IBM RESEARCHERS DEVELOP "THINKING COMPUTERS" FROM FELINE CEREBERAL CORTEX

In their pursuit of computers that "think" like a living thing's brain, researchers from IBM say that they have simulated a cat's cerebral cortex, the thinking part of the brain, using a massive supercomputer. The computer has 147,456 processors (most modern PCs have just one or two processors) and 144 terabytes of main memory - 100,000 times as much as your computer has.

Scientists say they've made a breakthrough in their pursuit of computers that "think" like a living thing's brain ? An effort that tests the limits of technology.

Even the world's most powerful supercomputers can't replicate basic aspects of the human mind. The machines can't imagine a wall painted a different color, for instance, or picture a person's face and connect that to an emotion.

Dharmendra Modha, Manager of Cognitive Computing for IBM Research and Senior Author of the paper, called it a "truly unprecedented scale of simulation." The researchers created a program that told the supercomputer, which is in the Lawrence Livermore National Laboratory, to behave how a brain is believed to behave. The computer was shown images of corporate logos, including IBM's, and the scientists watched that different parts of the simulated brain worked together to figure out what the image was. Researchers at Stanford University and Lawrence Berkeley National Laboratory were also part of the project.

The simulation, which runs 100 times slower than an actual cat's brain, is more about watching how thoughts are formed in the brain and how the roughly one billion neurons and 10 trillion synapses in a cat's brain work together.

Modha said that the research could lead to computers that rely less on "structured" data, such that the input two plus two equals four, and can handle ambiguity better, like identifying the corporate logo even if the image is blurry. Or, such computers could incorporate senses like sight, touch and hearing into the decisions they make.

RESEARCH ON PROJECTING IMAGES INTO EYE FROM CONTACT LENS

We might soon get to see contact lenses with built-in virtual graphics, as researchers are working on the idea of projecting images into the eye from a contact lens.

Scientists at the University of Washington are labouring on a contact lens that is a prototype of a device that could display information beamed from a mobile device. The proposal was the brainchild of Babak Parviz, at the University of Washington, in Seattle. "Our hope is to create images that effectively float in front of the user perhaps 50 cm to one meter away," News Scientist quoted Parviz as saying.

The expert further said that future versions would be able to gather power from a user's cell phone without obscuring the wearer's view. Mark Billinghurst, Director of the Human Interface Technology Laboratory, in Christchurch, New Zealand added, "A contact lens that allows virtual graphics to be seamlessly overlaid on the real world could provide a compelling augmented reality experience." The team is due to present their prototype at the Biomedical Circuits and Systems (BioCas 2009) conference at Beijing.

NASA SCIENTIST TURNS IPHONE INTO A CHEMICAL SNIFFER

Mobile Phones  are increasingly becoming a mobile labs and tech tool for researcher. And now NASA has gotten into it considering iPhone.

A NASA scientist has developed a postage-stamp-sized chemical sensor that allows iPhones to sniff out low airborne concentrations of chemicals such as ammonia, chlorine gas and methane.

The gadget add-on comes courtesy of Jing Li, a Physical Scientist at NASA's Ames Research Center in California. 

She developed the proof of concept with other researchers as part of Homeland Security's 'Cell-All' program, which aims to put more mobile sensors in the hands of every cell phone user, reports Popular Science. 

Working of the Chemical Sniffer:

                      A puff from a 'sample jet' helps sense any airborne chemicals. That information gets processed by a silicon chip consisting of 16 nano-sensors, and then passes on to another phone or computer through any Wi-Fi or telecom network.
 

Such sensors could alert first responders early if there's a chemical accident or attack, even if the unfortunate cell phone user has already passed out. This is an addition to other cell phone tools such as off-the-shelf microscopes and watchful heart monitors.

NEW MICROSOFT'S SENSECAM CAMERA FOR ALZHEIMER'S CAPTURES THE ENTIRE LIFE

A UK-based firm will soon launch a camera that a person can wear as a pendant to record every moment of his or her life. This camera was originally developed as the SenseCam by Microsoft Research Cambridge, UK, for researchers studying Alzheimer's and other dementias, according to ANI. 

Its use in applications like MLB and and the memory aid research for Alzheimer suffers at Addenbrooks hospital in the UK, is based on wearing the SenseCam for lifelogging of 'events' during your day, and generating a fast-forward movie of the event as the memory recall interface.  

This Sensecam work uses other recording devices besides the SenseCam, including off-the-shelf ones to take biometric readings, standard ones to record GPS and audio recorders, and RFID readers for objects tagged in the home or office.  

The ViconRevue can soon be used by consumers to create "lifelogs" that archive their entire lives, researchers claim. It is worn on a cord around the neck and the camera takes pictures automatically as often as once every 30 seconds. It also uses an accelerometer and light sensors to snap an image when a person enters a new environment, and an infrared sensor to take one when it detects the body heat of a person in front of the wearer.

The gadget will be unveiled at the Society for Neuroscience meeting in Chicago this weekend, in conjunction with a conference on research using SenseCam so far. "What's great about these kinds of memory technologies is that they can be very usable for ordinary people," says Henry Kautz, a Computer Scientist at the University Of Rochester, New York, who works on technology to assist cognition.
  

Vicon, which specialises in motion-capture technology for the movie industry, has licensed the technology for the camera from Microsoft and intends to put it into large-scale production. The revolutionary device can fit 30,000 images onto its one gigabyte memory, reports New Scientist.

 

GENERATING ELECTRICITY THROUGH RUNNING TRAINS

An Indian entrepreneur has proposed a project to Indian Railways which will allow it to generate electricity through air pressure from running trains. Santosh Pradhan, who runs a bunch of engineering and mechanical units, has almost two decades of experience in manufacturing engineering tools.

"When a train runs at a full speed of 110-120 km, it creates an air pressure in opposite direction and no one has ever thought to utilize this huge air pressure which is freely and easily available," Pradhan told PTI. As per his technology, a small impeller is fixed at the front portion of railway locomotive and similarly on top of each coach of a train. "When the train is running, it will produce huge quantity of compressed air due to high velocity of the wind and by accumulating this compressed air in big fabricated tanks on either side of the track, we can run turbines or air turbine motors which can produce a considerable amount of electricity," he explained.

Pradhan has registered 20 patents with the government of India about his technology so that he remains the sole person to further develop this technology. He has now approached the higher railways authorities to seek permission for prototype and a subsequent demonstration of this technology which he says is 'eco-friendly and cost effective'.

Pradhan said about 14,300 trains were running on 63,028 route KMs in the country and about 20.89MW electricity can be generated per km with the use of air power technology. Thus approximately 14,81,134MW of power can be generated by using the entire railway track, according to his statistics and calculations. Pradhan says that the Indian Railways was spending 17 percent revenue on the fuel head which is roughly Rs. 15,000 crore (Rs. 150 billion) per annum. He also claims that the technology can save 2,586 million tonnes of carbon dioxide emission in the country.

However, it all depends on the Indian Railways to allow additional fabrication of parallel wind pipes over the over head electric lines to pass on high velocity wind to reach tanks on either of side of track, Pradhan added.

STANFORD PROJECT "FRANKEN CAMERA"

 

DSLRs today offer an unprecedented value for the amateur (or pro) photographer, but I can’t shake the feeling that all the big guys are spinning their wheels. After all, there are precious few real innovations in cameras these days —Casio and Fujifilm spring to mind with their innovative use of the sensor, but by and large, even the top-tier devices don’t really do anything different from the ancient one-megapixel point-and-shoots of the late 20th century.

Researchers at Stanford want to change that. Although they certainly don’t plan on toppling the powers that be (in fact, they’re funded by them), they’re tired of cameras falling under either the highly-specialized or highly-generalized categories. After all, it’s all just data, right? Why not make the camera a versatile platform with a real OS, an open hardware standard, and — hell, why not — an app store?

Okay, that’s really pushing it. But the idea is sound. Cameras these days have the potential to crunch and store data, connect to other devices (or the net) via wi-fi, and even have high-resolution touchscreen displays. Sure, they’re set up for a streamlined workflow of converting sensor data into RAW or JPEG files or adding scene adjustments, but that’s a matter of software.

The "Frankencamera" created by mark Levoy's Lab uses essentially off-the-shelf parts: a TI system on a chip, Canon EF lenses, a generic LCD screen, and a Nokia N95’s photo sensor of all things. It’s ugly, bulky, and fragile, but that’s the way prototypes tend to be. Even the mighty iPhone used to be raw PCB, rudely wired to a dev rig — Apple didn’t just fill a plastic shell with sex.

The setup they’ve created (it runs Linux) lets them control and program each aspect of the camera with precision. With a standard API they could release it into the wild with a few prototypes and hackers would be able to go to town on it. How about a double curtain exposure at two aperture settings to make a weird hybrid bokeh? Or connecting the camera to an RGB LED flash, which could evaluate the scene and tint the flash to best illuminate it? I’m just making this stuff up (and have no way to follow through, damn it all), but a skilled hacker and photographer could think hard about it and make a truly new way for a camera to function.

In a perfect world, that is. The truth is that, with companies like Kodak and Adobe mothering the project, any real advancements would be likely be integrated piecemeal into existing camera designs, or licensed and commercialized. Although they plan to make sub-$1000 units available to researchers and hackers, I wouldn’t expect a consumer Frankencamera to grace the shelves of Best Buy any time soon.

It is, however, a fun idea to play with. The camera really is enough of a specialized platform that it could be one of the few devices that doesn’t succumb to convergence over the next decade (I don’t share TechCrunch’s optimism about phone cameras). Every other device we interact with is getting smarter, so why not the camera? Sure, you’ve got smile shutter and 100 scene modes and  all those features we don't want or need, but that’s not smart. It’s convenient, and barely that. And you’ve got HD movie mode now — great, but while admittedly the resolution is slightly higher now, my 2MP Sony was doing movies in 2001.

A smart camera (a device we’re sure to see soon) will be connected, possibly even social, and will be materially upgradeable like a smartphone or PC. More capability, more usability, more connectivity — the way the phone went from a way to call home from the car to a complete media and communications platform. I don’t think the scale of the business opportunities created by that particular market can be overstated in this forum, and I’m sure our readers can appreciate that a similarly improved camera might lead to quite a harvest by imaging and design businesses.RED has shown that there is room for new players in the game if you come in heavy, though of course they were lucky enough to have a visionary benefactor.

And remember, just because it’s smart doesn’t mean you’ll have to be smart to use it. Just look at the iPhone. Well — that didn’t come out right, but you know what I mean. It’s no coincidence that the current generation of cameras resembles the dying breed of phones Jobs spoke so truly of when he unveiled the iPhone: buttons all over, inflexible and static in design. That’s the enemy. Unlike the old phones, I believe those cameras will have a place in the new order of things, but their descendant, this new fantasy device I am so excited about, will be a thing of beauty.

Just (please) don’t call it Camera 2.0.

DOWNLOAD THE VIDEO OF STANFORD SCIENTIST TEACHING CAMERA TRICKS:

http://www.ziddu.com/download/6363740/anfordphotoScientistsareteachingthecameranewtricks.mp4.html

SANSKRIT AS SUITABLE COMPUTER LANGUAGE

I was a little surprised to learn that Sanskrit fits the bill to become a computer language. Apparently, Forbes in 1987 claimed to have reported (or may have researched and produced a report) that Sanskrit is very suitable to use in computer (as a programming language?) because of its perfect syntax. Interestingly, Sanskrit has very little room for error as well. Well, I am not a linguistics or syntax expert, but this amazes me. How could a language so, very perfect in grammatical sense became so obsolete. That too, a language originated and well used in a huge country (with huge population) went on to become obsolete!

Now, I chanced to see another piece of report on Sanskrit and ts usability on computer. This time, i is from none other than NASA. This report seconds, Forbes claim. Nasa’s study was mainly from the feasibility of using Sanskrit in artificial intelligence (AI). According to a Nasa researcher [1,2],

“In ancient India the intention to discover truth was so consuming, that in the process, they discovered perhaps the most perfect tool for fulfilling such a search that the world has ever known — the Sanskrit language. There is at least one language, Sanskrit, which for the duration of almost 1000 years was a living spoken language with a considerable literature of its own. Besides works of literary value, there was a long philosophical and grammatical tradition that has continued to exist with undiminished vigor until the present century. Among the accomplishments of the grammarians can be reckoned a method for paraphrasing Sanskrit in a manner that is identical not only in essence but in form with current work in Artificial Intelligence. This article demonstrates that a natural language can serve as an artificial language also, and that much work in AI has been reinventing a wheel millennia old.

The discovery is of monumental significance. It is mind-boggling to consider that we have available to us a language which has been spoken for 4-7000 years that appears to be in every respect a perfect language designed for enlightened communication. But the most stunning aspect of the discovery is this: NASA the most advanced research center in the world for cutting edge technology has discovered that Sanskrit, the world’s oldest spiritual language is the only unambiguous spoken language on the planet. Considering Sanskrit’s status as a spiritual language, a further implication of this discovery is that the age old dichotomy between religion and science is an entirely unjustified one. It is also relevant to note that in the last decade physicists have begun to comment on the striking similarities between their own discoveries and the discoveries made thousands of years ago in India which went on to form the basis of most Eastern religions.

OK, then, what makes a spoken language suitable as a programming language. Does it mean that a language so perfect in grammar make it as a perfect candidate in computer parlance. In loose term, this make sense, since the syntax and semantic description can be defined a priori. After all, computer is a dummy box! But the truth could be a little deeper. Anyway, I cant wait to understand a little bit of those rationale behind the suitability of a good computer language.