New stretchable material could lead to artificial muscles.
Research Paper: http://bit.ly/1StvU6b
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The Student Innovation Project, or SIP, gives students a chance to develop an innovative idea and put their creativity to work.
As soon as their sophomore year, students are asked to begin brainstorming for their SIP, and also have two classes that help students prepare for their project. Students take PRO211, taught by Professor Vita-Moore, and PRO 483, taught by Professor Belanger.
During senior year, students use most of the time to work on the SIP, constructing a working model that will later be judged at the SIP Fair by UAT Faculty and local industry leaders for feedback.
A student’s SIP is a reflection of what they learned at UAT and also serves as a tangible project to showcase for future job opportunities.
This semester, the SIP Fair will take place on Friday, April 22, 2016 in the Commons and UAT Theater.
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VERY nifty!
Wired just published a giant feature on Magic Leap, the lavishly-funded, and very secretive mixed reality startup that we know almost nothing about. Professional thoughtfluencer Kevin Kelly got impressive access to the startup and reveals some new details about what the hell they’re doing. There’s a headset! And it is capable of what you see in the video above, which is like tripping, if LSD made you hallucinate your calendar.
The demo, which Magic Leap just posted to YouTube, is a look at what your morning might be like if you’re living in the company’s mixed reality future. It’s not a very lofty future, but I daresay it’s a useful one. Though I’ve never had a morning in which I intensely study topographical maps of Everest or ethereal jellyfish, it is nice to have a clean heads-up display in front of your face, full of notifications and information. The graphics are very high fidelity—especially compared to Magic Leap’s mixed reality cousin, Microsoft HoloLens.
More broadly, there’s a paradox in all this, that reflects the overarching direction of contemporary robotics. As machines become more and more general-purpose, they’re also going to become much better at tailoring their behavior to different kinds of people—and even eventually to different individuals. Already, SoftBank’s Pepper robot, a humanoid designed to interactive with people, is billed as the first machine able to read human emotions. For people to accept robots as they increasingly work their way into various areas of our lives, robots will have to develop fairly sophisticated understanding of individual human needs.
“If an assistive robot tries to help you, how much help you want really depends on your personality and the situation,” Dragan says. That’s also why robots are in some cases changing form—some of the machines designed to care for humans, for example, will have soft, cuddly bodies rather than just hard metal exoskeletons.
“We’re going to have more and more capable robots,” Dragan told me. Which means when machines interact with people, we’ll be able to customize them depending on who’s around; or if humans are around at all.
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The Limits of Bots
Posted in business, computing, robotics/AI
Some fundamentals to consider when implementing online bots. It truly has to be for companies/ businesses a cultural, operating model, and business model fit. And, for consumers it is about your own personable fit. Not all bots are created equal meaning no one size fits all. Do your due diligence like you would on any investment as a business and any long term relationship as a consumer.
A version of this essay was originally published at Tech.pinions, a website dedicated to informed opinions, insight and perspective on the tech industry.
We’ve now had two major developer events in a row where chat bots were a significant theme, with both Microsoft’s Build and now Facebook’s F8 focusing on this rapidly emerging new form of interaction with companies and brands. With two such big names behind the trend, it’s easy to get caught up in the hype and enthusiasm these companies obviously share for the technology. But it’s important to stay grounded as we evaluate chat bots as a potential successor to today’s app model.
The first thing to note is that Facebook and Microsoft have strong incentives to pursue the bot vision. Both companies failed to make a meaningful dent in the mobile operating system battle and, as such, find themselves in secondary roles as makers of apps that run on other people’s platforms. This shuts them out of many of the opportunities associated with owning a mobile operating system, and puts them perennially in a secondary position, having to work around the limitations placed on third-party apps and the inherent disadvantages they face relative to pre-installed applications. So it’s not surprising both companies are now embracing what — in at least some visions of the future — promises to be the replacement for mobile apps. But it’s important to keep these incentives in mind in evaluating their claims about the potential of bots — Facebook and Microsoft have a massive vested interest in seeing this trend succeed.
X2 Biosystems awarded
Posted in electronics, health, military, neuroscience, wearables
They deserve it too.
X2 Biosystems has received the Society for Brain Mapping and Therapeutics (SBMT) 2016 Pioneer in Healthcare Technology Innovations Award for developing its next-generation head impact measurement sensor technology, the company said.
X2´s “X-Patch” wearable impact sensor has become widely deployed and tested head impact monitoring device, used in a continually expanding range of athletic activities from football (youth, high school, collegiate, pro) to hockey, soccer, lacrosse, rugby, Australian rules football, baseball, field hockey, wrestling, boxing, taekwondo, mixed martial arts, skiing and BMX cycling.
The X-Patch is also being actively evaluated for use in military training applications.
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Ugh — this is not good at all.
The study found lower metabolism and smaller brain sizes amoung the group of study participants taking anticholinergic drugs.
Medication with anticholinergic effects include certain over-the-counter antihistamines and nighttime cold medicines, and prescription drugs for sleep aid and many chronic diseases such as hypertension and cardiovascular disease.
Previous research found a link between between the anticholinergic drugs and cognitive impairment and increased risk of dementia. The problem is, those pills often come with a lengthy list of potential side effects.
Australia should go “Big Science” on addressing Cyber Security. I believe Australia is already making strides in Cyber Security with their own advancements in Quantum.
Australia’s Cyber Security Strategy, to be released this Thursday, will include an emphasis on research and development, as well as education. How might that unfold?
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