Posted by paul2ed on November 23rd, 2009
Posted by paul2ed on August 18th, 2009
The population data and estimates are from the Census Bureau.
Posted by paul2ed on August 13th, 2009
Posted by paul2ed on August 6th, 2009
Posted by paul2ed on July 6th, 2009
By Sylvie Barak
Monday, 6 July 2009, 16:34
SCIENTISTS FROM Israel’s Technion University have unveiled a tiny robot, made using Micro-Electro-Mechanical Systems (MEMS) technology, purportedly able to crawl through a person’s veins in order to diagnose and potentially treat artery blockage and cancer.The little robot – with a diameter of just one millimeter – has neither engine nor onboard controls, instead being propelled forward by a magnetic field wielded on it from outside the patient’s body.
Controlling the tiny bot externally means boffins have been able to shrink it to a previously impossibly tiny scale, allowing it to crawl its way through the typical human body’s veins and arteries using miniscule outstretched arms which grip the vessel walls. Yes, that made us shudder too.
Scientists reckon the mini bot can even withstand massive blood flow and is able to push forward regardless of the magnetic field actuation direction, doing away with any need for exact localisation and direction retrieval.
A controller can move the little crawly creature in increments, with its speed of up to nine millimeters a second regulated by varying external magnetic field frequencies. Outside control also means the robot can be made to work for an unlimited amount of time, rather than suddenly – not to mention inconveniently – keeling over to die of battery failure in the middle of a medical procedure.
A small cross sectional area on the tiny robot apparently allows fluids to flow with minimal interference making intra-vascular motion more feasible, and opening up the possibility of minimally invasive medical treatments, as well as diagnosis within the body. Researchers are also apparently toying with the idea of attaching miniscule cameras to the bot, as well as other “tools” it may need to perform internal surgery.
As if getting under people’s skin wasn’t enough, Technion researchers say they’re also looking at putting the ant-like creature to work in urban water distribution systems, to look for any leaks that need plugging.
We hear that research is going swimmingly. ยต
Posted by paul2ed on July 2nd, 2009
BY Cliff Kuang Wed Jul 1, 2009 at 2:16 PM
Sakhr Mobile develops an iPhone app for troops and diplomats that translates Arabic speech into English, and visa versa–and there’s video of it, in action.
Fast Company just got a tip about one of the first products of that effort, an iPhone and Blackberry app, created by Sakhr Software and Dial Directions, that does natural language translation. Check out the video of the app, translating sinister-sounding–but all-too-real–phrases like “The prime minister will form a new government”:
This is the first product from Sakhr, which has just announced its acquisition of Dial Directions. Sakhr works on devices that scan Arabic words and then offer machine translations, and its customers already include the U.S. Department of Defense, U.S. Department of Homeland Security, and the U.S. Department of Justice. Dial Directions, for its part, creates voice-entry applications.
Creating the app you see above was a matter of combining those technologies–first, the speech recognition part, which transcribes what’s being said, and then applying Sakhr’s know-how in translating the text that’s produced. Zoinks! The future, apparently, is now. And while the military applications are obvious, we can’t help but think the commercial applications are far more vast. How cool would it be to have something like this working for you while hiking in the wilds of India, or China, or any other Federation planet?
Of course, who knows how this device might fare in the field–machine language translators are faced with a daunting test, when posed with the sloppiness of real-life language. Just witness how bad Google’s translation still is. The field has made tremendous strides in recent years. Will the pace continue?
