Touch technology for movies and video games

It's called haptics, and Surround allows you to immerse yourself in the scenes, as well as by sight, even with the touch

The Disney Research Centre, Carnegie Mellon University, specializing in neuroscience applied to new technologies, and the Black Rock Studio, a research center for the creation of video games, have developed a new technology can bring to life directly "on their skin "the feelings of the protagonists and to immerse themselves in the scenes, as well as by sight, even with the touch.

This revolution in the field of films and video games has been called by its inventors Surround Haptics and presented in Canada, in Vancouver, during the international conference Siggraph 2011, dedicated to computer graphics and interactive technologies.

The system consists of a padded chair vibrating device, called adapters, controlled by a software that can create a "virtual actuator" that allows us to perceive continuous movements on the skin that are very close to the real ones.

The software also controls the position of the actuators, adapting to user's movements, and the intensity of the sensations on the skin, so they are perfectly in sync with the scenes of the video you are watching or video game in which you are playing.

"The perceptions generated by the actuators - Scientists have explained - are called 'phantom sensations' and have been studied since the fifties. But their use in video 'Touch' has so far been limited due to an incomplete understanding of mechanisms of control actuators used to generate the sensations. "

According to the researchers, the technology has wide range of applications and can also be incorporated in other settings, such as clothing and gloves. If you watch a video that simulates a race car sitting in a chair equipped with Surround haptics technology, the technology allows, for example, to hear the imperfections of the road, falling objects on a machine, or feel dizzy, accelerated , braking and collisions with other vehicles or objects in a realistic way. If the system is, however, inserted in a sheath that wraps an arm, provide researchers, haptics Surround allows you to receive a pat on the arm as if it were true simulated.

How polluter that building?

The response from the instrument developed by the UN called Common Carbon Metric

It's called common carbon metric (CCM) and was developed by the United Nations Environment Programme (UNEP), which now are testing at the International Organization for Standardization (ISO). It 'a tool to measure the energy consumption and carbon emissions in homes and offices, which, as is known, are among the main sources of pollution. According to some estimates, in fact, the greenhouse gases generated by the buildings should further increase rising from 8.6 billion tons in 2004 to 11.1 billion tons in 2020.

From this tool you can finally get to outline a consistent protocol that can be used by designers, architects and designers.

"Here at UNEP believe that the sector holds great potential to contribute to significant reductions in greenhouse gas emissions," said Sylvie Lemmet, the Director of the Division of Technology, Industry and Economics Programme. "The development of the Common Carbon Metric and the decision to treat it as an ISO international standard, are important steps to remove barriers that block this potential and provide a path toward greater energy efficiency in buildings," he added.

The CCM allows you to perform calculations on energy consumption (and its impact) of buildings in use per square meter or per occupant during a year is not applied to construction. Considering the entire life cycle of buildings, the tool takes account of the phase in which is the largest energy consumption. Contemplates two measurement approaches: a 'top down' for a group of buildings, a 'bottom-up' for a single property.

After the initial tests performed by the Sustainable Buildings and climate initiatives in 2010, the CCM was further "refined" with a second experimental phase started recently, the preliminary results will be presented in October. Proposals to use the CCM as a basis for new international standards for buildings will be put on the agenda of the ISI within a year. If you consider appropriate, new projects of international standards on energy consumption and CO2 emissions, once defined, could be adopted within three years.

According to UNEP, "the CCM is intended to be used around the world, including developing countries, where the limits on data collection and infrastructure can not sustain the current methods for measuring energy consumption and emission levels during the life cycle of a building. "

The smartphone? The load once a week

A group of U.S. researchers has developed Enerji, a method that could reduce consumption by 90% of the CPU

How many times have you felt a sense of discomfort or nervousness because you had the phone with the battery ground and maybe you had to reload the night before? At least once, to be positive, it will happen at all.

From the United States is coming, however, seems an application can eliminate this problem. The hero is called Enerji (named after the Java language), an approach based on software, which provides for the rounding up of some numbers, or the elimination of certain control procedures, solutions that reduce the workload on the CPU and that the researchers can already lead to a reduction in fuel consumption between 30 and 50%.

To achieve it have been researchers at the University of Washington. In the simulations the system is able to reduce consumption by 50% (in one case), but the goal is to reach 90%, with further development to reach goals, even from the hardware side.

"The basic idea is to take advantage of processes that can survive in small errors when, for example, reduces or controls the voltage is reduced. Examples are streaming audio and video, games and recognition of images in time real applications of augmented reality on mobile devices, "the researchers explain.

The system provides two different ways to code applications: one for processes that require the greatest precision, such as password management and encryption, and one for all those - the majority - more tolerant to errors.

The two environments, the researchers said, are rigidly separated to prevent unwanted movements there are data, a key element in maintaining security.
Anticipated developments of the project.

Our dreams on TV

A new magnetic scanners' was developed at Berkeley University

A new magnetic scanning has been developed by researchers at the University of California, Berkeley, led by Jack Gallant. The device can, for the first time in history, to transform the thoughts and dreams into images.

The operation of this is quite complex: it is used a magnetic resonance imaging system that records the brain's blood flow that occurs within the visual cortex.

At the end of "registration", the system will automatically connect to YouTube looking at the same time about 18 million videos, taking from them the scenes that most resemble those reflected by the brain. 
 At the end of all this, the clips of the movies that correspond to our brain activity, are merged into a single video clip, thus providing the most precise result.

Professor Jack Gallant - neuroscientist at UC Berkeley and author of the research published in the journal Current Biology - explains the research conducted by his team: "It is a great step towards the reconstruction of the images and we are opening a window on the films that are projected in our minds ".

For the moment the technology is still experimental, but scientists are confident of being able to create some sort of brain-machine interface that allows, for people who are completely paralyzed, to use a computer with the help of the mind.

Created the first 'artificial language'

It 'was made ​​in Italy and will help' to test the food and then to understand the secrets to intensify the flavors

And 'born in the Department of Chemistry of Natural Substances, Universita' degli Studi di Napoli Federico II, thanks to Anthony Randazzo, Ettore Novellino, Roberta Trotta and other researchers is the first "artificial language" and will help to test the food and then the secrets to intensify the flavors.

The language was tested on 18 different cans of tomatoes purchased in different stores.
The Italian experts have thought of using a nuclear magnetic resonance spectroscopy (NMR), because 'not only allows to discern the different components of a food, but also to seek out what's' the ingredient responsible for the taste of a food product .

''In practice, this tool gives us' the chemical profile of the food - Anthony Randazzo explains - and these data are then crossed with the sensory characteristics of known food itself. And what 'allows you to associate a certain chemical component of food at a certain sensory descriptor.''
According to the researchers this tool, rapid, sensitive and relatively inexpensive, has good potential 'and may be of interest to food companies.

A robot or a gecko?

It weighs 240 grams and uses the van der Walls forces to walk on vertical surfaces

At Simon Fraser University, California, has developed a small robot, weighing 240 grams, able to climb vertical surfaces along 3.4 cm per second. It 'been dubbed the robot gecko, just because technology makes it possible to take inspiration from the sticky fingers of pets.

The platform or TBCP Climbing Belt Timeless-II has a number of possible technical applications, such as ducts and pipes in the inspection of buildings, aircraft or nuclear power plants and has been explained by Jeff Krahn, one of the authors of the research, the journal Smart Materials and Structures.

The ability to "walk" of geckos on vertical surfaces is due to the structure of their fingers, sticky but dry, which use the van der Walls forces, weak attractive forces that molecules exert very close to each other. The researchers at Simon Fraser have the same structure reconstructed in the laboratory, using the pads polymethylsiloxane, PDMS, known as fibrillar adhesives. The stickers have been assembled in such a way as to form lumps of mushrooms or 17 micrometers wide and 10 micrometers in height. The van der Walls forces, however weak, can be fully exploited due to the structure of the mushroom-bearing adhering perfectly to the vertical surface by virtue of their flexibility.

The autonomy of TBCP-II is satisfactory even on large objects, but the researchers aim to make it completely independent.

In Bergamo, and 'arrival at the hospital of the future

John XXIII: excellence not only for Lombardy, but for the whole of Italy

7 towers 5 floors each and 3 for the central plate; 24 rooms per floor (which can accommodate up to a maximum of 46 patients) and a maximum capacity of 1200 beds. 600,000 cubic meters were built and another 200,000 available for future expansion. 150,000 square meters of total area, 7,200 rooms, 1,400 baths, 16,800 keys and 60,000 square meters of parking spaces, 36 operating rooms, 238 clinics, labor 8 rooms, 88 beds in ICU and 1 heliport. These are the numbers that make the hospital 'Giovanni XXIII' hospital of the future of Bergamo, Lombardy, not only for excellence, but for the whole of Italy. A structure designed with the most modern technology that has nothing to envy to the most advanced hospitals in the world.

The hospital will open by the end of 2012 and its interior seems to be projected in 'other dimension: disappear and paper medical records, everything will be digitized and legible on the tablet of doctors and practitioners. The internal transport will be fully automated via pneumatic tube - for small things and samples - and a system of light transport "turtles" that, by means of magnets, follow the path indicated by the operator. Similarly the exchange of data between physicians, therefore, will be easier and faster. "We have chosen to equip the hospital in the latest generation of machines and equipment - said the President of the Lombardy Region, Roberto Formigoni -. In this structure lacks nothing compared to the most advanced in the world. Doctors and staff can then rely on the best of technology currently in circulation. "

The hotel opened its doors to thousands of citizens (over 3,500 to be exact) that have come to discover the medicine of tomorrow. A visit to see first hand a structure "which revolves around the patient and not vice versa," said Formigoni, "where everything is designed to make him feel at the center. And 'This is the'intensità care', ie a way to follow in every moment of his stay. "

Galileo his first signal

Try browsing the E1 band, which will serve 'Open Service, and super free

Galileo, the European satellite navigation system, gave the first signal from its launch last October 21. By the Politecnico di Torino and Istituto Superiore Mario Boella, among the first to receive and decode the navigation test of the first of two satellites, it was learned that the signal was traced the band scheduled to open, free service, called Open Service and present on the E1 band. The latter will be used as early as 2014, when the system begins to operate, and it was possible to receive the signal through a receiver software developed by the scholars in Turin.

At the time, the tests focus on the first of the satellites, Galileo-FM2, but expects the launch of a second pair of satellites in 2014. The aim of the work of the Polytechnic Institute Boella of NavSAS (Navigation Signal Analysis and Simulation) and Esa (European Space Agency) is primarily a satellite navigation service free of charge for ambulances and police continued, capable of running in emergency situations or in extremely critical.

The batteries will be in the future of paper?

Researchers at Sony have (almost) made ​​the first bio-battery

A mix of water and various enzymes that facilitate the transformation of cellulose paper: this is based on the new technology being studied in the laboratories of the giant Sony. The goal is to develop eco-friendly batteries, which can not damage the environment, revolutionizing the field of devices for power energy.

The chemical reaction experienced by the Japanese electronics generate an energy that can power a small fan. The study is still in its infancy, however, is not so imminent launch on the market.

Sony's engineers have indicated that they are concentrating their efforts because the energy produced by the reaction of water and enzymes increases significantly. In this case, would take over the patent for the first bio-paper and battery stemming from the technology sector could change radically.

IBM: The five innovations that will change our lives

Like every year, the corporation shall prepare Five in Five: the quintet of technological forecasts for the next five years


We can power our house with the energy created by ourselves. We'll never need a password. Mind reading is no longer science fiction. The digital divide will cease to exist. Junk mail can become far post of the utmost importance.

Here, in summary, the technological innovations that will change our view in the next five years. A predictable and, as every year, IBM Five in Five that drafted, based on social and market trends, as well as on emerging technologies.

The energy comes in all forms and can come from everything around us: IBM expected that advances in technology related to renewable energy will allow individuals to take up this kinetic energy, which is now being wasted, and use it to help feed homes, workplaces and cities.

Password goodbye. According to the company, there will be no need to create, track or remember different passwords for different logins. The key? Exploiting the unique biological identity of each person: biometrics - facial definition, retinal scanning and voice files - will be combined using software to build your online passwords unique DNA, in complete safety.

Mind reading is a utopia for decades for fans of science fiction, but their desire may soon come true. Scientists at IBM are conducting research on the brain how to connect to devices such as computers or smart phones. Just think of calling someone and the call is made. Bioinformatics scientists have designed headphones with advanced sensors to read the electrical activity of the brain can recognize facial expressions, excitement, levels of concentration and thoughts of a person without any action which is carried out physically. Within 5 years, by the promise, we will begin to see the first applications of this technology in the field of games and entertainment.

But in five years, including the digital divide will shrink considerably, thanks to advances in mobile technology. Today the world has 7 billion inhabitants. In five years there will be 5.6 billion mobile devices sold, which means that 80% of the current global population will own a mobile device. As will become cheaper to own a phone, people without a lot of buying power can do much more than they do today. In India, for example, using voice technology and mobile devices, IBM has allowed the illiterate inhabitants of rural villages to circulate information through recorded messages on their phones.

According to Five in Five, including the spam's days are numbered. In five years, unsolicited advertising might look like personalized and relevant to do away with spam. At the same time, spam filters are so precise that we will not be disturbed by unwanted product presentations. IBM is developing a technology that uses real-time analytics to understand and integrate data from all aspects of your life, such as preferences and social networks online, and recommending to present useful information only for you.

Here is the thread most small world

It was created by placing a crystal of silicon and phosphorus atoms and a number of '10,000 times more' thinner than a hair

The smallest thread in silicon - which measures four atoms in width and height of an atom - were made ​​at the University of New South Wales in Sydney, Australia, and illustrated in the journal Science.

According to the study, despite the extremely small diameter - 10,000 times thinner than a human hair - this theme has outstanding electrical properties equal to the same electrical current carrying capacity of copper.

The researchers tested the electrical resistivity of their discovery - that the measure of the ease with which electric current can flow - proving that it does not depend on the width of the wire. This means that even for the "nanowires" Ohm's law applies.

Achieved by placing a silicon crystal many atoms of phosphorus, lined up in long chains and separated by only a millionth of a millimeter, the world's smallest thread opens up the possibility of connecting the components of the atomic-scale quantum computers. The thread of silicon could in fact be used for addressing individual atoms that form the computational units of these machines of the future.

At the following link you can watch a video about the discovery with Professor Michelle Simmons interviews the student and the Bent Weber https://tv.unsw.edu.au/video/down-to-the-wire.

The smartphone will recognize you from moving

Comes from the Universita 'di Padova and Trento biometric method to unlock your phone without typing the code

The patent is based on the observation that the arm movement performed by the same person to answer the phone feature is sufficiently stable and can be used to identify the person.

So Mauro Conti, a researcher at the Department of Mathematics, University of Padua and Bruno Crispo, University of Trento have developed a method to unlock the biometric smart phones without typing the code.

This technology allows you to unlock your phone and identify the owner in a safe manner, without the password, and can be implemented with sensors that are already present in smartphones currently on the market, so do not require any type of change by the manufacturers.

"The first experiments in the laboratory - Professor Conti said - have been very satisfactory with a false recognition rate of only 2.5%. This shows that the new method is superior in reliability compared to other biometrics such as that based on the recognition of the cavity of the ear. "That the smartphone market is growing, and compared to previous generation phones have more memory and computing power, have a touchscreen, GPS and many sensors including, for example, accelerometer and gyroscope. For such a fast development of hardware is not paid by an equally rapid implementation of some software, including the identification of the user password or pin. This is what the researchers note, promising that the biometric method is a real revolution in the security of mobile phones.

Green energy from a volcano in Oregon

The U.S. and Google among the supporters of an ambitious project that hopes to remove the concerns with regard to geothermal experiments


A group of scientists in Seattle Altarock Energy and Davenport Newberry Holdings LLC has announced plans to scale huge: pump 24 million gallons of water in the wall of a dormant volcano in Oregon, the hope is that the water will return to hot surface, to the point where it can be used to generate clean energy and economic, with no side effects due to explosion or the magma that flows from active volcanoes.

It is an ambitious experiment would return attention to geothermal resources, which have been set aside for the high number of technical issues to be addressed and for fear of generating earthquakes. In fact people try to turn into heat energy contained in the earth's crust for more than a century, but most of the phenomena has already been exploited, the new frontier of the rocks are hot but they do not have cracks or openings.

To stimulate this heat engineers are developing a new technology called Enhanced Geothermal System: consists of implanting depth of the wells in the rock and use it to pump water inside, creating narrow fractures, a process known as "hydroshearing". While cold water is pumped from the tanks, the steam is extracted from the crust.



The doubts over the process dell'EGS are not only related to the risk of earthquakes (as has happened in Arkansas and Ohio), but also to the difficulty of creating a reservoir large enough to support the opening of a station. No coincidence that in business there are only a couple of small power plants in France and Germany (and a third, then closed, Switzerland).

Why then is back to talk about volcanoes? Why AltaRock has developed a new technology to build larger tanks built ecologically, and Newberry claims to be able to apply the system dell'EGS volcanic rock.

A challenge at this point, has attracted investments of the Department of Energy of the United States, which are investing $ 21.5 million, and some private investors among which is the name of Google (with 6.3 million) . For 21 days will pump 800 gallons of water AltaRock per minute. If the saying is correct - "drop hollows out the rock" - the cold water will dig deeper and deeper.

If the volcano in Oregon may or may not mark a significant milestone in the development of green energy sources, you will see, what is certain is that the concerns are many: the government will monitor every action, and is already in a table which is evaluating all the possible issues to prevent the action of the pump is stopped. AltaRock has provided virtually no risk of earthquakes, but have placed the project in an area completely away from human presence is a guarantee for some not very reassuring.