Metro PCS isn’t exactly known for its selection of cutting-edge devices. Yes, it has the Galaxy S III now, but they charge 500 bucks for it. Pardon us for generalizing, but we’re going to posit that people on Metro PCS are looking to save money. That’s where the LG Spirit 4G find its sweet-spot. More »
Technology that allows a direct link between the brains of two rats, allowing the behaviors of one animal to shape those of the other – even if they were thousands of miles apart – could pave the way to cognitive crowd-sourcing, researchers suggest. The experiment, in which microelectrodes a 1/100th the thickness of a human hair were inserted into the parts of the rats’ brains which handle motor information, saw one rat rewarded for hitting a specific lever in its cage, and then remotely tutoring its counterpart to select the correct lever in its independent cage by direct stimulation of its motor cortex.
The system basically learnt from the electrical activity in the part of the “encoder” rat’s brain, as it figured out which of the levers in its cage to press, and then stimulated the “decoder” rat’s brain with the same impulses. Although the second rat did eventually figure out which was the right lever on each test, however, demonstrating a roughly 70-percent success ratio, it wasn’t an instantaneous process.
Instead, it took scientists around 45 days – with the rats practicing for an hour each day – before the decoder animal became proficient. That appeared to be a sudden switch in understanding, however, rather than a gradual familiarity: “there is a moment in time when … it clicks” Professor Miguel Nicolelis of the Duke University Medical Center in North Carolina, where the research took place, said of the process.
“Suddenly, the [decoder] animal realizes ‘Oops! The solution is in my head. It’s coming to me’ and he gets it right” the scientist says. To help that process along, the encoder rat was denied a treat whenever the decoder rat picked the wrong lever, a feedback system that encouraged sharper thoughts from the tutoring animal.
Although the current system uses a pair of rats – at times linking Duke University with a counterpart lab in Brazil – the scientists are already working on a version which will combine the thoughts of multiple animals. “You could actually have millions of brains tackling the same problem and sharing a solution” Nicolelis suggests, opening the door to a crowd-sourced problem solving engine of sorts.
“It is important to stress that the topology of BTBI [Brain-to-Brain Interface] does not need to be restricted to one encoder and one decoder subjects. Instead, we have already proposed that, in theory, channel accuracy can be increased if instead of a dyad a whole grid of multiple reciprocally interconnected brains are employed. Such a computing structure could define the first example of an organic computer capable of solving heuristic problems that would be deemed non-computable by a general Turing-machine” Professor Miguel Nicolelis, Duke University Medical Center, North Carolina
Nicolelis and his team also predict that one day – albeit a day several decades off – humans will be able to communicate and learn in this fashion, though it will take some clever cabling to actually make it practical. Currently, the microelectrodes require direct contact with points within the brain; while non-invasive brain monitoring equipment exists, it’s insufficiently precise for these purposes.
According to Nicolelis, the next stage of the research is to work on the crowd-crunching potential of the system, and measure its potential for computation in comparison to more traditional systems.
[via BBC]
Brain linked rats pave way for Gibson-esque meat crowd-computer is written by Chris Davies & originally posted on SlashGear.
© 2005 – 2012, SlashGear. All right reserved.
HTC announced its new One device last week along with Sense 5, which is a completely-redesigned user interface that will only be available on the HTC One. Or will it? Confirmed by HTC’s Facebook marketing department, Sense 5 will be making its way to older HTC devices, including “global variants” of the One X, One X+, One S, and the Butterfly.
HTC says that they’ll be “offering upgrades to some of its existing devices in the next few months,” so it looks like we may see older HTC devices running the new software before summer hits, although HTC mentions “global variants” of its devices, which could be a little confusing since HTC has international versions of its phones, and then there are US versions. It could end up that US gets the shaft with Sense 5 upgrades.
Then again, we’ll just have to wait and see what HTC ends up doing. Overall, this is certainly good news for HTC device owners, including those with the newer One series devices. However, Sense 5 may not come to every One series handset, so don’t get your hopes up if you’re rocking a mid-ranger like the One VX — HTC may not be focusing on lower-tier devices. The company also notes that some software features of the HTC One definitely won’t be making their way to older HTC devices.
HTC’s newest handset, the One, comes with a 4.7-inch full HD 1080p display with a 4MP “UltraPixel” camera. The device also packs an impressive 1.7GHz quad-core Snapdragon 600 processor with 2GB of RAM and either 32GB or 64GB of storage space. The phone will be making its way to the market sometime next month, so save up your pennies if you’re eligible for an upgrade.
HTC Sense 5 coming to older devices is written by Craig Lloyd & originally posted on SlashGear.
© 2005 – 2012, SlashGear. All right reserved.
The Assassin’s Creed 4: Black Flag posters that were leaked yesterday turned out to be promotional materials for the next Assassin’s Creed game now that Ubisoft has confirmed the game by releasing its official box art.
The box art image released by Ubisoft shows the new Assassin that we could expect to be featured in the game on the front and is equipped with a ton of weaponry. We can see he has three guns attached to him, a cutlass and, of course, the iconic Assassin’s Creed hidden dagger located on his right forearm. In the background, we can see the Assassin is aboard a pirate ship, which would lead us to believe he is, indeed, a pirate assassin. Take that, ninjas! (more…)
By Ubergizmo. Related articles: YouTube For iOS Gets Send To TV Feature With Xbox 360, PS3, Smart TV Support, Ouya Shipping To Kickstarter Supporters On March 28,
Mary Poppins flew with a magical umbrella, but can you actually soar with one real life? Pretty much—provided you have the right umbrella, which pro skiier Eric Roner did. He captured the crazy feat with a GoPro (Hero 3). More »
China is routinely accused of launching concerted hacking campaigns against the US, many of them reportedly tied directly to the army’s Unit 61398 in Shanghai. If you believe the Ministry of Defense’s spokesman Geng Yansheng, however, just the opposite is true. Along with claiming that China would never hurt (or rather, hack) a fly, he asserts that the Ministry and China Military Online sites faced an average of 144,000 hacking attempts per month from foreign sources in 2012, 62.9 percent of which allegedly came from the US. The Ministry’s man stops short of leveling cyberwarfare charges, although he notes the US’ recent plans to expand and formally define its cyberwar strategy. There’s some ‘splainin to do, he argues. While there isn’t a formal US response, we suspect that neither side is an innocent dove here — China is just the most recent to cry foul.
Filed under: Internet
Via: Reuters
Users who rely on Apple’s iCloud service were greeted with a rude awakening this morning as the service started experiencing an outage around 4 a.m. ET and is still experiencing issues as of this writing.
Earlier this morning, nearly all of iCloud’s services were completely down, but as of now, only three services are still experiencing outages: Photo Stream, Documents in the Cloud and “Backup.” The last service being extremely important as those of us who prefer to back up our iOS devices via iCloud are currently unable to do so. (more…)
By Ubergizmo. Related articles: Apple Censors ‘Barely Legal Teen’ From iCloud Emails, Attachments, Leap Wireless Is Stuck With Heaps Of iPhones In Its Inventory,
The one thing that everyone loves about Instagram is its huge selection of visual filters that you can apply to your photos. However, Vimeo is looking to be the Instagram of videos in a way, by introducing “Looks,” a new feature that allows videographers of all kinds to add visual effects to their videos to give them just the right touch.
In partnership with Vivoom, Vimeo has introduced over 500 visual effects to its video service as part of its “Enhancer” toolbox, which will give creative types the freedom to spice up their videos just a tad in order to give it that spice that they’ve been looking for. After all, most videos on Vimeo are a bit more on the elegant side than those found on YouTube.
Everything can be done directly within the web browser, and users are able to preview each effect in realtime before hitting the “Apply” button, which is a nice feature to have considering that it’s rather annoying applying filters to videos and waiting for it to render before you can see what it looks like.
There are pages and pages and filters to choose from, so Vimeo was kind enough to categorize filters by genre and mood to help you pick the right one quickly and easily. They even recommend a handful of filters that are either popular or Vimeo’s own favorites. Vimeo can even choose an effect automatically “based on technical analysis of the user’s video and social data,” making it sort of an “I’m Feeling Lucky” scenario. “Looks” will be rolling out to users within 90 days.
Vimeo announces “Looks” feature that adds visual filters to video is written by Craig Lloyd & originally posted on SlashGear.
© 2005 – 2012, SlashGear. All right reserved.
It’s important to support baby’s head and neck – but why not also make it fun? The BenBat Head and Neck Support system comes in great designs kids love with the safety assurance parents crave.
Apparently, there are people out there who are learning with their iOS devices instead of just browsing the Internet, chatting with friends or wasting countless hours in Pixel People. Apple is announcing today you brainiacs have surpassed one billion iTunes U downloads.
“There are now iTunes U courses with more than 250,000 students enrolled in them, which is a phenomenal shift in the way we teach and learn,” Apple’s senior vice president of Internet Software and Services Eddy Cue said in a statement.
In total, iTunes U is used in over 1,200 universities and colleges and 1,200 K-12 schools and districts with its hosting of over 2,500 public courses and thousands of private courses. 60 percent of the iTunes U downloads have come from outside of the U.S., Apple says. 155 countries are able to access iTunes U content with educators being able to create iTunes U courses in 30 countries.
The last major milestone iTunes U announced was it hitting 300 million downloads in August 2010. Nearly three years later to achieve 700 million additional downloads is kind of a slow progression, but it’s still an impressive feat as I personally forbid to teach myself anything on my iOS devices.
By Ubergizmo. Related articles: Apple Censors ‘Barely Legal Teen’ From iCloud Emails, Attachments, Leap Wireless Is Stuck With Heaps Of iPhones In Its Inventory,
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