Virtual Secret Service

The department of defense has used a teaching method called Tiny Town to train Secret Service officers for over 40 years.  This consists of miniature models of various buildings (sports stadium, hotel, airport, etc.) that students try and devise a security plan to allow for the visit of a dignitary.  The model helps them visualize possible lines of attack and think of ways to prevent them.

The department recently developed a virtual version of Tiny Town that runs of touchscreen kiosks.  This brings the Secret Service into the 21st century and allows to do things they never could before, like perform a virtual first-person walk-through of an area or simulate the spread of poisonous gasses in a chemical attack.  I don't know if the Secret Service plans to release the technology, but this could be really useful for private security firms as well.

http://www.sciencedaily.com/releases/2011/02/110215102844.htm

Mobile 3D

Researchers in Germany created a new video codec that can compress high definition 3D video down to sizes that could be streamed over a wireless network, allowing cell phones to view full 3D video.  As far as I know, they are leaving the actual displaying of the video up to the cell phone and only working on the compression and streaming aspect.  I don't think 3D glasses would go over well for a cell phone, so Nintendo 3DS-like screens that don't need glasses will probably be involved.  The other big hurdle they have to overcome is limited processing power on mobile devices.  Many new smart phones have 1GHz processors, but this probably isn't enough to decode this highly compressed video and display it at fast enough frame rates.  Once phones are closer to 2 or 3 GHz or contain dedicated graphics chips, they should be able to handle it.  Hopefully Android incorporates this codec at some point so I can watch 3D video on my 2013 5G phone.

http://www.sciencedaily.com/releases/2011/02/110211074747.htm

Teaching an Old Dog New Tricks

Two companies based out of Germany and Austria have combined forces to create a wireless touch-screen health monitoring device called myVitali for the elderly.  Current systems like Life Alert use analog phone lines to send emergency signals, but there is a limit to the functionality you can provide this way.   The myVitali device uses the internet instead, which allows for much more functionality but posed some problems as well. 

First of all, the service must be available 100% of the time so users can always get help in an emergency.  To overcome this, the companies set up cloud servers in 5 countries across the globe to provide fall-back protection in case of outages.  In addition to this, the device checks its connection to the server every 30 seconds and alerts the user if a connection could not be made. 

Secondly, the device had to be extremely simple to use.  Most of the customers would have little or no computer experience and would have to interact with wireless networks, tablets, touch-screens, and internet.  Many of the customers also suffered hearing or sight loss.  A combination of these things meant that the device had to be extremely accessible and have all the back-end technology abstracted away to a simple user interface. 

They currently have 1200 user accounts and counting in Europe.  It would be interesting to see how this would do in the US.

http://www.sciencedaily.com/releases/2011/02/110203081443.htm

Stand Up Robots

I watched a TED talk with Heather Knight, a roboticist who is interested in the intersection between  robots and entertainment.  She runs Marilyn Monrobot, a company which aims to create "socially intelligent robot performances."  Heather showcased her robot Data, an amateur stand-up comedian.  The audience members in the front row were given red and green cards they could hold up to show whether or not they liked the jokes being told.  Data was built with visual sensors to detect the cards and a microphone to pick up applause and laughter.  Supposedly, he would choose his jokes based on the audience reactions. 

For the talk, he stood up on his own, told 3 or 4 jokes (mostly funny) and sat back down.  The actual demonstration wasn't that impressive to me.  It seemed like Data was just using text-to-speech to read jokes from a database and do pre-programmed hand movements.  There wasn't any comic timing or real expression coming through.  It would be interesting to see him doing a longer (15 minutes or so) show and see how he would react to the audience.  As Data stands right now, he is certainly not the worst stand up comedian out there, but he's got a ways to go until he can compete with the big guys.

Writing with Crowds

Researchers in CMU's HCI Institute found that multiple people working independently could produce informational articles of higher quality than individuals.  For the experiment, they built a platform called CrowdForge on top of the Amazon Mechanical Turk platform.  CrowdForge splits complex tasks, like writing an article, into smaller tasks that can be done simultaneously by many people.  For example, some people were given the task of creating an outline while others voted on the best ones and still others turned these outlines into prose small sections at a time.  They compared this with articles written by individuals and Wikipedia articles and found that people rated the crowd sourced articles as higher quality and with less variation in quality.  If the CrowdForge system can prove viable for other types of complex problems, it could really change the way businesses operate.  Imagine being able to crowd source your tax forms or documentation?

http://www.sciencedaily.com/releases/2011/02/110202152056.htm

Baby Robots

There was a cool story about a roboticist at University of Vermont that used genetic algorithms to teach robots how to walk.  Robots were created in a sophisticated computer simulation and were given a task of walking toward a light without falling over.  Some of the robots started like tadpoles, some like snakes with legs, some like lizards, and some like mammals with legs directly beneath their body.  The genetic algorithm allowed the designs to evolve and let natural selection take its course.  The interesting finding was that the robots that started out with a more primitive form and evolved to the mammalian form performed better than the robots that started in the mammalian form.  These robots were mimicking how humans learn to walk.  They first learn forward movement and don't worry about balance since it is harder to fall over with a reptile-like frame.  Once they master forward movement, they can learn balance and improve their speed and gait.  I think this may be a promising technology for future robots.  Instead of trying to "play god" and program extremely complicated maneuvers manually, they can build the framework and leverage the power of evolution to come up with solutions itself.

http://www.sciencedaily.com/releases/2011/01/110120131542.htm

Robotic Fish

There was an article recently in Science Daily (my favorite news website) about a team at Northwestern University that studied the Ghost Knifefish, an unusual fish that can move in any direction - horizontal or vertical - almost instantaneously and built a robotic version.  Humans are great at building fast machines with poor maneuverability, like airplanes and cars, but have a hard time building slower machines with high maneuverability.  Nature on the other hand is excellent at producing highly maneuverable "machines" and we could learn a lot by studying the processes it uses.  The Knifefish has one ribbon-like fin on the bottom of its body and depending on the type of wave it creates on the fin, it can move in any direction.  To move forward or backwards, it sends a single wave either from front-to-back or back-to-front.  To move vertically, it sends two waves from opposite ends that meet in the center.  The two waves cancel out horizontal movement and all of the energy goes down and propels the animal upwards.  The scientists were able to reproduce this behavior with a highly sophisticated robot using 32 motors to control the individual parts of the fin.  Possible applications might include an underwater robot that can perform delicate operations like fixing oil pipes or exploring small areas.

http://www.sciencedaily.com/releases/2011/01/110119095045.htm

We Are All Cyborgs

I watched a TED talk by Amber Case where she claims that we are all becoming cyborgs.  She defines a cyborg as an organism with added technology that helps it adapt to its surroundings.  She cites people using cell phones and computers as examples of modern day cyborgs.  Up until recently, all human technology has dealt primarily with advancing our physical properties, such as allowing us to fight at a distance or chop down wood or open nuts and seeds faster.  Today, our tools are now extending our mental properties, making it easier for us to remember, communicate, and learn.  A consequence of this that she mentions is that adolescents now have to go through two awkward phases, the normal biological phase and an even more awkward technological adolescence that keeps a record of everything they have done. 

I thought the talk was really interesting and well done.  To think, I've been a cyborg this whole time and didn't even know it.

http://www.ted.com/talks/amber_case_we_are_all_cyborgs_now.html