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This graph of neurotransmitter release shows what happens when cone cells are exposed to a dark spot in a light background (top) under various scenarios, including no feedback (green trace) and only negative feedback from horizontal cells (red trace). Negative feedback to many cones enhances edges, but would decrease detail in dark areas were it not for newly discovered positive feedback that is localized to only a few cone cells (blue trace) (credit: Richard Kramer’s lab, UC Berkeley) The retina’s tricks for improving contrast and sharpening edges without sacrificing shadow detail have been revealed in experiments by neurobiologists at the University of California, Berkeley .
Why the eye is better than a camera
Sony network breach shows Amazon Cloud’s appeal for hackers
The hackers that brought down Sony’s Playstation Network for more than a month used stolen credit cards to rent computing power from Amazon’s Elastic Computing Cloud (EC2) to carry out their attack. Personal information, credit cards, and passwords from millions of customers were seized by hackers during the attack. Because computing power can be rented from EC2 anonymously, hacking using the service can be hard to trace.
A new codec (data coding system) called Enhanced Low Delay Advanced Audio Coding (AAC-ELD) developed by researchers at the Fraunhofer Institute for Integrated Circuits IIS has solved a major problem with Skype and other videoconference calls: latency (annoying sound delay between participants). Their new Enhanced Low Delay Advanced Audio Coding (AAC-ELD) allows for latency only about 15 milliseconds. In the process, they also managed to reduce the audio data to less than one-thirtieth of its original size without major loss of sound quality, thus reducing the required bandwidth. The researchers developed an algorithm that requires a certain amount of time to encode data and then decode it again at the other end of the line.
New audio coding system solves audio latency problem
Professor of psychology R. Edward Geiselman at the University of California, Los Angeles , has been studying for years how to effectively detect deception to ensure public safety, particularly in the wake of renewed threats against the U.S. following the killing of Osama bin Laden. Geiselman and his colleagues have identified several indicators that a person is being deceptive. The more reliable red flags that indicate deceit, Geiselman said, include: When questioned, deceptive people generally want to say as little as possible. Geiselman initially thought they would tell an elaborate story, but the vast majority give only the bare-bones.
