Blinding lasers Desert Wolf s website states that its Skunk octacopter drone is fitted with four high-capacity paintball barrels, each capable of firing up to 20 bullets
the Defence Web news site has published a photo of the drone after it was unveiled at a security trade show near Johannesburg in May.
Guy Martin, the editor of Defence Web, said he believed the drone was unique. The Skunk unmanned aerial vehicle with its four paintball guns, loudhailer and cameras is only a logical next step in the development of UAVS,
but slightly faceted aesthetic you might equate with their Jawbone headsets or Jambox. But it s also recognizably influenced from the Nike+Fuelbandwhen you tilt the cup,
and displays that information right on the outside of the cup. In a perfect world, you adjust your exercise intake accordingly.
phones are typically in our pockets. We wanted to make sure there was something right in front of you,
That display is also customizable. In addition to calories, you can track, say, caffeineand make sure you re not ODING in the morning,
At its core lives a molecular sensor, the specifics of which Lee refused to provide for competitive reasons,
Over a Skype demo, Lee let me choose from maybe 60 different beverages he had on the table.
Presumably, this analysis time is of little concern to the user. It's certainly neat to watch as a machine reverse-engineers the liquid poured into it
but any long-time user of the Vessyl should, theoretically, forget that the Vessyl is doing anything special at all.
##Results from the latest clinical trials of his#smartphone-linked artificial pancreas#suggest he might just make that deadline.
A smartphone-linkedpancreas removes the need for people with type 1 diabetes to constantly monitor
Every 5 minutes, a signal is sent wirelessly from a glucose monitor under the user s skin to an iphone app,
sending a signal to pumps carried by the user to administer the required dose via a catheter.
Before eating, people can input data about the type and size of their meal. The artificial pancreas performed well in#hospital-based clinical trials in 2010.
and self-checkout terminals to voice-recognition telephone apps, each year intelligent systems will take over more jobs formerly held by humans;
Dr. Eric Topol, director of the#Scripps Translational Science Institute, describes in a#Youtube#video#how patient-focused technology improves medicine.
and many websites provide free medical advice; and even TV ads often disclose critical data.
The ultimate tool to replace doctors though, could be the nanorobot, a tiny microscopic-size machine that can whiz through veins replacing aging and damaged cells with new youthful ones.
They argue that we should not let computers replace positions such as law makers, judges, or police officers.
I d rather take my chances with an impartial Computer experts estimate that by 2050,50 million jobs could be lost to automation.
Futurist Marshall Brain in his#Robotic Freedom Blog#agrees with the idea. America should create a $25, 000 annual stipend for every U s. adult,
#The Holoroom Lowe s launches holographic virtual reality showroom The Holoroom Brick-and-mortar retail has changed little
since the Internet exploded into our lives in the mid-1990##s. We now go into a store to figure out what we want to buy only to go home
launching a holograph-based virtual reality showroom dubbed the#Holoroom. Say you re going to remodel your bathroom.
-and-mortar store to see the colors and hardware for yourself. But you may still have trouble envisioning how the wall color
its function is mostly to disrupt#3d printing#as a rapid-prototyping system. Consequently, there was no existing product that met Lowe s retail needs.
and matte paint and developed the augmented reality display system from scratch. The cost of each grid room is relatively low,
Customers using the Holoroom first use an ipad app to spec out the room they re remodeling.
which consists of walls with grids on them that the phone uses to track with technology similar to#Google s Tango.
The tablet serves as a kind of de facto goggle a giant monocle, really allowing couples to experience the illusion together.
Now, it feels within reach, Phil Rogers, a corporate fellow at Advanced micro devices, the computer chip maker,#told the New york times#in January.
Once limited to silvery#images#on credit cards, holography#made a splash#last year when University of Illinois computer scientists showed off an immersive holograph room, CAVE2, that projected images on an array of LED screens.
Users wore goggles to get the full 3d effect, and a wand allowed them to interact with the objects on the screens.
One setting they mocked up? Star trek s holodeck, of course. Perhaps the perfect kitchen feels like a dream barely within reach, too.
Well, it may remain a dream for a few more months. Like other computerscreens, the room displays inputs processed elsewhere.
That means Lowe s has to scan every item before it can appear in the Holoroom.
because our phones help us keep a record of what we like e
#The Connected Fitting Room eliminates personal interaction with salespeople The Connected Fitting Room Retailers rely heavily on online shopping.
The Connected Fitting Room uses RFID tags to register the items a customer brings into a fitting room,
This information is displayed on a touch screen in the dressing room, and if a customer desires a different size or color,
they can simply click on the changes on the screen. The system has a real time registry of the store s inventory
In addition, the touch screen can suggest complementary or similar items, which can also be requested for retrieval.
Created by#Accenture,#Microsoft, #and#Avanade, the Connected Fitting Room is currently in use at the department store Kohl s,
which has locations all throughout the US. In addition, talks are in process that would bring the technology to retailers in the UK as well.
#The nanodegree A new type of college degree created by AT&T and Udacity An instructor for Udacity teaching an online Python class.
AT&T and the online education provider Udacity have partnered to create thenanodegree, a new type of college degree similar to the#Micro Colleges that Futurist Thomas Frey predicted.
and Internet billionaires have promised to overhaul the clunky path to a diploma. We need to take
and experience, wrote#Linkedin cofounder Reid Hoffman. Last year, on stage with California Lt. Governor Gavin Newsom, Udacity founder Sebastian Thrun#announced#a new consortium of businesses, the Open education Alliance,
together with many of the original partners, from AT&T to Autodesk. It s a failure of the community college system, the California state system,
Continuing, the blog explains, Our early nanodegrees will prepare you for a job as a front-end web developer,
back-end web developer, ios mobile developer, Android mobile developer, or data analyst. The first nanodegree will start this fall.
Other online education providers, such as Coursera,#are designing their own certifications, which take about the same amount of time,
depending on the course of study. So, how s the quality of the degree compared to a traditional diploma?
I ve been taking the data science track at both Coursera and Udacity and comparing it to the master s in mathematical behavioral sciences
On many levels, data science at Udacity and Coursera are superior. It s completely up-to-date with the latest software, it s problem-based, much (much) cheaper,
and more flexible. Don t get me wrong: my master s was fantastic for helping me think theoretically about data science
and how to carefully determine cause and effect. But it left me lacking#the raw coding skills necessary to download a dataset
For many data science jobs, the ability to run basic regressions and determine patterns in big datasets is more than sufficient.
#Mobile can drive down healthcare costs and improve care Jawbone, wearable technology for a healthier lifestyle.
Enter##Mobile Brands and healthcare organizations are realizing the potential of mobile apps and increasingly,
wearable devices to engage with and influence the behaviors of millions of Americans. According to a#study#we recently conducted
73 percent of people who use mobile to track their health/fitness now believe they are healthier than they used to be as a result.
Mobile in (medical practice When it comes to healthcare, mobile enables interactions and insights that were previously unimaginable,
Tracking of patients data through wearables and biometric sensors.##Healthcare providers can tell if the health of a patient at home is declining,
In addition, patients who track their data can have a more detailed conversation during visits, hopefully resulting in a better care plan.
While people are starting to use mobile devices more and more to manage their health, it is still not the norm.
they would use their smartphones to track their health and fitness even more. By leveraging the convenience, ubiquity and increasing intelligence of mhealth tools,
#Google buys startup Skybox Imaging for $500 million Google#will use Skybox s satellite-photo tech to improve Google maps.
Google is buying the startup, Skybox Imaging, a company that specializes in photos taken by satellites, for $500 million.#
and the company provides data analytics and video of Earth taken from afar. In announcing the deal Tuesday,
Google#said#the buyout will help bolster Google maps by keeping the service accurate with up-to-date images.
The acquisition will give Google the ability to design and build its own fleet of satellites.
and disaster relief areas Google has long been interested in, Google said in a statement. The deal comes as big tech companies have become more interested in aerial technology including satellites
and drones to expand their reach and business operations: getting more people online means being able to offer services to larger populations.
Google in April purchased drone maker Titan Aerospace to help further#Project Loon, the company s initiative to bring the Internet to less-connected places around the world using high-altitude Wi-fi balloons.
Facebook which was said also to be in acquisition talks#with Titan Aerospace has focused on developing drones and satellites as a means for beaming Internet connectivity to more people.
In March, the company#announced#a new lab dedicated to developing that technology. The effort is in line with the mission of CEO Mark Zuckerberg s Internet. org
which aims to bring the Web to everyone in the world. Skybox and Google share more than just a ZIP CODE,
reads a#blog post#by Skybox, which, like Google, is based in Mountain view, Calif. We both believe in making information (especially accurate geospatial information) accessible and useful.
Google maps itself got its start after Google#acquired#another satellite imaging company, Keyhole, a decade ago.
Skybox in November#launched#Skysat-1, a satellite capable of taking 90-second videos at 30 frames per second.
The satellite was to be the first of a fleet of 24 launched to capture views of Tokyo;
Bangkok; Baltimore; Las vegas; and Aleppo, Syria. Google hasn indicated t if the rest of the launches will remain on schedule after the startup joins the company.
We ve asked Skybox for comment and will update this post when we hear back.
Though people have for some time been speculating about Google s interest in Skybox, Tuesday s announcement pegged the deal at half the price of the#rumored $1 billion#that had originally been reported.
Google also warned that the price tag could be adjusted and that the deal is subject to approval by regulators.
#HP announces plans to destroy Microsoft windows Moments after Meg Whitman, CEO of Hewlett-packard, announced the company grand new plan to compete with the Microsoft windows operating system,
she was thanking Microsoft for being a major sponsor of the conference and inviting the company new CEO, Satya Nadella, on stage.
Nadella joined Whitman and Intel new CEO Brian Krzanich for a fireside chat-style interview conducted by New york times columnist and author, Tom Friedman.
But just before Nadella joined via video conferencing, during Whitman keynote speech, CTO Martin Fink, head of HP Labs, showed off
what HP hopes will be a game-changing new data center computer. It internally calling that computer he Machine.
HP is creating a lot of new technology to build The Machine, especially a new form of memory known as emristorswhich won lose data if the power turns off (also known as on-volatile memory.
The Machine claim to fame is that it can process loads of information instantly while using hardly any power.
HP wants this computer to replace the servers being used in today data centers. But it also hopes the tech will become the basis for the next generation of PCS.
and open-source operating system and is inviting universities to help research and build it. He threw in a little dig at Microsoft
when announcing the news saying: e want to reignite in all of our universities around the world operating system research
which we think has been dormant or stagnant for decades. On top of that, HP is working on a brand new operating system for The Machine based on Linux.
And another one based on Android, Fink continued: e are, as part of The Machine, announcing our intent to build a new operating system all open source from the ground up,
optimized for nonvolatile memory systems. We also have a team that starting from a Linux environment
and stripping out all the bits we don need. So that way you maintain compatibility for apps.
What if we build a version of Android? We have a team that doing that, too.
Notice any operating systems not mentioned? Microsoft windows. You might argue that it would be difficult for HP to build an operating system based on Windows
since Microsoft doesn freely share that code. Windows is not free and open source as Linux and Android is.
You would be right. However, when Nadella and Krzanich were on stage, Whitman pointed out how all three companies have been doing joint R&d for 30 years.
In other words, HP could be doing a joint development project with Microsoft if it wanted to.
As Whitman said about the HP, Intel, Microsoft combo, ur partnership, the three companies it was the defining partnership of the industry for the last 30 years but sometimes 30-year marriages,
they need a little rejuvenation. That rejuvenation will obviously come in the form of Linux and Android.
It not wholly surprising that HP is building a new computer that will extricate itself from Microsoft,
and potentially from Intel, too, depending on who HP chooses to fabricate its new chip. Last year, Whitman called out Microsoft and Intel as competitors.
After a disappointing quarter for the company PC business she told Wall street analysts: P traditional highly profitable markets face significant disruption.
Wintel devices are being challenged by ARM-based devices. We are seeing profound changes in the competitive landscape.
Current partners like Intel and Microsoft are turning from partners to outright competitors. Since then, HP has introduced new Windows 8 PCS.
But it has introduced also new Google Chromebook laptops and an experimental new desktop aimed at businesses that runs Android.
This is a bold move by HP. The ability to process large amounts of data with little energy consumption plus nonvolatile memory could be a game changer on the hardware side.
Obvious benefits are longer life of mobile devices more processing power on the device for things like speech recognition, instant on/off functioning, superior servers, removing most of the device cooling engineering,
and lower energy costs for storage and server providers. There hasn been a real hardware advancement in decades.
As the article points out, this opens the door for a change in operating systems, and hp is interested clearly not in helping Microsoft,
and prefers open source OSS. Intel also might be left out in the cold. If hp has the goods
and delivers, this technology will become THE big data system, and take over the server world just for the energy savings alone.
Pricing will be the adoption issue for consumer mobile devices. When the price points are attractive the mobile phone and tablet suppliers will switch too.
Nice tech advancement we all can benefit from. And, if u have investment money for speculation,
hp stock could be a nice retirement plan. Since snubbing Microsoft seems to be the sport of tech royalty this year,
shorting MS stock might be fun money too t
#Ostendo Technologies chip to bring holograms to smartphones Ostendo chip that can produce a hologram Virtual reality won t require strapping a bulky contraption to your head in the future.
Instead, you may just step into an empty room and then suddenly seeing life-size, 3-D images of people and furniture.
Or look down at a smartwatch and#see virtual objects float #and bounce above the wrist,
like the holographic Princess Leia beamed by R2-D2 in the moviestar Wars.####A key to this future may lay in Carlsbad, Calif,
. where startup Ostendo Technologies Inc. has spent the past nine years quietly working on miniature projectors designed to emit crisp videos and glasses-free 3-D images for smartphones and giant screens.
Other companies have shown they can project floating images that appear to be holograms, but many involve large machines employing a system of mirrors to direct light with limited viewing angles.
For instance, the lifelike image of the late rapper Tupac shakur, which graced the Coachella music festival stage in 2012,
was a combination of computer graphics and video projection that relied on visual effects first designed in the 19th century.
Ostendo s projectors in contrast, are roughly the size of Tic Tacs, powered by a computer chip that can control the color, brightness and angle of each beam of light across one million pixels.
One chipset, small enough to fit into a smartphone, is capable of projecting video on a surface with a 48-inch diagonal.
A patchwork of chips, laid together, can form far larger and more complex images. The first iteration of the chip,
which is scheduled to begin shipping next year, will only project 2-D videos, but the next version, expected to follow soon after will feature holographic capability,
according to Ostendo s chief executive and founder, Hussein S. El-Ghoroury. Display is said the last frontier Dr. El-Ghoroury, who in 1998 sold Commquest Technologies, a mobile chipset company, to#International business machines#Corp. IBM for about $250 million in cash and stock.
Over the years, processing power has improved and networks have more bandwidth, but what is missing is comparable advancement in display.
The race to disrupt the screen is intensifying as both upstarts and technology giants try to find new ways to bring content to life.
Microsoft corp. and Advanced micro devices Inc. are both working on their own virtual reality rooms building a complex system of projectors and computers.
Hewlett-packard Co. recently spun out a company called Leia, that like Ostendo, is trying to bring 3d imaging to smartphones.
Meanwhile, Facebook Inc. agreed in March to spend $2 billion to buy Oculus VR Inc.,maker of the Oculus Rift headset that pulls users into a 360-degree virtual environments.
Facebook CEO#Mark Zuckerberg#was convinced, in part of the value of virtual reality after he accidentally tried to set down a real world object on a virtual table
while testing the Oculus Rift, forgetting for a moment that the table didn t exist in the real world,
according to a person with knowledge of the matter. Ostendo, tucked away in Southern California, is known little
but has raised $90 million from venture-capital firms and Peter Thiel, Facebook s first outside investor,
and has secured some $38 million in government research and development contracts. A large bulk of that has come from the Defense Advanced Research Projects Agency,
or Darpa, the government s futurist agency that worked on the predecessor to the Internet and self-driving cars.
That capital has given Dr. El-Ghoroury, an immigrant from Egypt, the luxury to work for nearly a decade undisturbed.
Ostendo now employs about 115 people including scientists suited in scrubs and goggles who handle fragile nanotechnology equipment at a high-tech semiconductor lab. The long effort has yielded the Ostendo Quantum Photonic Imager, an appropriately sci-fi-sounding name,
which fuses an image processor with a wafer containing micro light-emitting diodes, or LEDS, alongside software that helps the unit properly render images.
During a recent test reviewed by The Wall street journal, Ostendo showed a working prototype: a set of six chips laid together that beamed a 3-D image of green dice spinning in the air.
According to Ramesh Raskar, an associate professor at the Massachusetts institute of technology, who is working on 3-D displays for MIT s Media Lab,
The Retina display on Apple Inc. s#iphone, for example, has about 300 dots per inch,
With a lens attached, it will be less than 0. 5 cubic centimeters, roughly the size of the camera in the#iphone.
and is aiming to make the pixels even smaller to achieve higher resolution. Ultimately the larger vision is to have Ostendo s chips everywhere electronic displays are needed,
whether it is a glasses-free 3-D television screen, a smartwatch, or tables that can project hologram-like images.
So what happens in a world where 3-D and virtual reality is everywhere? Dr. El-Ghoroury predicts people s relationship with technology will change
and breed a wave of business opportunities, on scale with the introduction of the iphone.
Imagine if everything coming back to you was in 3-Dall of your shopping, all of your gaming,
every way you retrieve data, he said. Via Wall street Journa i
#Smart rifle uses Google glass to let you shoot around corners Google glass-equipped smart rifle. Trackingpoint is the company behind the U s army s new#smart rifle.
They are already famous for developing a gun that does all the hard work of aiming for you.
and what it does is link your smart rifle s sight to your phone, tablet or Google glass.
By networking your sight and your headset, you see everything your gun does streamed in real time. Basically, when you want to give yourself your gun s POV,
you simply select your scope as your Wi-fi server, open your Shotview app and you re suddenly able to see whatever your barrel is pointed at.
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#Denver crime rate falls over 10%after pot legalization despite dire predictions The most dramatic decrease was in the number of homicides.
and the other has posted an unpublished paper on the preprint server arxiv. The research team also included scientists at Fudan University in Shanghai, the Chinese Academy of Sciences and Diamond Light source.
for backing up renewable power sites, for electronic devices and for industry and defense. Via World Future Society Share Thissubscribedel. icio. usfacebookredditstumbleupontechnorat o
Rus hopes that these folded electronics will evolve into something of ahardware compiler, where different working devices can be generated for performing a variety of tasks such as cleaning the floor.
Image processing provides verification at every step that the goop consists entirely of irradiated parasites. Sporobot would increase the speed of production 20 30 times over, according to Harvard and Sanaria.
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#Classcraft a new way to teach students by turning the classroom into a giant role-playing game Classcraft Shawn Young,
It s going to turn heads in an education system used to strict budgets and paying per-head for software solutions,
and pets for their Classcraft avatars on itunes. Playing in class If you re a gamer,
and check their stats on the screen projected at the front of the room. When the bell rings, its time for a random event,
or, as in Young s case, the kids can use their laptops to interact with it in real-time.
they ll be able to use their smartphones to keep up with the game too, with an ios app set for release and an Android version to follow.
Cutting class and eating chocolate As the Game Master, Young s students are playing by his rules,
something he believes is important in a 21st century that s proving a boom time for sharing, not least through social media.
Higuera told me via email. Before, some of my more apathetic students wouldn t care
Noschese told me over Skype. At least, he believes, not when kids are striving to earn rewards in a game.
And interestingly, they ll also be able to buy these coins through the ios app and on itunes. Young knows this is a huge move for an educational product.
It s very very innovative, he says. I don t know any products that do that for education.
It won t have customizable avatars, pets, ios app support, or interactive class forums. However, the base game will still be fully functional.
at its core, a challenge to the school budgeting system and a way of making Classcraft available to all, according to Young.
The ios app due in September will enable the whole system to run on a teacher s ipad
Video games in a very short time, have become this common cultural reference point that everybody knows,
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