tagged w/ High Tech
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In 2020 Green Technology is only green in that it create profits using electricity and coal burning plants. One programmer working on a medical tracking software project discovers his coworker is inserting suspicious code into his project. He gets fired, ends up in a hospital with a chip in his head that uses some of his code and some code he did not write. A mega corporation controls the US government and blocks green technology from spreading and just got a law passed to implant neurochips in people's brains. The programmer meets people to help expose the truth of the chip and hopes to stop the mega corporation.In 2020 Green Technology is only green in that it create profits using electricity and... more
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High Tech R & D is moving to Asia, and computer engineers are increasingly foriegn-bornHigh Tech R & D is moving to Asia, and computer engineers are increasingly... more
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A gritty, white-knuckle, action ride set in the near future where the sport of boxing has gone high-tech, Real Steel stars Hugh Jackman as Charlie Kenton, a washed-up fighter who lost his chance at a title when 2000-pound, 8-foot-tall steel robots took over the ring.
http://nothingtotweetabout.com/Real_Steel_Trailer.phpA gritty, white-knuckle, action ride set in the near future where the sport of boxing... more
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Japanese are always about innovation. How about a high-tech restroom which will do an instant health check everytime you use it? Thats what the Japanese scientists have come up with ...
http://bit.ly/d9un0AJapanese are always about innovation. How about a high-tech restroom which will do an... more
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Hosts Max Lugavere and Jason Silva explore the culture and events of the Middle East that usually are seen only by locals and the most adventurous travelers. Part 6 takes a look at the high tech industry in Tel Aviv, also known as the other Silicon Valley.Hosts Max Lugavere and Jason Silva explore the culture and events of the Middle East... more
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MANCHESTER, England—One of the many questions that have long circulated about Leonardo da Vinci’s Mona Lisa is why the figure is missing her eyebrows. While some researchers have suggested that it was common practice for wealthier women to pluck them clean in the artist’s time, a new study of the painting with a 240-megapixel camera suggests another answer: Leonardo actually did paint them there. Pascal Cotte, who analyzed the painting with a camera that is so remarkably sensitive to light that it can see through layers of paint, says that Leonardo appears to have built up the foundational coats of paint for eyebrows. So where did they go? Cotte says restoration work over the past 500 years may have wiped the hair clean off the Mona Lisa’s forehead — or that a chemical reaction related to a special glaze that Leonardo used may be the culprit.
Losing your eyebrows can’t be much fun, though Cotte says that is the least of the changes the Mona Lisa has suffered. The somber, gray sky behind the sitter was originally blue, according to Cotte, and her skin was a crisp white, lacking the yellow tint it has today. What’s more, it seems that her face and notoriously enigmatic smile were much wider, though the years have stripped away the paint that portrayed that.
http://www.artinfo.com/news/story/33218/how-the-mona-lisa-lost-her-eyebrows/MANCHESTER, England—One of the many questions that have long circulated about... more
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If you have been puzzled by Mona Lisa's smile – how she's radiant one moment and serious the next instant – then your worries are over. It happens because our eyes are sending mixed signals to the brain about her smile.
Different cells in the retina transmit different categories of information or "channels" to the brain. These channels encode data about an object's size, clarity, brightness and location in the visual field.
"Sometimes one channel wins over the other, and you see the smile, sometimes others take over and you don't see the smile," says Luis Martinez Otero, a neuroscientist at Institute of Neuroscience in Alicante, Spain, who conducted the study along with Diego Alonso Pablos.
This isn't the first time scientists have deconstructed Leonardo da Vinci's masterpiece. In 2000, Margaret Livingstone, a neuroscientist at Harvard Medical School with a side interest in art history, showed that Mona Lisa's smile is more apparent in peripheral vision than dead-centre, or foveal, vision. And in 2005, an American team suggested that random noise in the path from retina to visual cortex determines whether we see a smile or not.
more info regarding Leonardo at www.leonardoshands.comIf you have been puzzled by Mona Lisa's smile – how she's radiant one... more
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Your business has a big problem. You've thought about it, but you can't seem to crack it. So you consult your colleagues -- to no avail. Then you turn to the big guns -- your industry's top experts. They've got nothing. (Well, to be precise, they've got 40 PowerPoint slides worth of nothing, and you've got $225,000 less of something.) Now what?
You might take some inspiration from Pete Foley, associate director of the cognitive science group at Procter & Gamble, who was looking for an inspired solution to challenges faced by P&G's feminine-care business unit. Its R&D staff had pursued several approaches, but none of them offered the breakthrough that Foley craved. So he did the next logical thing: He took his team to the San Diego Zoo.
The zoo is developing a specialty in biomimicry, a discipline that tries to solve problems by imitating the ingenious and sustainable answers provided by nature. In a working session with the company, the zoo's biomimicry experts made an unexpected connection between P&G's problem and the physiology of a gecko. Other ideas came quickly, inspired by flower petals, armadillos, squirrels, and anteaters. (Full disclosure: Chip led a workshop with the biomimicry team on another issue.) By the end of the day, the working group had generated eight fresh approaches to the challenge. It was as if Ideo had opened an office on Noah's Ark.Your business has a big problem. You've thought about it, but you can't seem... more
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It is just before 1 p.m. on a Friday in late June, and Brenda Coulter is making her rounds. Coulter is an intensive care nurse, and she's checking on a patient coming out of heart-bypass surgery at Aurora St. Luke's Medical Center in Milwaukee. But she's not actually at St. Luke's. She's in a low brick building several miles away, closer to the Milwaukee airport than it is to the hospital. "Hello, how are you? I'm Brenda Coulter, a nurse, just making sure everything's OK," she says into a microphone. On one screen in a bank of five computer monitors in front of her, a man looks up from his bed, his face partly covered by an oxygen mask, and nods his head. "Good," Coulter says. On another screen, the man's heartbeat traces a regular rhythm, up and down, up and down.
This is the Aurora eICU, from which a team of doctors and nurses keeps constant watch on more than 10 intensive care units in four different hospitals spread across eastern Wisconsin. The idea is not to make care more remote. "Actually, the goal is to bring expertise to a patient's bedside faster than we ever could before," says David Rein, the unit's medical director.
Rein is a critical care doctor. Most hospitals have them, as well as nurse specialists like Coulter, and most also have trouble getting them to look at all patients in all ICU s on all different floors. The clinicians aren't sloths. They simply can't be in two--or 10--places at once. That is, unless they're in the eICU. From their workstations, Rein, Coulter, and three other nurses control cameras that can zoom in so tightly they can see capillaries in a patient's eyes. Monitors display vital signs and a patient's electronic chart, which records medications and the time given, notes on their condition, lab test results, and X-rays. Not only can Rein and Coulter spot trouble early; they also can coach nonspecialists in the patient's room about what to do to fix it.It is just before 1 p.m. on a Friday in late June, and Brenda Coulter is making her... more
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Cool learning experience for anyone interested in science, advances in high-tech, and hearing about the famous inventor and scientists, Nikola Tesla.
http://www.sftesla.orgCool learning experience for anyone interested in science, advances in high-tech, and... more
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The tradition dates back to the Old West: A cowboy gently soothes his cattle with a simple song.
"Come on girls, let's go," the cowboy croons as he gathers his bovines from across the desert range. One day, this cowboy may not have to ride the range to corral his herd.
The "cowboy" is U.S. Department of Agriculture researcher Dean M. Anderson, who is working to corral cattle remotely through a high-tech device that funnels sounds directly to the animals.
It's Old West cattle herding with a 21st century twist -- part of a project involving the USDA and the Massachusetts Institute of Technology on the government's Jornada Experimental Range in southern New Mexico.
The wireless headset, called the "Ear-A-Round," has stereo earphones that transmit sounds directly into the cow's ears to guide its movement. Powered by a small solar energy panel, the unit contains a GPS device to monitor a cow's location and movement.
Researchers hope the device will give ranchers and farmers the ability to herd cattle from afar, said Daniela Rus, an MIT professor of electrical engineering and computer science who teamed with Anderson.
"It has the potential to give farmers a much finer control of pastures, finer management of where animals are and a better use of the land," said Rus, a robotics expert. "With this technology we can also find out what the animals do all day."
In essence, a rancher could stay in his air-conditioned office and check on the location of his animals by logging on to a computer. Another potential benefit would be eye-friendly vistas that have no fences.The tradition dates back to the Old West: A cowboy gently soothes his cattle with a... more
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