Wearable scanner opens new frontier in neuroscience

A rat’s head fits in the circular opening of this device…

A tiny wearable positron emission tomography (PET) scanner has been used to track chemical activity in the brains of unrestrained animals while an animal behaves naturally; it could be modified for people.

By revealing neurological circuitry as the subjects perform normal tasks, researchers say, the technology could greatly broaden the understanding of learning, addiction, depression, and other conditions.

A conventional PET scanner is so large that these studies have to be performed with the subject lying inside a large tube. …

via Wearable scanner opens new frontier in neuroscience | KurzweilAI.

Integrating the iPhone with a Prius Bluetooth system

Integrating the iPhone with car Bluetooth systems

The iPhone can… integrate easily with most cars’ hands-free Bluetooth systems. We’ve identified some compatible systems, and instructions for a few.

Toyota (Prius and other models) The iPhone integrates well with this system. Instructions for pairing from iPhone Atlas reader George Wilde:

1. On the Prius navigation screen, press the “INFO” button

2. On the resulting “Information Menu” screen touch the “Telephone” button.

3. On the resulting “Telephone” screen touch the “Settings” button.

4. On the resulting “Settings” screen scroll down to the bottom and touch “Add Phone” under “Bluetooth”.

5. You are then presented with a screen that indicates “Begin Bluetooth discovery/search from phone” with a 4 digit pairing passkey.

6. On your iPhone go to “Settings” Â and the “General” item under “Settings”. Go down to “Bluetooth and turn it on. The iPhone then becomes discoverable for a period of time.

7. The iPhone should see the Hands Free system of the car and then display a 4 digit form (and keyboard) to enter the pairing passkey given by the car.

8. Enter the four digits and touch “connect”.

9. The car will then say it is connected and display the phone name and ID.

10. The cellular signal strength is displayed on the navigation screen and the phone audio is fed through the car speakers.

via Integrating the iPhone with car Bluetooth systems | iPhone Atlas – CNET Reviews.

 

An MP3 can be used to hack your car

Hackers could gain access to a vehicle’s computer systems remotely, security experts from the University of California, San Diego, and the University of Washington have found.

In one example, cellphone hardware installed in luxury cars was attacked, allowing the team to inject malicious code into the car’s electronic controls. In theory, hackers could then sell the car to a thief, giving them its location and unlocking it remotely. The team also managed to take control of the car using a Trojan app on a phone that used an Android operating system and had been paired with the car’s Bluetooth system.

The researchers were able to show that software embedded in an MP3 file could install itself into the car’s firmware, enabling similar exploits to those above. If the car had a self-parking system, it could in theory be driven away by the hacker.

via How an MP3 can be used to hack your car | KurzweilAI.

New app displays the latest earthquakes worldwide

Earthquake Lite, a free iPhone/Android app, displays global seismic activity and lists of events that you can filter by location, magnitude, and time, writes blogger Bob Tedeschi.

For example, the app listed nine significant tremors near Japan’s east coast, and one in western China for the week of March 14. You can sort the list according to magnitude, date, and location of the earthquake using free USGS data, and drill down to see the epicenter and more details.

iPhone users of the paid version can receive notifications of any tremor registering 6.0 or more on the Richter scale.

via New app displays the latest earthquakes worldwide | KurzweilAI

I found two, iEarthquakes and Earthquake, both free iPhone apps. Plus one for just the Bay Area. Of the two, Earthquake lite shows more quakes, but they both show the big ones. There was a 5.1 quake today, (Sunday, March 20) 4979 miles from my current location, for example, near the east coast of Honshu, Japan.

Secrets of a Mind-Gamer

This is a condensed version of how Joshua Foer broke the world record for memorizing an entire deck of 52 playing carda (1 minute, 40 seconds).

How I trained my brain and became a world-class memory athlete. By Joshua Foer.

… I asked Ed Cooke, a competitor from England — he was 24 at the time and was attending the U.S. event to train for that summer’s World Memory Championships — when he first realized he was a savant.

“Oh, I’m not a savant,” he said, chuckling.

“Photographic memory?” I asked.

He chuckled again. “Photographic memory is a detestable myth. Doesn’t exist. In fact, my memory is quite average. All of us here have average memories.”

That seemed hard to square with the fact that he knew huge chunks of “Paradise Lost” by heart. Earlier I watched him recite a list of 252 random digits as effortlessly as if it were his telephone number.

“What you have to understand is that even average memories are remarkably powerful if used properly,” Cooke said. …

…nearly all the memory tricks in the competitive mnemonist’s arsenal — can be traced to a short Latin rhetoric textbook called “Rhetorica ad Herennium,” written sometime between 86 and 82 B.C. It is the only comprehensive discussion of the memory techniques attributed to Simonides to have survived into the Middle Ages. The techniques described in this book were widely practiced in the ancient and medieval worlds. Memory training was considered a centerpiece of classical education in the language arts, on par with grammar, logic and rhetoric. Students were taught not just what to remember but how to remember it. In a world with few books, memory was sacrosanct. …

The principle underlying most memory techniques is that our brains don’t remember every type of information equally well. Like every other one of our biological faculties, our memories evolved through a process of natural selection in an environment that was quite different from the one we live in today…

The point of the memory techniques described in “Rhetorica ad Herennium” is to take the kinds of memories our brains aren’t that good at holding onto and transform them into the kinds of memories our brains were built for. It advises creating memorable images for your palaces: the funnier, lewder and more bizarre, the better. “When we see in everyday life things that are petty, ordinary and banal, we generally fail to remember them. . . . But if we see or hear something exceptionally base, dishonorable, extraordinary, great, unbelievable or laughable, that we are likely to remember for a long time.” What distinguishes a great mnemonist, I learned, is the ability to create lavish images on the fly, to paint in the mind a scene so unlike any other it cannot be forgotten. And to do it quickly. Many competitive mnemonists argue that their skills are less a feat of memory than of creativity. …

From the front of the room, the chief arbiter, a former Army drill sergeant, shouted, “Go!” A judge sitting opposite me clicked her stopwatch, and I began peeling through the pack as fast as I could, flicking three cards at a time off the top of the deck and into my right hand. I was storing the images in the memory palace I knew better than any other, one based on the house in Washington in which I grew up. Inside the front door, the Incredible Hulk rode a stationary bike while a pair of oversize, loopy earrings weighed down his earlobes (three of clubs, seven of diamonds, jack of spades). Next to the mirror at the bottom of the stairs, Terry Bradshaw balanced on a wheelchair (seven of hearts, nine of diamonds, eight of hearts), and just behind him, a midget jockey in a sombrero parachuted from an airplane with an umbrella (seven of spades, eight of diamonds, four of clubs). ….

The art of speed cards lies in finding the perfect balance between moving quickly and forming detailed images. You want a large enough glimpse of your images to be able to reconstruct them later, without wasting precious time conjuring any more color than necessary. When I put my palms back down on the table to stop the clock, I knew that I’d hit a sweet spot in that balance. But I didn’t yet know how sweet.

The judge, who was sitting opposite me, flashed me the time on her stopwatch: 1 minute 40 seconds. …

Two of hearts, two of hearts. Two of diamonds, two of diamonds. Three of hearts, three of hearts. Card by card, each one matched. When we got to the end of the decks, I threw the last card down on the table and pumped my fist. I was the new U.S. record holder in speed cards. A 12-year-old boy stepped forward, handed me a pen and asked for my autograph.

via Secrets of a Mind-Gamer – NYTimes.com.

Sacramento storm downs trees, cuts power to more than 20,000

More than 20,000 electrical customers remained without power early today after a powerful storm and heavy rain pounded much of Northern California overnight.

And showers are possible every day for the next week, according to the National Weather Service.

A spokesman for Pacific Gas & Electric Co. said the company has called for assistance from southern Oregon and Southern California to help restore power.

But extended outages are expected for some customers, said J.D. Guidi of PG&E.

The National Weather Service reported up to an inch of rain in some areas, with winds gusting at more than 50 mph in some locales. …

via Storm downs trees, cuts power to more than 20,000 – Sacramento News – Local and Breaking Sacramento News | Sacramento Bee.

Some of those 50 mph wind gusts kept me up late last night. A free iPhone app called Wind Alert gave me some good local wind speed measurements on a map.

Japan Nuclear Crisis: A Worm IN The Works?

…the Stuxnet Virus attacked SIEMENS operated plants.  The plant at Fukushima is run on Siemens software. When Stuxnet was released, it went Everywhere, even though it was “allegedly” an attack on Irans Bushhier plant …

The worm itself now appears to have included two major components. One was designed to send Iran’s nuclear centrifuges spinning wildly out of control.

Another seems right out of the movies:

The computer program also secretly recorded what normal operations at the nuclear plant looked like, then played those readings back to plant operators, like a pre-recorded security tape in a bank heist, so that it would appear that everything was operating normally while the centrifuges were actually tearing themselves apart.

via Japan Nuclear Crisis: A Worm IN The Works

… Stuxnet was in Japan last October, presumably still spreading and intended to wreck nuclear power plants.

… So now the difficulty the Fukushima nuclear plant operators faced in recovering control over their runaway reactors takes on a darker significance. Remember that the first problem following the quake was that the automated shutdown systems failed to operate at some of the reactors, because pumps failed and valves would not open even while running on batteries; the very sorts of mischief Stuxnet supposedly was designed to cause at Iran’s power station.

via WindowtoPalestine

Hypothetical: Stuxnet infects water cooling pump PLC, earthquake strikes and Stuxnet is activated, disabling cooling systems. I can say with near certainty that this plant utilized PLC’s that can be infected by the worm.

via AboveTopSecret

Interesting conspiracy theory, but it is shot down by this post:

All safety related systems at Fukushima are controlled by relay based logic. In other words, its impossible to modify the programming short of rewiring the relays.
via AboveTopSecret

FDA panel backs menthol cigarette ban

Pulling menthol cigarettes from the shelves would benefit the health of Americans, an FDA advisory panel recommended in a long-awaited report yesterday.

The scientific advisory panel, made up of scientists, physicians, and public health experts, spent a year analyzing the impact of menthol cigarettes before releasing the draft recommendations to the FDA. The agency is not bound to follow the advice of its advisory panels, but it often does.

The panel found that menthol cigarettes do not pose greater individual risk to smokers in terms of lung cancer, stroke, and other tobacco-related diseases. The menthol cigarettes, however, are especially enticing to teenagers and are more likely to develop them into lifetime smokers, the panel found.

via FDA panel backs menthol cigarette ban – The Boston Globe.

Good. Cigarettes are disgusting. I support people being able to smoke, as long as they get inside a giant air-tight plastic bag to do it.

Sex domain .xxx given final approval by Icann

Internet overseer Icann has given final approval to the creation of an internet domain dedicated to pornography.

The move to create a top level “.xxx” domain – similar to “.com” and “.org” – ends a 10-year battle over the virtual red-light district.

Icann gave initial approval last year, but carried out further consultation checks over the application.

It is now poised to sign an agreement with the ICM Registry, which is backing the domain, to make .xxx a reality.

Supporters say the domain will make it easier to filter out inappropriate content.

But many pornographers worry that the move could ghettoise their content. Religious groups have argued that giving pornography sites their own domain legitimises the content.

via BBC News – Sex domain .xxx given final approval by Icann.

How about an .adv domain which is only for advertisements, so we can block that if we want too.

Musical sweet spot for 3D sound

“It’s as if you are in the room with the musicians”

An enhanced way of creating 3D sound using computer software is attracting interest from the TV industry and Hollywood.

I am standing in a foam-clad chamber with my eyes closed, listening to the sound of scissors dancing around my head.

All that is missing from a real visit to the barber is the feel of hair dropping to the floor.

This virtual reality “3D” audio experience is the product of Professor Edgar Choueiri’s life-long passion for recorded music.

The Princeton University physics professor’s main day job is working on space rocket propellants.

But striving to make his own listening experience as real as possible led him to start designing an audio filter for standard stereo speakers, which goes a step further than conventional surround-sound.

“Surround-sound can give you a sense of an explosion happening at a distance, but it’s not accurate,” says Professor Choueiri, sitting in his custom-built acoustics lab on campus.

“With 3D audio, I can get a fly to go around your head… or if you want to really scare somebody, you can put a sound inside their head.”

His breakthrough is a small one, he is careful to say.

The brain-tricking effect can be created in other ways, and other pioneers have achieved it.

But none of the solutions appear to be as simple – or it seems, commercially viable – as his software filter, based on mathematical algorithms.

By eliminating what is known as “cross-talk” from ordinary stereo systems – when the left and right ears hear sounds that they do not in real life – his unique filter relies on the listener being in a small “sweet spot” between two speakers.

“Right now, I’m the only one who can design the filters, until we train somebody,” he adds.

The 3D effect is most pronounced inside the anechoic (echo-less) chamber at Princeton Sound Lab, but the professor shows it can also work on a small wireless speaker linked to a simple laptop.

“3D vision goes back to 1895, people cracked it then. 3D audio turned out to be a much more difficult problem,” he says, with just a whiff of the mad-professor, bubbling over with excitement at a new discovery.

Princeton University has patented his technique, and recently teamed up with the British-based technology company, Cambridge Mechatronics, to design a 3D sound system for 3D televisions.

The next step is to create multiple sweet-spots in a single room for family viewing. …

via BBC News – Today – Musical sweet spot for 3D sound.

Sounds great… how does it sound? Find out in 2012:

DynaSonix™ is similar to CML’s commercially successful Digital Sound Projector™ 5.1 surround sound technology, in that it delivers sound from a single array of tiny transducers integrated into the FPTV or placed in a soundbar unit, which sits under the TV’s screen. This means that DynaSonix™ can deliver a theatrical 3-D audio experience without the need to wire the room for multiple speaker units. However unlike Digital Sound Projector™, DynaSonix™ is not dependent on reflections off the walls and ceiling to create its desired audio effect, which means that it can work in any room, regardless of dimensions. The addition of CBAS™ to the system means that the user merely has to turn the television on for the 3-D sound delivery to be optimised for both room and audience.

DynaSonix™ is quite different from 5.1 surround sound, which provides some degree of sound envelopment for the listener but does not attempt to reconstruct a 3D sound-field. Instead, DynaSonix™ provides an accurate reconstruction of a fully 3D soundstage, where sound can be perceived accurately to be located anywhere in 3D space including at the ears, immediately above, behind, or even inside the head of the listener.

CML is working with a leading audio processor provider to integrate the various elements of firmware into a single code base, which will be licensed to FPTV manufacturers by CML. CML expects to announce the details of this partnership in the Spring of 2011, and to be able to offer a fully mass-production ready solution in time for the consumer electronics industry’s 2012 model releases.

via CM