Unlike most waterproof cases, the Cell Marine is incredibly thin; so thin it can be used in conjunction with another case. Made of polyurethane, the Case Marine is only 0.25mm thick yet remains waterproof down to 32 feet. A clear acrylic panel covers the phone's display, and the touchscreen functions are unaffected. The case, offered by Gooma, is currently only available in Japan.

Wind turbines may have gotten more attractive with the Enessere Hercules wind generator, able to harness winds from all directions and look good doing it. Designed by Terry Glenn Phipps, the Hercules stands 23 feet tall and features curved wooden blades. Meant for residences or small businesses, it features an output of 5kW and can reach production peaks of almost 3kW, which is enough power for the average home. The unique vertical axis design of the turbine allows it to capture winds from all directions, so it does not have to be re-oriented as the weather changes. The Hercules was created with aesthetics as well as functionality in mind, and was meant to appeal to homeowners who want to go green and stay stylish.

The Electric Imp cards make it easy to add connectivity to home and devices, creating a DIY smart home. Developed by the startup Electric Imp, the Imp was created to solve the problem of connecting devices to the internet. Each SD shaped card includes a processor, an antenna, WiFi and encryption, and can be attached to any electronic device, which allows the user to add internet connectivity to their home and appliances without costly upgrades. Application listed by the developers include turning on the coffeemaker with a text or running the sprinklers at times when electricity is cheapest. Development kits will be available soon.

The Loop is an outdoor luxury shower system, spraying water on the user from all around the interior of the circle. Created by Idiha Design, the Loop's shape was inspired by the motions of waves. It can be used indoors as well as outside and includes an array of special functions to help personalize the system and create a multi-sensory experience.

The shape is not unlike the jets of the future we looked at in our May issue, but the technology is very different. A quarter-scale flying prototype was unveiled a year ago, demonstrating the unique "induced drag reduction" method developed by inventor John McGinnis.

I'm very curious to see the full-size prototype in action.

The FLYM speakers were designed to be extremely portable, able to fold flat while still providing a high quality sounds. At only 0.25mm thick, the FLYM speakers can be folded perfectly flat for storage and transportation. They open into a triangular shape for use, locking in place with the magnetic latch, and can be used with any device with a standard 3.5 mm headphone jack. Currently the FLYM speakers are only a prototype.

A team from Georgia Tech is hoping to promote happier chickens by developing a system that analyzes chicken sounds. While farmers have long believed chicken contentment can be measured by clucking, the research team hopes to develop a deeper understanding by measuring the change in vocalizations that occurs when the birds are exposed to variety of mildly stressful elements. The team was able to identify the changes in the birds' sounds as they were exposed to different stressors, and also developed a signal-processing algorithm that allowed the sounds to be heard over the loud fans in the barn. The team hopes that eventually their findings will lead to a real-time automated system able to respond to the birds' feedback by adjusting the barn controls.

In Rise of the Videogame Zinesters, Anna Anthropy wrests gaming out of the hands of the mainstream

In her new book Rise of the Videogame Zinesters: How Freaks, Normals, Amateurs, Artists, Dreamers, Drop-outs, Queers, Housewives, and People Like You Are Taking Back an Art Form, Anna Anthropy looks at the daunting technological barrier to the medium's growth, and presents a solution.

Because serious programming has been a prerequisite of game development, the people who put in the effort to make games are predominantly the people who have been playing them, and they make games like the ones they play. Coupled with the rising cost of making a blockbuster game, you have an industry that is allergic to risk. It's a feedback loop that's threatened to make the medium creatively stagnant.

The picture is less bleak outside of the mainstream. Indie game developers have more channels than ever to distribute their work. Every console has its own online market place, and breakout successes like Angry Birds and Draw Something are changing the way we think about the viability of mobile gaming. This digital revolution is already happening. It's allowed somebody like Anthropy, a transgendered game design school dropout, to buck the system and gain critical acclaim outside the mainstream, with her own brand of games that mash up '80s arcade hits and transgressive gender politics. She released her first game, Calamity Annie, a lesbian western shooter, in 2008, the year that Grand Theft Auto IV shattered sales records by giving the audience more of the same old thing. Anthropy has always stayed comfortably at the fringes of the indie scene, a position nearly impossible before the internet age. As somebody who created her own niche in the industry and has never censored herself to make herself commercial, she is an excellent guide into the world of game design as a form of self-expression. Her latest game, Dys4ia, is a short collection of autobiographical mini-games, playable for free online, chronicling her hormone replacement therapy. Meanwhile, mainstream games wouldn't know what to do with a transgendered character if it hit them in the face.

"Every game that you and I make right now -- every weird experimentation, every dinky little game about the experience of putting down your dog -- makes our art form larger."But even the growth of the indie scene isn't enough for Anthropy. "What I want from videogames," she writes, "is for creation to be open to everybody, not just to publishers and programmers." Will every game be worth playing? Of course not. Some garage bands should stay in the garage. Then what is the point? Zinesters isn't about creating game for other people: for most of the medium's life, its been packaged and sold for other people to enjoy. Indie games are now gaining attention because of their financial success. There has been no equivalent to home movies or personal journals. The subliminal message in the book is to remove commerce from the equation completely.

The technological hurdles can now be overcome - the programming language Scratch, for example, is specifically made for children to create their own games - but there is still the perception that making a game is the domain of programmers. Zinesters aims to demystify the digital wizardry.

Before even starting Anthropy excuses the reader. "Your first game will be rough and derivative." Quality is not the aim here: Anthropy wants more games by more people. What she offers here isn't the normal racket that artist-targeted how-to books tend to peddle. This is not How to be a Successful Game Developer in 5 Easy Steps or Make a Blockbuster Videogame! "Nor is she writing for the designer who is hoping to hone their skills. Zinesters sets itself apart from excellent game design tomes like Steve Swink's Game Feel and Raph Koster's A Theory of Fun and Game Design, by not assuming a familiarity with game design. Because there are so many tools available to the would-be developer, all of which she gets into, the advice in Zinesters is creative and not technical. The advice sounds rudimentary ("Task #3: Teach Your Character to do Something"), but it acts more as a catalyst for ideas and brainstorming. Anthropy, herself a lecturer of game design and a meticulous designer, does not demand formal proficiency here. Zinesters advocates self-expression before all else. The point is not to make a good game, but to make a game, itself a radical notion in a medium that has long been an oligarchy.

Rise of the Zinesters is about education. It is a how-to, indie history lesson, design theory 101, a manifesto, and, surprisingly, as memoir. It serves as an entry into the importance of games and how to make them. But it also is about why making them for ourselves is important.

"Every game that you and I make right now -- every five-minute story, every weird experimentation, every dinky little game about the experience of putting down your dog -- makes the boundaries of our art form (and it is yours) larger."

Like a skilled developer, Anthropy, who has been at the vanguard of this movement for years, does not explicitly point the way, but, instead, gently guides.

SpaceX's Dragon heads for the ISS in a historic first flight for the commercial space industry

Barring some unforeseen setback, at 4:55 a.m. EDT, a Falcon 9 rocket carrying a Dragon spacecraft--both built by private spaceflight firm SpaceX--will blast off from Cape Canaveral Air Force Station in Florida en route to the International Space Station with the goal of becoming the first privately built spacecraft to rendezvous with the ISS. This is the partial culmination of NASA’s Commercial Orbital Transportation Services (COTS) program, which aims to do two things: jumpstart the commercial space industry’s ability to service low Earth orbit, and get NASA out of the low Earth orbit transportation business so it can once again focus on pushing the boundaries of space exploration.

Both of those goals are meaningful. For NASA, that (hopefully) means a return to days of boldly going where no man has gone before (to Lagrange points, for instance, or to asteroids and eventually Mars). But more so this weekend belongs to SpaceX. The company has once made history by being the first private company to launch and successfully retrieve a spacecraft from Earth orbit. A successful rendezvous with the ISS followed by a successful return of cargo to Earth will ring up so many “firsts” for the company that its place in spaceflight history will be secure.

Because, simply put, that’s what this weekend is: historic. It’s a shame almost no one is going to be awake to see it get underway.

Tomorrow's rocket launch marks a passing of the torch that’s beyond symbolic.

As launches go, this is business as usual. But it marks a passing of the torch that’s beyond symbolic. NASA wasn’t the first to go to space, but it became the best. Post-Apollo, both the Russians and the Americans proved they could make regular trips to low Earth orbit and back--albeit at a high financial cost. What SpaceX and the rest of the private space industry aims to do is bring low Earth orbit even closer to home by proving that space is no longer only reserved for wealthy governments--that everyday civilians can access space at regular intervals and at a reasonable cost. Fifty years after we first went there the space immediately around the planet will cease to be a frontier and become a settled and civilized place.

On Saturday morning, the company’s Falcon 9 rocket will lift off as it has before, carrying a Dragon capsule full of non-essential cargo skyward. The real point of this mission is to prove that SpaceX can safely maneuver its robotic capsule on orbit prior to linking up with the ISS.

To that end, from the moment the Dragon capsule reaches its preliminary orbit and deploys its solar arrays it will be undergoing something of an audition that will last for several days. A series of carefully orchestrated engine firings will bring it closer to the ISS, during which time it will test its Absolute Global Positioning System, which uses GPS satellites to determine its precise position in space. It will conduct a free drift demonstration, wherein all of its thrusters will be powered off and the spacecraft will simply float. And at the opposite extreme, it will try out its abort function to make sure that in an emergency, it can quickly clear the vicinity of the ISS.

If all of that goes well, Dragon will approach within 1.5 miles of the ISS on the third day of its flight (Monday) and perform what’s known as a “fly-under,” in which it will fly below the station while testing out its relative GPS against the space station’s and link up with it via UHF communications to ensure the astronauts aboard the ISS can exchange commands and data with the spacecraft. After all of that, on mission day four (Tuesday), NASA will either call off the demonstration or allow the docking to proceed.

Here things begin to liven up again. Having made a huge loop around the ISS from its place below it to points in front of and above it, the spacecraft will take up residence behind and below it once again. The final approach will take hours. A series of go/no-go tests will be completed at various distances from the ISS as the spacecraft inches closer. LIDAR and thermal imaging systems will be checked and rechecked. And after all this delicate dancing, at just 32 feet from the ISS, astronauts aboard will finally use the station’s robotic arm to snare the Dragon capsule and reel it in. It will remain berthed to the ISS for two weeks.

And only now do we finally come to the exciting--and most important--part. Both Russia and the European Union currently have robotic space vehicles that they send to the ISS carrying cargo and supplies, vehicles that are then decoupled and discarded in Earth’s atmosphere, where they burn up upon re-entry. These spacecraft work, but they are clearly wasteful; they are single-use spaceships. Dragon will go a mile further by returning to Earth to be used again. After days and weeks of waiting and watching and testing and then simply being docked, the capsule will return home in a matter of hours.

Just four hours after being decoupled from the ISS it will begin its de-orbit burn, which will last about seven minutes. All said, re-entry will take half an hour. Some 250 miles off the Pacific Coast of the U.S., Dragon will come splashing down--just like the Mercury and Gemini and Apollo capsules from NASA’s golden age. But packed with cargo sent back from the ISS, the Dragon will really be more akin to a Space Shuttle. America will once again have the ability to go into space and safely return--something we’ve done hundreds of times before and yet, five decades and billions upon billions of dollars after first punching a hole in the sky and entering the space beyond, something totally new.

The URBANO PROGRESSO smartphone from Kyocera is the first of its kind, transmitting sound through tissue conduction to make it easier to hear a call in noisy areas. The phone, created by Kyocera and KDDI Corporation, features the "Smart Sound Receiver", a piezo-electric actuator that causes the entire display screen to vibrate. Holding the phone to the ear allows the sound to travel through both connective tissue and the air in the ear canal, and placing the phone to cover the ear helps block out environmental noises. The URBANO PROGRESSO Smart Sound phone also includes the typical cellphone features, and is currently only available in Japan.

You searched "Kings." Do you mean the hockey team, basketball team, or something else?

Human conversation is built on context, explained Jack Menzel, product management director of search at Google. But for a computer, it doesn’t exist. Ask a person about “Kings” and the response will probably be another question, to put your query in context. Are you talking about the L.A. Kings? Or playing cards? Or a TV show? Google’s new search algorithm seeks to disambiguate your results, much like a person would in a conversation, Menzel said.

“Understanding is part of being a human. For computers, it would be like if we suddenly pick a language that neither of us can speak. It’s just a collection of sounds,” he said. “What search engines have lacked so far, until today, was the notion that those words refer to a thing. If we maintain a representation of a thing, we can use that to better understand both what you are asking for and what the web itself is talking about.”

If you’re logged into Google, you may be seeing this new function already — it started rolling out May 16 and will be complete for all logged-in English language users by the 18th. Type in a search term, and instead of listing what you might interested in, the search will provide you a set of options. Menzel uses “Andromeda” as another example. You could choose between the galaxy, the Greek myth, the Swedish metal band, and so on.

To do this, Google set about indexing universal definitions, using every public database from Wikipedia to the CIA World Factbook to Google’s own products. The result is a new set of 500 million people, places and things, with 3.5 billion connections among them. Along with allowing you to narrow your context, search results now contain little connections and suggestions to augment an initial search term.

People search results come with biographical information, for instance; places results come with data about the place; and so on. Search for Frank Lloyd Wright, and you’ll see a Wikipedia-based summary of him, a biographical sketch, and a Google-curated list of houses he designed, which will take you to further information if you click.

Definitions of things are inherently contextual — whether your first definition of Kings is a hockey team, a basketball team, a TV show or a gang depends on who you are and where you are. Google will also make some determinations based on your search profile and especially your location, Menzel said. He used an example of place near Google’s Mountain View, Calif. offices — when he searches “Great Bear,” Google brings up a northern California recreation area and a coffee shop in Santa Cruz. In your location, it will probably bring up something else. But personalization is still incomplete, he said.

The ultimate goal is a smarter search that thinks like a person would, taking your individuality and context into account. It’s not just about knowing that a thing is a thing, Menzel said — “it’s what’s important about that thing, what’s relatable about that thing. and the connections about that thing. How can we take this understanding of the world, and make it so we can improve your information?”

For the first time, NASA turns over the reins to a functioning spacecraft

Yesterday NASA formally loaned the telescope to Caltech, the first time the space agency has turned over the reins to a functioning spaceborne asset. It may not be the last, however — if funding pressures persist, the GALEX experiment could pave the way for many future spacecraft adoptions.

Click to launch the photo gallery
GALEX, an ultraviolet telescope, was supposed to last two years, and it’s been cruising in low-Earth orbit for nine years now. It was up for decommissioning in 2011, but Martin and members of the telescope’s science consortium were able to stretch that out another few months. Last November, he approached NASA’s Astrophysics Division to ask about taking on responsibility for the scope. This spring, the spacecraft was placed on standby mode and NASA gave the OK to transfer it. On Monday the space agency signed a formal agreement ceding control of the spacecraft.

"NASA sees this as an opportunity to allow the public to continue reaping the benefits from this space asset that NASA developed using federal funding," said Paul Hertz, NASA's Astrophysics Division director. "This is an excellent example of a public/private partnership that will help further astronomy in the United States."

PopSci talked to Martin, the telescope's principal investigator, about his pioneering idea, what GALEX has already told us about the universe, and his big plans for the telescope’s future.

PopSci: So who owns the telescope now?
Chris Martin: The original idea was to transfer the title, but that led to an issue of liability. In the end we actually solved it, because (builder) Orbital Sciences agreed to assume liability, but in the meantime, NASA figured out a different way of doing it through a Space Act agreement. That’s really a loan, so there is no transfer of liability. That worked out better for the president and board of trustees of Caltech.

PS: Why did you want to keep it running?
CM: It’s a small explorer, so it’s one of NASA’s smallest set of missions, about $100 million in development. Yet it’s been extremely productive scientifically with many interesting discoveries, ranging from stars in our own galaxy, to galaxies in the nearby universe that look like early young galaxies — “teenager” galaxies. There have been hundreds of papers from this telescope. So we felt very bad about shutting it down, and we knew we could operate it at very low cost.

My No. 1 issue was, we hadn’t completed the whole sky survey. With GALEX, there is no limit in the brightness we can look at. The Milky Way is very bright. A year ago, we tried out pointing the satellite at much brighter regions, and found the data is very high quality. So now we have the ability to essentially look in all directions of the sky. There’s about 20 percent of the sky, mostly in the direction of the Milky Way, to complete. That’s my No. 1 goal.

PS: What will this tell us about the cosmos?
CM: This [survey] is in the UV spectrum, centered around 2,000 Angstroms. It’s sensitive to hot massive stars as well as other sources of radiation which are not visible, or infrared, or other bands. It gives you a very different picture of, for example, a galaxy, or the evolutionary life of a star. To survey the remaining 20 percent would take about another 4 to 5 months. We’re still looking for support to do that.

PS: What else are you going to do with it?
CM: We have an international collaboration of 16 institutions, and they are interested in studying the history of galaxy evolution. One of the original purposes of GALEX was to study galaxy evolution in UV, and especially a region of the sky that is well served by other telescopes.

A group of Israeli universities [Weizmann Institute of Science, Tel Aviv University, Technion-Israel Institute of Technology, and the University of Haifa] are interested in studying the dynamic variable UV sky. When a black hole swallows a star, it produces this flash that lasts for many weeks. An object will suddenly become bright in UV, and that can mean that it’s a black hole in a distant galaxy, or it can also mean it’s a star exploding, a supernova. So we have a very exciting possibility of detecting the first moments of a supernova explosion, in a blinding UV flash.

Another partner is Cornell, and they’re interested in surveying the Kepler field. Kepler is looking at stars with transiting exoplanets, and UV provides incredibly important information for understanding the stars themselves, their variability, their star spots, as well as helping look for planets. So we’re finding multiple new science paths for GALEX.

There’s plenty of science remaining to be done, and at very low cost, about $100,000 per month. Compare that to the operations cost of other NASA missions, and it’s rock bottom.

PS: GALEX may not be as famous as spacecraft like Kepler or Hubble, but it’s done some pretty amazing things. What are some of its most important finds?

CM: We found that galaxies were much more actively forming stars 8 billion years ago than they are today. That’s one thing. It used to be thought that galaxies have a standard type, and we now understand that galaxies can change their types or qualities over cosmic time. A galaxy which may have been elliptical may have stopped forming stars, and become like a spiral galaxy, or a galaxy in between the two, over the history of the universe.

Third, we discovered the nearby universe looks more like young galaxies from the early history of the universe than it does the dinosaurs in the backyard.

The final thing is that around many galaxies, there are large gigantic zones of star formation that were not known before. We haven’t explained them yet, but it’s likely that there’s new galaxy-building material coming from the region between galaxies and creating new stars in the very outskirts of galaxies.

PS: Now that you’ve figured out how to get a NASA loan, do you think this will happen with other spacecraft?

CM: GALEX has the unique feature that the operations cost is very low, and the science impact of these ongoing extended operations continues to be very high. $100,000 is a chunk that can be swallowed by many organizations, and a month of observations gives you a huge amount of data. So we think it’s cheap in that respect. But I think other missions will be contemplating this as we go forward.

It’s a new kind of arrangement, so I would expect that it would open doors. it’s already piqued interest in a number of corners. We’re looking for private foundations which might be interested in being a part of this new paradigm space mission.

My sleep station, a coffin-sized box, is located in the fifth deck space of Node 2. From an Earth-based perspective, I pop out of my sleep station as if I were coming out of the floor. I am thus situated on the International Space Station (ISS) in Low Earth Orbit (LEO) with an orbital inclination of 51.6 degrees (the angle of our orbit plane to the equator) and an average altitude of 400 kilometers. It occurred to me that my address should be: Node 2, Deck 5, ISS, LEO 51.603.

In this system, the “zip code” is 51.603, the first three digits representing the orbital inclination (which should help future space couriers locate the address on orbit) and the last two digits being a designator for the ISS itself. The station is the third such space station at this orbital location, after the Salyut series of stations and Mir. Pettit reasons that this nomenclature should work until the orbit becomes clogged with up to 99 space stations.

Postage rates, however, are likely going to be astronomical.

[NASA Blogs]

From its perch in Chile’s Atacama Desert, the ESO’s Las Silla Observatory produced this stunning astro-image using its Wide Field Imager, capturing the elongated, elliptical shape of Centaurus A and the opaque glow of its billions of older stars surrounding the dusty core of the galaxy--or perhaps galaxies. Astronomers believe that the strong radio signals emanating from Centaurus A could partially be caused by a galactic collision as the larger elliptical galaxy rips apart a smaller spiral galaxy that wandered too near.

More on Centaurus A over at SPACE.

[SPACE]

ViviSat, which was founded last year, says it is in contract negotiations with satellite providers to work as a sort of on-call satellite doctor. When a satellite ends up in the wrong orbit or needs extra power to maintain it, ViviSat can launch a Mission Extension Vehicle to rendezvous with it.

It would launch on an ATK rocket, which could fit two at a time. Once it reaches orbit, it unfurls a solar array and sensors to track down the satellite it's meant to assist. When it reaches its target, it uses proximity sensors and other tools to dock with the ailing orbiter, and then it could push it into a different orbit. It wouldn’t add fuel or take anything off the host satellite, which ViviSat says is a plus, because satellite builders may not want a third-party company tinkering with its massively expensive spy array or whatnot.

About 350 satellites orbit Earth in geostationary paths, and every year, about 25 of these run out of fuel, according to the company. Maybe 10 of those 25 are good candidates for an MEV servicing — not a huge number, but one that could still cut down on space waste.

ViviSat is a partnership between rocket launcher ATK and U.S. Space, which will manage the missions. At a conference this spring, ViviSat officials said government and private entities are interested in their services. The company just released this animation explaining how its MEV would work.

Of that $60 million, half will be allotted to researchers between now and fiscal 2014, with more than half of that--some $18.8 million--being handed over in fiscal 2012 alone. That means, adjusting for the usual bureaucratic waste, there should be somewhere between many and many-many millions spent to advance 3-D printing tech this year alone under a framework that will hopefully push for the meeting of meaningful benchmarks.

Three-dimensional printing (or additive manufacturing, or rapid prototyping) is of course a fairly nascent technology that nonetheless holds great promise. While private companies like Makerbot, Stratasys, and even Hewlett-Packard have pushed the boundaries of the technology by developing less-expensive and more accessible printing systems to more people, the industry on the whole hasn’t really benefitted from a huge injection of investment or a meaningful mandate from a body like the DoD--one that, when it puts its mind and money to something, can actually enable technological leaps forward.

The 3-D printing industry was already doing fine--some analysts expect it to grow to $3.1 billion by 2016--but a little help from Uncle Sam can’t hurt. If you or your academic institution/non-profit organization thinks it can add some expertise to the pilot program, the Pentagon is taking proposals until June 14.

[NextGov]

The most complex brain-computer interaction yet

The elbow swung forward, the wrist turned and the fingers clasped around the cup. A moment later, she took a long drink — the first time since her stroke 15 years ago that she enjoyed a sip of coffee without a caregiver’s help. This feat is part of an ongoing clinical trial using a neural interface system, the first demonstration and the first published study of people using their own brain signals to control a robotic arm. It’s a major breakthrough for neuroscience and engineering, and it could someday help people with paralysis live more independently.

Brain-controlled technologies could restore communication, mobility and independence for patients like Hutchinson, who is identified as patient S3, said Dr. Leigh Hochberg, engineering professor at Brown University and a neurologist at Massachusetts General Hospital. “We are hoping to provide a technology that will translate the intention to move, as decoded directly from brain signals, back into commands to control assistive devices or prosthetic limbs,” he said.

Previous research by this team proved that paralyzed patients could control a computer cursor with their thoughts, and last fall, neuroscientists at Duke Medical Center proved that monkeys could control a robotic arm with their thoughts. This new paper, appearing today in Nature, shows it can work in humans. Hutchinson had the implant for five years, according to study co-author John Donoghue, who has led the development of the technology known as BrainGate. The fact that it worked for so long — both the implant, and her motor cortex itself — is an encouraging sign, he said.

“Fifteen years after her brain became disconnected from her limbs after her brain stroke, she was still able to create all the neural signals,” he said.

The technology is still a long way from widespread use, but Donoghue and Hochberg said in a news conference they were encouraged by its success so far.

To translate the patients’ thoughts, the scientists had to undergo a series of training exercises to decode their neural signals. The two patients watched two separate robotic arms — one developed by the DLR Institute of Robotics and Mechatronics in Germany, and the other by DEKA Research and Development Corp., also known as the DARPA arm. The scientists controlled the arms’ motion, and the patients were asked to imagine themselves making those same movements.

“That elicits a pattern of electricity in their brains, and then we tell the robot, ‘That pattern means move the robot,’” Donoghue said. “When people think about moving, their brain elicits patterns that look to us like what should happen when you actually move, but of course no movement occurs. The motor cortex appears to work in a normal way, even years after an event like a stroke or spinal cord injury.”

Hutchinson, who is 58, suffered a brainstem stroke that robbed her of speech and movement below the neck. She occasionally experiences involuntary movement of her arms, but it’s not controllable. The other subject, a 66-year-old man known as T2, also suffered a brainstem stroke that left him bereft of movement or speech. Initially after their strokes, both patients suffered from locked-in syndrome, limited to small movements of their eyes. Patient T2 communicates by responding to individual letters as an alphabet is read aloud, Hochberg said; Hutchinson has recovered somewhat more, with limited movement of her neck.

As the patients’ neural signals were decoded, they were asked to use the arms to reach out and grasp foam targets that were placed in front of them. Then Hutchinson also tried the coffee experiment. That was on April 12, 2011, Hochberg said. Watch in the video below. Just before the two-minute mark, liquid flows through the straw. The look on her face says it all, Hochberg said.

In 158 trials over four days, she was able to touch the target within an allotted time in 48.8 percent of the time using the DLR robotic arm, and 69.2 percent of the cases with the DEKA arm, according to the paper. In 45 trials using the DEKA arm, T2 touched the target 95.6 percent of the time.

“I just imagined moving my own arm and the [DEKA] arm moved where I wanted it to go,” he said later.

Patrick van der Smagt, head of bionics and assistive robotics at DLR and the TU Munich, said the goal is to use a robotic arm with intuitive motion. Future iterations could provide the arm increased autonomy by decoding a patient’s higher-level intent, he said.

“From the signals you have, you can read more than the movements — you can read intention of the movements. If you are moving toward the cup, it’s clear that you want to go to the cup to grasp it,” he said.

The Department of Veterans Affairs and the National Institutes of Health funded the work.

The ultimate goal is a smaller, perhaps implantable system that would give a paralyzed patient or someone with limb loss full control over his or her environment, Hochberg said.

“The real dream is to one day reconnect brain to limb, to bring these powerful signals from the motor cortex to the peripheral nerves. Someone with paralysis would be able to reach out and pick up that coffee cup with their own limb, of their own volition,” he said.

A new speaker able to produce the full range of dolphin sounds may lead to more insightful conversation. While most dolphin sound research has focused on dolphin vocalization, researchers also need to be able to repeat the dolphins' sounds in order to communicate with them. Do do so, they have developed a speaker featuring a quadruple piezoelectric panel able to broadcast high-frequency sounds and a silver circle that broadcasts sounds at low frequencies. This speaker can produce sounds from 6 kHz to 170 kHz, able to cover the whole spectrum of the dolphin language.

The Powerbreather is a super-snorkel, allowing serious to swim and breathe more easily without ever lifting their face from the water. The snorkel is designed to fit around the head, allowing the user to take in air from the top valve while exhaling it through the mouth. The system is arranged so that no spent air remains in the device and no water can enter, and it fits tightly around the head to stay securely in place without drooping. The developers believe that by making breathing more natural, Powerbreather could benefit both beginning swimmers as well as professional athletes.

Swiss researchers have created an air-conditioned bullet-resistant vest, designed to help keep the user both cool and protected. The Kevlar vest, from Empa, includes an array of integrated water channels and a fan that promotes cooling based on Coolpad technology. The water in the Coolpads evaporate through the porous membrane while the fan pushes air through a spacer behind the pad and provides additional cooling. The cooling fabric technology could also be used on protective outfits worn over normal clothing.

Researchers have developed a way to convert bacteria to energy with the press of finger, which could lead to a new generation of paper-thin generators. The specially engineered viruses were created by manipulating the genes of M13 viruses to add four negatively charged molecules to the outer surface. This increased the voltage the viruses are able to emit and allowed the scientists to create a generator able to produce about a quarter the voltage of an AAA battery when pressed. The viruses also self-arrange into the energy generating film, which can be stacked to into layers to create the most powerful piezoelectric effect. The high-voltage viruses could eventually lead to the development of tiny devices able to harness energy from everyday motions.

The Personal Vacuum Assisted Climber (PVAC) uses suction to enable the user to scale walls more quickly and with more dexterity than ever before. Designed by students from Utah State University, the PVAC is based around a pair of rear-mounted carpet extractor motors that create a suction strong enough to support a climber with the connected handheld pads. The pads can be easily attached and removed as the climber moves up the wall, and the stirrups hanging beneath each pad provide a foot rest that encourages a motion much like climbing a ladder. The design recently won first place in the  U.S. Air Force Research Laboratory’s 2012 Service Academy and University Engineering Challenge, in which participants were asked to design tools to make it easier for soldiers to climb vertical surfaces.

The UNI-CUB mobility unicycle not only allows the user to move in any direction by shifting their weight, it can also be controlled with a smartphone. Designed by Honda as an evolution of the U3-X EV, the UNI-CUB is improved with an additional wheel, more comfortable seat, and optional controls through a cellphone or tablet. Powered by a lithium-ion battery, it is compact and holds the user at eye-level, which makes it more natural for use around other pedestrians.

Researchers have discovered a new protein that regulates the development of brown fat, which could lead to new methods of controlling obesity. The protein, called BMP8B, controls brown fat by regulating its heat producing activity, which could make it ideal for creating new weight control therapies. In research, brown fat cells treated with BMP8B responded strongly to nervous system activation, and mice treated with BMP8B lost more weight than non-treated mice. This is due to the fact that increasing brown fat activity can help to prevent the decrease in metabolic rate that occurs when a person begins a diet program.

A new app called Understoodit lets students anonymously let a teacher know when they're getting confused in class, allowing the teacher to go back over the topic. Developed by Liam Kaufman of Toronto, the Understoodit is geared toward college students. To use, the instructor sets up an account and gives students access to log in through their smartphones or laptops. Students can choose between two options during the lecture, "understood" or "confused", with the data sent in real-time back to the instructor's laptop. Kaufman remembers resisting asking questions during class lectures, and hopes to alleviate some of that insecurity in students today.

The Brainput can detect when you're feeling overworked and modify the work load to remove some of the stress. The Brainput consists of a functional near-infrared spectroscopy (fNIRS) sensor worn strapped to the forehead and able to analyze brain patterns to determine when a person is multitasking. In tests with volunteers, the device worked with humans and robots to allow the robots to take over some tasks when the human brains began a specific form of multitasking. The Brainput system could eventually be used to warn people when they appear distracted or aid workers who typically handle several tasks at once.

A team at Stanford University has created new retinal implant powered by light and images which could restore vision more effectively than current devices. While most posthetics require bulky electronics, the new device features infrared video projection goggles combined with a wire-free chip implanted in the retina. The goggle camera transmits video to an image processor, which then sends the signal back to the projection screens inside the goggles. The infrared image is absorbed by the photovoltaic pixels implanted in the eye, which contain diodes to convert the light into electricity.

The Glove One cellphone demands that to use it, you must sacrifice your hand. Created by Bryan Cera, the prototype cellphone is designed as a glove to be worn on the hand. Built with a 3D printer, it includes keys on the underside of each finger, a mic in the pinky, and a speaker in thumb. The Glove One is not intended to be a practical object; rather, Cera sees it as a statement of our reliance on devices and their incorporation into our lives.

Students at Rice University have designed a prototype device designed to help obese patients breathe more easily during surgery. Their creation, called the R-Aide, is based upon suction cups for breast pumps. The cups are attached to a beam above the operating table, applying suction to the abdomen of the patient and lifting the excess fat away from the diaphragm. While R-Aide would not work for patients under heavy sedation or undergoing abdominal surgery, it is quite inexpensive and easy to operate, and would be helpful during upper or lower body procedures.

The PAL-V brings flying cars to the real world, incorporating a three-wheeled vehicle and a single retractable rotor and propeller. The PAL-V includes a patented "tilting system" that provides it with motorcycle-like agility. It is allowed to fly at altitudes under 4000 feet and requires only a Sports Pilot license to operate, with a short take off and landing capability that make it easy to land in a variety of areas. The PAL-V can transform from car to gyrocopter, and back again, in about 10 minutes, which makes it ideal for a variety of professional uses such as medical and police.

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Stac64 product family from Molex now certified to the most stringent automotive OEM criteria. Molex Incorporated has announced that its Stac64 Stackable Connection System is now validated against the most stringent specifications from the major key

Baguio, northern Philippines (Philippine Daily Inquirer/ANN) -- Sagada, the most popular tourist destination in Mt. Province in the Cordilleras in north Philippines, wants to patent its homegrown etag, an indigenous salted meat dish that is the favorite

Fabless semiconductor firm RFaxis Inc of Irvine, CA, USA, which was founded in 2008 to design RF semiconductors and embedded antenna solutions for the wireless connectivity and cellular mobility markets, has been awarded four patents for its

In an economy gasping for air, patents are increasingly becoming the oxygen of biopharma, fueling a litigation process that fans their value even more. Years ago, intellectual property comprised about a quarter of the value of pharmaceutical companies.

Alnylam Pharmaceuticals, Inc. (Nasdaq: ALNY), a leading RNAi therapeutics company, announced today that the United States Patent and Trademark Office (USPTO) has issued a Notice of Allowance for patent application number 12/813,448, covering the

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A coalition of copyright owners is lobbying the government to prevent search engines such as Google and Bing from ranking websites that provide access to pirated content. In a confidential document obtained through Freedom of Information request by the

Precision BioSciences, Inc., a leader in the field of genome engineering, today announced that the United States Patent and Trademark Office (PTO) has issued a Notice of Allowance for U.S. Patent Application 13/245,607 ('the '607 Application'). The

Because patent standards are applied differently many medicines which are under patent in South Africa may not be under patent in India. The case of the cancer medicine Imatinib (brand name Gleevec) demonstrates how this can impact on the price of

A new open competition, the Innovation by You Awards (IBY Awards pronounced eye-bee awards) is giving students of the United Arab Emirates the opportunity of a lifetime to design, fabricate, test, and showcase their own inventions and innovations was

The appeals board at the US Patent and Trademark Office (USPTO) released a ruling on January 24 that invalidates the third Barth patent held by Rambus, pertaining to memory chips used in computers which the firm successfully used to intimidate Nvidia

Africa has its first handheld tablet to rival the iPad and similar western inventions, which went on sale in the Republic of Congo on Monday, its inventor Verone Mankou said. "We have set up a team and logistics to sell the tablet since Friday. Today,

State recruiting eligible companies for upcoming trade missions ATLANTA, Jan. 30, 2012 /PRNewswire via COMTEX/ -- Do you run a small or medium-sized Georgia business interested in growing its exports? If so, check out upcoming trade missions to key

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WIPO Domain Name Decision for thestingonlineshop.com

WIPO Domain Name Decision for jardiland-catalogue.com

WIPO Case Summary WIPO Case Number D2011-1877 Domain name(s) aidatour.info aidatour.net Complainant AIDA Cruises - German Branch of Costa Crociere S.p.A.

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ILYA SHAPIRO: Copyright Case May Have Profound Effect on Treaty Power.

Government House leader Peter Van Loan has just finished speaking with reporters in the Foyer of the House of Commons, outlining some of the government’s priorities for the upcoming sitting. Not much of it was a surprise. In keeping form with the

On January 18, 2012 the Supreme Court affirmed Congress’ authority to apply U.S. copyright protection to works which, although protected abroad, were previously considered to be within the public domain in the U.S. The 6-2 decision in Golan v. Holder

Look at this home page headline in today's Washington Post: "Is Obama the most polarizing president ever?" When you click to go to the column, the question is flatly answered in the affirmative: Obama: The most polarizing president. Ever. But now read

LostRemote :: A patent application obtained by the site FierceCable reveals that Comcast is planning to add a number of social TV features in its program guides that are staples of many second-screen apps. For example, viewers could receive notifications

Comcast patent reveals social TV plans January 30, 2012 By Andrew Couts Tweet The next version of Comcast's Xfinity TV program guide could include a wide array of new social features.Comcast subscribers, your TV-watching may soon get a whole lot more

Oracle and Google have now filed their joint statement on patent marking (706 [PDF; Text]) as required by the court's supplemental order of December 6 (641 [PDF; Text]) Although reading the joint statement may give one the impression that the parties'

NetworkingIn Networking:NewsReviewsFeaturesHow-tosSlideshowsRelated ContentFeaturesTop tips for troubleshooting Fibre Channel networksTen habits of highly effective SAN adminsAdopt IPv6 soon or be sorry later, says Internet Society's Leslie

The /bin/true Command and Copyright posted by Thom Holwerda on Mon 30th Jan 2012 14:10 UTC "One of the fun examples among all the copyright fuss is the extreme example of copyright claims made by AT&T some time in the 1980s. It's the /bin/true program.

Against Copyright? Why? "Why do people do it? Because they have no fear of reprisal. Sure, some of them pay me after they are confronted or take the image down, but why should I have to find them and confront them? I guess it shouldn't be so surprising

Intellectual Property

The debt crisis in Europe is beginning to look less like a dry exercise in budgeting, and more like a national aggression via banking. In Greece today leaders and citizens bristled at the news that the German leaders wanted to take control over the Greek

Upfront TV : CNN Patents Magic | Lowe’s Leaves…

In Delaware, Butamax Advanced Biofuels responded to the latest lawsuit filed by Gevo, Inc. related to isobutanol flash fermentation technology. “Let us state emphatically, Butamax does not infringe the generic product separation technology claims in

Before smartphone patents took over the spotlight, everyone's favorite patent troll was Rambus. The technology licensing firm has been using the so-called Barth patents for years to sue tech companies and extract licensing fees as a settlement. After

A patent attorney named Daren Gibby was kind enough to send me a copy of his new book Why Has America Stopped Inventing? As you’d expect from a book written by a patent attorney, it’s a pretty strongly pro-patent book. I didn’t expect to agree with

In the year 2011 Homebuilt UAV hunts down hydrogen balloons, shoots firework missiles (video)0 commentsIn the year 2010 Virgin Mobile Canada lights up HSPA+ network, iPhone 3GS, Bold 9700 in tow57 commentsIn the year 2009 Windows Vista SP2 RC may be in

< > IGN teams up with TV firm for ... Spry Fox sues Yeti Town dev over iOS copyright breach by Ben Parfitt Monday, January 30th 2012 at 11:44AM Tweet Email The critically acclaimed freemium game Triple Town has been flagrantly plagiarised by a rival

Smartphone patent lawsuits, as visualised by George Kokkini at designlanguage. Used with permission. Some suits have been settled since this was drawn. Google intends to buy Motorola Mobility (MMI) for $12.5bn. Is it a good deal? Following the