, create, learn or defend. Advanced technology will be embedded everywhere, in even our most mundane objects, interconnected and always-on. In a future world capable of strong A.I. and inter-stellar travel, the landscape of technology merged with our daily activities will actually be far more advanced, and far more interesting than in the film depictions we see today.
It was visually pleasing; although even here I thought it could have been better. Some of the movement of the blue natives was not quite right and looked like the unrealistic movement one sees of characters in video games, with jumps that show poor modeling of gravity.
The ending (spoiler alert) was a complete throwaway. The Na'vi defeat the immoral machines and their masters in a big battle, but if this mineral the evil corporation was mining is indeed worth a fortune per ounce, they would presumably come back with a more capable commander. Yet we hear Jake's voice at the end saying that the mineral is no longer needed. If that's true, then what was the point of the entire battle?
The Na'vi are presented as the ideal society, but consider how they treat their women. The men get to "pick" their women, and Jake is offered to take his choice once he earns his place in the society. Jake makes the heroine his wife, knowing full well that his life as a Na'vi could be cut off at any moment. And what kind of child would they have? Well, perhaps these complications are too subtle for the simplistic Avatar plot.
LOCKHEED MARTIN | The HULC: Dismounted Soldiers often carry heavy combat loads that increase the stress on the body leading to potential injuries. With a HULC exoskeleton, these loads are transferred to the ground through powered titanium legs without loss of mobility.
The HULC is a completely un-tethered, hydraulic-powered anthropomorphic exoskeleton that provides users with the ability to carry loads of up to 200 lbs for extended periods of time and over all terrains. Its flexible design allows for deep squats, crawls and upper-body lifting. There is no joystick or other control mechanism. The exoskeleton senses what users want to do and where they want to go. It augments their ability, strength and endurance. An onboard micro-computer ensures the exoskeleton moves in concert with the individual. Its modularity allows for major components to be swapped out in the field. Additionally, its unique power-saving design allows the user to operate on battery power for extended missions. The HULC's load-carrying ability works even when power is not available.
Lockheed Martin is a leading provider of advanced technology solutions for the Warfighter including ground Soldier systems such as wearable situational awareness equipment and mobility assistance systems. Future advancements in exoskeleton technologies will focus on specific user communities, shifting energy and performance requirements. Lockheed Martin is also exploring exoskeleton designs to support industrial and medical applications.
"We know that the Internet creates 'information overload,' a problem with two parts: increasing number of information sources and increasing information flow per source... Integrating multiple information sources is crucial to solving information overload. Blogs and other anthology-sites integrate information from many sources.... But we won't be able to solve the overload problem until each Internet user can choose for himself what sources to integrate, and can add to this mix the most important source of all: his own personal information — his email and other messages, reminders and documents of all sorts. To accomplish this, we merely need to turn the whole Cybersphere on its side, so that time instead of space is the main axis.
"If we think of time as orthogonal to space, a stream-based, time-based Cybersphere is the traditional Internet flipped on its side in digitalspace-time. The traditional web-shaped Internet consists (in effect) of many flat panels chaotically connected. Instead of flat sites, where information is arranged in space, we want deep sites that are slices of time. When we look at such a site onscreen, it's natural to imagine the past extending into (or beyond) the screen, and the future extending forward in front of the screen; the future flows towards the screen, into the screen and then deeper into the space beyond the screen.
"Every month, more and more information surges through the Cybersphere in lifestreams — some called blogs, "feeds," "activity streams," "event streams," Twitter streams. All these streams are specialized examples of the cyberstructure we called a lifestream in the mid-1990s....There is no clear way to blend two standard websites together, but it's obvious how to blend two streams. You simply shuffle them together like two decks of cards, maintaining time-order — putting the earlier document first."
With one bottle of drinking water and four hours of sunlight, MIT chemist Dan Nocera claims that he can produce 30 KWh of electricity, which is enough to power an entire household in the developing world. With about three gallons of river water, he could satisfy the daily energy needs of a large American home.
Using the electricity generated from a 30-square-meter photovoltaic array, Nocera's cobalt-phosphate catalyst converts water and carbon dioxide into hydrogen and oxygen. The process is similar to organic photosynthesis, except that in nature, plants create energy in the form of sugars instead of hydrogen.
The hydrogen produced through artificial photosynthesis can be stored in a tank and later used to produce electricity by being recombined with oxygen in a fuel cell, even when the sun isn't shining. Alternatively, the hydrogen can be converted into a liquid fuel.
With his start-up company, Sun Catalytix, which was awarded $4 million in government funding through the new ARPA-E agency, Nocera hopes to make the system affordable enough to allow individual homes to generate their own fuel and electricity on-site.
MIT researchers have built the first sensor array that can detect single molecules produced by living cells, using a carbon nanotube sensor array that can detect hydrogen peroxide molecules and could help scientists learn more about that molecule's role in cancer.
The sensor consists of a film of carbonnanotubes embedded in collagen. Cells can grow on the collagen surface, and the collagen also attracts and traps hydrogen peroxide released by the cell. When the nanotubes come in contact with the trapped hydrogen peroxide, their fluorescence flickers. By counting the flickers, one can obtain an accurate count of the incident single molecules.
Carbonnanotubes with a lit fuel coating generate an electrical current, the result of a fast-moving combustion wave (thermal wave) traveling along the length of the carbon nanotube that drags electrons along, MIT scientists have discovered.
The system puts out about 100 times greater energy in proportion to its weight than an lithium-ion battery.
In theory, says Michael Strano, MIT's Charles and Hilda Roddey Associate Professor of Chemical Engineering, such devices could maintain their power indefinitely until used, unlike batteries, whose charges leak away gradually as they sit unused. And the nanowires could be made in large arrays to supply significant amounts of power for larger devices.
He suggests that one possible application would be in enabling new kinds of ultra-small electronic devices — for example, devices the size of grains of rice, perhaps with sensors or treatment devices that could be injected into the body. Or it could lead to "environmental sensors that could be scattered like dust in the air."
By using different kinds of reactive materials for the coating, the wave front could oscillate, thus producing an alternating current, the basis for radio waves such as cell phone transmissions.
NASA's WISE mission has spotted 16 formerly hidden near-Earth objects with orbits close to Earth's.
WISE is expected to discover as many as 1000 near-Earth objects, but astronomers estimate that the number of unknown objects with masses great enough to cause ground damage in an impact runs into the tens of thousands.
String theory, loop quantum gravity,and quantum Einstein gravity are three of the theories of everything that describe the workings of the universe at the most fundamental level in this brief summary.
We can forecast a flip of the Earth's magnetic poles only a few decades in advance, and then only with data that is as precise as possible, researchers at Denis Diderot University and colleagues found in computer simulations of the Earth's magnetic dynamo.
GestureTek has developed technology that can project images from your phone that you can interact with.
GestureTek technology is also licensed to Microsoft for use on the Xbox360 Natal project due out in Q3 this year and to Hitachi for a TV coming out in Japan in Q3 2010. You can control the TV's volume and channel using hand gestures processed via a camera in the TV.
A study by a group of 41 researchers has verified the theory that a massive asteroid some 10 kilometers across that slammed into Earth, creating Chicxulub Crater on Mexico's Gulf Coast, killed off many of the species on the planet, including the non-avian dinosaurs.
Purdue University researchers have developed a miniature silicon-based device capable of transmitting 60 gigahertz radio-frequency signals, a step toward making wires obsolete for communications in the homes and offices of the future.
To achieve this extremely high frequency, the device uses silicon "microring resonators" in a system that converts ultrafast digitallaser pulses into bursts of analog radio-frequency signals, replacing large "bulk optics" systems.
The device could enable all communications, from high-definition television broadcasts to secure computer connections, to be transmitted from a single base station.
Diagram showing design of microring resonators (Purdue University, Minghao Qi)
IBM scientists have unveiled a "nanophotonic avalanche photodetector," a significant step towards replacing electrical signals that communicate via copper wires between computer chips with silicon nanocircuits that communicate using pulses of light.
The device uses the "avalanche effect" in Germanium and is the world's fastest device of its kind. It can receive optical information signals at 40Gbps (billion bits per second) and simultaneously multiply them tenfold.
By using light instead of electrical signals, enormous amounts of information can be sent between chips while using much less power.
"This invention brings the vision of on-chip optical interconnections much closer to reality," said Dr. T.C. Chen, vice president, Science and Technology, IBMResearch. "With optical communications embedded into the processor chips, the prospect of building power-efficient computer systems with performance at the Exaflop level might not be a very distant future."
University of Pennsylvania biologist Anthony Cashmore argues that belief in free will is akin to religious beliefs, since neither complies with the laws of the physical world, representing a continuing belief in vitalism or magic.
As Cashmore explains, the humanbrain acts at both the conscious level as well as the unconscious. It's our consciousness that makes us aware of our actions, giving us the sense that we control them.
Using thin films made from ordered arrays of vertical siliconnanowires, Lawrence Berkeley National Laboratory researchers were able to reduce both the quantity and the quality requirements for silicon, representing an economically viable path toward high-efficiency, low-cost thin-film solar cells.
A heart patient's own skin cells soon could be used to repair damaged cardiac tissue thanks to pioneering stem cellresearch by University of Houston biomedical scientist Robert Schwartz.
Freescale Semiconductor has developed a new chip, the i.MX508, that will double the speed at which eReaders can flip pages, increase battery life, and support larger, color screens, and is expected to reduce the retail price of eReaders by around $30 to $50.
"Silent sounds," a new technology developed by the Karlsruhe Institute of Technology, monitors electromyographic signals (from lip muscle movements) and transforms them into a computer-generated voice for the listener at the other end of the phone.
Applications also include helping people who have lost their voice due to illness or accident, and saying a PIN number or password silently to evade eavesdropping.
University of Maryland researchers have created a mathematical model that relates hand movements to EEG signals (which measure electrical activity of the brain), suggesting that EEG might also be used to control a prosthetic arm.
EEG is less invasive and less expensive than implanted electrodes, which have previously been used to control robotic arms and computer cursors by thought alone.
A new haptic interface that creates the sensation of a physical button when a user touches the screen has been designed by California-based company Immersion.
The device uses piezoelectric actuators that generate rapid horizontal vibrations to create the sensory experience.
The shape of the Internet is changing rapidly, driven by a variety of factors, including content delivery networks that have pushed both data and applications to the edge of the network; the growing popularity of smartphones, leading to the emergence of the wirelessInternet; the explosion of streaming video as the Internet's predominant data type; and "dark networks," private channels created to move information more cheaply and efficiently within a business or any kind of organization.
MIT and Caltech researchers have developed a new type of fMRI sensor that can measure a specific neurotransmitter (dopamine) -- a more detailed, higher-resolution indicator of neural activity than conventional fMRI, which measures blood flow in the brain.
Dopamine holds particular interest for neuroscientists because of its role in motivation, reward, addiction and several neurodegenerative conditions, including Parkinson'ss disease.
Physicists at the Laboratoire Aime Cotton - CNRS and University of Geneva have achieved reversible light storage efficiencies of more than a magnitude greater than those offered by previous techniques.
The new method could be useful for extending the range of quantum repeaters, used for long-distance quantum communication.
Researchers at Carnegie Mellon University and MicrosoftResearch have developed a new skin-based interface called Skinput that allows for using hands and arms as touchscreens.
Skinput works by detecting the various ultralow-frequency sounds produced when tapping different parts of the skin, allowing users to control audio devices, play games, make phone calls, and navigate hierarchical browsing systems.
A keyboard, menu, or other graphics are beamed onto a user's palm and forearm from a pico projector embedded in an armband. An acoustic detector in the armband then determines which part of the display is activated by the user's touch. Variations in bone density, size, and mass, as well as filtering effects from soft tissues and joints, mean different skin locations are acoustically distinct. Their software matches sound frequencies to specific skin locations, allowing the system to determine which "skin button" the user pressed.
"No online database will replace your daily newspaper, no CD-ROM can take the place of a competent teacher and no computernetwork will change the way government works."
