February 2012
24 posts
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Telemedicine - remotely medicating you in a timely...
What if you have a chronic condition that requires regular medication at regular intervals - would it be a big enough inconvenience for you from achieving a good quality of life? Would you fear going on holidays abroad in case you lose your medication, or would you fail to remember to take the prescriptions altogether?
Well, all those worries may soon become a thing of the past as MIT researchers...
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WatchItalian scientists created a robotic octopus tentacle that can grasp objects and move fluidly underwater. Can you imagine the undiscovered specimens we could now collect from the ocean floor…!
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German police uses Facebook to help catch...
Hannover police force has arrested 8 individuals since implementing “Fahndung via Facebook,” or “Manhunt via Facebook,” since March 2011. This is definitely a prime example of the intersection between social network and crowdsourcing for social good!
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How safe are your secured e-mails?
An unexpected weakness in the random-number-generator behind the encryption system that is commonly used for e-mails, online banking, e-commerce, and a host of Internet services intended to remain private and secure has been uncovered by a team of researchers.
The New York Times explains the inner workings:
The system requires that a user first create and publish the product of two large...
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Breath test that can detect lung cancer
A Californian start-up is trialling a breath test that can spot lung cancer with 83% accuracy, or about the same level as low-dose computerized tomography imaging of the lungs.
According to MIT Technology Review:
Existing tests for lung cancer—the leading cause of cancer death worldwide—cause too many false positives, which means patients face unnecessary biopsies or exposure to radiation...
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Free 'Automated University' coming to an...
Massachusetts Institute of Technology (MIT) has announced its first free course which can be studied and assessed completely online.
You may remember my post about MITx back in December, and now further details have emerged about the programme. BBC reports:
There are already online degree courses, but the MIT proposal is unusual in that it is inviting students anywhere in the world, without...
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Are smart meters and smart grids prone to attacks?
While utilities companies and Western governments have been pushing for smart meters and smart grids to more effectively manage power supply, it may seem that the rush to provide these devices might have left consumers - and even the power supply companies - at risk.
An internal audit by the US Energy Department found that found that about one-third of these projects funded to provide smart grids...
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Disrupting the textbook industry with free...
You might think that Apple’s iBooks 2 partnering with major textbook publishers to bring low-price textbooks to iPad-toting college students is disruptive to the textbook industry. After all, $14.99 for a e-copy of a textbook beats the $200 you might have to pay for a hardcopy.
But what if textbooks for free? This is what Rice University is proposing through OpenStax College. According to...
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Security flaw allows strangers to tap into...
Many consumers may have bought IP cameras to keep a close eye on their homes when they are out, or maybe check on their children to make sure they are behaving. But last thing on their mind is having their security and privacy taken away via the very mean that is meant to protect them.
Well, that’s seemingly occurring to many customers of certain models (including TV-IP110W, TV-IP110WN,...
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Skin Scan to fight cancer with mobile app and big...
Skin Scan is currently an iPhone app created by a Romanian company that let users determine whether the suspicious looking mole might be cancerous.
As GigaOm summarises, the app works by:
users take a picture of a mole;
the photo is sent to Skin Scan’s servers;
Skin Scan’s algorithm analyzes the image;
and results are sent back to the user.
The app won’t diagnose any condition, but will...
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Stealing your identity in seven easy steps
Herbert Thompson, computer science professor at Columbia University, recently shared his experience on Scientific American about how he cracked someone’s identity and got into her bank account in just a few hours of web searches.
SmartPlanet sums up the seven steps he took:
Google search. He googles her. Finds a blog and a resume. (Thompson called her blog a “goldmine.”) He gets...
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Smart pills that monitor your body from the inside
Microchips are getting so small they can be ingested and send feedback about your own body.
UK’s Lloyd Pharmacy and Silicon Valley’s Proteus Biomedical have teamed up and will be bringing ingestible, intelligent pills with embedded microchips to the market by the end of this year.
The smart pills contain a small amount of copper and magnesium that is activated by stomach acid. The...
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New tools to battle stomach cancer
Singaporean researchers have devised new tools that will slice away early-stage stomach cancer while simultaneously coagulating the wounds to stem blood loss.
According to The Verge:
The minuscule robot is placed at the tip of an endoscope and travels to the afflicted region by entering through a patient’s mouth. Armed with a pincer for grabbing hold of cancerous tissue, the...
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Dance Dance Revolution Classroom Edition to help...
Konami will be showcasingDance Dance Revolution: Classroom Editionduring the California Association for Health, Physical Education, Recreation & Dance (CAPHERD) State Conference (happening between February 23rd - 26th).
(Source: elPadawan on Flickr)
Details are scant at the moment but apparently the new game will let up to 48 dance mats to be connected. This really sums up the gamification...
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WatchPosture-correcting suspenders make you sit up straight
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What if your car was hacked and infected with...
(Photo credit - Flickr’s Andraseal)
As the number of electronic gadgets and gizmos built into our automobiles grow (from sat-navs and media players to sensors and diagnostics), so do the risks of our cars being hacked and infected.
In 2010, a team of researchers from the University of Washington and the University of California at San Diego ran a script on a computer connected to a car...
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Retailer gives products away for free in exchange... →
Increasingly consumers are relying on consumer reviews to guide their decisions, from the choice of hotels, where to dine, which product to buy, and which retailer to trust.
A recent article from NY Times reveals that a retailer was asking buyers to give its product top reviews (hint: 5-star ratings) and in exchange would refund the cost of the item.
This worked so well on a leather case for the...
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SpareOne Mobile lasts 15 years on stand-by using...
This mobile lasts on stand-by mode for 15 years with 1 AA battery in case you need to make emergency calls. Just make sure you have the spare mobile handy…!
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Google+ opens its doors for teenagers aged 13-17
At the end of January 2012, social network Google+ officially opened its sign-up process for users aged 13+ (compared to its previous policy of 18+).
Teenage accounts are reported to have extra safety features, such as warning teenage users when they are about to share something publicly on Google+ or kicking the user out of Google Hangout chats when a stranger outside of their circles join the...
January 2012
31 posts
wwwtweeterluisxp007 asked: where are you from?
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What are the possibilites with Indoor Positioning...
GigaOm has reported that Finnish company WalkBase is looking to bring Indoor Positioning System (IPS) to the masses with smarter algorithms that don’t drain battery of smart devices.
First of all, what is IPS? It’s a system whereby your smartphone (or tablet) works out where you are based on wi-fi signals nearby. It’s like GPS, but instead of using satellite signals which...
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Former Stanford professor to teach 500k students...
Last year, Stanford Professor Sebastian Thrun offered an online course on Artificial Intelligence for any internet-connected students from around the world, and close to 160,000 people took part in the course.
This year, Professor Thrun has quit Stanford and will be running a 7-week course on how to build a search engine to anyone with or without previous programming experience. While the...
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WatchDrawers that turn into seatings for 7, perfect for a small pow-wow in a small apartment!
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Lock manufacturer Yale soon will be selling...
Yale’s NFC-enabled locks can be opened via smartphones equipped with NFC. Through the special app launched within the phone, user can unlock the door using a pin number. And for the forgetful consumers who forgot to charge their phones, these locks can be opened with a traditional key. Forgetful customers who left their keys behind might be out of luck though!
I wonder what the...
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Hackers target children as adults wise up to... →
Forbes has reported:
Hackers are targeting websites aimed at children, by embedding malicious software in free gaming sites, praying on the young as adults grow wise to their strategies.
This is a good reason why parents need to monitor their children’s online behaviours and activities, as well as educating their children to be net-savvy.
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Watch‘Text Glove’ that translates sign language into text by utilising an accelerometer, finger sensors, and a gyroscope built into one high-tech glove.
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US military to crowdsource software testing with...
That’s one way to reduce the budget deficit…
The Verge reports
According to a DARPA request for proposal, the US Department of Defense plans on spending $32 million to develop computer games that will help to test military software. DARPA says that current development practices result in software with one to five bugs per thousand lines of code, and that the goal of the new...
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Plants can now talk to you via Twitter
Rob Faludi, Kate Hartman, and Kati London has created Botanicalls, which checks the moisture level of soil and tweets to you when the plant is in need of water. No longer will people need to remember to water their plants regularly and instead rely on Twitter to tell them when to water their plants!
The next step could be a plant that will tweet about whether it’s getting enough oxygen,...
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WatchCop car of the future -this video looks at technology displayed at #CES2012 that the police will be able to use in the near future to help bring the bad guys to justice.
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IBM develops electric car that goes 500 miles... →
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WatchWatch this blind Journalist use his iPhone. Perfectly.
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MIAmobi's bag blocks data from coming in or out of...
MIAmobi is marketing a new range of bags that blocks incoming and outgoing data signals from your phone. It reportedly keeps your mobile devices safe from hackers and pesky marketers, and it’s a great way for users to “switch off” from their digital lives if even for a moment.
But with smartphones increasingly relying on data network for texts (think: iMessage or WhatsApp) and...
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Smart contact lenses to help Diabetes sufferers
Microsoft Research is finalising work on smart contact lenses that can measure glucose levels found in the tear film of the eyes.
Sufferers of Type 1 diabetes have to monitor their blood sugar levels several times a day by piercing the skin with a spring-loaded needle. Microsoft is hoping that the smart contact lenses, an example of Natural User Interface (NUI), will make glucose-monitoring a...
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Clever campaign using Facebook Timeline to promote...
Israel Anti-Drug Authority has created fictional character ‘Adam Barak’ on Facebook showing before-and-after photos of a year with and without drugs.
As the saying goes, a picture is worth a thousand words, so maybe these images will be more powerful and appealing than words to today’s youths in an ever-decreasing-attention-span society.
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Walking directions that avoid crime-ridden...
Geekwire reports:
Microsoft was issued a patent on a computer system for “pedestrian route production” — better known as walking directions — that automatically adjusts the route for the unique conditions encountered by a person going from place to place on foot.
According to the patent, the system could “construct a direction set that allows the user to take paths that take him to his home...
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Heating your home with data - cloud computers as...
A team of researchers at Microsoft and the University of Virginia have proposed that remote computing servers could used to heat people’s homes.
According to the team:
Computers can be placed directly into buildings to provide low latency cloud computing for its offices or residents, and the heat that is generated can be used to heat the building. This approach improves quality of...
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Harnessing your footsteps into energy
(Click through for a video)
From the BBC:
Scientists at the University of Hull are researching ways of turning human motion into electricity.
They are working on a prototype staircase that converts the movement of people walking up and down it into a power source.
It is hoped systems could be installed in railway stations or other public places with a large flow of people passing through.
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Self-healing circuits and electronic chips almost...
A team of scientists and engineers at the University of Illinois at Urbana-Champaign have created a circuit that heals itself when cracked by releasing liquid metal to restore conductivity.
This can ultimately lead to longer-lasting gadgets, from computers and televisions to cars and space ships. Perhaps profits-driven electronics makers may not necessarily want longer lasting gadgets that stop...
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Scientists invent paint-on solar cells for a...
Researchers from Notre Dame University have invented solar cells using “power-producing nanoparticles” that could be painted onto any conductive surface. The team is working on improving the stability of the material and power-generating efficiency, but in a decade’s time we might see our local B&Q or Home Depot stocking paint that ultimately feeds our kettles and coffee...
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Researchers exploit wi-fi protocol flaw that can...
Two separate teams of researchers have, working independently, developed tools that will allow hackers to gain access to some secure Wi-Fi networks between 2-10 hours.
The vulnerability itself is inherent in the Wi-Fi Protected Set-up protocol. This protocol, which is often bundled into Wi-Fi routers, is designed to allow unskilled home users to set up secure networks using WPA encryption...
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Brighten up your dingy office with a virtual blue...
The Next Web has reported:
A company in Germany has created a ‘virtual sky’ which makes the working environment more harmonious by replacing dingy office lighting with the feeling of being under the open skies.
Some says it would be cheaper to just go outside, but maybe they don’t live in England under a layer of perma-cloud!
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Getting fat? The Kinect might tattle on you →
The work of Carmelo Velardo, the man with a Kinect plan, is described thusly by New Scientist:
Along with colleagues at the Italian Institute of Technology’s Center for Human Space Robotics in Torino, he used the Kinect’s depth-sensing ability to create a 3D model of an astronaut. Then the team ran their calculation using a statistical model that links weight to body measurements based on a...
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Gene that controls memory formation found,...
Neuroscientists from the Massachusetts Institute of Technology have located a gene called Npas4 in the hippocampus region which is activated when memories are stored in the brain. The discovery is believed to be instrumental in pinpointing the exact locations of memories in the brain. The researchers also think their discovery could open up new avenues for altering and creating memories.
If you...