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Top 10 emerging technologies for 2014. Technology has become perhaps the greatest agent of change in the modern world. While never without risk, positive technological breakthroughs promise innovative solutions to the most pressing global challenges of our time, from resource scarcity to global environmental change. However, a lack of appropriate investment, outdated regulatory frameworks and gaps in public understanding prevent many promising technologies from achieving their potential. The World Economic Forum’s Global Agenda Council on Emerging Technologies identifies recent key trends in technological change in its annual list of Top 10 Emerging Technologies. By highlighting the most important technological breakthroughs, the Council aims to raise awareness of their potential and contribute to closing gaps in investment, regulation and public understanding.
The 2014 list is: Body-adapted Wearable Electronics The new generation of wearables is designed to adapt to the human body’s shape at the place of deployment. Hacking your BRAIN: Scientists reveal they can find out your PIN number using a cheap scanner. Technique uses a freely available headset often used to control gamesResearchers used it to watch for numbers a person recognised, which triggered a spike in a certain type of brain activitySay it could be used by police to interrogate suspects By Mark Prigg Published: 11:45 GMT, 27 August 2012 | Updated: 20:01 GMT, 27 August 2012 It sounds like something out of a futuristic sci-fi blockbuster, but scientists today demonstrated how they can 'hack' someone's brain to find out their pin number - using a cheap headset.
Researchers from the University of California, University of Oxford and University of Geneva figured out a way to pluck sensitive information from a person’s head, such as PIN numbers and bank information. They used a freely available games controller costing just £190 ($299). Researchers used a cheap headset called an Emotive, available to buy online for £190 (£299) for their research, and used to to accurately guess pin numbers and even where someone lives. Affective computing. Affective Computing is also the title of a textbook on the subject by Rosalind Picard. Areas of affective computing[edit] Detecting and recognizing emotional information[edit] Detecting emotional information begins with passive sensors which capture data about the user's physical state or behavior without interpreting the input.
The data gathered is analogous to the cues humans use to perceive emotions in others. For example, a video camera might capture facial expressions, body posture and gestures, while a microphone might capture speech. Other sensors detect emotional cues by directly measuring physiological data, such as skin temperature and galvanic resistance.[6] Recognizing emotional information requires the extraction of meaningful patterns from the gathered data. Emotion in machines[edit] Another area within affective computing is the design of computational devices proposed to exhibit either innate emotional capabilities or that are capable of convincingly simulating emotions. Feeling mad? New devices can sense your mood and tell — or even text — others. Cognitive psychologist Mary Czerwinski and her boyfriend were having a vigorous argument as they drove to Vancouver, B.C., from Seattle, where she works at Microsoft Research.
She can’t remember the subject, but she does recall that suddenly, his phone went off, and he read out the text message: “Your friend Mary isn’t feeling well. You might want to give her a call.” At the time, Czerwinski was wearing on her wrist a wireless device intended to monitor her emotional ups and downs. Similar to the technology used in lie detector tests, it interprets signals such as heart rate and electrical changes in the skin.
The argument may have been trivial, but Czerwinski’s internal response was not. That prompted the device to send a distress message to her cellphone, which broadcast it to a network of her friends. Including the one with whom she was arguing, right beside her. Ain’t technology grand? One of Picard’s early projects involved helping autistic children. New directions William R.
How nanoparticles could be used to treat cancer | full Wired Health video. Nanoparticles are making a huge impact on all aspects of science, as explained today at Wired Health by Dr Alexander Seifalian, whose team is using them as a scaffold to grow organs. The ability to grow ears, noses and even windpipes was not the only major breakthrough Seifalian spoke of, as his team and many others around the world are using several different types of ultrafine particles for a variety of future applications ranging from medical science to recreating the art of butterfly wings. Seifalian works with UCL at the Royal Free Hospital to discover how to use the unique properties of particles many thousands of times smaller than human cells.
The smallest -- 8-10 nanometres (cells are around 10,000nm) -- that his team works with are fluorescent nanoparticles, also known as quantum dots, which are nanocrystals with semiconductor properties. Graphene, the recently discovered supermaterial, can be fashioned into carbon nanotubules a mere 24nm across.
Future phone screens could correct defective vision. In terms of corrective vision technology, nothing has ever quite matched the invention of the eyeglasses way back in the thirteenth century when it comes to helping people deal with eyesight issues. Researchers at MIT Media Media Lab and Berkeley University are hoping that their latest development may help to change this. They have managed to create display technology that automatically corrects vision defects with no need for glasses or contact lenses.
Effectively what it does is correct the human eye by laying a glasses-like lens over a display, such as a mobile phone. The research team started by building a low-cost printed transparent prototype that can be clipped straight onto an existing phone. The display is derived from the same technology used to create glasses-free 3D screens. Also using technology that was built for 3D displays, the researchers have managed to minimise the loss of image resolution. Another problem the team had to overcome was loss of light. Study: low-cost 'smart' holograms can monitor diabetes.
Cambridge University biotechnologists have developed holographic sensors that change colour in the presence of certain compounds in order to monitor medical conditions such as diabetes. The "smart" holograms can be used to create low-cost, portable medical sensors that can test blood, breath, urine, saliva or tear fluid for compounds including glucose, alcohol, hormones, drugs or bacteria. The holograms are made using a highly absorbent material called a hydrogel -- similar to the material used to make contact lenses -- flecked with silver nanoparticles. A laser pulse causes the nanoparticles to arrange themselves into three-dimensional holograms with specific, pre-determined layers in a fraction of a second.
The layers have a precise distance between them, which causes them to have certain optical properties that make them appear a certain colour. When the holograms are exposed to a specific compound, the hydrogel will either shrink or swell. Biowearable could give real-time disease updates. Biomedical engineers are taking a cue from the technology industry, creating a wearable that will alert diabetics to subtle but important changes in their blood sugar levels. It could be tweaked to help anyone with high blood pressure, lung disease and a variety of other diseases that express specific biomarkers we have already identified. "Each of these diseases has its own biomarkers that the device would be able to sense," commented Sherman Fan, a professor of biomedical engineering at the University of Michigan. "For diabetes, acetone is a marker, for example.
" The wearable being proposed would use a technique called heterodyne mixing to enable a nanoelectronic graphene vapour sensor to detect the different biomarkers from the surface of the skin. It identifies what happens when dipoles (related to molecular charges) for a specific biomarker react with the sensor. This type of technology is not new. A paper describing the technique can be read in full in Nature Communications. Visionary technology saves eyesight with 'Peek' app. Joao Medeiros Science Editor This article was taken from the September 2014 issue of Wired magazine. Be the first to read Wired's articles in print before they're posted online, and get your hands on loads of additional content by subscribing online.
Half of all those who go blind could avoid it,claims London-based eye surgeon Andrew Bastawrous (pictured). In 2007, Bastawrous, a PhD student at the London School of Hygiene & Tropical Medicine, initiated a study of eye disease in Nakuru County in Kenya, which involved setting up 100 clinics with over £100,000 worth of high-tech equipment for 5,000 people. So he came up withPeek.It comes with a 3D-printed clip-on adapter that uses the camera's flash to scan inside the eye and diagnose disease within 30 seconds.
Peek's software is free and Bastawrous is planning to make it open source in the near future. Crystal skin patch monitors cardiac health. A team of environmental engineers has developed a patch populated with liquid crystals that can be worn on the skin to provide realtime health alerts. Writing in the journal Nature Communications, a team from Northwestern University and University of Illinois at Urbana-Champaign describe a medical device that combines colour-changing temperature indicators (the crystals) with "wireless stretchable electronics", in order to pick up the subtlest of temperature changes to the skin, which can help determine blood flow rate. The latter, is key to assessing cardiovascular health and is used to monitor people with coronary artery diseases or patients post-cardiovascular surgery.
Methods of measuring the blood flow rate range from capillary microscoping, which requires a subject to be at the doctor's surgery to carry out video analysis, or laser Doppler velocimetry -- again, involving heavy duty equipment. "These results provide the first examples of 'epidermal' photonic sensors," adds John A. Facebook wants to get its mitts on your health data. Apple gets biometric with Touch ID. When Apple announced its plans for iOS 8, enterprises listened carefully for any details that would affect how users interact with their devices. One of the more prominent features was Apple enabling third-party developers to use Touch ID in their apps. With the launch of iOS 8 and the new iPhones, Apple introduced Apple Pay, which combines a NFC chip on the phone and Touch ID for secure payments. Retail stores and banks are installing readers so that users can use their accounts through their phone for payments. For those new to Apple's new features, Touch ID uses the fingerprint scanner on the iPhone 5s to authenticate the user and allow access and to make purchases on iTunes.
This was launched when the iPhone 5s came to market in 2013. Opening this up to other apps for the first time allows users to more conveniently unlock sensitive data, offering both speed and ease of use over manually entering in codes. Since then, pass-codes have become the norm. Application-specific security. How players can face grief through games. This article was taken from the October 2014 issue of Wired magazine. Be the first to read Wired's articles in print before they're posted online, and get your hands on loads of additional content by subscribing online.
That Dragon, Cancer, starts unlike any other game we can think of: in an intensive care unit, with your character -- the game's creator, Colorado-based developer Ryan Green -- caring for his four-year-old son, who has terminal cancer. "It stuck with me that this experience was like a game," recalls Green, 34. "You want your child to stop crying, but no matter what mechanics you try, you can't comfort him. " The OUYA title is part of a rise in games, such as Dear Esther, that tackle overwhelming topics such as grief.
Smart sub-dermal implants could control your life. For the dermatologically virginal, the idea of enduring the painful process of getting a tattoo might be enough to make your hair stand on end. Nevertheless for all technophiles and tattoo fans, there might soon be a less arduous and inky way of getting tattooed -- that's if the designers behind wearable technologies including Fitbit have their way. In response to a design challenge put forward by Co.Design's wearables week, which asked "what things might look like when technology and fashion reach beyond the wrist", design consultancy NewDealDesign came up with "Project Underskin". The project takes the concept of tattoos up a level as it proposes to quite literally implant a "smart digital tattoo" under the skin of your hand. This multifaceted tattoo would be powered by your body's electro-chemical energy and interact with things that you touch.
Functional uses aside; this tattoo's also meant to be there for more than just your menial admin tasks. Open-source code aims to bring Siri-like control to all apps. You can now control your smartphone with your voice. Thanks to tools like Apple Siri and Google Now, you can search the web, grab answers to simple questions, and update your online calendar, all without touching your screen. And at least some of the time, these tools actually work as advertised. But when you're at a desktop computer, voice control is still a thing of the future. Yes, many newer desktops now include voice recognition software that lets you control a few things.
But Zachary Pomerantz is aiming for something more. With an open source project called JuliusJS --a tool that helps software developers build voice-controlled applications for web browsers -- he wants to foster a whole new wave of Siri-like apps for the desktop. Today, when developers are interested in adding voice controls to a web app, there are few good ways of doing so.
JuliusJS gets around this problem. As of now, JuliusJS can only recognise a few words included in a sample dictionary. 3D Human Liver Tissue Model | Organovo. 3D bioprinting of tissues and organs : Nature Biotechnology. 3D printed organs come a step closer | Science.