Tag Archives: technology

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Advances in brain-machine interfaces

400px-BrainGate Okay, technically your typing fingers are already brain-machine interfaces, but they’re rather clumsy ones, especially if you’re not a great typist. Wouldn’t it be easier to just think at your computer to get it to do what you want it to do? (Via ScienceDaily.)

Well, as this fascinating overview of the state of the art makes clear, it’s coming. The lede:

Neuroscientists have significantly advanced brain-machine interface (BMI) technology to the point where severely handicapped people who cannot contract even one leg or arm muscle now can independently compose and send e-mails and operate a TV in their homes. They are using only their thoughts to execute these actions.

Read, as they say, the whole thing. (Photo from Wikipedia.)

[tags]brain, computer, technology[/tags]

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Powerful new diagnostic method for identifying disease organisms

Still from magnetophoresis animation Paging Dr. McCoy: a technique that uses a magnetic field to selectively separate tiny magnetic particles, developed at Purdue and Duke universities, could be used to diagnose the presence of many diseases in a single sample within minutes, with a sensitivity up to a million times higher than current methods. (Via Science Daily.)

View an animation of the process, called non-linear magnetophoretic separation, here. (The image above is a still from this animation.)

(Image: Purdue University via Science Daily.)

[tags]medicine, technology, disease[/tags]

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Space Elevator Games 2007

University of Saskatchewan's space elevator climber This week sees the 2007 Space Elevator Games taking place near Salt Lake City, Utah; contestants from all over the world will be attempting to break records with their climber, tether and power transmission system designs in an attempt to win the $1million prize. Think what you like about the feasibility of space elevators, but you can’t deny the almost Quixotic glory of such an event – a testament to the human ability to dream big. Follow the progress of the event at the aptly-named Space Elevator Blog, which has been posting vigorously on the preliminary rounds. [Image from SpaceElevatorBlog]

[tags]space elevator, competition, space station, technology[/tags]
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Fleshjet? Bio-printing making progress

Printed cell scaffold Bioprinting – the re-purposing of inkjet technology for constructing biological tissues – is something we’ve remarked on before here at Futurismic. But it seems deserving of another mention, as a new method called "pressure assisted spinning" promises to handle the living cells more gently by using air pressure instead of mechanical force, enabling the construction of tissue scaffolds ready to act as a medium for growing new bones and organs – or for use as bandages. [Image by Suwan Jayasinghe; copied from NewScientist article]

[tags]biology, medicine, bioprinting, technology[/tags]
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Portal to a whole new world in gaming

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At midnight on Wednesday, gaming company Valve unlocked it’s Orange Box software.  In addition to a new episode in the compelling Half-Life 2 universe, you also got a quirky/awesome multi-player game called Team Fortress 2, and this enigmatic concept game called simply ‘Portal.’

In it, you wake up in a small room, and are required to navigate several mazes in a sterile, psychological experiment-looking series of rooms.  The tests get progressively harder, challenging your spatial ability and your patience.  At times, you just want to break free…

I’d seen videos of it before, but nothing prepared me for playing it.  Overall, the game itself is way too short, but as a high concept of an aspect of gaming to come, it’s revolutionary.  I’ve only played through the basic missions, the more advanced ones await me.  But there are lots of puzzles, and me likely the puzzle.  There are also rumors that the character here will be incorporated into the Half-Life universe.  Now it’s time to start up Episode 2.

(image via Borkweb)