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/

Office A4 Sheets into toilet roll in half an hour

Turn waste office paper into toilet paper

While many environmentalists hope that we can eventually have a paperless office, one company in Japan has developed a machine that shreds paper and then converts the waste into readily usable toilet paper.

The process requires you to add water, and it requires about 30 minutes to thin out the paper and generate one roll of toilet paper. This 'TP' looks far from snuggly soft, but it's undeniably a significant step towards a greener office space. The entire process is automated, so it's definitely a big convenience.

The 'White Goat' as it's called is not a contraption that you're likely to squeeze under your desk however. It's mammoth size (1.8m tall and 600kg) would definitely be a better fit in your server room if you have one.

It's set to go on sale this summer in Japan for a price of about US$100,000.

Check out the video: http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=i51zo3LA70U&feature=player_embedded

Read more at: http://www.gizmag.com/waste-paper-in-toilet-paper-out/14048/

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

Micro-ear to evesdrop on bacteria

Micro-ear lets scientists eavesdrop on the micro-world

Acting as a microscope for sound, a new device called a micro-ear could make objects on the micro-scale audible. The device could enable scientists to listen to the sounds that cells and bacteria make as they move about, as well as listen to micro-scale events such as how drugs interact with microorganisms.

"We are now using the sensitivity afforded by the optical tweezer as a very sensitive microphone," said Jon Cooper from the University of Glasgow, who is heading the micro-ear project.

While optical tweezers work by suspending tiny electrically-charged beads in a single beam of laser light, the micro-ear concept consists of several of these light beams arranged in a ring in order to surround and eavesdrop on a tiny object. Sound emitted from the object causes the beads suspended in the light to vibrate, and these vibrations can be measured by a high-speed camera.

The scientists have already used the micro-ear to listen to Brownian motion - the random movement of particles in a fluid. They also plan to use the device to listen to bacterial flagella, the tail-like motors that propel bacteria through their environments. Currently, in order to study the movement of flagella, scientists have to genetically engineer bacteria to enable beads to be stuck to their flagella, and observe the beads with a camera. The micro-ear will hopefully make it possible to observe natural bacteria in a non-invasive way.

Read more at: http://www.physorg.com/news186426510.html

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

A new technology transforms lip movements into a computer-generated voice

The sound of silence: an end to noisy communications: A new technology unveiled at the CeBIT fair transforms lip movements into a computer-generated voice for the listener at the other end of the phone.

It has happened to almost everyone. You are sitting on a train or a bus and someone right next to you is annoyingly shouting into his or her mobile phone. But those days could soon be past with "silent sounds", a new technology unveiled at the CeBIT fair on Tuesday that transforms lip movements into a computer-generated voice for the listener at the other end of the phone.

The device, developed by the Karlsruhe Institute of Technology (KIT), uses electromyography, monitoring tiny muscular movements that occur when we speak and converting them into electrical pulses that can then be turned into speech, without a sound uttered. "We currently use electrodes which are glued to the skin. In the future, such electrodes might for example by incorporated into cellphones," said Michael Wand, from the KIT. The technology opens up a host of applications, from helping people who have lost their voice due to illness or accident to telling a trusted friend your PIN number over the phone without anyone eavesdropping -- assuming no lip-readers are around.

"Native speakers can silently utter a sentence in their language, and the receivers hear the translated sentence in their language. It appears as if the native speaker produced speech in a foreign language," said Wand. The translation technology works for languages like English, French and Gernan, but for languages like Chinese, where different tones can hold many different meanings, poses a problem, he added.

The engineers have got the device working to 99 percent efficiency, so the mechanical voice at the other end of the phone gets one word in 100 wrong, explained Wand. "But we're working to overcome the remaining technical difficulties.” he said.

Nike’s Reuse-A-Shoe program: Running tracks made of shoe

Nike’s Reuse-A-Shoe program

Established in the early 1990s, Nike's Reuse-A-Shoe program collects old, worn-out athletic shoes for recycling, transforming them into Nike Grind, a material used in creating athletic and playground surfaces as well as select Nike products

Since the launch of its Reuse-A-Shoe program in 1990, Nike has recycled more than 21 million pairs of athletic shoes to create public basketball courts and athletic tracks around the world. Its new Considered Design approach aims to reduce waste and eliminate toxins from its factories, further reducing its carbon shoe print.

Check out how shoes are re-used: http://www.nikereuseashoe.com/

An ice-pack in your helmet to save your life

Brain-Cooling Motorcycle Helmet

An extraordinary new 'brain-cooling' motorcycle helmet could save thousands of lives each year. Called the ThermaHelm, the incredible piece of equipment comes with an inbuilt device that acts like an instant ice pack after a sudden impact. By cooling the brain it is thought the carbon fibre helmet can reduce the risk of long-term brain damage and save lives. The British creators will launch the £299 helmet in May this year.

Inventor and motorcycling enthusiast Jullian Preston-Powers said he has had an incredible response to the new design. Mr Preston-Powers. from Brighton, said he had an 'eureka' moment after sustaining an injury during a game of basketball.

After two years of developing the idea at the Sussex Innovation Centre, in Brighton, it is now set to hit the shelves this year. The helmet contains two lightweight chemical packs, which are built into the helmet lining. One pack contains water, the other ammonium nitrate. A sudden impact causes the two to mix and trigger a 'cooling' reaction. This reaction lasts up to 45 minutes, stabilising the temperature of the brain and improving the crash victim's chances of survival.

Dolphins can turn off and on diabetes

Image by jurvetson via Flickr

Dolphins have the ability to turn off and on diabetes, scientists have found, a discovery that could help medical researchers to treat type 2 diabetes.

Dolphins can induce diabetes when there is little food around and turn it off when food is abundant, the researchers found. They believe it is a unique ability and results from the mammal's need to maintain high blood sugar levels to feed its big brain.

They also believe that humans had the ability but lost it through evolution and that studying dolphins could lead to techniques to re-activate it.
A team lead by Dr Venn-Watson regularly studied the blood samples of the dolphins off the San Diego coast and found that they could induce type II diabetes at times of fasting and then almost immediately turn it off again when food became available.

"Dolphins in the ocean go in to feast or famine situations. They will eat a bunch of fish at once and then they may go a while and fast and not eat. During that fasting state they need a mechanism to keep sugar pumping around their blood," she said.

Dr Venn-Watson believes that the ability dates back to when dolphins reverted from land animals to sea animals 55 million years ago and had to adapt to a protein-only fish diet, the Telegraph reported.

There was evidence that humans have done the same during the last ice age when they had to rely on a protein rich diet because all carbohydrate rich foods had been frozen, she said.

Read more at: http://news.bbc.co.uk/2/hi/8523412.stm

Pencil lead = ink

Printing With A Pencil Stub

An alternative piece used to do some essays or reports come in the form of a pencil. But that is ancient history. Now it seems technology is going back, putting pencils to good use.

With the Concept Pencil Printer, pencil stubs are now re-used. Instead of throwing away your pencil stubs, you could always feed them to this concept printer, which will then convert the pencil into “ink” for your document printing needs.

It works by separating the wood and lead inside the printer. It can even erase the print on your documents when you find something erroneous thanks to the eraser that is included with the bundle.

Check out more pictures at: http://www.yankodesign.com/2010/02/04/printing-with-a-pencil-stub/

Pavement slabs work to capture energy

Pavegen Slabs Collect Kinetic Energy

If the energy people expend dancing and working out can power cellphones, lights and other electrical appliances, why not apply the same concept to all the energy spent by millions of people every day simply walking along city sidewalks? That's exactly the premise behind Pavegen slabs, which can be inserted among regular sidewalk sections to capture the kinetic energy people spend just walking.

Each rubber slab from UK-based Pavegen Systems gets depressed by about 5 mm each time it gets stepped on. Using just that small movement, it can convert the kinetic energy used into electricity, which is then stored in the slab. Specifically, 5 percent of the energy harvested is used to make the slab's LED glow, making it clear to users that their energy has been captured. The rest can be used to power pedestrian lighting, information displays and many other applications. Pavegen's patent-protected technology has also been used to harvest energy from users' footsteps on stairs.

Check out their website: http://www.pavegensystems.com/index.php