by Drew Halley on July 30th, 2010
Over the next few days, Singularity Hub will be bringing exclusive coverage of the Open Science Summit 2010 taking place in Berkeley, CA this weekend. The conference is bringing together a wide range of speakers to talk about what 21st century science should look like, with special attention to crowd-sourced, decentralized innovation and development… basically a combination of scientific research and open source.
Topics include synthetic biology, open data access, gene patenting, DIY bio, the future of publishing & peer review, and open source drug discovery. We’ll be highlighting some exciting companies and projects, interviewing a few of the speakers, and generally reporting on presentations that caught our attention. Feel free to tune in at Fora.tv, which is streaming the conference. Read More
by Aaron Saenz on July 29th, 2010
Type however sloppily you want. BlindType knows what you mean to say.
Typing on the iPhone is like squeezing sausages into a soda can – you can get it to work, but it’s not pretty. BlindType is changing that. The startup has created a new touchscreen keyboard program of the same name that changes size, orientation, and position to match your wandering fingers as they type. BlindType also features some of the most impressive typing correction software I’ve ever seen. The result is a practical touchscreen interface that knows what you meant to type, even if you make mistakes. Lots of them. In fact, you can type without looking at the screen at all! It’s amazing, and I got to see it in person when I visited with BlindType creators Kostas Eleftheriou and Panos Petropoulos in San Francisco. Check out their demonstration video below. It’s hard to believe that they developed this software in less than one year.
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by Drew Halley on July 29th, 2010
The annual report from the American Cancer Society shows that US cancer death rates continue to decline in both men and women. Since this trend began in the early 1990’s, over 767,000 cancer deaths have been avoided. Researchers claim that the decline in cancer-caused death is associated with early detection, better treatments, and reduced smoking rates.
Between 1991 and 2006, cancer death rates dropped 21% in men and 12.3% in women. Fewer people are getting cancer in the first place: the incidence of cancer has decreased 1.3% per year in men from 2000 to 2006, and 0.5% per year in women from 1998 to 2006.
Most cancer deaths in men are caused by lung (29%), prostate (11%), and colon/rectal cancers (9%). The number of deaths caused by these cancers is on the decline; together, they account for 80% of the dropping death rate. In men especially, lower smoking rates have contributed to the decrease in lung cancer. Early detection has also had a big effect, with more men receiving regular prostate exams and colonoscopies to catch and treat cancer early. Read More
by Drew Halley on July 28th, 2010
Good news for all you aspiring Craig Venters out there. Before the end of the year, synthetic biologists will have a stocked factory of DNA building blocks with which to remix microbe life forms – one that will provide standardized, reliable components for the most creative of life sciences. Best of all? It’s free.
As we previously reported, the International Open Facility Advancing Biotechnology (BIOFAB) is a project to produce thousands of standardized genetic “parts” for researchers to use in the pioneering work of synthetic biology. Started with a seed grant from the National Science Foundation (NSF), BIOFAB is the world’s very first biological design-build facility. They will be providing bioparts to researchers gratis to speed along national research into new drugs, biofuels, chemicals, you name it – all the promising frontiers of synthetic biology. And they should be open for business within 6 months. Read More
by Aaron Saenz on July 28th, 2010
Huge video projectors could reshape urban skylines.
Is the office building across the street looking a little blasé? High powered projectors can turn the side of any structure into a huge canvas for living art. Dynamic images cover enormous surfaces often with some really cool augmented reality overtones. We’ve seen some impressive displays of this technology in the past, but now a company out of the UK, LCI Productions, has given us some more videos to gawk at. With multiple groups able to transform massive walls into massively cool art shows, we may be seeing the beginning of a field that forever alters urban environments. Check out three cool videos of LCI’s work below.
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by Aaron Saenz on July 28th, 2010
HULC is built for the Army, but there are better ideas.
The problem with military technology is that people like to use it to fight wars. Lockheed Martin recently announced in a press release that they had received $1.1 million and the go ahead from the US Army to perform lab tests on their HULC exoskeleton at the end of this year. The Human Universal Load Carrier is a powered and wearable device that supports weight, allowing a soldier to transport up to 200 lbs (~91kg) without feeling it. With a revamped structure (which Lockheed describes as ‘ruggedized’), longer battery life, and better sizing, HULC could be on the quick path to adoption into the field. But, honestly, I think the military applications are impractical. The range, power, and reliability of these devices doesn’t lend them to being taken out for days or weeks of a mission. I’m much more interested in a single line from the press release: “Lockheed Martin is also exploring exoskeleton designs to support industrial and medical applications.”
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by Aaron Saenz on July 27th, 2010
3D maps, like this one from Bing, help draw you in.
What’s the feature on my iPhone that I use the most? It’s not games, nor music, nor texting…not even calling. The tool I use most often on my smart phone is the map. And it’s not just because I’m prone to get lost and need directions. I’m also looking for good places to eat, checking on traffic and travel times, and geo-tagging photos. Online maps have become an indispensable part of our world, and they’re only going to grow in importance in the years ahead. They are getting upgraded in detail, with 3D layouts, advanced terrain, and better street view images. And we’re filling these richly drawn maps with tons of media: videos, photos, wiki articles, critical reviews, and status updates. The future of maps is going to merge the digital and real worlds in a way that makes them even more central to the way we live. Here’s how.
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by Aaron Saenz on July 27th, 2010
“The most sophisticated robot every built…is a handyman.” —Canadian Space Agency
Dextre at the International Space Station.
After more than two years, the International Space Station is very close to bringing its Dextre robot completely online. Built by Canada, Dextre is a large white robot with two highly articulated arms, and is meant to assist with repairs aboard the station, reducing the need for astronauts to take EVAs (space-walks). It’s a prime example of how robots can take over tasks that are too dangerous for humans, especially in extremely harsh environments like space. Despite Dextre’s potential, however, it has faced a series of setbacks since it first arrived at the ISS. Which means it’s also a prime example of how robotics has yet to meet our increasingly high expectations.
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by Aaron Saenz on July 27th, 2010
A WAM arm learns how to flip a pancake with a lot of trial and error. Emphasis on the error.
One day robots will sell like hotcakes…especially if they can make you hotcakes. Scientists from the Italian Institute of Technology have successfully taught a Barrett WAM arm the time honored culinary skill of flipping pancakes. Petar Kormushev and Sylvain Calinon first trained the robot by actively moving its arm in a demonstration. From that point on, however, the robot learned by evaluating it’s own success and trying to improve upon it. A fake pancake was used so that it could be more easily tracked. Still, it took about 50 trials to get the basics down. The video of the project is hilarious. I just can’t get enough of watching an artificial pancake whiz about a room haphazardly. Check it out for yourself below.
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by Drew Halley on July 27th, 2010
PET image of T cells attacking cancer in a mouse; yellow arrows indicate lymph nodes, blue arrow indicates tumor cells
What if you could not only beat cancer, but watch your body do it? Researchers at UCLA’s Jonsson Comprehensive Cancer Center are using gene therapy to teach immune cells how to attack cancer, but that’s now all. By inserting a “reporter gene” that glows under a Positron Emission Tomography (PET) scan, researchers can watch in real-time as the genetically modified immune cells seek out and destroy tumors within the body.
Gene therapy uses a vector (typically an innocuous virus or retrovirus) to insert new genes into the body’s cells. Cancerous cells are usually ignored by the immune system, which does not distinguish them from healthy cells and allows them to divide uncontrollably. The UCLA researcher team, led by Dr. Antoni Ribas, used a crippled virus similar to HIV to upgrade the DNA of lymphocytes; this makes them produce T-cell receptors that allow them to identify and destroy melanoma cells in mice. They also added in a reporter gene that glows “hot” under PET or bioluminescence imaging – this allows them to follow the engineered lymphocytes in real time as they kill cancerous cells. Read More
by Aaron Saenz on July 26th, 2010
Shooting drones out of the sky with robotic lasers...I love technology. (Artist's rendering)
Look! Up in the sky! It’s a bird, it’s a plane, it’s Supe—ZZZT! Well, whatever it was, it’s fried now. The US Navy recently tested a Raytheon infrared laser system by shooting down four unmanned aerial vehicles (UAV) off San Nicholas Island near California. To knock out each UAV, six solid state lasers were controlled by Raytheon’s Phalanx, a radar guided gun system that is already used in the field. This 32 kilowatt Laser Phalanx system worked like a charm: four out of four UAV were destroyed over the Pacific. To celebrate, Raytheon shared footage of a UAV being burned out of the sky at the Farnborough Air Show. Check out the video below. Drone killing robot lasers for the win!
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by Aaron Saenz on July 26th, 2010
Follow Sony's patents to their logical conclusion and I think you end up with Vuzix goggles.
If you buy a 3D TV later in the year you may eventually get some bonus capabilities you never considered. According to recently filed patents, Sony is pursuing technology which would allow multiple people to view different images on the same screen. New 3D TVs use shuttering glasses that alternatively close the left and right lenses in time with alternating images on the monitor. Generally companies want to use this for stereoscopic displays (3D TV). Sony’s new patents wouldn’t be displaying a right and left image, but rather two completely different images. This means that Person A could be watching a cartoon on Channel 12 while Person B watches reality TV on Channel 5 as the TV rapidly switches between images and their glasses are tuned to different shuttering patterns. With the right shuttering algorithms you could display both channels in 3D as well. It’s a cool idea and one that could have a whole bunch of applications from video games to censoring television for kids. But we may do better by just making each pair of glasses be its own TV.
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