Although plenty of us are content with using the latest video game technology such as Microsoft’s Kinect to simulate flailing around in order to hit a virtual tennis ball, scientists are finding incredible uses for these devices that have already led to advances in the medical field. Microsoft Research released a video earlier this week showing off Stroke Recovery with Kinect, an amazing project “that provides a virtual reality system to help stroke survivors improve their upper-limb motor functioning in the comfort of their own home.” More →
If you come down with the flu this winter, don’t be surprised if people avoid you without even thinking about it just from the way you smell. New research published in Psychological Science claims that “humans are able to smell sickness in someone whose immune system is highly active within just a few hours of exposure to a toxin,” which the scientists speculate is a biological mechanism for warning others within your species that you’re sick and that they should keep away from you. More →
Imagine if you could not only post pictures of your meals on Instagram but post their odors as well? That seems to the premise that some Harvard students are working on as they try to develop a method of sending out smells over smartphones. ITProPortal reports that the students are working under the direction of Paris-based facility Le Laboratoire to create a new smartphone accessory that “will permit us to send olfactory messages instantaneously and around the world” just as easily as we send out text and voice messages. More →
Have you ever woken up with a terrible hangover, regretting every decision that led to that moment? What if you’d had a better understanding of the effects that a long night of drinking could have on your body? We all know that drinking too much is unhealthy, but there are plenty of scientific explanations for why our bodies react the way that they do to alcohol. This Lifehacker post we stumbled upon while browsing Reddit is a convenient beginner’s guide for those who want to know more about the beer and the liquor they put in their bodies. More →
As if we don’t have enough to worry about in our daily lives, scientists are now warning that there’s a heightened risk of supervolcanoes erupting and ending life as we know it on the planet. The Independent reports that geologists have recently been poking around the molten rock that’s inside the dormant caldera in Yellowstone National Park and have found that it’s much more likely to erupt than previously thought. The key finding here is that supervolcanoes such as the Yellowstone Caldera may not need external triggers such as earthquakes to pop off — instead, they may erupt solely due to internal pressure. More →
The first ceremonial kick at the opening 2014 World Cup game taking place in Brazil later this year may be delivered by a paralyzed teen who will control an exoskeleton body to allow him to move and actually hit the ball, NewScientist reports. The teen is now training in virtual reality with the technology that will let him kick the first ball at the competition. The teen will wear an exoskeleton that will support his lower body and will respond to wireless commands received from electrodes placed on the scalp or within the brain and converted into movement by a computer that’s also worn by the kicker. More →
An Indiegogo project that aims to deliver the first gadget capable of translating a dog’s thoughts into the English language has reached its funding goal with 50 days left to go in the money-raising campaign, Fox News reports. The “No More Woof” (NMW) project developed by Scandinavian Nordic Society for Invention and Discovery (NSID) organization has surpassed its $10,000 funding goal by almost $5,000, and aims to deliver the first devices that will translate dogs’ thoughts into English and other languages at some point in April. More →
If robots are indeed the future then Google is getting a big head start on the competition. Technology Review notes that robots created by Google-owned companies absolutely dominated rivals in a recent competition hosted by the Defense Advanced Research Projects Agency (DARPA) in Miami. The point of the competition was to have different robots perform a series of tasks related to disaster relief including “clambering over rubble, clearing debris, and operating a fire hose” — and Google-owned robots accounted for three of the four best performing robots overall. More →
Intel’s Oculus robots play smartphone games such as the popular “Cut the Rope” title to test the accuracy of touchscreens on mobile devices. The software then actually scores screens following the tests, attributing a rating to them based on data taken from Intel’s cognitive psychology experiments conducted on hundreds of people who use touchscreen devices, MIT Technology Review writes. To score displays, in addition to the Oculus, a Hollywood-grade Red camera is used to capture video at 300 frames per second in resolution higher than HD – the camera records everything the robot does, and the data can be used to determine the accuracy and responsiveness of displays under certain test parameters. More →
With news breaking late last week that Google has acquired cutting-edge robotics firm Boston Dynamics, we thought it would be a good time to check in on just how many different kinds of robots the company has as part of its growing army of androids. After all, Boston Dynamics is the eighth — yes, eighth — robotics company that Google has scooped up in just the last six months. So if we’re going to be bombarded with new Google robots over the next few years, it would be a good idea to get acquainted with them. More →
Researchers from the Massachusetts Institute of Technology (MIT) have come up with a radar-like 3D motion-tracking system that can spot body movement through walls, Engadget reported. Called WiTrack, the system uses wireless signals that are 100 times less powerful than usual Wi-Fi and 1,000 times less powerful than cellular signals, to track movement. Unlike similar technologies employed in some of the current gaming consoles that require the user to be in the same room with the tracking device or wear some sort of receiver, the WiTrack system works without such restrictions. More →
In addition to meeting whatever requirements the Federal Aviation Administration may have in place for such projects, Amazon Prime Air drones may also have to face actual physical threats. Assuming the company will be allowed to use unmanned autonomous flying devices to deliver goods in 30 minutes or less, Amazon will need to figure out a way to help its drones avoid bird attacks and even sniper threats. Slate mentions a variety of examples from the wild, in which various species of birds attack other birds or flying devices perceived as potential dangers to their habitat. More →
