The fear of heights experienced by acrophobics is no small matter; tall buildings, airplane rides, bridges, even stepladders may present a paralyzing challenge. A new therapeutic approach, however, can help to lessen the anxiety experienced by acrophobics.
Ralph Lamsen, of the Kaiser Permanente Medical Group, uses virtual reality to desensitize acrophobes to their fear. The virtual world experienced through the helmet, glove, and handgrip presents a series of challenges relevant to the phobic situation. For example, clients are presented with a plank they must cross, an experience that usually produces elevated heart rate and blood pressure. Clients are encouraged to progress at a comfortable pace, staying at the edge of the plank until read ...
Want to reconstruct your face in 3D from a single 2D image? Now you can.
According to its creators, this technology does not require accurate alignment nor establishes dense correspondence between images; it works for arbitrary facial poses and expressions, and can be used to reconstruct the whole 3D facial geometry (including the non-visible parts of the face) bypassing the construction and fitting of a 3D Morphable Model. This is achieved via a simple convolutional neural network architecture that performs direct regression of a volumetric representation of the 3D facial geometry from a single 2D image.
The US Federal Aviation Administration (FAA) has just awarded Virginal Galactic their first operating license, allowing them to start using their SpaceShipTwo craft for commercial use - as soon as certain guidelines are met. This means that the company - owned by billionaire Richard Branson - will soon be able to shuttle paying passengers into space.
Other than making the flights legal, the license dictates the conditions required before Virgin Galactic can actually let any passengers on board SpaceShipTwo, which will be carried by White Knight Two (below) roughly 99 kilometres (62 miles) into the sky.
Once everything is squared away with the FAA, SpaceShipTwo - a spacecraft designed to hold two pilots and six passengers - will hitch a ride w ...
Stan Larkin (pictured on the right), who's now 25, was diagnosed with familial cardiomyopathy. This form of disease results in the heart having difficulty pumping enough blood through the body. Faced with a lack of compatible heart donors, Stan underwent an operation in 2014 to remove his failing heart and replace it with an external total artificial heart, dubbed the Freedom portable driver.
This battery-powered device uses compressed air to pump blood around the body in the same way a heart does, and as the name suggests, it is portable and only weighs 6 kilograms (13 pounds). The device does an incredible job at keeping the patient in a healthy condition while a donor heart becomes available, but it isn’t considered a long-term option. ...
A Turing machine is a hypothetical machine thought of by the mathematician Alan Turing in 1936. Despite its simplicity, the machine can simulate ANY computer algorithm, no matter how complicated it is.
Put simply, the Turing machine isn't a physical machine, but you can imagine it as an never-ending line of tape, broken down into squares. On each of those squares is a 1, a 0, or nothing at all. The machine reads one square at a time, and depending on what it reads, it performs an action - it either erases the number and writes a new one before moving on, or simply moves on to a different square.
Each of those actions, which mathematicians call a 'state', are determined by the mathematical algorithm or problem the Turing machine has been desi ...
Oven a century ago, people were using technology to help them solve math problems. This 100-year-old calculator still works today, and it can calculate into the billions. While the machine may be mathematically accurate, it weighs approximately 70 pounds, significantly more than modern day calculators. That doesn’t sound very convenient. But then again, imagine how strong you would get carrying a 70-pound calculator around school
Anyone who used a PC in the 1990's most likely used one with the most popular operating system of its time, Windows 95. Although it reached EOL (end-of-life) status in 2003, Windows 95 doesn't appear to want to die. It has made appearances on smartphones, handheld devices, and tablets for quite some time now, and people don't seem to be getting enough of it. Thanks to a young programmer, we can now have Windows 95 running in almost any web browser using emscripten, an emulator that converts C++ code to JavaScript in real-time. It requires no downloads, plugins, or any special software.
The emulator takes a minute to load up, but once you’re inside it, it’s surprisingly snappy. It provides you with a full Windows 95 operating system and e ...
Li-Fi is a wireless technology that transmits high-speed data using visible light communication and will be available in the coming months. With scientists achieving speeds of 224 gigabits per second in the lab using Li-Fi earlier this year (that's equivalent to 18 movies of 1.5 GB each being downloaded every single second), the potential for this technology to change everything about the way we use the Internet is huge.
Scientists have now taken Li-Fi out of the lab for the first time, trialing it in offices and industrial environments in Tallinn, Estonia, reporting that they can achieve data transmission at 1 GB per second - that's 100 times faster than current average Wi-Fi speeds.
The technology uses Visible Light Communication, a medium ...
The 1977 HP-01 digital calculator was arguably the very first smart-watch to hit the market nearly 38 years before the Apple Watch. The watch was a marvel for its time. Not only could it perform basic calculations, the watch could do dynamic time and date calculations, algebra, and even function as a stopwatch and alarm clock. The watch in perfect condition can be found on eBay from time-to-time, for a price ranging up to $14 500 on eBay.
What can we learn from chimps swinging their hips? In this Nature Video, the walking style of our primate cousins are investigated, and we see what they can teach us about our ambling ancestors.
Watch the Nikon Coolpix p900 camera zoom into the moon. This is the first bridge camera on the market with an 83x optical zoom, and it sure is something. It also includes a digital zoom, which reaches to 166x, or 4,000 mm.
What is the difference between optical and digital zoom?
An optical zoom is a true zoom lens, like the zoom lens you’d use on a film camera. They produce much better-quality images. Some cameras offer a digital zoom, which is simply some in-camera image processing. When you use a digital zoom, the camera enlarges the image area at the center of the frame and trims away the outside edges of the picture. The result is the same as when you open an image in your photo-editing program, crop away the edges of the picture, and t ...
When you turn on your TV, it is the definition of ironic to watch the news channels for information about planet mass destruction. Whilst when you step outside your door, it is quite alarming and obvious that our earth is suffering. When every person around you, from toddlers to elderly, own some for of technology, with no means of recycling old items. When students, each with their own copies of pages. When potable water has not yet reached the most needy of nations. When human greed is apparent with every innovative idea claiming to "revolutionize "a domain brought up to make a quick buck. Drilling, mining, industrialization, politics, scavenging for resources, suffocating our environment... This may all seem negative, but coming from a ...
Known as the Smart Boy, now you can convert your smartphone into an interactive playable console.
The coolest feature? The Smart Boy will also work with original Game Boy and Game Boy Color game cartridges, which will slot into the back of the device.
Coat the inside of the bottle with LiquiGlide! LiquiGlide works by creating a thin layer of lubricant that prevents friction caused by sticky foods and substances. Created originally in 2012 by a professor, Kripa Varanasi and his grad students at MIT, its makers hope that its application into the containers of various products, including gel, mayonnaise, and glue will help reduce waste. Interestingly, studies show that people end up throwing out up to a quarter of a product because it’s too much of a pain to coax out the layers that stick to the container. ...
I didn't lol Hundreds of thousands of kilometres of submarine cables lye on the ocean floor - sometimes at depths nearing 8,000 metres. These cables are essential for powering the modern Internet, transmitting 99 percent of all international data.
The Submarine Cable Map is a free resource from TeleGeography. Data contained in this map is drawn from the Global Bandwidth Research Service and is updated on a regular basis. ...
When a person dies from cancer, the culprit isn't usually the original tumor - it's metastasis, the spread of cancer cells throughout the body. Now, researchers have managed to package a drug in nanoparticles (a microscopic particle with at least one dimension less than 100 nm) so that it can target these cancer cells without, crucially, interfering with normal cells - and report that they've stopped cancer cells from spreading in mice. Nanoparticle research is currently an area of intense scientific research, due to a wide variety of potential applications in biomedical, optical, and electronic fields.
Israel-based company, StoreDot, has developed a battery made from a new material called nanodots that can charge a smartphone in just 30 seconds, and could be scaled up to charge an electric car within minutes. These special ‘nanodots’, which are artificial peptide molecules - about 2.1 nanometers in diameter - are released into the battery to rapidly increase its absorption and retention of power - almost like a sponge.
Being a person that dislikes the smell or sight of blood, it makes me happy to read that a product that could prevent the leakage of blood has been created. The inventors call it "vetigel", but the "Band Aid of the Future" seems to be a better name. This product is a plant based adhesive that can heal wounds and clot blood within seconds. It has a great potential to revolutionize the Emergency Medicine field.
"The gel activates blood’s natural clotting process and is made with biocompatible components that can be absorbed directly into the body. By reassembling onto a wound site, VETIGEL mimics the body’s extracellular matrix and accelerates the production of fibrin, which enables the body to clot rapidly."
For all those doubters out there, this one is for you.
Lunar Mission One, which was announced today at the Royal Society in London, will be the UK’s first trip to the moon. It’s an exploratory robotic mission that hopes to see a probe land on the moon’s South Pole within the next ten years, should funding allow. The aim of the venture is to drill through the surface, reaching a depth of at least 20 meters, but perhaps as deep as 100 meters.
By analyzing this 4.5 billion year old rock that has been shielded from cosmic radiation and meteor bombardment, scientists hope to increase our understanding of the origins and evolution of the moon, solar system and even our planet. Furthermore, it should also inform us of the practicality of a permanent ...
Two days ago, I streamed history being made for the first time ever online, and witnessed the Philae lander's touchdown on Rosetta's comet. The journey took 10 years, 6.4 billion kms away from here, and a 7 hour long landing.
Unfortunately, it was an awkward landing where Philae landed approximately 1km away from its intended landing site that currently, one of its 3 legs is not on the surface of the comet and it itself is oriented in a way that no sufficient sunlight is being recieved enough to charge its batteries ever 12 hour rotation.
At the moment, plans to try to "hop" the robot back into a position for enough sunlight are being studied, hopefully in time to execute them before Philae dies out sometime between next Friday and Saturday. ...
It takes hundreds of hours to become a proficient helicopter pilot but this new 'volocopter' could change all that. Its 18 rotor blades make the craft incredibly stable and within two years it could be on the market
These tiny chips have been designed to bring the capability of the Internet to everyday objects in your home. Think smart light globes, smart vacuum cleaners, and smart coffee makers, all communicating wirelessly with each other to cater to your every whim.
A new robotic 'smart suit' has been developed by FastCompany to give anyone from soldiers and fire-fighters to hiking enthusiasts and the elderly a bit of superhuman strength. It's lightweight, flexible, and can be worn under clothes.
According to its makers, "the suit works by mimicking the action of the leg muscles and tendons when a person walks, with an actuator system giving small, carefully timed assistance at the ankle and hip joints without restricting the wearer’s movement. The breakthrough is in the 'structured functional textiles' that transmit those applied forces all over the body during natural movement. Wearable, flexible sensors integrate into the fabric to gauge the body’s movement and provide support at the right moment." ...
Say hello to the Blackberry Passport. This killer phone sports a huge 4.5 inch 1440x1440 LCD display, massive 3450 mAH battery, and a capacitive touch keyboard. According to its makers, the phone's resolution is perfect for seeing images accurately, and any doctor who wants to look at detailed x-rays on their smartphone couldn’t do any better than the device’s 4.5-inch screen.
Pixie Dust is a new display technology that uses sound waves to levitate tiny particles that are then arranged into images and animations. Imagine these floating particles suddenly coming together to form a computer or television screen.
Advances in technology have given rise to an abundance of ways to share our stories. Created for the Exceptional Hardware Software Meeting (EHSM) in Germany next month, "Juanita Knits the Planet" is the world's smallest comic strip, detailing a day in the life of Juanita, a ten micron-tall girl-turned-robot. Long story short, this is done by blasting a stream of electrons at the surface of the hair, stripping away tiny layers of it. The electrons are directed using a tiny tube.
It's awe inspiring the fact that 100 years ago we were just beginning to experiment with flight. Now we are looking at quantum computers, gene therapy, a colony on Mars, and so much more. Life has been going on for three billion years. It's almost impossible to describe how rapid the recent change in technology has been. The future will be one hell of a sight if we make it that far.
NASA's 'Space Needle' (from the 1950s), or X-15, is the fastest and highest-flying manned aircraft. Decades after its record-breaking flights, this speed machine is inspiring a new generation of space planes.
I found this wonderful article online that seems to have been abandoned for some time now (source below), it's called:
Timing of Entry from PDAs to Smart Phones: The Evolution of an Industry
Despite having innovative and sophisticated product designs, most of the early PDA companies failed. This was mainly because the success of PDAs was dependent on several aspects of enabling technology that had not been fully developed at the time a flurry of companies ventured into this sector. The success of PDAs was dependent on the invention of enabling technologies such as handwriting recognition software, modems, and power and memory miniaturization.
Several enabling technologies had no capacity to support PDA manufacture. Handwriting recognition was ...
Meet Solar Impulse 2, an aircraft that can fly for up to five days straight and will reportedly be able to fly around the world. The plane is an impressive feat of engineering, with wings as wide as a 747, but weighing only a little more than the average car. Tests of the aircraft will begin in a few weeks, with the round-the-world attempt planned for next March.
This tiny camera invented by scientists F. Levent Degertekin can provide high-definition 3D images of your arteries. The camera, which is the size of an uncooked quinoa grain, uses ultrasound imaging techniques to capture what going on inside the body. The images produced can be used in the surgical theatre, giving doctors a direct view of obstructions in a blood vessel.
Co-owned by Google, NRG Energy and BrightSource Energy, the giant Ivanpah Solar Electric Generating System in California's Mojave desert will produce 392 MW of solar power at full capacity - enough electricity to provide 140,000 Californian homes with clean energy. The plant contains 300,000 large computer-controlled mirrors that help focus sunlight to the top of three 140m-high towers, where water is turned into steam to power turbines.
In a world’s first researchers have converted adult cells into stem cells that regenerated into different cell types of human skin and hair follicles. The follicles produced hair shaft and could be used for hair regeneration. Is this the end of baldness?
Architectural and engineering firm Shimizu plans to solve Earth's climate crisis by building a band of solar panels 400 kilometres wide along the entire 11,000-kilometre equator of the Moon. The energy generated will be beamed back to Earth in the form of microwaves and converted into electricity at ground stations. The team hopes to start building the "Luna Ring" from Moon materials in 2035.
Researchers have discovered a novel method to harness photosynthesis to create electricity. By attaching nanotubes to plant cells, the researchers were able to direct the electrons that plants free during photosynthesis down a wire and generate electrical current – and it was twice as powerful as electricity gathered from solar cells.
Chang’e-3 and the lunar rover Yutu (Jade Rabbit) landed on the lunar surface on December 14 at about 1:11 pm UTC. This is the first successful landing on the moon by any spacecraft in more than 30 years.
Hamish Scott from the UK has invented the Starpath, which is a special luminescent coating for roads and paths. The multi-layered, organic material collects and stores energy from light during the day and releases it as a blueish glow at night that can last for 16 hours. The technology is now being trialled at Christ's Pieces Park in Cambridge, and if successful, could slash electricity bills, plus it's 100% recyclable.
Imagine dropping your phone and seeing it bounce rather than break.
Using microscale plates of oxide materials that slide over each other, like geological plates, Australian researchers are a step closer to creating fully functional flexible electronic devices.
These are the ‘pillownauts,’ and they just got out of bed for the first time in 21 days. The paid volunteers for the European Space Agency laid with their feet up in a medical facility while scientists poked and prodded them to try to understand the effects of spaceflight on astronauts’ bodies.
One of the subjects who took part in this investigation said: “The first days of each session were the worst. The body needs to adapt and I had migraines and backaches."
A stent is a small mesh tube that's used to treat narrowed or weakened arteries in the body. Arteries are blood vessels that carry blood away from your heart to other parts of your body.
You may have a stent placed in an artery as part of a procedure called angioplasty. Angioplasty restores blood flow through narrowed or blocked arteries. Stents help prevent the arteries from becoming narrowed or blocked again in the months or years after angioplasty.
"I believe that at the end of the century the use of words and general educated opinion will have altered so much that one will be able to speak of machines thinking without expecting to be contradicted."
Alan Turing (left) was a hero to the British people and the free world whose work cracking the codes of Axis powers saved lives and helped the war effort.
He was highly influential in the development of computer science, giving a formalisation of the concepts of "algorithm" and "computation" with the Turing machine, which can be considered a model of a general purpose computer ...
The program builds on previous research and uses a mathematical model to determine which letter the test subject was thinking about at the time of the scan. Researchers hope to refine this technology in the future in order to reconstruct memories or dreams.
The hyperloop would be solar powered and connect cities up to 900 miles away from each other. The passenger pods would be enclosed, which diminishes concerns about weather and interacting with wildlife. The designer of the hyperloop is Elon Musk, the founder of SpaceX and Tesla Motors.
There are still issues to work out before the plan would be practical, but it is an exciting look forward to alternative modes of transportation.
This is the Northrop Grumman B-2 Spirit (stealth bomber). This machine is capable of pin-point strikes on most any hardened target available such as underground bunkers. Needless to say, it is also capable of delivering nuclear weapons.
This stealthy aircraft was designed in a way that enemies could not anticipate its arrival, but its 22,600 Kg bomb load and a multitude of nuclear missiles would ensure they'd know when it had arrived. Named the B-2 Spirit, its advantage in battle is derived from its designation spirit; it operates like a ghost.
Engines: Four General Electric F118-GE-100 turbofans of 17,300 lbs. thrust each Wingspan: 172 ft. Length: 69 ft. Height: 17 ft. Speed: High subsonic Takeoff weight: 336,500 lbs. ...
Not much of a believer in dwarf planets, but here's a cool schematic of some.
In 2006 the organization responsible for classifying celestial bodies, the International Astronomical Union, decided that a new class of objects was needed. The solar system's erratic ninth planet, Pluto, was assigned to the new “dwarf planet” category along with four other bodies, all tinier than Earth’s moon. Some astronomers expect there may be as many as 50 dwarf planets in the solar system.
Eris, the largest dwarf planet, is only slightly bigger than Pluto, at 1,445 miles in diameter (2,326 km). Discovered in 2003, Eris orbits at an average distance of 68 AU (that is, 68 times the Earth’s distance from the sun) and takes 561.4 Earth years to circle the sun. E ...
The FLIP (FLoating Instrument Platform) ship is an open ocean research vessel designed to partially flood and pitch backward 90 degrees, resulting in only the front 55 feet (17 metres out of 108 metres) of the vessel pointing up out of the water, with bulkheads becoming decks. When flipped, most of the buoyancy for the platform is provided by water at depths below the influence of surface waves, hence FLIP is a stable platform mostly immune to wave action. At the end of a mission, compressed air is pumped into the ballast tanks in the flooded section and the vessel returns to its horizontal position so it can be towed to a new location. ...
A Taiwan-based company has built a transparent smartphone with a multi-touch display from a light piece of glass. Although it's still a prototype, the executives have mentioned the transparent smartphone could arrive in late 2013.
