Category Archives: Blog

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Scriths and legends: hidden portals a possibility

hiddenResearchers in Hong Kong are developing technologies that could one day lead to hidden portals [1]:

In the research paper, the researchers from the Hong Kong University of Science and Technology and Fudan University in Shanghai describe the concept of a “a gateway that can block electromagnetic waves but that allows the passage of other entities”
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The gateway, which is now much closer to reality, uses transformation optics and an amplified scattering effect from an arrangement of ferrite materials called single-crystal yttrium-iron-garnet that force light and other forms of electromagnetic radiation in complicated directions to create a hidden portal.

Previous attempts at an electromagnetic gateway were hindered by their narrow bandwidth, only capturing a small range of visible light or other forms of electromagnetic radiation. This new configuration of metamaterials however can be manipulated to have optimum permittivity and permeability – able to insulate the electromagnetic field that encounters it with an appropriate magnetic reaction.

Whilst I’m not entirely sure how this metamaterial in supposed to behave, or what is meant by “other entities” in this context, such a substance has overtones of the Ringworld construction material described in Larry Niven‘s Ringworld series, which IIRC was impermeable to 40% of neutrino emissions, and under the application of a particular instrument would allow people to walk through it.

[1]: The article is somewhat vague on how exactly this portal will work in reality, but I gather that it works either like a perfected “holographic mirror” that you can walk through, or else simply a glass-like sheet that can become reflective when required to. In any case

[from h+ Magazine][image from fdecomite on flickr]

Blog

They’ve got a TV eye on you

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Much as we all bemoan the relentless increase of surveillance technologies in our countries, it appears that the cable TV companies are confident that we’ll just invite it in to our homes if there’s enough of an incentive. After all, who wouldn’t want a set-top DVR unit with a camera so it could tell how many people were watching, guess what demographics they were from and then serve them more relavent advertising?

Prime Sense, an Israel-based company founded in 2005 that raised $20.4 million in “B” round funding last May, showed off a 3D camera that can hook into a cable set-top or any other display with a USB interface.

The camera, powered by Prime Sense’s chip, projects an infrared (IR) field into the room to help determine what’s in front of the camera, going as far as identifying which “users” are sitting in front of the TV, based on their thermal images.

That said, they’re looking at other less intrusive capabilities as well:

… cable’s interest in Prime Sense might also extend to its “virtual touch” system, which “projects” a keyboard or another interface near the user, allowing him or her to navigate video program guides or move content around using hand gestures instead of pressing buttons on a remote control.

Prime Sense, however, is in the hardware business, hoping to get its technology built into a wide range of set-tops and gaming consoles. It’s in the process of working with third-party developers to create apps for its 3D-sensing technology, according to Suneil Mishra, Prime Sense’s VP of sales and marketing for the U.S., who discussed the technology during a conference call earlier today. He says Prime Sense is ready to start mass production, with some undisclosed customers already in the pipeline.

Hmmm. Maybe I’m just more paranoid than most. How many of you would install one of these systems in full knowledge of its surveillance capabilities? [via TechDirt]

Blog

Universal robot operating system: well, they’re too late to call it Android

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robotAs evidenced by the number of posts we end up doing about them, robots are a real growth industry. Which is all well and good, but the folks in R&D departments everywhere have a problem.

In a nutshell, it’s interoperability: each robot is developed in isolation, meaning valuable resources are expended replicating functionalities that others have already nailed down. What they need is a common and standardised robot operating system.

This sorry state of affairs is set to change. Roboticists have begun to think about what robots have in common and what aspects of their construction can be standardised, hopefully resulting in a basic operating system everyone can use. This would let roboticists focus their attention on taking the technology forward.

[…]

On top of all this, each robot has its own unique hardware and software, so capabilities like balance implemented on one robot cannot easily be transferred to others.

Bourcier sees this changing if robotics advances in a manner similar to personal computing. For computers, the widespread adoption of Microsoft’s Disk Operating System (DOS), and later Windows, allowed programmers without detailed knowledge of the underlying hardware and file systems to build new applications and build on the work of others.

Programmers could build new applications without detailed knowledge of the underlying hardware

Bringing robotics to this point won’t be easy, though. “Robotics is at the stage where personal computing was about 30 years ago,” says Chad Jenkins of Brown University in Providence, Rhode Island. Like the home-brew computers of the late 70s and early 80s, robots used for research today often have a unique operating system (OS). “But at some point we have to come together to use the same resources,” says Jenkins.

And there’s already an open-source type system being developed… as well as a Microsoft alternative, for those who fancy paying a license fee for robots that are vulnerable to trojans and spyware, one assumes.

If we’re to extend the analogy of the current robotics industry being like the computer industry of the early eighties, I wonder if we can expect generic clone hardware to start appearing in response to a demand from maker-businesses and hobbyists? [via PlausibleFutures; image by woordenaar]

Blog

Biological cells as cloud computing networks

webIn an interesting confluence of ideas, and of the unintentional biomimicry at work in cloud computing, researchers identify parallels between biological cells and computer networks:

Gene regulatory networks in cell nuclei are similar to cloud computing networks, such as Google or Yahoo!, researchers report today in the online journal Molecular Systems Biology. The similarity is that each system keeps working despite the failure of individual components, whether they are master genes or computer processors, which paves a way to the next gen secure web gateway
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“It’s extremely rare in nature that a cell would lose both a master gene and its backup, so for the most part cells are very robust machines,” said Anthony Gitter, a graduate student in Carnegie Mellon’s Computer Science Department and lead author of the Nature MSB article. “We now have reason to think of cells as robust computational devices, employing redundancy in the same way that enables large computing systems, such as Amazon, to keep operating despite the fact that servers routinely fail.”

It is fascinating how natural selection has already discovered many of the same processes used by human engineers.

[via Technut News, from ScienceDaily][image from Jus’ fi on flickr]

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iPhone sex app: What could go wrong?

seinfeldIn a near-future episode of Seinfeld from the universe next door:

George’s “Passion” iPhone app–“The timer measures duration, while the accelerometer measures activity and the microphone measures the orgasm”–is yanked by Apple right in the middle of the greatest performance of his life, but not before it “uploaded the score… and compare[d it] to those of other people around the world.” Kramer’s score of course rocks.

[Fab four montage by Ethan Hein]