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November 30, 2005
The Virtual Air Guitar Project
Aspiring rock gods can at last create their own guitar solos - without ever having to pick up a real instrument, thanks to a group of Finnish computer science students.
The Virtual Air Guitar project, developed at the Helsinki University of Technology, adds genuine electric guitar sounds to the passionately played air guitar.
Using a computer to monitor the hand movements of a "player", the system adds riffs and licks to match frantic mid-air finger work. By responding instantly to a wide variety of gestures it promises to turn even the least musically gifted air guitarist to a virtual fret board virtuoso.
Posted by Vishwakarma C. K. @ 07:49 PM | Comments (0) | TrackBack
November 16, 2005
Einstein is back - as a robot
Busan, South Korea - Robots that smile and blink. A "ubiquitous" Internet that envelops people in an always-wired world. Radio ID tags on every product and person, letting you check whether the wine you're thinking of buying will go with that steak or if your children have arrived safely at school.
These visions of the future were among innovations exhibited on Tuesday on the sidelines of the Asia-Pacific Economic Co-operation (Apec) summit, in Busan, South Korea.
World leaders and other delegates at Apec are getting the chance to participate in the first-ever trial of wireless high-speed Internet access called WiBro. The technology allows users to surf the Web at speeds almost as fast as wired connections while moving, also enabling voice and video calling via the Internet.
Posted by Vishwakarma C. K. @ 06:24 PM | Comments (0) | TrackBack
November 13, 2005
Gravity Tractor
NASA scientists have come up with a surprisingly simple yet effective way to deflect an Earth-bound asteroid – park a large spacecraft close by and let gravity do the work.
Previous suggestions have focused on deflecting an incoming asteroid with nuclear explosions. But NASA experts believe a "gravity tractor" should be able to perform the same feat by creating an invisible towline to tug the rock off its deadly course.
"Most people think of the Hollywood treatment – throw a nuclear weapon at it," says Edward Lu, a NASA scientist and astronaut who developed the idea. But this would produce shattered pieces, some of which might still head towards Earth. "That’s the blast-and-hope strategy," Lu adds.
Posted by Vishwakarma C. K. @ 08:50 AM | Comments (0) | TrackBack
November 11, 2005
MIT closes in on bionic speed
Robots, both large and micro, can potentially go wherever it's too hot, cold, dangerous, small or remote for people to perform any number of important tasks, from repairing leaking water mains to stitching blood vessels together.
Now MIT researchers, led by Professor Sidney Yip, have proposed a new theory that might eliminate one obstacle to those goals - the limited speed and control of the "artificial muscles" that perform such tasks. Currently, robotic muscles move 100 times slower than ours. But engineers using the Yip lab's new theory could boost those speeds - making robotic muscles 1,000 times faster than human muscles - with virtually no extra energy demands and the added bonus of a simpler design. This study appears in the Nov. 4 issue of the journal Physical Review Letters.
Posted by Vishwakarma C. K. @ 08:43 AM | Comments (0) | TrackBack
November 10, 2005
The creative mind
Everyone has it, some a lot more than others. The development of humans, and possibly the universe, depends on it. Yet creativity is an elusive creature. What do we mean by it? What is going on in our brains when ideas form? Does it feel the same for artists and scientists? We asked writers and neuroscientists, pop stars and AI gurus to try to deconstruct the creative process - and learn how we can all ignite the spark within.
Posted by Vishwakarma C. K. @ 07:13 PM | Comments (0) | TrackBack
First Patent Application to Claim a Fictional Storyline
Further to a policy of publishing patent applications eighteen months after filing, the U.S. Patent and Trademark Office is scheduled to publish history’s first “storyline patent” application today. The publication will be based on a utility patent application filed by Andrew Knight in November, 2003, the first such application to claim a fictional storyline.
Knight, a rocket engine inventor, registered patent agent, and graduate of MIT and Georgetown Law, will assert publication-based provisional patent rights against anyone whose activities may fall within the scope of his published claims, including all major motion picture manufacturers and distributors, book publishers and distributors, television studios and broadcasters, and movie theaters. According to the official Patent Office website, provisional rights “provide a patentee with the opportunity to obtain a reasonable royalty from a third party that infringes a published application claim provided actual notice is given to the third party by [the] applicant, and a patent issues from the application with a substantially identical claim.”
Posted by Vishwakarma C. K. @ 06:25 PM | Comments (0) | TrackBack
November 06, 2005
NASA tightens its belt, again
NASA administrator Mike Griffin has confirmed speculation that even more of its science projects would be cut or delayed in an attempt to keep President Bush's 'vision for space' alive.
On 3 November, Griffin told a US House Committee that NASA is US$3-5 billion short on funds to finish the space shuttle programme through to its retirement in 2010. Such shortfalls mean NASA has had to get its priorities in order and make some serious cuts to close part of this funding gap. To that end, Griffin unveiled a series of belt-tightening measures that will see key research programmes in life science and nuclear energy "discontinued, de-scoped or delayed".
Posted by Vishwakarma C. K. @ 08:42 PM | Comments (0) | TrackBack
November 02, 2005
Beating the sub-wavelength limit
Classical particles can only pass though an aperture if they are smaller than the aperture. Quantum particles like atoms can only pass through an opening if their de Broglie wavelength is smaller than the opening. If the de Broglie wavelength is larger than the aperture, the atoms cannot pass through, even if their physical size is smaller than the aperture. Similarly, light can only pass through a slit if its wavelength is smaller than the width of the slit.
Posted by Vishwakarma C. K. @ 07:16 PM | Comments (0) | TrackBack
November 01, 2005
Venetian blinds
A molecule that flips its arms like the slats on a Venetian blind might in future find uses in computer displays, computer memory, or even windows that become tinted at the flick of a switch.
Molecules whose shapes or movements can be easily controlled are important for nanotechnology. One kind that promises to be useful are those shaped in a helix that can be made to reverse its direction. When that happens the molecule is said to reverse its chirality.
Researchers at North Carolina State University in Raleigh and Vanderbilt University in Nashville, Tennessee, were working with a helical polymer called polyguanidine. Polyguanidine actually switched chirality so easily that it was difficult to control. To try to make the helices more stable, the researchers stuck side chains of anthracene along the helical backbone.
Posted by Vishwakarma C. K. @ 03:10 PM | Comments (0) | TrackBack
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