Monday, October 27. 2008
The Spy Pass Card Micro Camera looks like a standard ID card, but it has a hidden spy camera for all your covert missions.
The card measures 8.5 x 5.2 cm and can either bee worn around your neck or clipped to your shirt.
It is capable of recording video at a resolution of 352 x 288 or taking still pictures at a resolution of 1280 x 1024.
Here’s the specs.
- Spy Pass Card Micro Camera
- Come with neckstrap and name card clip
- Card size: 8.5 x 5.2 cm
- Built-in Camera, Rechargeable Battery and 4GB Memory
- Video Resolutions: 352 x 288 pixels
- Video Format: AVI
- Still Photo Resolutions: 1280 x 1024 pixels
- Still Photo Format: JPG
- Audio Format: WAV
- Charging Interface: USB cable via adaptor or computer
Friday, October 24. 2008
Watch this Timo Arnall speech in fullscreen. Think about it as it scrolls by. It's important.
http://www.slideshare.net/tmo/the-web-in-the-world-presentation
Personal comment:
Un résumé de la situation "internet of things" par Timo Arnall
Thursday, October 23. 2008
Research in mice suggests that it might be possible to delete specific painful memories.
By Lauren Gravitz
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Credit: Technology Review |
Amping up a chemical in the mouse brain and then triggering the animal's recall can cause erasure of those, and only those, specific memories, according to research in the most recent issue of the journal Neuron. While the study was done in mice that were genetically modified to react to the chemical, the results suggest that it might one day be possible to develop a drug for eliminating specific, long-term memories, something that could be a boon for those suffering from debilitating phobias or post-traumatic stress disorder.
For more than two decades, researchers have been studying the chemical--a protein called alpha-CaM kinase II--for its role in learning and memory consolidation. To better understand the protein, a few years ago, Joe Tsien, a neurobiologist at the Medical College of Georgia, in Athens, created a mouse in which he could activate or inhibit sensitivity to alpha-CaM kinase II.
In the most recent results, Tsien found that when the mice recalled long-term memories while the protein was overexpressed in their brains, the combination appeared to selectively delete those memories. He and his collaborators first put the mice in a chamber where the animals heard a tone, then followed up the tone with a mild shock. The resulting associations: the chamber is a very bad place, and the tone foretells miserable things.
Then, a month later--enough time to ensure that the mice's long-term memory had been consolidated--the researchers placed the animals in a totally different chamber, overexpressed the protein, and played the tone. The mice showed no fear of the shock-associated sound. But these same mice, when placed in the original shock chamber, showed a classic fear response. Tsien had, in effect, erased one part of the memory (the one associated with the tone recall) while leaving the other intact.
"One thing that we're really intrigued by is that this is a selective erasure," Tsien says. "We know that erasure occurred very quickly, and was initiated by the recall itself."
Tsien notes that while the current methods can't be translated into the clinical setting, the work does identify a potential therapeutic approach. "Our work demonstrates that it's feasible to inducibly, selectively erase a memory," he says.
"The study is quite interesting from a number of points of view," says Mark Mayford, who studies the molecular basis of memory at the Scripps Research Institute, in La Jolla, CA. He notes that current treatments for memory "extinction" consist of very long-term therapy, in which patients are asked to recall fearful memories in safe situations, with the hope that the connection between the fear and the memory will gradually weaken.
"But people are very interested in devising a way where you could come up with a drug to expedite a way to do that," he says. That kind of treatment could change a memory by scrambling things up just in the neurons that are active during the specific act of the specific recollection. "That would be a very powerful thing," Mayford says.
But the puzzle is an incredibly complex one, and getting to that point will take a vast amount of additional research. "Human memory is so complicated, and we are just barely at the foot of the mountain," Tsien says.
Copyright Technology Review 2008.
Personal comment:
Cela rappelle évidemment la (science-)fiction du film de Michel Gondry (Eternal sunshine of the spotless mind -cf liens ci-dessus-)
Friday, October 17. 2008
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Credit: Technology Review |
Devices that self-assemble from biological molecules could represent the future of drug delivery.
By Duncan Graham-Rowe
Scientists in California have created molecular computers that are able to self-assemble out of strips of RNA within living cells. Eventually, such computers could be programmed to manipulate biological functions within the cell, executing different tasks under different conditions. One application could be smart drug delivery systems, says Christina Smolke, who carried out the research with Maung Nyan Win and whose results are published in the latest issue of Science.
The use of biomolecules to perform computations was first demonstrated by the University of Southern California's Leonard Adleman in 1994, and the approach was later developed by Ehud Shapiro of the Weizmann Institute of Science, in Rehovot, Israel. But according to Shapiro, "What this new work shows for the first time is the ability to detect the presence or absence of molecules within the cell."
That opens up the possibility of computing devices that can respond to specific conditions within the cell, he says. For example, it may be possible to develop drug delivery systems that target cancer cells from within by sensing genes used to regulate cell growth and death. "You can program it to release the drug when the conditions are just right, at the right time and in the right place," Shapiro says.
Smolke and Win's biocomputers are built from three main components--sensors, actuators, and transmitters--all of which are made up of RNA. The input sensors are made from aptamers, RNA molecules that behave a bit like antibodies, binding tightly to specific targets. Similarly, the output components, or actuators, are made of ribozymes, complex RNA molecules that have catalytic properties similar to those of enzymes. These two components are joined by yet another RNA molecule that serves as a transmitter, which is activated when a sensor molecule recognizes an input chemical and, in turn, triggers an actuator molecule.
Smolke and Win designed their RNA computers to detect the drugs tetracycline and theophylline within yeast cells, producing a fluorescent protein as an output. By combining the RNA components in certain ways, the researchers showed that they can get them to behave like different types of logic gates--circuit elements common to any computer. For example, an AND gate produces an output only when its inputs detect the presence of both drugs, while a NOR gate produces an output only when neither drug is detected.
But this is just a demonstration, Smolke says. "We're using these modular molecules that have a sort of plug-and-play capability," she says--meaning that they can be combined in a number of different ways. Different kinds of aptamers could potentially detect thousands of different metabolic or protein inputs.
Smolke and Win produce their device by encoding RNA sequences into DNA and introducing it into the cell. "So the cell is making these devices," Smolke says. "RNA is actually a very programmable substrate."
Indeed, the attractive thing about this approach is that the components of the device and the substrate holding them together are all made from RNA, says Friedrich Simmel, a bioelectronics researcher at the Technical University of Munich, in Germany. "This is something that we also would like to do," he says, for not only do such devices self-assemble, but they can also be produced on a single long strand of RNA, all at once.
Smolke and Win have already found collaborators for possible animal studies, to see how biocomputers can be delivered to cells and used once they're there. Smolke also envisions a large-scale collaboration to create a huge library of sensors out of which these devices can be made.
Copyright Technology Review 2008.
Friday, October 10. 2008
By Associated Press
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CHIBA, Japan (AP) _ Video game rivals Sony and Microsoft are going head-to-head in virtual worlds for their home consoles later this year.
Both companies announced their services, which use graphic images that represent players called "avatars," Thursday at the Tokyo Game Show.
Sony Corp.'s twice delayed online "Home" virtual world for the PlayStation 3 console will be available sometime later this year, while U.S. software maker Microsoft Corp., which competes with its Xbox 360, is starting "New Xbox Experience" worldwide Nov. 19.
Microsoft's service will be adapted to various nations, but people will be able to communicate with other Xbox 360 users around the world, according to the Redmond, Washington-based company.
The real-time interactive computer-graphic worlds are similar to Linden Lab's "Second Life," which can be played on personal computers and has drawn millions of people.
In the so-called "metaverse" in cyberspace, players manipulate digital images called "avatars" that represent themselves, engaging in relationships, social gatherings and businesses.
Internet search leader Google Inc. has unveiled a similar three-dimensional software service called "Lively." Japanese companies have also set up such communities for personal computers.
Ryoji Akagawa, a producer at Sony Computer Entertainment Inc., Sony's gaming unit, said 24 game designing companies will provide content for "Home."
He did not give a launch date or other details. A limited test version over the summer was handy in preparing for a full-fledged service, he said.
In both Sony's and Microsoft's virtual worlds, players can personalize their avatars, choosing hairstyles, facial features and clothing. Akagawa said avatars will be able to dress up like heroes in hit video games.
"The Home has beautiful imagery with high quality three-dimensional graphics," he told reporters.
But Hirokazu Hamamura, a game expert and head of Japanese publisher Enterbrain Inc., who was at the Sony booth, said he needs to see more to assess "Home."
"You still can't tell what it's all about," he told The Associated Press, adding that "Home" may be coming a little late compared to rivals. "There are so many more possibilities for a virtual community."
Schappert said Microsoft's service promises to be more varied as a gateway to various entertainment, such as watching movies, going to virtual parties and sharing your collection of photos.
"Our goal is to make the Xbox experience more visual, easier to use, more fun to use and more social," he said in an interview at a nearby hotel. "We focused a lot on friends and other experiences outside just playing games."
Personal comment:
C'est la même idée qui vient et revient encore depuis 10 ans (un monde partagé en 3d, "réaliste" voire banal et quotidien, on y crée ou customize son avatar et sa maison, on y "discute", etc.). Je me demande si elle finira par prendre et décoller... ou si il s'agit simplement d'une mauvaise idée, de quelquechose qui n'intéresse pas les "users".
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