The idea has been tossed around in science fiction yarns for years now, but researchers at Radboud University Nijmegen in the Netherlands have actually found a way to read people’s minds. Or, more specifically, decode what letters of the alphabet a subject is looking at by analyzing MRI scans with a special mathematical model they developed. Freaky.
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Ford has joined forces with Russia’s Saint Petersburg Polytechnic University for a three-year research project aimed at improving vehicle connectivity, with inspiration coming from an unlikely source: space robots. By studying the way robots interact, Ford hopes to develop its cars’ communications systems so that tasks like contacting emergency services after an accident will be performed even if the vehicle is damaged or the data connection is lost. What’s most fascinating are the so-called “mesh networks” which allow robots to maintain a flow of information amongst themselves and with their controllers on Earth and aboard the International Space Station in the event of a disrupted connection. This knowledge could prove useful to Ford in terms of improving emergency response protocols as well as vehicle-to-vehicle communications. To learn more, check out the video and press release after the break.
Filed under: Transportation, Science, Alt
Via: The Verge
Source: Ford
Nokia Here collection vehicles aren’t the only way the Finish giant is gathering data about our highways and city streets. The company’s researchers are also using anonymous smartphone, PND and even CAN bus data to further our understanding of traffic flow and driver behavior in different conditions. Beyond improving maps and navigation, the goal is to make our roads better and cars smarter. We recently spoke with Nokia’s Jane Macfarlane, Head of Research for Here, who shared how her team is bringing map data to life with the collaboration of opt-in smartphone users and fleet vehicle operators. Take a look at our gallery below and watch the video after the break. %Gallery-slideshow73225%
Filed under: GPS, Transportation, Mobile, Nokia
Google is hunting volunteers to test early Project Loon balloon-broadcast internet services, proposing mounting bulbous Loon antennas on participants’ roofs. Limited to those in California’s Central Valley, the research scheme would see the antennas stress-testing Project Loon’s potential bandwidth as the high-altitude balloons pass overhead. Although Google has billed Project Loon as potentially bringing internet […]
No matter what you’re doing at a computer, two displays are always better than one, and that could soon be true for your mobile devices as well. Prototypes of dual-display smartphones
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iPhone buyers are generally younger than Samsung smartphone buyers, new research indicates, though Samsung gets a greater proportion of the dumbphone-upgrade market than Apple does. Perhaps unsurprisingly, buyers of both brands are quick to upgrade to new handsets, according to a survey by Consumer Intelligence Research Partners (CIRP) provided to SlashGear, but the route by […]
Alt-week takes a look at the best science and alternative tech stories from the last seven days.
Two years on, the Fukushima nuclear meltdown is still causing problems, and the Japanese government is looking at a particularly cool way (literally) to address them. Similarly chilling is the prospect that ‘dead’ rats aren’t quite as lifeless as you might think. Do rodents go to heaven? That, we can’t answer, but what we can tell you is that new research shows we’re edging ever closer to a quantum-computing future. This is alt-week.
There’s a reason the animals that spend their days leaping from tree to tree have developed long prehensile tails. It not only gives them an extra limb for clinging to branches, it also helps them steer and adjust their center of gravity as they sail through the air. So it makes sense that if you were developing a robot with superhuman like leaping abilities, you’d make sure it had a tail too.
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SpaceX‘s Grasshopper test rig for the Falcon 9 reusable launch vehicle has stepped up its game, with Elon Musk’s private space company demonstrating that the rocket can now not only take off and land in a straight line, but track sideways as part of the maneuver. A vital talent if Grasshopper is to land safely […]
We know how important battery life is for a pretty much any device you carry around, whether it be a smartphone, laptop or handheld gaming system. One of the last things anyone wants to go through is having 5% battery life on their device when they really need to use it. But researchers at the University of Washington have come up with a way to allow mobile devices to essentially grab power from the air. (more…)
Researchers Discover Technique For Mobile Devices To Run On Radio Waves original content from Ubergizmo. 
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