August 5, 2006, 6:23 PM CT

Eye-tracker Quake controls!

Hmm. The problem with this guy is he assumes everyone's seen eye-trackers before and that we won't think he's just controlling the game from under the table.

Where's his other hand? Ahahh!

OK: I jest. I am prepared to believe that eye-trackers exist, and I suppose now that this sort of computer voodoo will probably be mainstream by, like, tomorrow, and that I've just not been keeping up with the latest in awesome hardware developments. Sigh.

Question though: how the hell do you aim?........

Posted by: Gina      Permalink         Source

August 4, 2006, 7:12 AM CT

Langer pitches one in for Sox

Before taking the mound at Fenway Park last week to throw out the ceremonial first pitch, Institute Professor Robert Langer figured he ought to practice a little. So his 12-year-old son, Sam, devised some stretching and throwing exercises and worked with Langer for a couple of days before the big moment.

The practice must have paid off, because Langer delivered a strike for the ceremonial first pitch before the July 28 Red Sox game against the Los Angeles Angels at Fenway Park.

"It was a real thrill to throw a strike in front of over 35,000 Red Sox fans, including many my students, at Fenway Park," Langer said. "I'm really honored the Red Sox selected me as a Medical All Star and asked me to throw out the ceremonial first pitch".

Before the pitch, the Red Sox public address announcer introduced Langer as "a world-renowned biomedical scientist (who) specializes in drug delivery systems and tissue engineering, while heading the largest biomedical engineering laboratory in the world at MIT".

Langer, who had to wait out a two-hour rain delay before throwing his pitch, describes himself as a big Red Sox fan and says he enjoys taking his sons, Sam and 16-year-old Michael, to games (his 15-year-old daughter, Susan, prefers to watch football). All three children, plus Langer's wife, Laura (Ph.D. 1989), attended Friday's game. The Sox lost, 8-3.........

Posted by: Jim      Permalink         Source

August 4, 2006, 0:12 AM CT

How Rising Gas Prices Affect Wallets, Psyches

Tallahassee -- The price of gas has doubled over the past three years, hovering around $3 a gallon nationally. Wayne Hochwarter, an associate professor of management in the College of Business at Florida State University in Tallahassee, Fla., recently conducted research to determine how increased gas prices have affected personal finance, as well as behavior at work. More than 300 employees across a wide range of occupations were surveyed.

"I was surprised to see how strongly gas prices affected personal finances," Hochwarter said. "We casually talk about the effects of gas prices but we really haven't gotten a handle on how it affects every spending. We also haven't determined what role employers have in terms of helping employees manage the stress that comes with spiraling gas prices".

Findings from Hochwarter's study indicated that most people have had to make drastic changes in the way they spend money. For example:

• 60 percent of respondents have to rethink the way they spend money.

• 41 percent have paid off debt more slowly.

• 43 percent have cut back on recreational activities.

• 25 percent have gone without basic necessities (food, heat, etc.).

• 44 percent are worried about how they are going to make ends meet.

........

Posted by: Tom      Permalink         Source

August 3, 2006, 7:03 AM CT

Greater Bandwidth From Alternative Semiconductors

With demand for greater bandwidth in communication networks steadily increasing, existing optical transmission and amplification technologies are fast reaching their limits. However simulations of a new type of semiconductor technology show promise in overcoming current bandwidth restrictions, and doing so more cheaply.

In recent years demand for greater bandwidth capacity in telecommunications, particularly for fast-growing metro networks, has been answered by using multi-wavelength transmission techniques over single fibres. Now this approach is running up against its own technological limits - an inability to use the total potential fibre bandwidth due to the lack of suitable semiconductor technology. These were the problems the IST project BigBand attempted to solve.

BigBand participants aimed to develop new types of semiconductor devices and systems that could exploit the total bandwidth capability of the latest optical fibres. They focused their efforts around ultra-wideband InP 'quantum dot' technology, which has the potential to overcome the bandwidth restrictions, particularly at the longer wavelengths of 1.4-1.65 µm, of the present 'quantum well' based semiconductor materials (where particles, which were originally free to move in three dimensions, are confined to two).........

Posted by: Kevin      Permalink         Source

August 2, 2006, 6:49 AM CT

Voyager Finds Three Surprises

A trio of surprise discoveries from NASA's Voyager 1 spacecraft reveals intriguing new information about our solar system's final frontier. The findings are reported in the Sept. 23 issue of Science.

The surprises come as the hardy, long-lived spacecraft approaches the edge of our solar system, called the heliopause, where the sun's influence ends and the solar wind smashes into the thin gas between the stars.

"These are just the most recent of a number of surprises Voyager has revealed in its 28-year journey of discovery. They tell us that the interaction of our sun with the surrounding interstellar matter from other stars is more dynamic and complex than we had imagined, and that there is more yet to be learned as Voyager begins the final leg of its race to the edge of interstellar space," said Dr. Edward Stone, Voyager project scientist at the California Institute of Technology in Pasadena. Voyager 1 is expected to pass beyond the heliopause into interstellar space in eight to 10 years, with Voyager 2 expected to follow about five years later.

Voyager 1 has already passed the termination shock, where the million-mile-per-hour solar wind abruptly slows and becomes denser and hotter as it presses against interstellar gas. It was expected the wind beyond the shock would slow to a few hundred thousand miles per hour. But the Voyager researchers were surprised to find that the speed was much less, and at times the wind appeared to be flowing back inward toward the sun.........

Posted by: Brooke      Permalink         Source

August 1, 2006, 11:37 PM CT

Threats To Planet's Life

In a report released recently, researchers call for a new systematic study of the Earth's "critical zone"--the life-sustaining outermost surface of the planet, from the vegetation canopy to groundwater and everything in between.Understanding and predicting responses to global and regional change is necessary, they say, to mitigate the impacts of humans on complex ecosystems and ultimately sustain food production.

"Development is having a great effect on the critical zone," said soil scientist Donald Sparks of the University of Delaware and co-chair of the NSF workshop that led to the report, entitled Frontiers in Exploration of the Critical Zone. "Converting some of the best land around the world into buildings, roads and concrete has implications for air and water quality and biodiversity, and over time could put pressure on our ability to produce food.

Critical zone sites include an extraordinary diversity of soils and ecosystems ranging from the tropics to the poles, from deserts to wetlands, and from rock-bound uplands to delta sediments.

"Because the critical zone includes air, water and soil and is the focal point of food production, it has a major effect on human life," Sparks said. "It is imperative that we better understand the interactions that occur there".........

Posted by: Tyler      Permalink         Source

August 1, 2006, 11:23 PM CT

98 Per Cent Of Gaza's Children Experience Or Witness War Trauma

Most children in the Gaza Strip have been tear gassed, have had their homes searched and damaged, and have witnessed shooting, fighting and explosions. A number of have been injured or tortured as a result of chronic war that spans generations, says a recent Queen's University study.

As per the study, there is a pattern of violence against Palestinian children in the Gaza Strip that has serious and debilitating psychiatric and psychological effects.

"Gaza has been an occupied territory for a long time, and still is; Israel controls its borders, its air and water access. It has been described as a vast open-air detention centre" says Queen's community health and epidemiology researcher John Pringle. "Bombs are being launched into Gaza during this latest eruption of Middle East violence, but are being ignored in light of other crises."

The Psychological Effects of War on Palestinian Children is Pringle's Master's thesis and the only study of its kind, analyzing data from The Gaza Child Health Survey to describe relationships between war trauma and psychological problems in children.

As per the study, a child in Gaza who has had a severe head injury has 4 times the risk of emotional disorder. A child who has been severely beaten has 3.9 times the risk of Attention Deficit Hyperactivity Disorder. A child who has witnessed friends injured or killed has 13 times the risk of Post Traumatic Stress Disorder. A child in a refugee camp has 5 times a greater chance of witnessing traumatic events and 4 times a greater chance of direct physical trauma.........

Posted by: Tom      Permalink         Source

August 1, 2006, 10:13 PM CT

New Shuffle-lookalike UP3

Do you still remember LG's Shuffle-lookalike UP3? Well, the Korean giant has just another added two members into this series, which are UP3 Flat and UP3 Sharp accordingly.

LG UP3 Flat is a screen-less MP3 player but just LED indicators. It does playback MP3, WMA (DRM supported), OGG, and ASF audio. Its built-in battery allows up to 10 hours of playback continously. The dimension of UP3 Flat is 78 x 24 x 9.5mm.

Conversely, UP3 Sharp comes with a OLED display. Most of the features are same as Up3 Flat, except the UP3 Sharp has only 8 hours of battery life and a dimension of 85 x 25 x 10mm. Althought it is said to be used patented fingerprint-resistant material as its case, it seems doesn't work at all.

Both models are available 512MB and 1GB. They are expected to be released in the end of this July.........

Posted by: Gina      Permalink         Source

August 1, 2006, 10:08 PM CT

Actions ATJ2098 and Delux iShow

China-based Actions Semiconductor will soon announce its new ATJ2098 chip, which is an upgrade version of ATJ2097. It will be mainly made to improve the stability and the size of the chip. The new ATJ2098 will packaged at LQFP 80 pins. Its dimension is about 10 x 10mm. There is no new feature is reported so far.

Meanwhile, Delux Technology is going to release a new iShow which is based on this new chip. Its features are most likely with other ATJ2097-based players, but with an 1.8? 260K colors TFT LCD. It does play video at resolution of 160 x 128.

Stay tuned. We will keep you updated on this new solution.........

Posted by: Gina      Permalink         Source

July 29, 2006, 9:01 PM CT

Cost Of Front-line Reporting

Ms Beverley Chidgey, Psychology and researcher at UWS, says while we rely on journalists to bring us our daily news, we know very little about how journalists handle the emotional effects of covering violence and traumatic events on a prolonged basis.

"Major world events like 9/11, the 2004 tsunami and the continued conflicts in the Middle East have generated an increased interest in the coping ability of journalists and their symptoms of stress and trauma, but there is little research to date on the issue," says Ms. Chidgey. "Historically journalists have been viewed as hardened characters, not susceptible to the effects of covering traumatic events. However, evidence is pointing towards higher levels of trauma-related illness and post-traumatic stress disorder symptoms among reporters who cover war and other disturbing events".

"There is some evidence to date that the level of psychological hardiness could act as a preventative mental health factor - motivating journalists to respond to stressful circumstances by turning potential disasters into positive challenges rather than negative".

Ms Chidgey says the study will examine journalists' perceived risk of crime and will consider whether levels of hardiness diminish reporters' fear of crime. It will also look at the relationship between age, gender, length of time in the job, work role and perceived risks and fears.........

Posted by: Tom      Permalink         Source

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