Synopsis: Ict:

#What happens when we put computers in our brains? This may seem like a wild idea,

This is the first step in creating computers more powerful than human brains, says futurist Ray Kurzweil, in#The Singularity is Near.##

##Today, computers capable of crunching this amount of data do not exist, but IBM experts believe that supercomputers with increased computational

and memory capacity that can process this data will be available within three years. Nano engineer John Burch, commenting on this molecular nanotechnology#video,

Our artificial brain will allow wireless interface with computers and other digital technologies. We could access the Internet

control electronics, and make phone calls, with just our thoughts. In addition, we would understand complicated subjects;

#Will the Internet of Thing replace the web? Apple stores can already pinpoint your location with unprecedented accuracy. 2014 will be the year that the##internet of things###that effort to remotely control every object on earth##becomes visible in our everyday lives.

from souped-up gadgets that track our every move to a world that predicts our actions and emotions.

In this way, the internet of things will become more central to society than the internet#as we know it today.#

#The web will#survive, just as email survived the arrival of the web. But its role will be reduced to that of a language for displaying content on screens,

which are likely to be more ubiquitous but less necessary. Here s a closer look at the internet of things that s already here,

and where it s headed. NOTE:##It s never too late to become an invisible button pusher

and learn programming skills. More at Davinci Coders. The internet of things will create a world of##invisible buttons##The#pioneer species#of the internet of things is the smartphone.

For example,#every time we take a smartphone with us in a car, it beams information on our location and speed to Google.

The result is real-time traffic information that can be used by everyone. That smartphones gather traffic data without their users ever being aware that they re doing

so shows how the internet of things replaces the internet-related actions we already know##click a button,

navigate a webpage##with context. This awareness, especially as it relates to where we are in the physical world,

and whatever other data Google and other companies have about us, leads to what#Amber Case, a researcher for mapping company Esri,#calls##invisible buttons.##

a smartphone##moves into that physical space. It could be as small as a two-inch square on top of a conventional credit card reader,

such as the time of day, our previous actions, the actions of others or what Google knows about our calendar,

That we currently need a cell phone to act as a proximity sensor is just an artifact of where the technology is at present.

The same can be accomplished with any number of other internet-connected sensors. GE and Quirky s motion, sound, light, temperature and humidity sensor#

internet-connected smart energy systems can figure out you re home the moment you switch on a light.

which allows any newer iphone or Android phone to#know its position in space with centimeter precision.

You can think of ibeacon as a version of GPS that works indoors and which is also more precise.

Right now#companies like Estimote#are#pitching to retailers#the hardware##beacons##that broadcast the signal required to make ibeacon work.

That Apple has made ibeacon open enough to work with third-party hardware providers like Estimote shows that Apple wants the standard to spread.

Notably, the signals broadcast by any ibeacon-compatible radio (which broadcast signals known as Bluetooth Low energy) can also be picked up by Android and Windows phones,

which shows that Apple is trying to dominate a technology that could become ubiquitous across phones.

This means invisible spatial buttons that could be so small that touching your smartphone smartwatch or other equipped device to a surface will allow you to press that##button.##

or being embedded in clothing or other discrete wearable devices like fitness sensors, wristwatches#or even temporary tattoos.

Anticipatory computing and the end of interfaces Objects on our bodies (health monitors, smart glasses) and in our homes and businesses (smart thermostats, lights, appliances and security systems) can all be programmed to interact in complicated and unexpected ways

once the internet knows that we re present and what our intentions might be. For example, a smart home might know

These pro-active actions are all part of what some call##anticipatory computing.####Invisible buttons and other contextual information about you will allow the internet to do more than facilitate your needs.

It would actually anticipate them.##Google Now#is a good example of the potential of this technology.

As long as you opt in, Google has access to every meaningful store of explicit data about yourself you create##email, contacts, calendars,

social media##and plenty of implicit ones as well, like your web-browsing history.##Adding location and other physical inputs#to that data allows Google Now to do everything from sending youhyperlocal news items targeted to the precise neighborhood in

which you live#to offering information about the television show#you re watching at that exact moment.

So what s required for more companies to tap into anticipatory computing? There are companies that specialize in reality mining,

###which refers to using data to track the#remarkable predictability of our daily lives. This is a potential#bonanza for marketers#who want to target ads to particular times and places.

Wearable computers will connected keep us at all times The next layer of the internet of things will require combining disparate streams of data##mined##from reality##everything from your location to the members of your social network.

but add in data about who else is present and a computer algorithm can tell you#how likely you are to get the flu.

Finding the connections##in other words, meaning##in all this data is key to making it useful.##

##Esri s#Case said at last year s Le Web conference.####If you have to be a data scientist to do it, then it s totally wrong.##

##Mike Bell, head of the new devices group at Intel, says that the future of smart devices,

##whether it s a wearable computer or a next-generation tablet replacement, will have a real user interface,

##Bell, whose primary interest is wearable computing, can t talk about what Intel is currently working on, but I d guess from our conversations that it s more likely to look like a wristband fitness monitor than another cell Phone in other words,

the internet of things will replace the internet, but not by giving us another way to explicitly tell computers what we want.

Instead, by sensing our actions, the internet-connected devices around us will react automatically, and their representations in the cloud will be updated accordingly.

In some ways, interacting with computers in the future could be more about telling them what not to do##at least until they re smart enough to realize that we are modifying our daily routine.

Sensing and responding to your needs, wants and emotions If this all sounds like mind reading,

that s because in a way it is.##Munjal Shah, entrepreneur in residence at Charles river Ventures,#surveyed a thousand peopleabout

what super powers they would acquire if they could. The most popular answer was##speak all languages,

And maybe we ve recently posted on social media about a tragedy that befell us. Text alerts are sent out to friends,

and are directed for the most part by computers, the world becomes#something like a living creature.####We believe the digital world

and body with the internet, this is good news . But if you were hoping that in the future,

getting away from it all would be as simple as#switching off your mobile phone, you re in for a rude surprise.

#Google s new robot army Wildcat Google has purchased Boston Dynamics, the#lab of scientists#behind some of the most awesomely scary robots you have seen ever.

The deal gave Google an army of jaw-droppingly capable robots that can walk, run,

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#A solar-powered 3d printer that prints glass from sand Marcus Kayser s Solar Sinter project When Markus Kayser, a design student,

wanted to test his#solar-powered, sand-fed 3-D printer, he knew the gray skies outside his London apartment wouldn t do.

So he shipped the 200-plus-pound contraption to Cairo, Egypt, flew there himself, and haggled with officials for two days to get it out of customs.

A few small##tips##and 11 hours of driving later, he finally made it to the Sahara.

But soon the mercury hit 104 degrees his components nearly overheated, and he was forced to improvise.##

##The idea for the printer first came to Kayser a few months earlier. He wanted to find a project in which the sun did more than just power a device.

He researched possibilities online, talked to physics professors, and learned about a process in which sand, heated to its melting point,

Markus Kayser s homebuilt 3-D printer created this glass bowl out of heated sand from the Sahara For the printer to work efficiently

and solar panels at the other, can pivot from straight overhead down to a 45-degree angle to chase the sun. directed by a CAD design from a connected laptop,

the printer uses the concentrated beam of sunlight to slowly trace an object into the sandbox layer by layer.

Sensors inside detect the shadows and feed the data on their position to Kayser s computer,

The printer s motors the electronics, cameras and a laptop all run on batteries charged by the solar panels PRINTING Kayser first designs the object he wants to print in a CAD program.

His computer sends instructions to the printer, which works from the bottom up. After a layer has cooled into glass,

he adds more sand to the sandbox in the center of the machine and flattens it out,

and the printer begins heating the next layer. Kayser s first major piece, a bowl, took about four and a half hours to print.

POWER Two photovoltaic panels, one on either side of the machine keep the printer powered

. since the panels are attached to the same arms as the lens, they also benefit from the sun tracking,

which ensures that they always get direct light. Via Pop Sci Share Thissubscribedel. icio. usfacebookredditstumbleupontechnorat k

but Norway has taken the extra step of making agreements with many publishers to allow anyone with a Norway IP ADDRESS to access copyrighted material.

In the U s.,the outlook for solar power is bright and sunny. The solar industry in America has recorded its second largest quarter ever in the third quarter of 2013,

a transparent display specialist and military head up screen supplier, is wading into the wearable computing market, revealing a new#developer#kit that, unlike#Google s Glass, offers full augmented reality support.

Set to debut at CES 2014 next month, the Lumus DK-40 monocular dev kit may look ostensibly like Glass at first glance,

but where Google s headset has a small display-block suspended in the corner, the entire right lens of the Lumus wearable is in fact a 640 x 480 display.

That means developers building apps for the Android-powered headset can overlay graphics directly on top of the real-world view

rather than simply sliding in separate notifications as Glass does.####Lumus might not be the household name that Google is,

but it has some history in#wearable#displays. The company developed a patented##Light-guide Optical Element##(LOE) in effect a tiny projector that projects onto a special lens

so that the computer-generated image is see-through and has been supplying it to industrial and military customers for some years,

including the helmet displays the US Air force has deployed in the F-16 and A-10. The company s consumer plans have been a little later to the game,

and in fact Lumus still doesn t intend to commercially produce a mass-market wearable computer. Instead

it s aiming to promote the adoption of its lens#technology#by other OEMS, with the DK-40 dev kit a tool to show application authors exactly

Whereas the last Lumus prototype we saw#the OE-31 wearable display back in March 2012#was somewhat geeky in its appearance,

The VGA-resolution display with 25-degree field of view is integrated into the right lens, while the block section on the side accommodates the 5-megapixel camera,#

#processor, battery, and sensors. Android runs on an OMAP processor Lumus isn t saying which one specifically

and there s a motion sensor with 9 degrees-of-freedom to do precise head tracking, important when you want to exactly match what s on-screen with what s in front of the wearer.

Lumus is billing the DK-40 as completely wire-free, though not commenting on battery life expectations as yet.

For developers, there ll be an SDK to get them up to speed with coding Android apps to take advantage of the platform,

It s not the first lens-as-display wearable we ve seen in recent months,

that has two transparent screens, one for each eye, unlike the single-display Lumus. Unfortunately, while Lumus intends to start shipping the DK-40 monocular dev kit at the end of Q1 2014,

The end-goal is still to sell the displays to other companies who will put them into their own consumer products,

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The system s algorithms constantly monitor electricity supply and demand charging and discharging the battery to minimize drawing expensive electricity from the power grid.

Israeli hacking school that trains corporate cyber warriors Trainees work in front of their computers at the##Cyber Gym##center.

Mister launches simulated attacks against the computer systems of the trainees, who sit in an adjacent building.##

##he said while seated in the##attack room##a computer nerd s paradise, decorated with Star wars and Pac-Man murals and lines of code running off wall-mounted screens that show the hacking taking place live.

But the work is serious Cyber Gym s launch was attended by members of Israel s intelligence community

##It is possible that there will be a cyber attack on a site supplying the daily needs of Israeli citizens;

#RF Safe-Stop can shut down a vehicle s engine by blasting radio waves Will high-speed car chases become a thing of the past?

##E2v s#RF Safe-Stop#can stall the engine of a vehicle by confusing its electronic systems with radio frequency.

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#UPS researching drones to compete with Amazon Prime Air UPS researching delivery drones. Amazon made headlines

#When algorithms grow accustomed to your face Face-reading technology raises many questions about privacy and surveillance.

Now, computer software is using frame-by-frame video analysis to read subtle muscular changes that flash across our faces in milliseconds, signaling emotions like happiness, sadness and disgust.##

##With face-reading software, a computer s webcam might spot the confused expression of an online student

Or computer-based games with built-in cameras could register how people are reacting to each move in the game

Now computers can be programmed to make those distinctions, too. Companies in this field include#Affectiva, based in Waltham, Mass.,

and#Emotient, based in San diego. Affectiva used webcams over two and a half years to accumulate

These recordings served as a database to create the company s face-reading software, which it will offer to mobile software developers starting in Mid-january.

The company strongly believes that people should give their consent to be filmed, and it will approve

and control all of the apps that emerge from its algorithms, Dr. Kaliouby said. Face-reading technology may one day be paired with programs that have complementary ways of recognizing emotion,

#such as software that analyzes people s voices, said#Paul Saffo, a technology forecaster. If computers reach the point where they can combine facial coding,

voice sensing, gesture tracking and gaze tracking, he said, a less stilted way of interacting with machines will ensue.

And Affectiva is aware that its face-reading software could stir privacy concerns. But Dr. Kaliouby said that none of the coming apps using its software could record video of people s faces.##

##The software uses its algorithms to read your expressions, ##she said, ##but it doesn t store the frames.##

##So far, the company s algorithms have been used mainly to monitor people s expressions as a way to test ads, movie trailers and television shows in advance.

It is much cheaper to use a program to analyze faces than to hire people who have been trained in face-reading.

Face-reading software is unlikely to infer precise emotions 100 percent of the time, said Tadas Baltrusaitis,

The algorithms have improved, but##they are not perfect, and probably never will be said,##he. Apps that can respond to facial cues may find wide use in education

said#Winslow Burleson, an assistant professor of human computer interaction at Arizona State university.####Once we can package this facial analysis in small devices

By wearing Google glass or other Internet-connected goggles with cameras, they could get clues to the reactions of the people with

as long as people agreed in advance to have webcams watch and analyze the emotions reflected in their faces.##

#Powerup 3. 0 A paper airplane controlled by your smartphone Powerup 3. 0 Scientists have spent so much time making amazing airplanes,

Basically, Powerup 3. 0 allows you to control a paper airplane with your smartphone. Exactly what we ve all been waiting for ever

That front piece also has Bluetooth capabilities, so turn on your iphone and go nuts controlling your paper airplane.

The battery charges via mini USB and lasts for 10 minutes of continuous flight. The app itself gives you a pilot s view, complete with a range indicator, a thrust level indicator,

and a magnetic compass. To ascend or descend the plane use the throttle level. To turn it,

tilt your iphone in the direction you d like the paper plane to head. Real talk for a moment:

It s somewhat depressing that we re now controlling our paper airplanes with iphones. I feel like

Spiderfab 3-D robotic printer Since the 1970##s, space-based solar power has been a futuristic fantasy

but the advent of 21st#century 3-D printing may bring it a step closer to reality.

Video)##The overall vision is to create a satellite chrysalis with compact, durable software DNA assembly instructions,

Inc. TUI has won two rounds of funding for its Spiderfab 3-D robotic printer from the#NASA Innovative Advanced Concepts#(NIAC) program.

##3-D printing and robotic construction of components on-orbit would allow a smaller, less expensive launch rocket that will##improve performance per cost by orders of magnitude,

Once#in space, TUI s Trusselator, the first step in the Spiderfab architecture, would use 3-D printing techniques

First, the 3-D printer would build a carbon fiber truss structure that would act as a frame for the system.

With the reductions in volume and mass promised by 3-D printing, those launch costs could be reduced significantly,

##But the maximum radio frequency intensity of the transmission##is only one-fourth that of sunlight,##according to former NASA wireless power transmission engineer Richard Dickinson.

##and Lobbyists who protect#other energy sources subsidies#who would be##out of their jobs###The term 3-D printing has become a catch-all for a number of purposes

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#Volocopter VC200 18-rotor electric helicopter takes flight Volocopter VC200 Greener transportation options have become a priority in the modern world.

and changing the thrust of its motors, similar to that of a quadcopter. This makes the Volocopter VC200 easy to pilot.

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#Computer analyzes images to teach itself common sense At Carnegie mellon University computers are running a program that analyze images to learn common sense.

A computer program analyzes images 24 hours a day to try to learn common sense.##The aim is to see

if computers can learn, in the same way a human would, what links images, to help them better understand the visual world.##

##The Never Ending Image Learner (NEIL) program is being run at Carnegie mellon University in the United states. The work is being funded by the US Department of defense s Office of Naval Research and Google.

Since July, the#NEIL program#has looked at three million images. As a result it has managed to identify 1, 500 objects in half a million images and 1, 200 scenes in hundreds of thousands of images as well as making 2, 500 associations.

Computer programs can already identify and label objects using computer vision, which models what humans can see using hardware and software,

but the researchers hope that NEIL can bring extra analysis to the data.####Images are the best way to learn visual properties,

##said Abhinav Gupta, assistant research professor in Carnegie mellon s Robotics Institute.####They also include a lot of common sense information about the world.

we hope that computers will do so as well.####Examples of the links that NEIL has made include the facts that cars are found on roads

what to teach computers, ##he said.####But humans are good at telling computers when they are wrong.##

##Another reason for NEIL to run is to create the world s largest visual knowledge database where objects, scenes, actions,

##What we have learned in the last five to 10 years of computer vision research is that the more data you have,

the better computer vision becomes, ##Mr Gupta said. The program requires a vast amount of computer power to operate

and is being run on two clusters of computers that include 200 processing cores. The team plans to let NEIL run indefinitely.

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#Uber teams with GM and Toyota to help 100k drivers buy cars to get more Ubers on the road The expansion means hundreds of thousands more cars must come onto the Uber system.

##CEO Travis Kalanick said in a blog post#that Uber is experiencing increased demand in existing markets,

Users can now hail actual taxis, black cars, lower cost Uberx drivers in regular cars,

#Users began complaining#that the driver acceptance times were getting longer, surge pricing was more frequent,

diagnostics, location, user experience (UX)/ feature tracking, and adaptive driver assistance systems (autonomy). He said all four of these areas will drive sales, value-added services,

for example, through a cell phone built into the car, Bluetooth transmissions to other devices, or when the car goes in for service.

##but the eventual goal is to learn user habits to improve the interfaces of the car##for example,

I would say the end user owns all the data. But, the automaker also can claim rights to anonymized data.

Half of the mass is the motor, a commercially available component about the size of the vibrator in a phone.

Flying machines modeled on insects typically require a computer on board or fins of some kind to maintain their stability,

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#Scientists create electrode that lets you taste virtual food on your tongue The same research team is also working on a digital lollipop.

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#Project Ara: Motorola And 3d Systems will 3d-print modular cell phones 3d printed modular cell phone.

Motorola announced last month a plan for a modular smartphone.##Project Ara will be a simple way for users to individualize their phones,

swapping out parts like the battery and camera until users have#a phone that s#just for them.

They plan on doing that with 3-D printing.####The company has inked a deal#with 3d Systems, a global 3-D printing manufacturing company,

to help produce parts of the phone. Assuming the projectstill officially in developmenttakes off, 3d Systems would be#a##multi-year###production partner, making smartphone##enclosures and modules##for the Google-owned phone company.

There s#reason to be skeptical#of modular phone technology, but Project Ara does get a pedigree boost#from former DARPA director and now-Google exec Regina Dugan,

and having the weight of a big tech company behind it doesn t hurt. Motorola says they ll be releasing more details on the project in the coming months.

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