First human brain-to-brain interface

The telepathic cyborg lives, sort of. University of Washington scientists Rajesh Rao and Andrea Stocco claim that they are the first to demonstrate human brain-to-brain communication. Rao sent a signal into a Stocco's brain via the Internet that caused him to move his right hand. Brain-to-brain communication has previously been demonstrated between rats and from humans to rats.
"The experiment is a proof in concept. We have tech to reverse engineer the brain signal and transmit it from one brain to another via computer," said Chantel Prat, an assistant professor of psychology who worked on the project.

The schematic diagram shows how the brainwave signal was transferred from one brain to another.

(Credit: University of Washington)

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An Operating System for the Cyber War Era

Kaspersky thinks it can protect the control systems for power plants and other critical infrastructure. Eugene Kaspersky, founder of the Russian company Kaspersky, which has led discovery and analysis of state-backed malware such as Stuxnet, wrote in a blog post today that the project was needed to protect “defenseless” industrial control software.

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Google Art Project

Google has recently launched Art Project, a collaboration with some of the world's most famous museums, with the goal of enabling people to visit and see art. Google is utilizing the same technology in Google Earth to map the art projects that can be zoomed in investigated in fine detail.

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Harvesting heat to power electronics

Thermoelectric (TE) energy harvesting is based on the heat flux through a thermoelectric element. The heat flux is driven by a temperature difference across the element. The generated voltage is proportional to the number of elements and the temperature difference.

The TE-Power Node uses any source of thermal energy to drive a wireless transceiver, storing power in a thin-film battery. The Node is a test bed for designers looking to build the next generation of sensor networks, in which the sensors power themselves by harvesting energy from the environment. The battery stores the power that trickles in from sources such as a warm industrial exhaust pipe and then releases the accumulated energy in a pulse powerful enough to operate the radio. A 10 °C difference in temperature produces enough electricity to transmit 13 bytes of information per second.

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Intel: Chips in brains will control computers by 2020

By the year 2020, you won't need a keyboard and mouse to control your computer, say Intel Corp. researchers. Instead, users will open documents and surf the Web using nothing more than their brain waves. Scientists at Intel's research lab in Pittsburgh are working to find ways to read and harness human brain waves so they can be used to operate computers, television sets and cell phones. The brain waves would be harnessed with Intel-developed sensors implanted in people's brains.

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Vote for ideas in Project 10 to the 100

Project 10¹⁰⁰ is a call for ideas to change the world by helping as many people as possible. Thousands of people from more than 170 countries submitted more than 150,000 ideas. During the review process, 16 "big ideas" are distilled and each are inspired by numerous individual submissions. You can vote to realize one of them here. Voting ends on October 8, 2009.

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Tracking Flu from Search Engine Query Data

Google released an experimental tool that tracks the intensity and movement of influenza virus across United States by comparing the usage search keywords related to flu. The tool, known as Google Flu Trends, makes use of the fact that, before they go to the doctor's office, many people will search for information about what ails them. Researchers from the Center for Disease Control (CDC) found a strong link between these searches and reports from doctors of flu outbreaks a week to 10 days later.

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Project 10 to the 100th

Project 10¹⁰⁰ (pronounced "Project 10 to the 100th") is a call for ideas to change the world by helping as many people as possible. Organized by Google, anyone can submit an idea that can change the world by October 20, 2008. After the voting period, 5 ideas will be selected and a total of 10 million is committed by Google to jump start these ideas.

www.project10tothe100.com

Google Chrome

Google is planning to launch a webbrowser called Google Chrome that will rival Microsoft Internet Explorer and Mozilla FireFox. Here's some background information and new features of Google's Chrome: Google Chrome comic book.

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Microsoft Worldwide Telescope

Microsoft Research has released the Spring Beta version of a new powerful web-based application called Worldwide Telescope for exploring the universe.

A researcher at the Harvard Center for Astrophysics, Roy Gould gave the first public demo of the World Wide Telescope developed by Curtis Wong and his team at Microsoft.

"While watching the demo, I realized the way I look at the world was about to change."
-Robert Scoble

Here's the demo presentation at TEDTalk:



Related story at nytimes.com

Open Yale - Free Yale College Courses Debut Online

Yale University is making some of its most popular undergraduate courses freely available to anyone in the world with access to the Internet.

The project, called Open Yale Courses, presents unique access to the full content of a selection of college-level courses and makes them available in various formats, including downloadable and streaming video, audio only and searchable transcripts of each lecture. Syllabi, reading assignments, problem sets and other materials accompany the courses.

Open Yale website: http://open.yale.edu/courses

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DreamSpark - Microsoft to give free software to college students...

Microsoft unveiled the DreamSpark student program, which is a software giveaway that will ultimately provide millions of college and high school students worldwide with free access to the latest professional-grade Microsoft developer and designer tools. The program is available to all students whose studies touch on technology, design, math, science, and engineering.

DreamSpark program includes Visual Studio 2008 (professional), Expression Studio and Windows Server 2003.

To register and download: https://downloads.channel8.msdn.com

NIH Curriculum Supplement Series

National Institute of Health (NIH) released a new public ebook that contains information about scientific perspective to common concepts such brain, sleep, alcohol, cancer, etc. Recommended, available here.

Other public ebooks on NCBI bookshelf are available for free of charge here.

Designing Interactions

A book by Bill Moggridge (Author)
www.designinginteractions.com

In Designing Interactions, award-winning designer Bill Moggridge introduces us to forty influential designers who have shaped our interaction with technology.

About the Author
Award-winning designer Bill Moggridge is a founder of IDEO, one of the most successful design firms in the world and one of the first to integrate the design of software and hardware into the practice of industrial design. He has been Visiting Professor in Interaction Design at the Royal College of Art in London, Lecturer in Design at the London Business School, member of the Steering Committee for the Interaction Design Institute in Ivrea, Italy, and is currently Consulting Associate Professor in the Joint Program in Design at Stanford University.

Features for next Windows...

What new features would you like to have in the next generation Windows Operating System?

• Inclusion of a completely vector-based graphical-user interface
• Multi-session Remote Desktop
• Session-restore feature for Internet Explorer 7
• Capability for other Windows PCs to act as Media Center Extenders
• ISO/BIN system-image support
• Download manager for Internet Explorer
• Replace error ID number with plain language explanation

Knovel

A major source for scienctific and engineering information, Knovel released an online tool for converting units, might be useful for students...

www.knovel.com/unitconverter

Amazon Kindle

A new gadget from Amazon.com is Amazon Kindle. It's is an amazing e-book reader but it has many new cool features.

It has free wireless access to sprint cell phone network, so you can get latest books, newspapers and blogs online.

Here's the link for the product: http://www.amazon.com/kindle This page includes nice videos that demonstrates key features of the product...

scitopia.org

A user-friendly federated search engine for researchers/engineers from science societies have arrived.
http://www.scitopia.org

The new search portal scitopia.org was created through the collaboration of 15 leading science and technology societies including IEEE, OSA, APS, ASME, SPIE, SCIAM, etc. Search results are categorized among papers, patents and government documents (grants, etc.)

Joost - Next generation TV Experience

Joost is simply put as an internet tv but you have to experience it to understand...

Skype founders name new video start-up Joost

Here's an article at CNET that announce when everything started and below a Joost commercial


And below is Joost Show&Tell

Microsoft Surface

Microsoft Surface, announced on May 30, 2007, seems to be the one of the most innovative user interface project for the last couple of decades... Check out the introduction video below.



A similar project has been in the works by Jeff Han and presented a year earlier. Here's the video of that..
http://www.perceptivepixel.com/




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