Tuesday, November 24, 2009

Robots with Human-like touch


Researchers and developers from the University of Ghent in Belgium have created robots with a sensitive touch. These robots are extremely human-like and can perform almost any task a human could. This light touch especially comes into play when you have robot to human interaction. "as robots perform more tasks that put them in contact with human flesh, be it surgery or helping the blind, their touch sensitivity becomes increasingly important," (Fox, Popular Science). The key to this light touch is the sensitivity of the sensors. These sensors pick up the light amount of feedback which goes to the robots central computer. This feedback allows them to adjust contact.


These robots could have huge implications on many different industries. The largest function may be robots performing surgeries for humans. This is not tradition interpersonal interaction, but becomes human-robot interaction. This is a revolutionary concept.


Popular Science Article:


Wednesday, November 18, 2009

New Tech To Collect Online Info



Experts are working toward developing a program that can collect pieces of information from all over the web and and notify you about them. This is very important for people that are trying to "stay in the loop" with the conversation surrounding their interests or occupation. This could be applied to many different types and could be very useful when trying to gather information on possible threats to security. It could even be used to see reviews on certain products or services.





Tech Review Article:


http://http//www.technologyreview.com/web/23968/?a=f

In a related article, people are also concerned with what people are searching, clicking, and viewing on the internet. A similar program would collect this information...


Search: What are people clicking?:


http://http//www.technologyreview.com/web/23756/


Picture of Click Search:



Thursday, November 12, 2009

Lens Speeds Data Transfer


Researchers at Cornell University have created a silicon lense that amplifies the speed of data travel. This device is very energy efficient, and replaces bulky high energy equiptment originally used to speed up the transfer of energy. With power cosumption being a large issue, these lenses are very important because they save alot of power. Using large amounts of power to accomplish lesser speeds can cause heat and overload. ""You can't have your laptop run faster without it getting hotter" and consuming more energy, says Bergman. Electronics have an upper limit of about 100 gigahertz," (Bourzac of Tech Review). These optical cables can transfer massive ammounts of imformation without overheating. These lenses can change data transfer and electronic communication forever.




Time Lense Article:
http://http//www.technologyreview.com/communications/23535/?a=f

Wednesday, November 4, 2009

Twitter

Today in class I created my first Twitter account. Shortly after registering we learned how to follow other people and read their Twitter page. This is a quick and easy way of communicating with other people without actually contacting them to see what they are doing. Also anyone can view these pages, therefore anyone could see what a celebrity or proffessional athlete is doing at any given point. I'm not sure how much I will use this technology outside of class, because I use facebook almost everyday and it can serve the same purpose. Twitter is a quickly rising technology, that many people are using for everyday communication.

http://www.twitter.com is very easy to use and is completely changing the communication and social networking scene.

Here is a video that shows you how to use twitter: