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Jan 13, 2016

Lessons from CES: How VR Can Avoid the Fate of 3D TV — By Stephen Cass | IEEE Spectrum

Posted by in categories: business, hardware, media & arts, software, virtual reality, wearables

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““Your quest stands upon the edge of a knife. Stray but a little and it will fail, to the ruin of all.” So says Galadrial to the fellowship sent to destroy the One Ring in The Lord of the Rings. But that advice might as well be directed to the burgeoning virtual reality industry. Early optimism that the second coming of VR, after a false start in the 1990s, will blossom into a new mainstream medium could collapse into despair, with the technology joining 3D television as another misfire.”

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Jan 13, 2016

Brain monitoring takes a leap out of the lab

Posted by in categories: bioengineering, neuroscience, wearables

Bioengineers and cognitive scientists have developed the first portable, 64-channel wearable brain activity monitoring system that’s comparable to state-of-the-art equipment found in research laboratories.

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Jan 13, 2016

Medgadget @ CES 2016: Samsung Shows Off S-Patch Wearable Featuring Its Bio-Processor Chip (VIDEO)

Posted by in categories: computing, wearables

https://youtube.com/watch?v=yCXOlBTRumM

S-PatchA couple weeks ago Samsung affirmed its ongoing commitment to the digital health space with the release of the Bio-Processor. The Bio-Processor is a single, compact chip that is capable of measuring PPG, ECG, skin temperature, GSR, and body fat. While it’s already in mass production and anticipated to be found in devices soon, Samsung took some time during its CES press event to demonstrate the Bio-Processor’s power in a prototype device called the S-Patch.

Not a lot was said about the S-Patch, but it’s a reference platform and won’t enter production. Because the Bio-Processor is built into the S-Patch, both data collection, storage, and processing takes place on the device itself. The brief demo also showed the S-Patch wirelessly transmitting real-time data (we assume via Bluetooth) to a mobile device.

Continue reading “Medgadget @ CES 2016: Samsung Shows Off S-Patch Wearable Featuring Its Bio-Processor Chip (VIDEO)” »

Jan 13, 2016

Architecture’s Biggest Prize Was Just Awarded to Someone You’ve Probably Never Heard Of — By Paul Goldberger | Vanity Fair

Posted by in categories: architecture, human trajectories, transportation

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“While Aravena, who is from Chile, is relatively unknown in the United States (although he taught for five years at Harvard and served for a period on the Pritzker jury), for at least the last decade he has been establishing himself on the international architecture scene as a serious and unusual practitioner who straddles, subtly but brilliantly, the worlds of formal high design and social responsibility. He has plenty of credibility as a serious designer—he was recently named curator of the 2016 Venice Architecture Biennale—but his own mode of architectural practice is what sets him apart. Aravena runs Elemental, which bills itself as a “do tank”—not a think tank—and which creates “projects of public interest and social impact, including housing, public space, infrastructure and transportation.””

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Jan 13, 2016

Swallowing this smart nano pill could stop us from making diet mistakes

Posted by in categories: biotech/medical, electronics, food

It’s not always talked about in polite company, but your body produces a lot of gases scientists know little about.

A new smart pill, designed at Melbourne’s RMIT University, could help us learn more and may eventually assist in customising what we eat to suit our bodies.

Researchers from the Centre for Advanced Electronics and Sensors have developed the pill, which can measure intestinal gases, and they have now undertaken the first animal tests using the technology to examine the impact of fibre on the gut.

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Jan 12, 2016

How to create a bill of rights for Mars colonies

Posted by in category: space

Our descendants may one day live in colonies on the Moon or Mars. How will they be governed? Some are already trying to come up with a space-age constitution.

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Jan 12, 2016

Intel RealSense Devkit and Lenovo Smartphone to Feature Project Tango 3D Mapping Technology

Posted by in category: mobile phones

Intel has unveiled a smartphone devkit and Lenovo is planning to launch a smartphone (for consumer) both supporting Google ATAP Project Tango 3D motion tracking and depth sensing technology using three cameras.

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Jan 12, 2016

These Totally Mesmerizing Robots That Sort Batteries Are Just Awesome

Posted by in categories: employment, robotics/AI

Seeing this video; I already identified quickly where the US Government could truly cut it’s budget.


I legitimately have fun watching these robot arms sort out batteries because they are just so damn good at their jobs. A conveyor belt pushes out an endless stream of batteries that desperately need sorting and the robot arms somehow never fall behind. One robot arm grabs the batteries that are scattered all over the place and creates a set of 4 while the other robotic arm snatches those sets of batteries and puts them aside. It’s great because the whole sorting system isn’t totally uniform, the robot arms look like they’re frantically fighting against the clock.

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Jan 12, 2016

The truth about asteroid mining

Posted by in category: space

Could the untold riches in asteroids and other planets be the key to exploring the wider Universe?

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Jan 12, 2016

Can artificial intelligence help fight addiction and improve medication adherence? AiCure nets $12M in Series A

Posted by in categories: biotech/medical, health, robotics/AI

I could see the value of AI in helping with a whole host of addictions, compulsive disorders, etc. AI at the core is often looking at patterns and predicting outcomes, or the next steps to make, or predicting what you or I will want to do or react to something, etc. So, leveraging AI as a tool to help in finding or innovating new solutions for things like OCD or addictions does truly make sense.


New York-based AiCure, which holds 12 patents for artificially intelligent software platforms that aim to improve patient outcomes by targeting medication adherence, announced the closing of a $12.25 million funding round Monday.

The company’s software was built with help from $7 million in competitive grants from four National Institutes of Health organizations, awarded in order to spur tech developments that would have a significant impact on drug research and therapy. The National Institute of Drug Abuse awarded AiCure $1 million in 2014 to help launch a major study into the efficacy of using the company’s platform to monitor and intervene with patients receiving medication as maintenance therapy for addiction.

Adherence to such therapies is associated with improved recovery, but often patients take improper doses or sell the drugs to others. To address this, AiCure’s platform connects patients with artificial intelligence software via their devices that determines whether a medication is being taken as prescribed. The platform has shown to be feasible for use across various patient populations, including elderly patients and study participants in schizophrenia and HIV prevention trials, according to a news release.

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