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Blog – Page 11712

At TechCrunch’s Disrupt NY, Siri creator Dag Kittlaus performed the first public demo of Siri’s new cousin, Viv. Kittlaus described the brains of Viv as, “software that’s writing itself,” which is a pretty bold statement with some implications that call to mind the dreariest of Skynet dystopias. But what exactly makes it any better than Siri?

The fact is we don’t yet know how good this new voice assistant will be, but we can reflect a little bit on what we see during the controlled demo in the video below. For starters, Viv is designed to integrate seamlessly with third party apps, which is a major deficit on Siri’s part. The new AI was able to send money via Venmo, book a room through Hotels.com, and hail a cab from Uber. And it did so quickly and with no apparent hassle. Kittlaus later in the presentation described Viv as a “marketplace” that he saw as an improvement upon app stores.

Where Viv really shines is in its ability to parse complex questions. In one sample query, Kittlaus asked his robot, “will it be warmer than 70-degrees near the Golden gate bridge after 5pm the day after tomorrow?” which Viv was able to answer. We will update this post to reflect how wrong Viv was if it’s over 70 in San Fransisco later this week.

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Improved muscle stem cell numbers and muscle function in NR-treated aged mice: Newly regenerated muscle fibers 7 days after muscle damage in aged mice (left: control group; right: fed NR). (Scale bar = 50 μm). (credit: Hongbo Zhang et al./Science)

EPFL researchers have restored the ability of mice organs to regenerate and extend life by simply administering nicotinamide riboside (NR) to them.

NR has been shown in previous studies to be effective in boosting metabolism and treating a number of degenerative diseases. Now, an article by PhD student Hongbo Zhang published in Science also describes the restorative effects of NR on the functioning of stem cells for regenerating organs.

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General Atomics Electromagnetic Systems (GA-EMS) officials demonstrated its Blitzer electromagnetic railgun system at the U.S. Army’s Fires Center of Excellence annual Maneuver and Fires Integration Experiment (MFIX)last month at Ft. Sill in Lawton, Oklahoma.

There were eleven firings of the Blitzer railgun during the MFIX event, all at a target with a range that was greater than previous Blitzer firings. At the end of MFIX, GA-EMS’ Blitzer railgun system will be transported back to Dugway Proving Ground in Utah for more testing later this year.

GA-EMS’ Acoustic Detection System, an unattended ground sensor system for multi-target simultaneous detection and tracking, was also showcased at the MFIX event. The system can monitor multiple sensors simultaneously and enable visual detection and tracking of acoustic and seismic sources.

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Researchers discovered that people respond to stimuli differently enough that it is possible to create a unique signature, a brainprint, that could one day replace fingerprints in a number of instances.

For the longest time, the world has relied on fingerprints as a way to easily identify individuals. This is because a fingerprint is unique (and permanent) for each person—so what happens when someone’s fingerprint is stolen? This may sound a little farfetched, but it is easy enough to take a fingerprint from another, you just need to swipe a glass that they held.

And of course, you can’t grow a new finger to replace the print. This means that, when it gets compromised, it’s compromised forever. But now, researchers from Binghamton University have found a more efficient way to identify people—using brain waves.

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The world’s first graphene-based electronic paper for use in both hard and flexible displays for electronic devices has been developed in China.

Electronic paper display company Guangzhou OED Technologies announced it has developed the graphene-based e-paper, which it described as being more pliable and having higher light transmittance than existing types of e-paper.

As a result, graphene-based displays would be brighter but also cheaper, as graphene is based on the abundant element carbon, the firm said. Conventional e-paper is made of the rather costly rare metal indium.

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