What is sixth sense technology

0 | January 2nd, 2012 | Posted in Computers, Science, Technology

Sixth Sense is a mini-projector coupled with a camera and a cellphone—which acts as the computer and your connection to the Cloud, all the information stored on the web. Sixth Sense can also obey hand gestures.

The SixthSense prototype implements several applications that demonstrate the usefulness, viability and flexibility of the system. The map application lets the user navigate a map displayed on a nearby surface using hand gestures, similar to gestures supported by Multi-Touch based systems, letting the user zoom in, zoom out or pan using intuitive hand movements.

The drawing application lets the user draw on any surface by tracking the fingertip movements of the user’s index finger. SixthSense also recognizes user’s freehand gestures (postures). For example, the SixthSense system implements a gestural camera that takes photos of the scene the user is looking at by detecting the ‘framing’ gesture. The user can stop by any surface or wall and flick through the photos he/she has taken. SixthSense also lets the user draw icons or symbols in the air using the movement of the index finger and recognizes those symbols as interaction instructions. For example, drawing a magnifying glass symbol takes the user to the map application or drawing an ‘@’ symbol lets the user check his mail.

The SixthSense system also augments physical objects the user is interacting with by projecting more information about these objects projected on them. For example, a newspaper can show live video news or dynamic information can be provided on a regular piece of paper. The gesture of drawing a circle on the user’s wrist projects an analog watch.

Earth-Like Planet

0 | December 6th, 2011 | Posted in NASA, News, Science, Space

It’s reported that NASA’s Kepler deep space probe has found a planet, similar to Earth. It’s close to the size of earth and about 352 light years away. The planet is called Kepler-22b. The planet orbits a bright star like the our sun.

“We’re getting closer and closer to discovering the so-called ‘Goldilocks planet,’” Pete Worden, director of NASA’s Ames Research Center said.

the fact is amount of the total candidate planets that Kepler has found to date is 2,326, 207 of them are approximately Earth-size. More of them, 680, are a bit larger than our planet, then falling into the “super-Earth” category. The total number of candidate planets in the habitable zones of their stars is now 48.

Be careful of what you post online

0 | October 4th, 2011 | Posted in Computers, Technology

The Future of Online Education

0 | September 14th, 2011 | Posted in Education

With the invention of devices such as the tablet computer and smartphones becoming capable of doing more than ever, it’s only a matter of time before our methods of education begin to change as well. Online education has become quite the viable option for students with prior obligations, careers, family or financial situations that prevent them from attending a campus each day. Plus, with the rising cost of tuition and textbooks, several students simply can’t afford to pay for a traditional classroom education.

In the future, students may be able to attend classes from their tablet computers with the invention of video conferencing. Professors and instructors can set up cameras in the back of the classroom if they wish and stream lessons directly to them in real time. They can also have interactive options for students to make them feel as if they are still right there in the room. Streaming classes and putting them in archives is another good option if students are ill or need to go back and review a lesson right before an exam. Doing this can also benefit the instructor if they have plans for a vacation, sabbatical or conference that they must attend. Rather than getting a substitute, they can instead record their lesson plans and offer them to the students online. This way the course work won’t be interrupted and both the student and instructor can easily slide back into the normal routine.

There are already innovations and applications being developed that will allow students to purchase textbooks online by buying one chapter at a time rather than having to buy the entire textbook at the beginning of the semester only to have to use half of it. Not to mention the fact that when they try to sell it back they may receive only a quarter of what they payed for it. And in some cases it can actually be less than this if they are able to sell the book back at all.

Although it may be an odd thought, there may be a day when the need for college and university campuses is eliminated altogether if there is enough of a demand for online education, or at least learning institutions won’t have to spend millions and millions of dollars on building new classrooms, dorms and learning centers for swelling numbers of students. That money can instead be used to improve on the quality of education both online and for the students currently enrolled in on-campus classes. One of the main frustration about attending class is the difficulty of finding parking. Student who attend classes online obviously won’t have do deal with this and can save both time and money on travel and gas as well as frustration.

Students are able to earn their bachelors, associates and MBA online degree. There’s no telling what other new and exciting future innovations will become possible.

Henry Markram builds a brain in a supercomputer

0 | August 31st, 2011 | Posted in Future, Science, Technology, Video

One of the newest TED talks in which Henry Markham, director of Blue Brain, a supercomputing project shows how he built a brain in a supercomputer.

The future of motoring

0 | August 12th, 2011 | Posted in Cars

The words “eco-friendly motoring” are enough to have many of us looking skyward.

Immediately, we have a mental image of plug-in, high priced electric cars that creep along the Queen’s highways before needing re-charging after a few hours– or weirdly shaped futuristic automobiles that you feel a little embarrassed to drive; and which certainly wouldn’t prove a comfortable ride for the whole family.

Well … we’d be wrong!

This is because there’s a reasonable middle ground between the petrol-quaffing 4×4 monsters of the Nineties and early Noughties, and, frankly, the simply silly little “green” cars – as manufacturers increasingly recognise the good sense of the hybrid option. With cheaper excise duties, more miles per gallon, and the justifiably smug feeling you can enjoy having done your bit to satisfy the green lobby, hybrids are the way forward for today’s thinking, responsible motorists.

As the name suggests, the hybrid car blends a small, fuel-efficient petrol engine with an electric motor to give both you and the environment the best of both worlds.

With the electric motor helping out when needed, the petrol engine doesn’t need to work anything like as hard. So, the fumes are fewer and the mpg a lot greater.

OK, hybrid cars may not be absolutely brand new, but the performance and designs available are improving almost by the day – so there’s really no excuse not to at least consider the option for those of us with even the slightest environmental conscience.

And if you’re worried about the initial cost, there’s really no need, because the hybrids are also getting cheaper, pro-rata, in relation to both petrol or electric-only vehicles, as the demand for green fuel efficiency grows and grows.

Kaspersky Reveal Common Internet Mistakes

0 | August 12th, 2011 | Posted in Antivirus

With so much of our daily life now revolving, whether we like it or not, around the online world, it can be tempting for us all to assume that we’re internet experts, adequately guarded against the growing threats of cyber criminals and malicious online viruses that can, in one fell swoop, render our PCs and Macs useless pieces of equipment.

However, a recent survey conducted by antivirus software giant Kaspersky has handed us all a wake-up call by revealing a few common IT mistakes that are leaving us so called “experts” at real risk of becoming the unwitting victims of cyber crime.

According to Kaspersky, the main reason why business systems find themselves the victim of hacking or virus infection is the fact that there are often massive loopholes within business security policies, leaving systems extremely vulnerable to infiltration. For example, have a quick think about how easily you’re able to access the network in your office. Are there full sharing privileges or is access sensitively restricted depending upon your role in the company?

Apparently small businesses are more likely to have damaging but unnoticed patches in their networks than larger businesses, and unfortunately smaller businesses are the ones less able to cope with the potentially devastating effects of computer viruses.

Another common error is only partially loading antivirus software, particularly free antivirus software, onto computer systems, leaving some resources entirely unprotected. Connected to this error is the fact that, amazingly, some people fail to perform simple checks on the free software that they download from the internet, leaving themselves vulnerable to cyber crime exploitation.

The world’s first wooden supercar

0 | August 12th, 2011 | Posted in Cars

In 2008, a team led by Joe Harmon an industrial designer from North Carolina, created the world’s first wooden supercar. Called The ‘Splinter’, the wooden sports car is capable of generating 700bhp from its twin supercharged, 4.6 litre, V8 engine – close to 300bhp more than a Porsche 911 for example!

And with a top speed of 240mph, it could leave the Porsche standing.

Constructed from maple, plywood and MDF, the wooden car is capable of getting from 0-60 mph in just under three seconds.

It is constructed almost entirely from wood. The 15ft-long two door, two-seater coupe has a laminated wood veneer chassis – and wooden wheel rims inside 20-inch diameter tyres.

The suspension is provided by laminated wooden arms with unique springs constructed from orange wood. The car isn’t made from carved-out solid wood, but moulded laminates.

Now The ‘Splinter’ wooden car wasn’t designed to be super-efficient, so much as super in performance. But the point is that it could be. This is because weighs in at just 1,134kg – some 240kg less than a super lightweight Porsche. And weight, as well as aero dynamics, is vital in maximizing fuel efficiency.

Like many other concept cars, The Splinter explores possibilities, which may eventually be explored by the major manufacturers in mainstream, mass-produced vehicles. Wood is, after all, a renewable material.

It may be a while before we see all wooden cars in their millions, but those brave enough to have radical ideas have produced the first concept cars which were to lead eventually to hybrid vehicles and all electric cars.

Such innovations are now mainstream, mass-produced family cars – so who knows what the future may hold?

Commercial jetpack

0 | April 15th, 2011 | Posted in Future


The Martin Jetpack is the world’s first practical jetpack. It consists of a purpose-built gasoline engine driving twin ducted fans which produce sufficient thrust to lift the aircraft and a pilot in vertical takeoff and landing, enabling sustained flight.

The Martin Jetpack – is creating a new segment in the aviation and recreational vehicle markets. Initially designed with the leisure market in mind, commercial demand for the Martin Jetpack has seen the research and development programme focus on readying the product for use in a number of sectors including emergency response, defence and recreation, with numerous applications in each sector.

Glenn Martin, the inventor, said: ‘You just strap it on and rev the nuts out of it and it lifts you up off the ground.
‘It’s just basic physics. As Newton said, for every action there is an equal and opposite reaction. So when you shoot lots of air down very fast you go up and you’re flying.’

Mr Martin says 2,500 people have already signed up for to buy the jetpack, with inquiries coming from Middle Eastern royalty and U.S. millionaires. The two-litre 200-horsepower gasoline engine powers two ducted fans that can soar across the skies at 60mph at heights of up to 160ft.

via Martin Jetpack site – http://martinjetpack.com/

Nuclear reactor means

0 | April 2nd, 2011 | Posted in Ecology, Future, Nature, Technology

“…A nuclear reactor means bring fissile material to a point at which it is hot enough to boil water (in a light-water reactor) and not enough to melt and go supercritical (China syndrome or a Chernobyl incident). You simply cannot let it get away from you because if it does, you can’t stop it.

The Japanese are still talking about days or weeks to clean this up. That’s not true. They cannot clean it up. And no one will live in that area again for dozens or maybe hundreds of years.”

This is taken from the article ‘When The Fukushima Meltdown Hits Groundwater’ by Dr. Tom Burnett. You can read it on http://rense.com/general93/whent.htm