IBM's Watson takes on Jeopardy

IBM has unveiled the details of its plans to build a computing system that can understand complex questions and answer with enough precision and speed to compete on a favorite quiz show, Jeopardy!. Onstage, completely isolated from other computers, the Internet, or human help, the Watson computer will receive the clue electronically, precisely when the human players see it. Competing in this way on Jeopardy! makes a great avenue for comparison between humans and machines. Competing at Jeopardy! is just the first step for DeepQA.

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Will designer brains divide humanity?

We are on the brink of technological breakthroughs that could augment our mental powers beyond recognition. It will soon be possible to boost human brainpower with electronic "plug-ins" or even by genetic enhancement. What will this mean for the future of humanity?

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Ultra-Efficient Organic LEDs

An organic light-emitting diode (OLED) developed in Germany has the potential to produce the same quality of white light as incandescent bulbs but with power efficiencies considerably better than even fluorescent lighting.

The prototype OLED could emerge as an ultra-efficient light source for displays and general lighting, says Sebastian Reineke, who led the research at the Institute for Applied Photophysics, in Dresden, Germany. The long-term goal is to fabricate the device using conventional low-cost roll-to-roll printing.

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Emotional speech leaves 'signature' on the brain

If I was reading this sentence aloud, your brain would be able to interpret whether I was speaking in anger, joy, relief, or sadness. That's because emotions in speech leave distinct "signatures" in the brain of the listener.

Now, for the first time, brain scans have now characterised those patterns. The finding could help determine where in the brain deficits in emotion processing occur in people with psychiatric disorders such as schizophrenia.

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Possible site of free will found in brain

Free will, or at least the place where we decide to act, is sited in a part of the brain called the parietal cortex, new research suggests. When a neurosurgeon electrically jolted this region in patients undergoing surgery, they felt a desire to, say, wiggle their finger, roll their tongue or move a limb. Stronger electrical pulses convinced patients they had actually performed these movements, although their bodies remained motionless. "What it tells us is there are specific brain regions that are involved in the consciousness of your movement," says Angela Sirigu (pdf format), a neuroscientist at the CNRS Cognitive Neuroscience Centre in Bron, France, who led the study.

The Science of Concentration

In the nearer future, neuroscientists might help you focus by observing your brain activity and providing biofeedback as you practice strengthening your concentration. Researchers have already observed higher levels of synchrony in the brains of people who regularly meditate.

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Augmented Reality

EARBUDS can pipe audio directly from a portable player to the ear. But did you ever imagine that eyeglasses or contact lenses could deliver digital images directly from a smartphone to the retina?
Several companies are already developing prototypes...

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Neuroenhancing

A young man I’ll call Alex recently graduated from Harvard. As a history major, Alex wrote about a dozen papers a semester. He also ran a student organization, for which he often worked more than forty hours a week; when he wasn’t on the job, he had classes. Weeknights were devoted to all the schoolwork that he couldn’t finish during the day, and weekend nights were spent drinking with friends and going to dance parties. “Trite as it sounds,” he told me, it seemed important to “maybe appreciate my own youth.” Since, in essence, this life was impossible, Alex began taking Adderall to make it possible...

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