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Alphabet’s X announces Glass Enterprise Edition, a hands-free device for hands-on workers

July 18, 2017

Glass Enterprise Edition, a hands-free device for hands-on workers, from Alphabet's X (credit: X)

Alphabet’s X announced today Glass Enterprise Edition (EE) — an augmented-reality device targeted mainly to hands-on workers.

Glass EE is an improved version of the “Explorer Edition” — an experimental 2013 corporate version of the original Glass product.

On January 2015, the Enterprise team in X quietly began shipping the Enterprise Edition to corporate solution partners like GE and DHL.

Now,… read more

Topics: VR/Augmented Reality/Computer Graphics

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Neural stem cells steered by electric fields can repair brain damage

July 17, 2017

Electrical stimulation of the brain to move neural stem cells (credit: Jun-Feng Feng et al./ Stem Cell Reports)

Electric fields can be used to guide transplanted human neural stem cells — cells that can develop into various brain tissues — to repair brain damage in specific areas of the brain, scientists at the University of California, Davis have discovered.

It’s well known that electric fields can locally guide wound healing. Damaged tissues generate weak electric fields, and research by UC Davis… read more

Topics: Cognitive Science/Neuroscience | Electronics

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Drinking coffee associated with lower risk of death from all causes, study finds

July 17, 2017

(credit: iStock)

People who drink around three cups of coffee a day may live longer than non-coffee drinkers, a landmark study has found.

The findings — published in the journal Annals of Internal Medicine — come from the largest study of its kind, in which scientists analyzed data from more than half a million people across 10 European countries to explore the effect of coffee consumption on risk of mortality.… read more

Topics: Biomed/Longevity

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Projecting a visual image directly into the brain, bypassing the eyes

Allowing the blind to see or the paralyzed to feel touch
July 14, 2017

zebrafish brain tracking prey ft

Imagine replacing a damaged eye with a window directly into the brain — one that communicates with the visual part of the cerebral cortex by reading from a million individual neurons and simultaneously stimulating 1,000 of them with single-cell accuracy, allowing someone to see again.

That’s the goal of a $21.6 million DARPA award to the University of California, Berkeley (UC Berkeley), one of six organizations funded by DARPA’s… read more

Topics: Cognitive Science/Neuroscience | Human Enhancement

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How to turn audio clips into realistic lip-synced video

Is this the future of fake TV news?
July 12, 2017

A neural network first converts the sounds from an audio file into basic mouth shapes. Then the system grafts and blends those mouth shapes onto an existing target video and adjusts the timing to create a realistic, lip-synced video of the person delivering the new speech. (credit: University of Washington)

UW (University of Washington) | UW researchers create realistic video from audio files alone

University of Washington researchers at the UW Graphics and Image Laboratory have developed new algorithms that turn audio clips into a realistic, lip-synced video, starting with an existing video of  that person speaking on a different topic.

As detailed in a paper to be presented Aug. 2 at  … read more

Topics: AI/Robotics | Electronics | Entertainment/New Media | Social/Ethical/Legal

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How to ‘talk’ to your computer or car with hand or body poses

July 10, 2017

Tracking multiple people ft

Researchers at Carnegie Mellon University’s Robotics Institute have developed a system that can detect and understand body poses and movements of multiple people from a video in real time — including, for the first time, the pose of each individual’s fingers.

The ability to recognize finger or hand poses, for instance, will make it possible for people to interact with computers in new and more natural ways, such… read more

Topics: AI/Robotics | Computers/Infotech/UI | Electronics

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Radical new vertically integrated 3D chip design combines computing and data storage

Aims to process and store massive amounts of data at ultra-high speed in the future
July 7, 2017

3D nanosystem ft

A radical new 3D chip that combines computation and data storage in vertically stacked layers — allowing for processing and storing massive amounts of data at high speed in future transformative nanosystems — has been designed by researchers at Stanford University and MIT.

The new 3D-chip design* replaces silicon with carbon nanotubes (sheets of 2-D graphene formed into nanocylinders) and integrates resistive random-access… read more

Topics: Computers/Infotech/UI | Electronics | Nanotech/Materials Science

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Carbon nanotubes found safe for reconnecting damaged neurons

May offer future hope for patients with spinal-cord injury
July 5, 2017

(credit: Polina Shuvaeva/iStock)

Multiwall carbon nanotubes (MWCNTs) could safely help repair damaged connections between neurons by serving as supporting scaffolds for growth or as connections between neurons.

That’s the conclusion of an in-vitro (lab) open-access study with cultured neurons (taken from the hippcampus of neonatal rats) by a multi-disciplinary team of scientists in Italy and Spain, published in the journal Nanomedicine: Nanotechnology, Biology, and Medicine.

The study… read more

Topics: Cognitive Science/Neuroscience | Nanotech/Materials Science

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Meditation, yoga, and tai chi can reverse damaging effects of stress, new study suggests

Even a two-minute brisk walk every half hour will work wonders
July 3, 2017

Tai chi (credit: iStock)

Mind-body interventions such as meditation, yoga*, and tai chi can reverse the molecular reactions in our DNA that cause ill-health and depression, according to a study by scientists at the universities of Coventry and Radboud.

When a person is exposed to a stressful event, their sympathetic nervous system (responsible for the “fight-or-flight” response) is triggered, which increases production of a molecule called nuclear factor kappa B (NF-kB). That molecule… read more

Topics: Biomed/Longevity

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‘Mind reading’ technology identifies complex thoughts, using machine learning and fMRI

CMU aims to map all types of knowledge in the brain
June 30, 2017

brain semantic patterns

By combining machine-learning algorithms with fMRI brain imaging technology, Carnegie Mellon University (CMU) scientists have discovered, in essense, how to “read minds.”

The researchers used functional magnetic resonance imaging (fMRI) to view how the brain encodes various thoughts (based on blood-flow patterns in the brain). They discovered that the mind’s building blocks for constructing complex thoughts are formed, not by words, but by specific combinations of the brain’s various sub-systems.… read more

Topics: AI/Robotics | Cognitive Science/Neuroscience

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How to capture videos of brains in real time

Watching mice think as they walk
June 28, 2017

With a new algorithm, scientists can watch individual neurons signaling within a volume of brain tissue. (credit: The Rockefeller University)

A team of scientists has peered into a mouse brain with light, capturing live neural activity of hundreds of individual neurons in a 3D section of tissue at video speed (30 Hz) in a single recording for the first time.

Besides serving as a powerful research tool, this discovery means it may now be possible to “alter stimuli in real time based on what we see going on in… read more

Topics: Cognitive Science/Neuroscience

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Smart algorithm automatically adjusts exoskeletons for best walking performance

"Human-in-the-loop optimization" assistance method could increase walking or running endurance, help stroke patients walk again sooner
June 25, 2017

exoskeleton leg ft

Researchers at the College of Engineering at Carnegie Mellon University (CMU) have developed a new automated feedback system for personalizing exoskeletons to achieve optimal performance.

Exoskeletons can be used to augment human abilities. For example, they can provide more endurance while walking, help lift a heavy load, improve athletic performance, and help a stroke patient walk again.

But current one-size-fits-all exoskeleton devices, despite their potential, “have not improved… read more

Topics: Electronics | Human Enhancement

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Tactile sensor lets robots gauge objects’ hardness and manipulate small tools

June 23, 2017

A GelSight sensor attached to a robot’s gripper enables the robot to determine precisely where it has grasped a small screwdriver, removing it from and inserting it back into a slot, even when the gripper screens the screwdriver from the robot’s camera. (credit: Robot Locomotion Group at MIT)

Researchers at MIT’s Computer Science and Artificial Intelligence Laboratory (CSAIL) have added sensors to grippers on robot arms to give robots greater sensitivity and dexterity. The sensor can judge the hardness of surfaces it touches, enabling a robot to manipulate smaller objects than was previously possible.

The “GelSight” sensor consists of a block of transparent soft rubber — the “gel” of its name — with one face… read more

Topics: AI/Robotics

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Two drones see through walls in 3D using WiFi signals

Researchers use commercially available equipment including tiny Raspberry Pi computer
June 21, 2017

Transmit and receive drones scenario (credit: Chitra R. Karanam and Uasamin Mostofi/ACM)

Researchers at the University of California Santa Barbara have demonstrated the first three-dimensional imaging of objects through walls using an ordinary wireless signal.

Applications could include emergency search-and-rescue, archaeological discovery, and structural monitoring, according to the researchers. Other applications could include military and law-enforcement surveillance.

Calculating 3D images from WiFi signals

In the research, two octo-copters (drones) took off and flew outside… read more

Topics: Electronics

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Crystal ‘domain walls’ may lead to tinier electronic devices

June 19, 2017

Domain Walls is pictured (credit: Queen's University Belfast)

Queen’s University Belfast physicists have discovered a radical new way to modify the conductivity (ease of electron flow) of electronic circuits — reducing the size of future devices.

The two latest KurzweilAI articles on graphene cited faster/lower-power performance and device-compatibility features. This new research takes another approach: Altering the properties of a crystal to eliminate the need for multiple circuits in devices.

Reconfigurable nanocircuitry… read more

Topics: Electronics | Nanotech/Materials Science

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