Watch scientists send brain signals between people over the internet

A new study has demonstrated that it is possible for people to transmit brain signals between one another over the internet – watch how it works here.

You may not believe in psychics’ self-proclaimed ability to read minds, but new research from the University of Washington suggests that telepathy may not be as farfetched as it once seemed. According to a report from Eurekalert, scientists were able to create a direct connection between two brains that allowed people to play a question and answer game without using words.
The researchers were able to allow participants to play the question and answer game by transmitting signals between the two people over the internet. The experiment, published in the journal PLOS ONE, is the first to show that two brains can in fact be linked to allow one person to perceive what the other is thinking.
According to the study’s lead author, Andrea Stocco, “This is the most complex brain-to-brain experiment, I think, that’s been done to date in humans.” Stocco is an assistant professor of psychology and a researcher at the University of Washington’s Institute of Learning and Brain Sciences. The experiment uses peoples’ consciousness through visual signals, and relies on the collaboration between people.
The brain interface is actually relatively simple. It works with the first participant, the respondent, donning a cap collected to an EEG machine that logs the electrical activity in the brain. The respondent is presented with an object, like a dog on a computer screen, and the second participant is presented with a list of potential objects they can guess the first person has seen. The second person, or the inquirer, sends a question to the respondent, to which he can answer either yes or no by looking at one of two blinking LED lights on the monitor that flash at different frequencies.
An answer of either no or yes will send a signal over the internet to the inquirer. This signal activates a magnetic coil placed behind the inquirer’s head. However, only a “yes” answer will generate a response that stimulates the visual cortex in the inquirer, causing him or her to perceive a flash of light called a “phosphene.” This flash appears as a blob, waves, or a line, and is created by briefly disrupting the visual field and letting the inquirer know that the answer is a yes. The inquirer is then able to deduce the correct item through a series of these yes or no questions without actually speaking to the respondent.
The researchers performed the experiment in dark rooms in two different labs at the University of Washington, which were nearly a mile apart. They tested five different pairs of participants, each playing 20 rounds of the game. The sessions were structured to include ten real games and ten control games to compare results.
The scientists made sure that the participants couldn’t use any additional clues besides the direct brain communication. The people asking the questions wore earplugs so they couldn’t associate the sounds produced by the different stimulation frequencies with specific responses. Similarly, the researchers took care to slightly alter the simulation intensities due to their ability to travel as sound waves through the skull that could be used as clues in the game.
The team also made sure to change the position of the coil near the inquirer’s head at the beginning of each round. For the control games, they added a plastic spacer that blocked the magnetic field from the inquirer’s head so that there were no phosphenes generated in response to the answers. The inquirers were not told if they had guessed the correct item, and were unaware if the game was a real round or just a control round. Stocco reiterated that they wanted to ensure that people were not cheating in the games.
The results of the study suggest that the researcher’s method for transmitting information was quite successful. The participants correctly guessed the object in 72 percent of the real games, and just 18 percent in the control games. There could have been many reasons why people guessed the incorrect object in the real games, likely due to difficulties in detecting whether or not a phosphene had actually occurred. Interpreting a new phenomenon is not always easy; many of the participants had never seen a phosphene before.
The respondents could have confused the signals before they were transmitted as well, contributing to a number of incorrect answers. The brain signal was subject to interference from hardware issues as well, so there was bound to be some variation in the actual results. According to Chantel Prat, a staff member at UW’s Institute for Learning & Brain Sciences and an associate professor of psychology, “While the flashing lights are signals that we’re putting into the brain, those parts of the brain are doing a million other things at any given time too.”
The experiment’s roots date back to 2013 when the researchers first figured out they could create a connection between peoples’ brains. Other researchers have successfully linked the brains of rats and monkeys, and even transmitted a brain signal from a human to a rat using electrodes directly implanted into their brains. The UW team was the first to figure out a way to transmit brain signals without invasive technology, by sending them over the internet to control the motion of another individual’s hand.
The experiment was born out of the research of one of the study’s co-authors, Rajesh Rao. Rao is a professor of computer science and engineering at the University of Washington, and has spent years working on interfaces that allow people to activate devices with their brains. He began collaborating with Stocco and Prat to design an experiment that would show how far two linked human brains could go in 2011.
The team of researchers received a $1 million grant from the W.M. Keck foundation and got to work designing the games that the linked participants would play in 2014. Their current goals involve seeing whether they can transfer brain signals from healthy brains to developmentally impaired ones, what they call “brain tutoring.” They are also trying to see if they can influence a brain that was affected by an external factor like a stroke or an injury. It could even be used for normal educational purposes between teacher and student.
The research team is close to being able to transmit entire brain states, which would involve sending a signal from an awake person to a tired one to see if he would suddenly enter a state of alertness. This could be used to help people suffering form attention deficit hyperactivity disorder, or ADHD, to focus.
The research has huge implications for the way we communicate. We already use the internet to send messages, recordings and videos, but we stop short of communicating without physically logging in. If researchers could reach an understanding that would allow people to directly transmit brain signals at massive distances, it would represent a massive step in the evolution of communications technology.
It could have huge implications for medicine, cognitive therapy, and could create massive efficiencies in the economy. It will likely be some time before this technology is available for use on a large scale, but the work of these three researchers at the University of Washington could very well change the way we live and interact with each other.

Source : babwnews

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How Technology Has Made Owning A Business Easier

For a business owner, some of the hardest parts of the job are paperwork, logistics, and other time-consuming tasks. Previously, business owners had to spend so much time worrying about all these aspects that they barely had time for anything else.
Luckily, technology has emancipated them from these tedious processes so that they can work more constructively to build their business. Better security systems, cheaper marketing strategies, and more user-friendly software have made owning and operating a business easier than ever.

Cloud Technology

Cloud technology has reinvented the way companies do business. For those who have employees working remotely or traveling for business, the cloud can keep everyone connected. Cloud technology offers the ability to keep updated, real-time documents that can be read or edited from anywhere by any authorized person with a computer and Internet connection. This storage technology also relieves a company from having closets full of documents or massive computer hardware.
Most software now uses cloud technology to make it possible for companies to store all information securely, enabling a business owner easy access to records from anywhere. With this capability, it’s now easier than ever to collaborate on projects without being in the same office, and work quickly and efficiently without worrying about where a file is located or whether you have the most current version of the document.

Social Media and Marketing

Social media and marketing tools and programs such as Yelp, Facebook and Twitter can take some of the guesswork out of what your consumers want. Considering that 75 percent of consumers say they use social media during the buying process, it’s now more important than ever to use these tools.
Fortunately, social media is an affordable, albeit time-consuming, tool to engage with your customers. Business owners can also address complaints personally, and consider customer feedback just by tuning in to what people are saying online. Owners finally have the opportunity to listen to what consumers want specifically, and can use that information to their advantage.

VoIP Systems

Voice-over Internet Protocol (VoIP) phone systems are the latest technology for business phone systems. Systems that allow calling through an Internet connection are much more efficient and cost-effective than traditional phone lines.  With VoIP phones, you can quickly and easily have phone calls transferred to a cell phone, listen to your calls in high-definition, and even have your voice mails transcribed to emails.
With VoIP it’s also easier to track your calls with software programs that offer plenty of additional features. If you work in sales, you can track your sales calls, record calls if necessary, and follow up on leads. VoIP systems are affordable even on large scales, and help to keep everyone in your company connected with each other and with clients. 

Mobile Apps

Smartphone apps have revolutionized the way customers shop and access their favorite companies and products. An astounding 80 percent of consumers use their smartphones to shop. It’s possible now for a customer to shop, check reviews, and pay for purchases all through their screens, and business owners can capitalize on this technology to add yet another avenue to connect their products or services with consumers. Although it may seem counterintuitive for people to use such a small screen to do their online shopping, apps make it easy and convenient to complete these transactions. Building apps is becoming much more affordable as well, and can bring in new business with different demographics.

Conclusion

Business owners still have many facets of business to manage; however, technology is changing the way businesses interact with consumers and handle day-to-day operations. By staying connected through smartphones and cloud technology, a business owner doesn’t have to be chained to his or her desk. Furthermore, with all the technology available, employees can focus on their business goals instead of getting bogged down by tedious tasks.

Source : tech

The Corporate Battle For Global Internet Connectivity

Twenty years ago less than one percent of the world was connected to the internet. In 2015, roughly forty percent of the global population can log on to the World Wide Web. For these people, the internet has become an essential medium for business development, communication, education, and innovation.
The UN has even declared internet access a basic human right.
Unfortunately, this right is not afforded to everyone.

Today, more than four billion people are left in digital darkness. High infrastructure costs, and cultural and language barriers make providing internet access to remote and rural areas complicated.
In just the past few years, however, corporate giants and individual entrepreneurs have invested big money to change this. Most of these efforts have focused on providing access to remote locations where traditional internet strategies are cost prohibitive.
The company formerly known as Google, for example, is tackling this challenge with balloons and drones.
Through Project Loon, Alphabet is perfecting high altitude balloons which are designed to be launched as a fleet and float around 60,000 feet, well above commercial air traffic, for more than one hundred days. Successful trials have been done in Australia, Chile, New Zealand and Brazil. Commercial services are projected to start as early as next year.

Through Titan Aerospace, which Google acquired in 2014, Alphabet hopes to provide internet using solar powered drones flying in the stratosphere (around the same altitude at Google Loon balloons). A recent crash this May poses a setback for this strategy, but a spokesperson for the venture has said that they “remain optimistic about the potential of solar-powered planes to help deliver connectivity.”

Facebook, who attempted to buy Titan Aerospace before Google placed a higher bid, ultimately acquired the competing high-altitude drone company, Ascenta.
This purchase is part of Facebook’s Connectivity Lab which is a team that works to identify new technologies to connect the world. This is related, but different than Facebook’s Internet.org which offers free internet content in communities that do have internet access, but users can’t afford it. This latest Connectivity effort led to the development of a new drone they’ve named Aquila (Latin for eagle), which was completed in July and ready for flight testing.

While the race to provide internet to remote locations is well underway, other, more ambitious players have their sights set on making broadband internet available to the entire planet.

[Broadband: Refers to “high speed” internet. Internet speed is measured in Mbps (megabits per second). The Federal Communications Commission has defined broadband within the US as 25 Mbps minimum download speed and 3 Mbps minimum upload speed.]

OneWeb, backed by Richard Branson, and Elon Musk’s SpaceX both plan to provide broadband internet to the world through low orbiting satellites. If they succeed, they could bring the remaining two thirds of the Earth online, changing economies on local, national, and global levels.

The Challenge of Connecting the World
Currently, companies provide internet service using technology that can be thought of in three separate categories: ground-based, air-based, and space-based.

Ground-based networks are created with physical cables such as those used by cable service networks (Cable network), telephone networks (Digital Subscriber Line or DSL), fiber optic cables (Fiber network), or wireless communication transmitted by towers (Long Term Evolution or LTE). Most people today receive internet through one or more of these ground-based networks.

Extending these strategies to other parts of the world can be difficult. Many communities don’t have anyone to put up enough capital to build the necessary infrastructure. The problem becomes worse in low density communities where the cost per user drastically increases.

These remote locations may be better serviced by air-based strategies like stratosphere flying balloons or drones. But even these air-based strategies can’t be used to cover the whole world due to relatively short flying times (on the order of months) and air space regulation issues.

Connecting the entire planet with one network is a job for a space-based strategy, specifically in Low Earth Orbit (also known as LEO, which is the space between 100 miles and 1,200 miles above the surface of the Earth).

There are currently companies providing internet access with space-based strategies, like ViaSat, but they place a small number of satellites in a higher orbit known as Geosynchronous Orbit (also known as GEO, which is the space that exists about 22,000 miles above the surface of the Earth), and they don’t provide it to globally. ViaSat, for example, has three satellites and only covers the US and Canada.

The benefit of placing an internet-providing satellite in GEO is that you can cover more of the Earth with fewer satellites. But it also costs more to send a satellite 22,000 miles up than it does to send it 1,200 miles up in LEO. And because GEO is farther away, you have more latency issues.
[Latency: The time delay for a data packet to transfer from a source to a destination. For example, the time it takes for data to be sent from a satellite to the end user.]

So to overcome these issues, a company will need to place hundreds of satellites into LEO. But developing satellites in bulk is not the way the space industry works. Companies typically design and build one highly customized (and highly expensive) satellite and find a highly coveted (and highly expensive) spot on a rocket launch to get it to the right orbit. Manufacturing hundreds of satellites and launching all of them is no trivial task.

Talk about high infrastructure costs.

However, with this in place, a company could provide low-latency broadband speed internet to anyone in the world with the right ground network. That’s a nice goal to work toward.

Failures of the Past
Connecting the planet in this way is no easy business and OneWeb and SpaceX aren’t the first to try.
The most notable venture was Teledesic which also planned to provide worldwide broadband internet via satellites in low Earth orbit (LEO). Teledesic, founded in the 1990’s and backed by Bill Gates, started with ambitious plans for a $9 billion 840-satellite constellation – more than the total number of satellites in space at that time. Unfortunately, during that same decade the telecommunications industry was essentially imploding.

Two companies founded in the 90’s, Iridium and Globalstar, launched 66-satellite and 48-satellite LEO constellations respectively in order to provide satellite phone and low-speed data connections. Both companies went bankrupt in the process.

Failed market expectations and bankruptcy filings from satellite-driven telecommunication companies forced Teledesic to scale back and eventually halt satellite construction all together.
So why are companies trying again now?

For one, satellite technology has gotten both smaller and cheaper. OneWeb’s satellites are said to be 150kg whereas Teledesic’s satellites were 800 kg. Lighter satellites lend to cheaper launch costs, which certainly help.

And two, there’s a big prize for the ultimate winner(s). As OneWeb’s CEO Greg Wyler has said, “We are solving a big problem for emerging markets, which is literally half the world, and the other half is connected only intermittently.” That’s what these people are fighting for – the ability to provide a new or better internet service to the entire world.

But more than anything, this is a business challenge, not a technological one. Both OneWeb and SpaceX will need to raise billions of dollars and create strategic partnerships with governments and communities around the world in order to succeed where others have failed.
Source : techcrunch

The Emergence of The Internet of Things in Healthcare

More than twenty years ago, the internet was --for all that it had been around for a while-- still in its infancy. The internet and cellular devices were new to the fray and no one considered how these two items in combination could be considered helpful. They were luxuries and as such, not everyone had them and certainly they were not considered commonplace items.
Fast-forward those twenty years to the present day. The internet is so much a part of our life, so imperative to about half of what we do that it is now considered--not a luxury or even commonplace, but a necessity. The US government has classified the internet as a utility. A single smart phone has access to more information from around the world than Ronald Reagan had from his advisors during his presidency. Technology reigns and we are both master and slave to it. 
How is that technology changing the face of the world today. Better yet, how is the technology that is currently in play going to change the face of things like communication and even healthcare? Technology today touches every aspect of our world. It's not the least outside the realms of possibility that it has changed the way in which we get healthy and stay healthy--and in fact it has.
We've all heard of the Internet of Things.. That connectivity of items, not people that can be used to assist us in many different arenas. Today, the IoT is moving healthcare to a whole new level.

Your smart phone--or applications on it-- can tell you that you're not walking enough, that you've been at the computer for too long.

It can help to manage your insulin level, to measure your heart rate during a workout, to manage your blood pressure and tell you when you may need to take your asthma medication. It can even take your temperature and report it back to your doctor so that he or she can monitor your overall condition.

Today the internet of things is in its infancy, where the internet was twenty years ago. Today those smart devices are just beginning to be connected and to assist us in our quest for better health and a longer life. Predictions are that there will be twenty million individual healthcare devices online by the end of next year. 
IoT for Medical is one of the fastest growing and most highly technical area in the Internet of Things. The IoT of medicine has the ability to transform your health and in fact your very life by offering better ways to live and a better means to monitor what you do and how you accomplish it.

Amid the applause about the Iot of Medicine and how it is helping us already, the ability that it has to assist us to live better and to live longer, are some underlying concerns as well that need to--and should be-- addressed. What kinds of concerns do you see with the IoT of Medicine and where do you expect it to be inside the next ten years?

If you are an employer facing these issues and want to attract & retain top talent or you are looking for that next career opportunity we are available.  Schedule a 15 minute triage call today and discuss what can be done to take you to that next level. https://whmeanorassociates.acuityscheduling.com/
Source : https://www.linkedin.com/pulse/emergence-internet-things-healthcare-james-kemper

Hard Drive Of The Future: Storing Data On DNA Strands

Researchers have come a step closer to developing a technology with the ability to safely store data for thousands of years.
The breakthrough came as with researchers putting the data onto microscopic strands of DNA, writes Tech Times.

A team of researchers demonstrated to a meeting of the American Chemical Society that they had been able to encapsulate information on DNA that endured the equivalent of 2,000 years in storage. When the data was retrieved and then decoded they found that it was also error-free.
The researchers were able to simulate two centuries of time passing by embedding the DNA in spheres of silica and heating them to 160 degrees Fahrenheit and leaving the DNA stored at that temperature for a week.
The scientists at the Swiss Federal Institute of Technology in Zurich said that they had successfully used the method to encode images, video and audio with the DNA technique, and that the long-term storage technique could accommodate anything able to be recorded as digital binary code.

As digital technology creates increasingly bigger amounts of data, a way of storing this information in a compacted way becomes desirable, they say.
"A little after the discovery of the double helix architecture of DNA, people figured out that the coding language of nature is very similar to the binary language we use in computers," researcher Robert Grass said in a press release. "On a hard drive, we use 0s and 1s to represent data, and in DNA, we have four nucleotides A, C, T and G."
The long storage capability does not require a constant electricity supply, and does not degrade like other archiving techniques in the same category - including hard drives and magnetic tape, the researchers suggest.
Such storage media haven't necessary been a step forward, they suggest.
"If you go back to medieval times in Europe, we had monks writing in books to transmit information for the future, and some of those books still exist," says Grass. "Now, we save information on hard drives, which wear out in a few decades."

The researchers note that storage capacity is just as important as longevity. While an external hardrive can hold up to 5 terabytes of data and preserve it for a maximum of 50 years - DNA weighing less than an ounce could theoretically store more than 300,000 terabytes.

DNA from archaeological finds many hundreds of thousands years old - are still able to be decoded now, which suggests that data encoded onto DNA can be preserved for as long as necessary, the researchers suggest.
However, researchers have some work to do - including how to create a searchable system within the DNA and how to make the technology affordable. It would currently cost thousands of dollars to encode and save several megabytes of data.
Source : designntrend

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Alphabet? Google may get some letters

Alphabet?

Google may get some letters

One can only assume that before Larry Page and Sergey Brin chose Alphabet as the name for their new holding company, they Googled it.

If so, they would have discovered that the internet domain alphabet.com, as well as the trademark Alphabet, already belonged to someone else — the German automaker BMW. And, if they had dialled BMW headquarters in Munich, they would have discovered something else: BMW does not want to sell.

Alphabet is the name that Page and Brin, Google’s founders, have given the newly created parent entity that will house the Google search business and several smaller holdings like Nest, a maker of smart thermostats, and Calico, a company focused on longevity.

The name isn’t just causing waves with BMW. On Wall Street, there is an Alphabet Funds. Lots of midsize and small companies also use the name Alphabet. There is an Alphabet Energy in Hayward, California, an Alphabet Record Company in Austin, Texas; an Alphabet Plumbing in Prescott, Ariz; and numerous preschools, inns and restaurants with some variation of the name.

For many, the brush with Google’s aura is an interesting curiosity.

“It’s quite flattering really,” said Steve Lockwood, the company secretary of Alphabet, a small recruitment and outsourcing firm in London. “We probably won’t put it on the agenda to sue them over it, but if they want to make us a very generous offer for our domain names, we’ll certainly consider it.”

Others had a problem with Google showing up as Alphabet. “We do all of our business online, and Google could really affect us,” said Jennifer Blakeley, who in 2008 registered Alphabet Photography as an online retail store selling printed photos of buildings and natural formations that look like letters. Yet legal action seems difficult. “Who sues Google?” said Blakeley, who is based in Niagara Falls, Ontario.

At BMW, Alphabet is the name of a subsidiary that provides services to corporations with vehicle fleets.

A BMW spokeswoman said on Tuesday that the automaker was not informed ahead of time of plans by Mr Page and Mr Brin to create a company called Alphabet and had not received any offers to buy the Internet domain or the trademark.

“We are not planning to sell the domain,” said Micaela Sandstede, a BMW spokeswoman in Munich. She described the website as a “very active” part of Alphabet’s business.

BMW is examining whether any trademark infringement has taken place, Sandstede said.
Source : theindianpanorama

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FIRST Introduces New Mobile Technology

FIRST Introduces New Mobile Technology

Getting kids involved in STEM is best done by getting kids involved. FIRST (For Inspiration and Recognition of Science and Technology) is a nonprofit organization with a mission to engage the next generation of STEM professionals through interactive design challenges. FIRST offers a progression of programs for ages 6-18 and provides a continuously developing platform for deepening the STEM experience and maintaining the excitement as the students grow.
In the spirit of an ever-changing technological landscape, FIRST is rolling out a new Snapdragon-based Android platform that will allow kids to program and control their robots using Java in the FIRST Tech Challenge (FTC) for grades 7-12. To learn more about the program and this newest offering, we’ll turn to Don Bossi, president of FIRST.

To start off, give us a little background on how FIRST originated and what you’re up to currently.
In 1989, inventor Dean Kamen founded the not-for-profit FIRST with an ambitious vision: to transform our culture by creating a world where science and technology are celebrated, where young people dream of becoming science and technology leaders. To achieve this vision, FIRST inspires kids to pursue science, engineering and technology careers through exciting, hands-on robotics engineering challenges. Through these challenges, we encourage students to explore new discoveries and inventions, work together to solve real-world problems and prepare to impact our nation’s economic vitality as they enter the workforce.
Today, FIRST is the oldest and largest student robotics program in the world with about 400,000 students from around the world engaging in our Progression of Programs. We make available more than $22 million in college scholarships from nearly 200 providers, including colleges, universities, companies and associations. Approximately two of every five Fortune 500 companies support our mission. Many FIRST sponsors such as BAE Systems customize professional internships for FIRST students, aiming to hire them as employees once they graduate college.  


FIRST has age-appropriate programs covering kids from their earliest school years all the way through high school. How important is it to get students engaged early and to provide them room to grow?

FIRST offers a Progression of Programs for kids ages 6-18 that encourage innovation at each stage of a child’s development. The FIRST experience starts in kindergarten with Junior FIRST LEGO League (ages 6-9),which allows kids to explore today’s scientific challenges, then present their research using a LEGO^® model with motorized parts. This program prepares students for the next progression: FIRST LEGO League (ages 9-14). Using LEGO^®

MINDSTORMS^® technologies and LEGO Education materials, children work alongside adult Coaches to design, build, and program autonomous robots and create a solution to a problem as part of their research project. 

As children progress from one FIRST program to the next, their robotics challenges become more advanced. Students in FIRST Tech Challenge (ages 12-18) learn to think like engineers and develop an engineering notebook to document their progress in building and designing a robot. Mentored by professional engineers, teams develop strategies, build robots from a reusable kit of parts, and compete head to head.
Finally, there’s our varsity Sport for the Mind™ – FIRST Robotics Competition (ages 14-18). We issue an annual robotics engineering challenge to teams to build and design a robot that can perform a complex set of tasks in competition. Students have six weeks to build a robot – with no instructions. Teams compete head to head with 120-pound robots of their own design in intense, sporting competitions.
Teams in all four of our programs compete in regional FIRST competitions held around the country and around the world, vying for a chance to attend FIRST Championship, our annual, three-day celebration of students’ accomplishments. 

What makes your programs so attractive to students?
FIRST programs offer the excitement of sports with the rigors of science and technology in its challenges. Students discover and develop the excitement of solving real-world engineering design challenges alongside their peers and professional mentors. Students are encouraged to keep trying and trying -- and even failing -- until they finally succeed in the robotics challenges. In the process, they can also develop self-confidence, communication and leadership skills needed to be successful in school and in the workforce.
In the FIRST Tech Challenge (FTC), students design, build and program their robots for competition. How were they programming their robots before, and what fundamental differences will the Snapdragon/Android pairing make?
In past years, teams chose from LabVIEW or RobotC.  LabVIEW is an icon based language and RobotC is a text based language around C programming.  In the new Snapdragon/Android based system, teams will also have an icon-based option via FIRST Tech Challenge App Inventor using a Blockly style interface.  They can also use Java, via Android Studio, as a text-based option.  Both options will allow teams to develop Android Apps that run on the super-fast Snapdragon/Android platform.  FIRST Tech Challenge teams will become App developers while still in high school.  We’re also excited that students will be able to augment and apply Java, the most popular high school programming language.

How will using Java affect the experience during the competition and during their future education and careers?
Java is the most popular language taught in high school, and is also the native language used in Android development, the most popular mobile operating system on the planet.  This gives FIRST Tech Challenge students a clear advantage as they complete their Java work in high school, position themselves for college, and even get them into App development.  Who knows, maybe this will help them pay for college through developing Apps for themselves or employers.  At a minimum these skills are in great demand now, and will be for the foreseeable future.

The new programming setup will support existing sensors and electronics. Will it allow for any new technologies to be incorporated? Will it make it easier to upgrade and expand in the future?
We developed the new platform to accept current teams’ LEGO sensors, motors, batteries, gears and complete robot kits.  To make the transition, all they need are two Android devices and two electronic modules.  Teams can also buy a module that accepts other non-LEGO sensors, expanding their options.  This will make it easier for teams to acquire all types of sensors in the future – including sensors already built into Android devices.  We’re looking at some cool challenges to implement into our games over the next few years.  Our Game Design Committee is thrilled – and we’ll have to “up our game” to build these new capabilities into future games.

Do you think this experience will change the way these students view mobile technology?
It most definitely will.  Today most of us take for granted the incredible power we carry around in our pocket, all the while depending on these devices for a wider and wider range of services.  Part of the beauty of this platform change is the fact that virtually no one is intimidated by this technology.  The new FIRST Tech Challenge platform means that just about everyone is already walking around with a robot controller in their pocket.  FIRST and Qualcomm have worked together, with many others, to bring this power to robotics.  We think this will forever change the way they look at and leverage mobile technology.


Is there anything else we should know about the new technology and upcoming season? How can people find out more about the FIRST opportunities in their area?
FIRST is excited about the upcoming season.  Registration is open now http://www.usfirst.org/roboticsprograms/ftc/start-a-team and our game announcement will be made September 12^th at noon.  At that time teams around the world will see this year’s game.  Kickoff events will be held around the world.  You can find ones near you here:  http://www.usfirst.org/roboticsprograms/ftc/game.  We invite everyone to check out FIRST Tech Challenge and get involved – start a team, be a mentor, become a sponsor.  Help us change the world by inspiring the next generation of technologists, programmers, engineers and scientists!

Top Image: FIRST, an international K-12 not-for-profit organization founded by inventor Dean Kamen, partnered with Qualcomm to offer a Java-Based Android Platform for students competing in FIRST Tech Challenge. Students will use the platform to program their robots this fall for the annual FIRST Tech Challenge competition season. To start a FIRST Tech Challenge team, visit:  http://www.usfirst.org/roboticsprograms/ftc/start-a-team

Bottom Image: Students who participate in the FIRST Tech Challenge 2015-16 season will be using Java-based Android Platform powered by the Qualcomm Snapdragon 410 Processor. Qualcomm is a FIRST Strategic Partner. To start a FIRST Tech Challenge team, visit: http://www.usfirst.org/roboticsprograms/ftc/start-a-team. Photo by Adriana M. Groisman.
Source : engineering


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Researchers Create 360-Degree Images Of Coral Reefs In Hawaii

Coral bleaching is occurring in reefs in Hawaii. By capturing 360-degree images of corals, researchers hope to gain a better understanding of coral bleaching and how to alleviate it.

Coral reefs are dying around Hawaii and researchers have turned to capturing them in 360-degree images to help, allowing for monitoring and further study.
In particular, coral reefs are undergoing bleaching, which occurs when water temperature is high. Due to the added heat in the water, corals lose key nutrients and turn white. If bleaching is too severe or recurrent, corals will die. Alarmingly, coral reefs in Hawaii have started to bleach for the second time in two years.

According to experts, when bleaching repeats too soon, it doesn't give the coral enough time to recover, which is why recurrent occurrences are likely to lead to death in corals. Extensive bleaching, however, is expected in Hawaii in 2015 because of record hot weather and El Nino weather pattern in the region. At the same time, a large area of hot water not related to the El Nino known as "the blob" is also moving west from mainland U.S.

"Unfortunately, from now on the extra heat is going to be quite damaging, and this is where the mortality of the corals goes up," said Ove Hoegh-Guldberg, University of Queensland's Global Change Institute director and the chief scientist in the research team responsible for capturing 360-degree images of the corals.

The reef-mapping effort is part of a bigger project being carried out by the XL Caitlin Seaview Survey research team to capture thousands of reef images from all over the world. The researchers are doing this to understand why some coral species are likelier to succumb to bleaching compared to others. They are also looking for organisms that are able to better adapt to warming waters, staying healthy despite the rising temperature.

For the project, the researchers utilized facial recognition technology and GPS tags to aid in identifying and organizing separate reef systems. They have partnered with Google as well, uploading images to Google Street View so anyone can explore the coral reefs through the internet.

So far, the Seaview Survey has gathered data from reefs in Australia, Indonesia, Mexico and the Maldives. The researchers had baseline images from a portion of the Great Barrier Reef which was later destroyed by a typhoon. When they went back for an assessment, the researchers realized the extent of the damage by comparing before and after images.

The survey team was recently out in Kaneohe Bay in Hawaii and they were joined by Malia Chow, Hawaiian Islands Humpback Whale National Marine Sanctuary superintendent from the National Oceanic and Atmospheric Administration. She said she was surprised at how many corals have already begun bleaching.
Source : techtimes


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Stanford University’s New Wireless device combines Optogenetics and Wireless Technology

Researchers at Stanford University have developed a new wireless device which combines optogenetics and wireless technology. The researchers claimed that the new device can help in establishing a new foundation of implants in the future.

Optogenetic methods use light to control and monitor neurons that have been genetically preconditioned to respond to light. Earlier, optogenetic required a fiber optic cable to be attached to a subject's head, potentially restricting its movement and altering behavior.

The biggest challenge faced by the device at that time was identifying a means of getting powered efficiently without causing any damage to any electrical component or using any external wire.

According to a report, with the help of light, researchers can now stimulate brain nerves of a mouse that indicate there will be no long wire hookups letting the mice to move during the experiments.

As per the Stanford University team, developing this kind of device will be a big advantage, when it will be used for the future researches, and makes the work quite flexible.

According to Ada Poon, an assistant professor of electrical engineering at the university, this is a new method of delivering wireless power to be used in optogenetics for the reason that it is much smaller and it helps the mouse move around.

As per reports, Optogenetics is used with genetically modified mice so that their brains could be controlled using light. Genetically modified mice are put in a chamber, which emits radio frequency agency that is moved to a minute coil in the implanted device from paw of the animal and after that it lights up.
Source : perfscience


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A Crystal-Clear View Of DNA Unwinding

Thirty years after the MCM2-7 complex was first linked to DNA replication, scientists have finally solved its structure.

AsianScientist (Aug. 7, 2015) - Scientists from the Hong Kong University of Science & Technology (HKUST) and Tsinghua University have solved the structure of the MCM2-7 complex, which plays a key role in destabilizing and unwinding duplex DNA during DNA replication. Their research has been published in Nature.

 More than 60 years ago, when Francis Crick and James D. Watson solved the structure of duplex helical DNA, the genetic material found in all living organisms, they predicted that copying DNA requires the separation of the two complementary strands so each can serve as template for replication of the other. Ever since, the mechanism and enzymes involved in the initial melting (destabilization) of DNA have been an outstanding problem for biologists.

For more than three decades since the role of the MCM2-7 complex was linked to DNA replication by Professor Bik Tye at HKUST, researchers have tried elucidating the structure of the MCM2-7 complex without much success. Attempts to crystallize the complex were futile, and image quality of the complex has been primitive at best. 

The solution to the problem came at the heel of recent advances in cryo electron microscopy (CEM). Using state-of-the art CEM Technology, the team of scientists led by Tye and Professor Ning Gao at Tsinghua University, solved the structure of the MCM2-7 complex at 3.8Å, a resolution that has not been achieved before. New advances in cryo-EM that include more powerful electron microscopes, better detectors, faster cameras and more sophisticated algorithms for image reconstruction allow the resolution of large complex structures to near atomic range.

The MCM2-7 complex consists of a family of six highly conserved but non-identical protein subunits that form a ring structure that encircles duplex DNA. Each of these protein subunits is highly conserved from yeast to human. Although the study was carried out in yeast, information derived from the yeast complex also applies to human. “The most striking feature of the MCM2-7 complex structure is that the two rings form a tilted and twisted dimer through their N-terminal domain.”

 Tye says. “The central channel, formed by these two staggered rings, has four constriction points that would restrict the movement of duplex DNA with tight grips and a kink at the interface of the two rings that would deform the bound DNA.” These and other details of the fine structure of the MCM2-7 complex instruct the function of the MCM2-7 complex in DNA melting.

 First, the deformed DNA at the kinked interface of the two rings would serve as a nucleation center for DNA destabilization. Second the tight grip of duplex DNA at either end by each hexamer would further deform DNA at the nucleation point if rotated against each other. Third, possible rotations between ring structures formed by subdomains of each hexamer would lower the activation energy for DNA destabilization even further. This model proposed that allosteric conformational changes following the activation of the MCM2-7 complex by cell cycle regulated kinases bring about DNA destabilization.

 “We have always had the idea and the problem, but adequate expertise to make high resolution images of the complex has been a hurdle,” says Dr. Zhai Yuanliang of HKUST, a co-author of the paper. “Collaboration with Professor Ning Gao from Tsinghua University, whose team provided the CEM technology, was instrumental. The 3-D high resolution structure was reconstructed from more than 80K 2-D images that were selected from over 350K images collected.” The next step for the researchers is to look into the mechanistic functions of the MCM2-7 complex, which so far have been elusive to many scientists. “Now that we have a clear picture of the structure of the complex, we can predict more precisely the function of this universal machine that unwinds duplex DNA for the copying of genetic information,” beams Tye.
source:asianscientist
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The sound of silence: new video tech looks beyond the internet of things

The use of advanced video technology to listen to objects and buildings has important implications for engineering, construction and med-tech

New video technology could help push the boundaries of space exploration. Photograph: NASA Archive/Alamy

Recent discussions about video surveillance relate to online privacy and how technology such as wearable devices and CCTV can compromise people’s privacy. This has led to the development of more technology to counter these intrusions.
Anti-tracking and anti-surveillance software allows users to control the visibility of their online activities. Wearable devices such as Google Glass and the Apple Watch and Facebook’s tag suggest feature, which enables people to be tagged in photos and video footage without their consent, have led to concerns about the right to anonymity when engaging in activities offline and the creation of makeup, clothing and accessories that are designed to block facial recognition.
Another hot topic is the internet of things (IoT), whereby connected devices collect and communicate user data. This too is creating concerns about privacy and anonymity. But recent research using high-speed video technology reveals that there are a lot more to objects than user data. In fact, there are more to objects than meets the eye.

Transforming objects into visual microphones

Computer vision expert, musician and MIT PhD student Abe Davis has developed video technology that reveals an object’s hidden properties. One of those properties is sound.

Davis uses high-speed silent video to capture and reproduce sound, including music and intelligible speech, from the vibrations it makes on inanimate objects. His starting point was software developed by Michael Rubinstein and others at MIT. This software amplifies subtle motions in video so that they become large enough to see, for example, revealing the pulse in someone’s wrist in sufficient detail to measure their heart rate. Davis decided to apply the concept of extending our sense of touch to video by developing software that effectively uses video to “hear”.

Sound causes all objects to vibrate, but the vibrations are usually too subtle and too fast to be visible. Davis records these vibrations on high-speed video and analyses them in a way that extracts the sounds that created them, thereby turning objects into visual microphones. Initially, he recorded music from the vibrations it made on an empty crisp packet in the room where it was being played. He then extended the capability to recording conversations behind soundproof glass from a distance and capturing music by filming the vibrations of plastic earphones attached to a laptop computer.

Davis’ technique is non-invasive and does not require specialist camera equipment, although higher-quality equipment captures more detail.
This is not groundbreaking in terms of surveillance, as laser microphones have long been used to record conversations from a distance although it can achieve similar results without sophisticated and expensive equipment – using an ordinary DSLR camera and (potentially open-source) software. This is about pushing the boundaries of science and technology to help us understand objects in new ways. Davis describes it as “a new way to capture our surroundings”.

Using sound to identify structural defects

Davis developed this technique further, using sound vibrations to apply simulated forces to real-world objects. In his TED talk, he uses five seconds of high-speed video to create a 3D fully animated object and test its reactions. “This is a powerful way to look at the world because it lets us predict how objects will respond to new situations,” he explains. 

Davis’ latest research project builds on established theory that connects the physical properties of objects to their vibrations. He sees the most immediate uses of the technology in specialised engineering applications, which involve analysing the properties of different structures. He recently co-authored a paper about the use of tiny vibrations in video to identify material properties such as density and stiffness in fibreglass, wood and metal rods and fabrics. This could prove particularly useful in the field of non-destructive testing, or determining materials’ physical properties – and weaknesses – without damaging them. For example, it might be possible to identify structural defects in an airplane’s wing by analysing video of its vibration during flight.
This technique also has potential applications in civil engineering through capturing invisible frequencies to find and repair weaknesses in structures and buildings. “An exciting possibility for earthquake-prone areas is the potential to detect when there are problems in a structure,” says Davis. “Maybe it’s safe when you build it, but what about 10 or 20 years later? Our work could detect some of these problems without taking the structure apart. This could also be useful when looking at maintaining historical structures. Where do they need reinforcement and how much do they need? There are a lot of times when we want to keep something from collapsing while preserving as much of its original character as possible. Our technology could help engineers figure out how to do that.”

Davis envisages applying this methodology to specialised engineering tasks, and eventually developing it into a new type of imaging that is integrated into a broader range of fields and applications.
Another immediate possibility is the creation of hyper-real special effects for movies and games – and for use in architectural design.

Pushing the boundaries of medicine and science

Davis’ non-destructive, non-invasive techniques present interesting possibilities in the med-tech space. It offers potential benefits in the same way as Rubinstein’s software’s ability to “see” a heartbeat and physical changes related to blood flow. A comment posted on Davis’ TED talk suggested the possibility of developing a biomarker for Parkinson’s disease by capturing rapid eye movement and reactions to visual/auditory stimuli. Other comments suggest it could be used to improve the accuracy of remote diagnosis – ie a sophisticated Skype doctor. 

It could even push the boundaries of exploration, for example, to capture sound in space – or remotely discover the properties of other planets. “Space is another interesting direction,” Davis observes. “It’s like a giant soundproof glass window – light gets through but sound doesn’t. This technology could give us a new way to ‘listen’ to the cosmos.”

Other comments introduce some fun suggestions that this could reveal the science behind the theory that talking to plants encourages them to grow – it might be that they are actually listening.
Source : theguardian

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Tech that produces more whiskey faster

Using its carefully guarded trade secrets, one small business is pushing new methods into the world of whiskey to address higher demand for the spirits.
With more modern technology than what's used in the traditional whiskey-making process, Cleveland, Ohio-based distiller Cleveland Whiskey has refined a proprietary scientific method, explained the company's CEO and founder, Tom Lix.
"We're a technology company. We're not a craft distiller, we're not a microdistiller. We really use technology and the art and science of maturing whiskey and aging it," Lix said in an interview with CNBC.

The company uses pressure aging, which shortens the aging process by using intense pressure in stainless steel tanks to push young spirits in and out of wood, which gives the whiskey its flavor, Lix said.
It took a lot of trial and error to refine his time-saving methods, however.
"I was exploding mason jars in my basement for years," Lix recalled.
But thanks to his experimentation, his current process takes about a week from the beginning of production to bottling and shipping, compared with the years it takes using traditionally methods, according to Lix.

Spirits distilled by Cleveland Whiskey, a small business that uses pressure aging technology to produce its batches in a fraction of the time required by distillers using traditional methods.

And by using tanks instead of barrels, Cleveland Whiskey doesn't lose the so-called "angel's share," the whiskey lost to evaporation, Lix said.
Using traditional whiskey production methods, according to Lix, can lead to a loss of 3 percent to 6 percent of whiskey volume per year.
Lix's bourbon production method leverages a loophole in the traditional definition of bourbon, which doesn't dictate how long the spirit has to be aged, Lix said. And it has its share of critics.
"Of course the industry thinks we're heretics. They think what we're doing is sacrilege, but there's a whiskey shortage. More people are drinking whiskey around the world, and you can't crank up production like corn flakes or computer parts," Lix said.
While whiskey experts hope to calm the fears of a whiskey shortage, there is a shortage of the wood used to make the barrels in which whiskey is made, according to The Wall Street Journal.
Source :  cnbc

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NASA Snaps Pics Of 'Space Peanut' As It Passes By Earth

Researchers at NASA confirmed the presence of a peanut-shaped asteroid passing near the Earth this weekend when they used two massive radio telescopes that bounced off radar signals toward the moving space rock.

The American space agency said that the asteroid, dubbed 1999 JD6, appears to have two distinct lobes that are attached to each other in what is called a contact binary.

Data collected from the NASA radio telescopes show that the 1999 JD6 asteroid came closest to the Earth in July, at an approximate distance of around 4.5 million miles. This is equivalent to 19 times the distance of the Moon from the Earth.

Lance Benner, leader of NASA's asteroid research program at the Jet Propulsion Laboratory in California, explained that radar imaging technology has demonstrated that around 15 percent of asteroids passing near the Earth, such as the 1999 JD6 asteroid, more than 600 feet in size seem to have lobed, peanut appearances.

To have a better view of the peanut-shaped space rock, NASA scientists combined observations made using California's 230-foot antenna named Deep Space Network and West Virginia's 330-foot National Science Foundation Green Bank Telescope.

The team used the Deep Space Network antenna to send radar signals toward the asteroid and allowed the Green Bank Telescope to collect the beam that bounced back from the space object. The process, known as bistatic observation, provides scientists with high quality radar imageries. The latest observations produced through this method show features on objects as small as 25 feet wide.

The images the researchers used for the scientific film were collected during the July 25 observation, which show the 1999 JD6 asteroid has a length of about 1.2 miles on its axis. The movie of the asteroid spans an observation period of more than seven hours.

Data collected from the latest observations will be beneficial to researchers, including Cornell University's Sean Marshall, who is conducting a research on the 1999 JD6 asteroid that is funded by the Near-Earth Object Program of NASA.

"I'm interested in this particular asteroid because estimates of its size from previous observations, at infrared wavelengths, have not agreed," Marshall said.

"The radar data will allow us to conclusively resolve the mystery of its size to better understand this interesting little world."

The 1999 JD6 asteroid was first discovered by scientists at Arizona's Lowell Observatory Near-Earth-Object Search (LONEOS) in May of 1999. While its exact size is yet to be determined, the asteroid has been extensively studied for years, with researchers discovering its physical properties and trajectory.

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Nature has more than one way to grow a crystal, according to Virginia Tech-led researchers

Scientists have long worked to understand how crystals grow into complex shapes. Crystals are important in materials from skeletons and shells to soils and semiconductors, but much remains unknown about how they form.
Now, an international group of researchers, including a Virginia Tech geoscientist, has shown how nature uses a variety of pathways to grow crystals that go beyond the classical, one-atom-at-a-time route.
The findings, published Thursday in the journal Science, have implications for decades-old questions in science and technology regarding how animals and plants grow minerals into shapes that have no relation to their original crystal symmetry and why some contaminants are so difficult to remove from stream sediments and groundwater.

“Researchers across all disciplines have made observations of skeletons and laboratory-grown crystals that cannot be explained by traditional theories,” said Patricia Dove, a University Distinguished Professor and the C.P. Miles Professor of Science in the College of Science at Virginia Tech. “We show how these crystals can be built up into complex structures by attaching particles — as nanocrystals, clusters, or droplets — that become organized into complex shapes. Many scientists have contributed to identifying these particles and pathways to becoming a crystal — our challenge was to put together a framework to understand them.”

The results emerged from discussions among 15 scientists working in geochemistry, physics, biology, and the earth and materials sciences. At home, these researchers conduct lab experiments, investigate animal skeletons, study soils and streams, or use computer simulations to visualize how particles can form and attach.

The international group met for a three-day workshop in Berkeley, California, sponsored by the Council on Geosciences of the Office of Basic Energy Sciences of the U.S. Department of Energy.

“Because crystallization is a ubiquitous phenomenon across a wide range of scientific disciplines, a shift in the picture of how this process occurs has far-reaching consequences,” said materials scientist and physicist James De Yoreo at the Department of Energy’sPacific Northwest National Laboratory. “Moreover, because we largely show a community consensus on this topic, the study has the potential to define the directions of future research on crystallization.”

In animal and laboratory systems alike, the process begins by forming the particles. They can be small molecules, clusters, droplets, or nanocrystals. All of these particles are unstable and begin to combine with each other and with nearby crystals and other surfaces.

For example, nanocrystals prefer to become oriented along the same direction as the larger crystal before attaching, much like adding Legos. In contrast, amorphous conglomerates can simply aggregate. These atoms later become organized by “doing the wave” through the mass to rearrange into a single crystal, researchers said.

Study authors say much work needs to be done to understand the forces that cause these particles to move and combine. It is a frontier for new research.
“Particle pathways are tricky because they can form what appear to be crystals with the traditional faceted surfaces or they can have completely unexpected shapes and chemical compositions,” said Dove, the corresponding author of the study and a member of the National Academy of Sciences. “Our group synthesized the evidence to show these pathways to growing a crystal become possible because of interplays between of thermodynamic and kinetic factors.”

By understanding how animals form crystals into the working structures known as shells, teeth, and bones, scientists will have a bigger toolbox for interpreting the crystals formed in nature.

The insights may also help in the design of novel materials and explain unusual mineral patterns in rocks.

Likewise, knowing how pollutants are transported or trapped in the minerals of sediments has implications for environmental management of water and soil.
“How we think about the ways to crystallization impacts how we interpret natural crystallization processes in geochemical and biological environments, as well as how we design and control synthetic crystal growth processes,” said De Yoreo. “I was surprised at how widespread a phenomenon particle-mediated crystallization is and how easily one can create a unified picture that captures its many styles.”

The work was supported by the Council on Geosciences of the U.S. Department of Energy, Office of Basic Energy Sciences, Chemical Sciences, Geosciences and Biosciences Division.
Source : augustafreepress

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DNA Profiling bill: Game-changer but potential for data misuse

Representative photo of human DNA. The union cabinet is likely consider a bill to create national DNA database of all those in conflict with law including suspects and volunteers. The bill that aims to provide legal backing to use of DNA in criminal and civil suits is slated for introduction in the monsoon session of Parliament. (Photo credit: Shutterstock)

The lack of forensic evidence has resulted in many cases falling apart. And investigative agencies are blamed for this. At a time when crimes are getting more sophisticated, what gives an agency the edge is the incorporation of the latest technologies. In this context, the Centre’s move to finalise the Human DNA Profiling Bill could prove a fillip to criminal investigation in India. DNA profiling, or DNA fingerprinting, is a forensic method used to identify a person using the unique signature found in her DNA.

The Bill, if passed, authorises the ministry of science and technology to set up DNA databanks and a DNA profiling board to oversee the process. A final version of the Bill is not yet out, but versions of the draft Bill and concerns raised by prominent people, including a member of the committee that drafted the Bill, raise disturbing questions about the ethics and security of the data collected. A DNA databank, at the state or national level, is a mother lode of information that the government (agencies like the CBI) and private (marketing, insurance, etc) agencies would give their right arm for. Also, in an age where security agencies work in the grey areas that dot the legal system, the misuse of such sensitive data cannot be ruled out. Above all, the Edward Snowden surveillance revelations have shown how easy it is to undermine data security. One of the biggest selling points of DNA profiling is the possibility of post-conviction DNA testing, which will help in establishing the innocence or otherwise of a convict. Backers of the Bill also highlight its significance in assisting investigations — with more reliable data, convictions will be quicker.

The suspicion that the Bill will end up compromising the privacy of individuals is heightened when it is taken into account that it was only recently that the Centre informed the Supreme Court that the right to privacy was not a fundamental right under the Constitution. Reports suggesting that the form meant for the collection of data of criminals has a ‘caste’ section prompts fears that it could be misused for profiling sections of the population. The government should address the flaws that have been pointed out in the draft: From the discretionary powers of the board to whether there will be a consent clause before acquiring DNA samples, from concerns about individual privacy to the time period for the retention of samples in the database. The efficacy of this legislation will be lost if it does not come with foolproof safeguards.
Source : hindustantimes

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