Bio-inspired computer networks self-organise and learn

Bio-inspired computer networks self-organise and learn

European researchers have developed an innovative computing platform. The European PERPLEXUS project draws on another hot topic in research: self-organising wireless networks which can adapt to the job in hand.

This idea began with an earlier European project, POEtic, which developed a processor based on a large number of identical sub-units or cells. Depending on the current task, each cell can vary its function by changing its internal wiring; at a higher level, links between cells can also be made or broken. Until now, such flexibility has only been available from chips that are externally programmed. The ubichip, in contrast, works out the necessary wiring for itself.

Another branch of the project involved a fleet of small but sophisticated all-terrain robots fitted with ubichips. The researchers developed a new strategy in the field known as collective robotics, whose premise is that groups of robots which communicate with one another are more effective than the same robots acting individually.

In this case, the researchers looked at how foraging robots locate an important place such as a collection point for items they have picked up. Each robot displays a coloured beacon and carries a video camera which can see other robots’ beacons. Robots change the colour of their beacons to signal that they have successfully found the target, and nearby robots copy this behaviour.

The result is a gradient of beacon colours which guides other robots towards the target, rather as in an unfamiliar shopping mall where you might locate a particular store by following a trail of people carrying distinctive plastic bags. According to Pérez-Uribe, this technique is promising for situations where navigation by fixed coordinates or GPS is impossible.

Read more at: http://www.perplexus.org/

High-tech handrest for a steady hand

Keeping a steady hand is vitally important for many professions where the use of a static or purely mechanical handrest just isn’t practical or possible. A new computer-controlled, motorized hand and arm support will let doctors, artists, machinists and others precisely control scalpels, brushes and tools over a wider area than otherwise possible, and with less fatigue.

A person using the Active Handrest puts their wrist on a support that can slide horizontally in any direction. The user's wrist sits on a round wrist pad on an arm that is attached to a motorized base that can move from side to side and back and forth to re-center the hand. Under the wrist rest is a force sensor similar to a bathroom weight scale. The base also is attached to an elbow rest.

The system includes a personal computer to control the handrest. The computer detects the position or force of the user’s wrist and decides how the armrest should move. Meanwhile, with position control the device monitors the tool motion and repositions the handrest to follow the tool’s motion.

In this way the handrest allows a person to maintain a steady hand while it senses the position of a hand-grasped tool or the force exerted by the hand - or both. Then, the device's computer software moves the handrest so it constantly re-centers the user’s fingertips in the center of their dexterous workspace – that is the range over which users can move their fingers and be very precise.

For example, if a person places their arm on a desk to write, their hand is able to move the pen about 4 inches in any direction, but precise writing is practical only within a 1-inch wide "dexterous workspace," says Provancher.

Read more at: http://www.gizmag.com/high-tech-handrest/14444/?utm_source=Gizmag+Subscribers&utm_campaign=cbaa12a540-UA-2235360-4&utm_medium=email

G-Speak will make the mouse obsolete

G-Speak will make the mouse obsolete

The mouse may soon become obsolete, with interfaces that interpret gestures rapidly approaching a stage at which they can be released for general consumers.

A new system being developed by Oblong Industries harnesses gesture technology that uses special surfaces and displays that can track hand movements, providing the operator is wearing the special conducting gloves. The system works with images and videos, and has been dubbed the “G-Speak” spatial operating environment (SOE).

In a G-Speak environment everything on screen can be directly manipulated by gestures such as pointing, and the system simplifies the control of real-world objects such as robots or vehicles, and allows physical tools and interfaces to be used as input devices. G-speak controls applications through hand poses, pointing, and hand movements, with input from several hands simultaneously being fully supported. Hand and finger motions are tracked to an accuracy of 0.1 mm at 100 Hz.

Check out the full video (its only 3 min!): http://www.physorg.com/news186646144.html

Computer to interpret an image or a diagram

Science writers know as well as anyone how much information a diagram can contain. We often labor to express in words what a researcher was able to convey in a single image. But while a drawing can be rich in information, it's information that's usually inaccessible to computers. If you draw a diagram on the screen of a tablet computer, like the new Apple iPad, the computer can of course store the drawing as an image. But it can't tell what the image means.

MIT researchers intend to change that, with a new system that can interpret sketches. If a chemist, for example, uses a stylus — an inkless plastic pen — to draw a molecule on a tablet computer, the software can identify different types of chemical bonds and element symbols and determine the structure of the molecule. Similarly, if an electrical engineer draws a circuit diagram, the software will identify the circuit's separate components — like resistors, capacitors, batteries, and simple wires — and display them in different colors.

Once a sketch has been interpreted by computer, it becomes much more useful. A chemical sketch, for instance, could be the basis for a literature search, to see whether there's any prior research on the same molecule; analysis software could determine whether the circuit depicted in a sketch will perform as intended. Or design software could simply clean up and standardize a sketch for display in a journal or PowerPoint presentation.

"Traditionally, there's been some distinct flavors of shape or symbol recognizers. Some looked at how the shape was drawn — how many pen strokes and in what direction — and some looked at the final image," Stahovich says. "What Tom has managed to do is come up with a technique that combines strengths of both approaches in a unique way." The researchers see the software as part of a larger project to make interactions with computers as natural as interactions with human beings.

Read more at: http://www.physorg.com/news185797868.html

FireFound tracks your stolen computer

FireFound tracks your stolen computer, nukes your personal data

The worst thing about losing your laptop isn't the cost of replacing your gear; it's the loss of personal info and saved passwords. Firefox extension FireFound tracks your lost laptop's location and nukes your personal data in a few clicks.

Once you install the add-on for Firefox or its mobile version Fennec, FireFound uses geolocation to track where you are every time you open your browser, sending that information to a secure server (or your own server, if you prefer.) If your laptop is ever lost or stolen, log into FireFound's Web site from any computer and find out where your laptop's being used -- handy information to pass on to the cops, though not necessarily info that'll get your laptop back. You also can choose to nuke the personal data in your browser, including history and saved passwords, to protect it from prying eyes until you get your computer back.

FireFound lets you tweak several settings according to what level of security you desire, including the option to receive e-mail notifications if your computer is used more than a certain number of miles from its last location. The data protection feature instantly annihilates some or all of the personal information contained in your browser if someone can't provide a password to use it.

We've seen a fair amount of similar tools for Windows users on a whole in the past, but FireFound is the first Firefox-specific version we've seen, and it's got some solid features of its own.

Keep in mind that none of these tools are guaranteed to keep your data safe or recover your hardware, and remember that your best bet to safeguarding your data is encrypting your data. What other steps do you take to protect your laptop's data besides securing your browser? Talk about it in the comments.

Check their website: http://www.firefound.com/

Watch the video at: http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=ycPtD9eVgSQ

Google search getting eyes and ears

Google search getting eyes and ears
Google on Monday unveiled "Goggles" software that lets people search online using pictures taken with cameras in mobile phones based on its Android operating system. "When you take a mobile phone camera and connect it to the Internet, it becomes an eye," Google mobile search vice president of engineering Vic Gundotra said while demonstrating Goggles in Mountain View, California.

"Google Goggles lets you take a picture of an item and use the picture as the query." An experimental version of Goggles will be available for people at Google Labs website. Goggles already recognizes books, wine labels, CD covers, landmarks and more, according to Gundotra. He demonstrated by taking a picture of a wine bottle label with a smart phone and almost instantly getting reviews, pictures and other Internet data about the vintage in a Google search results Web page.

"It is our goal to visually identify any image," Gundotra said. "It is in Google Labs because of the nascent nature of computer vision. In the future, you will be able to point (a camera phone) and we will be able to treat it as a mouse pointer for the real world." Google on Monday also added Japanese to a voice-based search service first rolled out about a year ago.

People can now speak Google search subjects into smart phones in English, Mandarin, or Japanese. "In addition to voice search, Google has huge investments in translation," Gundotra said. "Our goal at Google is nothing less than being able to search in all major languages of the world." The California Internet colossus is aiming to deliver a translation service to mobile telephones some time in 2010, according to Gundotra.

People will be able to speak into a mobile telephone to have sentences translated into other languages and delivered back quickly in text and audio forms, Gundotra said while demonstrating an early version of the service. He also showed a "near me now" feature that uses global positioning capabilities in Android-based smart phones to customize map results to show shops, attractions, restaurants or other offerings that are in easy reach. "In the future, there will be many different ways of searching," said Marissa Mayer, Google's vice president of search products and user experience. "We really foresee a world where you can search and find your answer where ever it exists and whatever language it is in."

Check the video at: http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=Hhgfz0zPmH4&feature=player_embedded

Tweeting by Thinking

Tweeting by Thinking
Plenty of people's Twitter feeds appear to be connected directly to their egos, but one scientist's is actually wired to his brain. In April, University of Wisconsin doctoral student Adam Wilson — working with adviser Justin Williams, above — tweeted 23 characters just by thinking. He focused his attention on one flashing letter after another on a computer screen while wearing a cap outfitted with electrodes that monitored changes in his brain activity to figure out which character he wanted. His efforts spelled out "USING EEG TO SEND TWEET," among other messages. The feat marks a major step forward in establishing communication for people with "locked in" syndrome, which paralyzes the body, except for the eyes, but leaves the mind alert. For now, though, it's slow going: with the speediest brain tweeters reportedly managing just eight characters a minute, it's a good thing they're limited to 140.

Read more: http://www.time.com/time/specials/packages/article/0,28804,1934027_1934003_1933954,00.html#ixzz0XkatSCSx

EnergyHub Dashboard

The Smart Thermostat
A couple of years ago, Seth Frader-Thompson was driving a Prius. Priuses have little screens on the dashboard that tell you what gas mileage you're getting, in real time, as you drive. It crossed Frader-Thompson's mind that houses should have something similar. So he built the EnergyHub Dashboard, a little device, with a screen, that can talk wirelessly to your furnace and your various appliances and let you know exactly how much electricity (or gas) each one is using and how much it's costing you. It can also turn appliances on and off and raise or lower the temperature in your house so you can rein in the real power hogs. EnergyHub is currently partnering with utilities for trials and will be available direct to consumers in early 2010.

Read more: http://earth2tech.com/2008/12/19/smart-home-startup-energyhub-to-sell-its-gear-mid-2009/

Touch-free Computing

Touch-free Computing: Microsoft's new user interface uses hand gestures in the air and tracks eye movement.
Microsoft’s chief research and strategy officer Craig Mundie is doing the rounds at a number of prestigious colleges in the States showing off Microsoft’s vision for technology to solve the world’s biggest problems. Of course, one must use the latest in natural user interfaces for this task.
A feature of this year’s tour appears to be a next-generation computer – one that docks and undocks from a transparent glass display and allows for not only pen and voice input as you’d come to expect from natural user interfaces, but also incorporates touchless gestures and eye-tracking to interact with the information at hand.
http://link.brightcove.com/services/player/bcpid3924348001?bctid=48751387001

Now your domain name can be in Hindi- not English

The Internet is set to undergo one of the biggest changes in its four-decade history with the approval of international domain names - or addresses - that can be written in languages other than English. The non-profit body that oversees Internet addresses approved Friday the use of Hebrew, Hindi, Korean and other scripts not based on Latin characters in a decision that could make the Web dramatically more inclusive.

The board of the Internet Corporation for Assigned Names and Numbers - or ICANN - voted to allow such scripts in so-called domain names at the conclusion of a weeklong meeting in Seoul, South Korea's capital. The decision by the board's 15 voting members was unopposed and welcomed by applause and a standing ovation. It followed years of debate and testing.
"This represents one small step for ICANN, but one big step for half of mankind who use non-Latin scripts, such as those in Korea, China and the Arabic speaking world as well as across Asia, Africa, and the rest of the world," Rod Beckstrom, ICANN's CEO, said ahead of the vote.

Domain names - the Internet addresses that end in ".com" and other suffixes - are the key monikers behind every Web site, e-mail address and Twitter post.

Since their creation in the 1980s, domain names have been limited to the 26 characters in the Latin alphabet used in English - A-Z - as well as 10 numerals and the hyphen. Technical tricks have been used to allow portions of the Internet address to use other scripts, but until now, the suffix had to use those 37 characters.

That has meant Internet users with little or no knowledge of English might still have to type in Latin characters to access Web pages in Chinese or Arabic. Although search engines can sometimes help users reach those sites, companies still need to include Latin characters on billboards and other advertisements.

Now, ICANN is allowing those same technical tricks to apply to the suffix as well, allowing the Internet to be truly multilingual.

Read more at: http://www.physorg.com/news176099055.html
Now your domain name can be in Hindi- not English

Small sounds replicated virtually

Researchers bring noise to virtual worlds
Cornell computer scientists have developed a practical method to generate the crashing and rumbling sounds of objects made up of thin "harmonic shells," including the sounds of cymbals, falling garbage cans and lids, and plastic water-cooler bottles and recycling bins.

The work by graduate students Jeffrey Chadwick and Steven An and Doug James, associate professor of computer science, will be presented at the SIGGRAPH Asia conference in Yokohama, Japan, in December.

As virtual environments become more realistic and immersive, the researchers point out, computers will have to generate sounds that match the behavior of objects in real time. Even in an animated movie, where sound effects can be dubbed in after the fact from recordings of real sounds, synthesized sounds can match more realistically to the action. So the goal is to start with the computer model of an object already created by animators, analyze how such an object would vibrate when dropped or struck, and how that vibration would be transferred to the air to radiate as sound.

When a thin-shelled object is struck or falls, the metal or plastic sheet slightly deforms and snaps back, triggering a vibration. To simulate the deformation, the computer divides the shell into many small triangles and calculates how the angles between triangles change and how much the sides of the triangles are stretched. What makes this difficult is that the shell vibrates in several different ways at once, and these modes of vibration are "coupled" -- energy transfers from one to another and back again. Previous methods of sound synthesis for shells did not take this into account, James said, and the result was a clean, clear sound, appropriate for bells and wind chimes, but not for things that crash and rumble.

The calculation must be stepped through time at audio frequencies, in this case seeing how the object will look every 1/44,100 of a second. Time-stepping a large mesh of triangles would take weeks of computer time, so the researchers approximate the response by sampling a few hundred triangles (out of thousands) and interpolate between them, a process they call "cubature."

The final step is to map out how the sound waves radiate to determine how the event will sound to a listener at any particular location. Calculating how vibrations of the object move the air is a standard, off-the-shelf process used by engineers who design real-world objects (a lot of work goes into making machinery quieter), but it's too slow for sound synthesis, so the radiation model is pre-computed to save time.

Even with these refinements, the system is not ready for real time, James reported. The computations for simple demonstrations still take about an hour on a laptop computer.

"There's some hope that we can speed this up," he said, "by making other approximations." Nevertheless, he said, previous methods of generating these sounds could take weeks, "but now we can do it in hours." The work on thin shells is part of a larger project in James' lab to synthesize a variety of sounds, including those of dripping and splashing fluids, small objects clattering together and shattering glass.

New computer security mimics nature

Ants vs. worms: New computer security mimics nature:
In the never-ending battle to protect computer networks from intruders, security experts are deploying a new defence modelled after one of nature's hardiest creatures -- the ant.

Unlike traditional security devices, which are static, these "digital ants" wander through computer networks looking for threats, such as "computer worms" — self-replicating programs designed to steal information or facilitate unauthorized use of machines. When a digital ant detects a threat, it doesn't take long for an army of ants to converge at that location, drawing the attention of human operators who step in to investigate.

The concept, called "swarm intelligence," promises to transform cyber security because it adapts readily to changing threats.

"In nature, we know that ants defend against threats very successfully," explains Professor of Computer Science Errin Fulp, an expert in security and computer networks. "They can ramp up their defence rapidly, and then resume routine behavior quickly after an intruder has been stopped. We were trying to achieve that same framework in a computer system."

Current security devices are designed to defend against all known threats at all times, but the bad guys who write malware — software created for malicious purposes — keep introducing slight variations to evade computer defences.

As new variations are discovered and updates issued, security programs gobble more resources, antivirus scans take longer and machines run slower — a familiar problem for most computer users.

Glenn Fink, a research scientist at Pacific Northwest National Laboratory (PNNL) in Richland, Wash., came up with the idea of copying ant behavior. PNNL, one of 10 Department of Energy laboratories, conducts cutting-edge research in cyber security.

Read more at: http://www.physorg.com/news173108776.html

Easier To Browse Web Sites On Mobile Devices

IBM Makes It Easier To Browse Web Sites On Mobile Devices
The Web has turned consumers into do-it-yourself travel agents, data entry clerks and librarians. With the rise of blogs and social media, they have also been turned into syndicated columnists. As such, many have also been forced to become amateur Webmasters, faced with the challenge of cramming content into a format readable on mobile devices, including cellphones -- an increasingly common way to access the Internet.
To help Webmasters of all skill levels, IBM researchers in Tokyo have developed a visual editor technology that enables Webmasters to arrange their Web site content reading flow in a logically-ordered sequence -- without changing the existing content -- that can be easily read on the small screens of mobile devices. The editing tool can also improve the browsing experience for visually impaired Web surfers who use voice browsers to read Web content. The visual editor uses smoothly connecting arrows to show in what order voice browsers would present content. To edit the reading flow, Webmasters need only drag, drop and re-arrange the arrows. This is an improvement over more cumbersome methods, such as using voice browsers to check reading flow line by line, and requiring Webmasters to copy and paste large amounts of content to a memopad to check reading flow.

In addition to Web pages, the tool can be applied to electronic presentations, PDF documents and Flash content to improve their contextual reading flow.

Global mobile subscriptions are expected to reach 4.6 billion by the end of the year, according to the International Telecommunication Union. IBM Research is making a five-year, US $100 million investment to advance mobile services and capabilities for businesses and consumers worldwide. Through this effort, IBM is aiming to drive new intelligence into the underpinnings of the mobile Web to create new efficiencies in business operations and people's daily lives.
More information: For more information about IBM's mobile Web initiative, please visit http://www.ibm.com/press/us/en/presskit/24254.wss
Check the video at: http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=QBCcSMcZ3A0&feature=player_embedded

FON

You pay for internet access at home, so why must you pay for it again at the coffee shop, the airport and the hotel? That frustration spawned Spanish Wi-Fi startup Fon. It's a simple idea: Give and you shall receive. "Foneros" first agree to share their home wireless connections with other Fon customers using a special router, which splits the signal into public and private streams. In exchange, they get the privilege of using any of the network's wireless signals anywhere in the world for free. Fon has inked important deals with TimeWarner Cable in the United States, BT in Britain and Neuf in France, and its network has expanded to an impressive 600,000 registered users worldwide. Free global internet for the price you already pay at home?

FON is the world’s largest WiFi community and the best way to get connected to the internet for free!
When you buy any Fonera (FON’s line of revolutionary WiFi routers) and connect it to your existing broadband connection, you create a FON Spot (a secure WiFi access point) that allows you to share your WiFi connection with other FON members.

The Fonera 2.0 series allows you to do even more with your WiFi. You can upload videos to YouTube, and photos to Facebook, Picasa or Flickr and download torrents or files, directly to or from an external hard disk...even when your computer is off!

* Founder: Martin Varsavsky
* Funding: Approx. $35 million from Skype, Google, Index Ventures, Sequoia Capital, Excite, Digital Garage and BT
* Employees: Approximately 90 worldwide

Check out their website: http://www.fon.com/en/
For a quick tour: http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=NlhaNaFc89U&feature=player_embedded#at=41

Holograms That Respond To Touch

Holograms That Respond To Touch
Japanese scientists have developed a technology that allows holograms to respond to human touch.

Using ultrasonic waves and Nintendo Wii controllers, scientists created a software program that tracks the movements of a person's hand and allows holograms to respond to the "touch" of a hand. By using ultrasonic waves, the scientists have developed software that creates pressure when a user's hand "touches" a hologram that is projected. In order to track a user's hand, the researchers use control sticks from Nintendo's popular Wii gaming system that are mounted above the hologram display area.

Possible uses include holographic controls on hospital machines that could replace easily contaminated physical controls.

Read more at: http://www.reuters.com/article/lifestyleMolt/idUSTRE58F1KP20090916

New way to track delay of 1 Millionth of a second

Millionths of a second can cost millions of dollars: A new way to track network delays

Computer scientists have developed an inexpensive solution for diagnosing networking delays in data center networks as short as tens of millionths of seconds. University of California, San Diego and Purdue University computer scientists presented this work on August 20, 2009 at SIGCOMM, the premier networking conference.

The new approach offers the possibility of diagnosing fine-grained delays—down to tens to microseconds—and packet loss as infrequent as one in a million at every router within a data center network. (One microsecond is one millionth of a second.) The solution could be implemented in today's router designs with almost zero cost in terms of router hardware and with no performance penalty. The University of California, San Diego and Purdue University computer scientists call their invention the Lossy Difference Aggregator. With this invention built into every router, a data center manager should be able to quickly pinpoint the offending router and interface that is adding extra microseconds of delay or losing even a few packets in a million, explained Levchenko.

If an investment bank's algorithmic stock trading program reacts to information on cheap stocks from an incoming market data feed just 100 microseconds earlier than the competition, it can buy millions of shares and bid up the price of the stock before its competitors' programs can react, the computer scientists say. Delays in these routers, also known as latencies, can add 100s of microseconds, potentially leading to millions of dollars in lost opportunities.

Laptop with 2 screens

The world's first laptop with twin monitors is slated to hit the stores by the end of the year.

The dual-screen laptop, entitled Spacebook, was masterminded by Alaska-based technology firm gScreen.

The pioneering technology, that will let users to multi-task while on the move, will have two 15.4 in screens, reports the Telegraph.

The PC is estimated to cost enthusiasts around 3,000 dollars but not without concerns regarding the weight of the Spacebook and the pressure on the batteries to meet the energy demands of running two screens.

Gordon Stewart, the founder of gScreen, told US technology website Gizmodo, that the gadget could be expected to be up for grabs on Amazon by December this year, provided final modifications had been dealt with. He said: "We designed this knowing that many may not need the extra screen at all times."

Spacebook planned Specs:
- 2 LED backlit display screens
- Windows VISTA/ WIN XP PRO (optional)
- Intel Core 2 Duo P8400 2.26-GHz
- 4 GB of RAM (2GB DDR2 SO-DIMM x 2)
- 320GB 7200-rpm HD
- NVIDIA® GeForce® 9800M GT with 512MB dedicated memory (or)
- NVIDIA® Quadro FX 1700M Graphics with 512MB dedicated memory
- 9-cell battery
- IEEE 1394 1 Graphics Card Output (15-pin, D-Sub) X 1, HDMI X 1 Mic-in X 1, Line-in x 1, Headphone X 1 PCI Express Card X 1 AC Power Adaptor Output: 19V DC, 90W Input: 100~240V AC, 50/60Hz universal Battery Pack Li-ion 9 cells

100% North American Sales and Tech support for all gScreen laptop computers.
The gScreen Spacebook is the first dual screen laptop with two 15.4-inch identical screens and a full-size keyboard, built into one laptop unit.
Read more at: http://www.gscreencorp.com/

Google Wave- a revolution to virtual communication

Changing the way the virtual world communicates:

Must watch video: http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=NOHwPgMXsNY

E-mail has been dawdling along in much the same form since the early days of the Internet. In fact, e-mail now feels like a pretty stodgy, clunky and formal style of online communication these days. But hold onto your seats, because Google is about to turn e-mail on its head with the release of a revolutionary new technology called Google Wave that's due to start trickling into users' hands this September. Wave combines the strengths of e-mail with the immediacy of instant messaging and the collaborative power of social networking - and wraps that all up into a killer web application that can then be embedded into any web page or used as a private communication system.

Effectively, each piece of communication becomes a "wave" that is sent to another person or group of people. From there, rather than replying to the whole "email," other users can insert their responses at any point in the communication - and each keystroke appears on all the wave's users' screens immediately. It's like having an instant message conversation based on an email. And once you've commented into part of the wave, other users can respond to your comments, much like on Facebook, but in realtime.
Photo-sharing can be handled in much the same way, and once the photos are out there in a wave, other users can tag, comment and collaborate on them much the same as they could in a social network. There's lots of options as regards privacy etc - you can turn off the instant transmission of keystrokes, for example, to let you think your sentences over a bit more before others read them.

Check the presentation: http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=Itc4253kjhw