Submission + - Fight you own muscles to create force-feedback on smartphones (newscientist.com)

Submitted by FatLittleMonkey on Sunday February 03, 2013 @06:24AM

FatLittleMonkey writes: Researchers in Germany have developed a device that allows users of portable devices, such as smartphones, experience force-feedback from games using just their own muscles... and a small EMS device. When stimulated by a painless electric pulse, the player's arm moves the device in whichever direction the game commands. The player then fights the movement with their other muscles, creating a strong sensation that the device itself is bucking in their hands. According to the developers, users found the sensation much more realistic than traditional vibrotactile feedback. (Should make PvP more interesting too.)

Submission + - Multiple minds smooths your ship's path (newscientist.com)

Submitted by FatLittleMonkey on Sunday February 03, 2013 @05:58AM

FatLittleMonkey writes: My mind to your mind... my thoughts to your thoughts... Researchers at the University of Essex have shown that combining the output from two non-invasive "brain-computer interfaces", computer-interpreted EEG signals, led to a much clearer signal of the subjects' intention than the output from a single subject. To test this idea, they had two subjects try to steer a simulated space-ship at a target planet, by thinking of one of eight possible directions. While a single user could achieve 67% accuracy, this jumped to 90% when two minds were combined. Researchers believe the technique also compensates for individual lapses in attention, and thus may have applications in real-world space missions.

Submission + - How do you give a ticket to a driverless car? (newscientist.com)

Submitted by FatLittleMonkey on Monday December 24, 2012 @05:55PM

FatLittleMonkey writes: New Scientist asks a Bryant Walker Smith, from the Center for Internet and Society at Stanford Law School, whether the law is able to keep up with recent advances in automated vehicles. Even states which have allowed self-driving cars require the vehicles to have a "driver", who is nominally in control and who must comply with the same restrictions as any driver such as not being drunk. What's the point of having a robot car if it can't drive you home from the pub while you go to sleep in the back?

Submission + - You can't print a gun if you have no 3d printer (cnet.com)

Submitted by FatLittleMonkey on Tuesday October 02, 2012 @09:04AM

FatLittleMonkey writes: You may recall Cody Wilson's project to create a 3d printed gun, mentioned previously on Slashdot. Well, the Defense Distributed project has suffered a decidedly non-technical setback, with printer manufacturer Stratasys revoking the lease and repossessing the printer (presumably prying it from plastic models of Cory's cold dead hands.) According to New Scientist the manufacturer cited...
his lack of a federal firearms manufacturer's licence as their reason for the repossession, adding that it does not knowingly allow its printers to be used for illegal purposes.

Submission + - MS damage washed away by stream of young blood (newscientist.com)

Submitted by FatLittleMonkey on Saturday January 14, 2012 @03:25PM

FatLittleMonkey writes: A new study on mice suggests that damage caused by diseases like Multiple sclerosis, as well as natural ageing, can be reversed by an infusion of stem cell rich blood from younger mice. Multiple sclerosis is a chronic inflammatory disease that erodes the fatty myelin sheaths around the axons of the brain and spinal cord, and can result is serious disability. Similar effects occur naturally with ageing. Via New Scientist:

White blood cells called macrophages from the young mice gathered at the sites of myelin damage. Macrophages engulf and destroy pathogens and debris, including destroyed myelin. "We know this debris inhibits regeneration, so clearing it up is important," says team member Amy Wagers of Harvard University.

Here's a direct Link to the paper, if you have academic access through the paywall..

Submission + - Sea Shepherd using drones to find whalers (abc.net.au)

Submitted by FatLittleMonkey on Sunday December 25, 2011 @03:24AM

FatLittleMonkey writes: Anti-whaling protesters, Sea Shepherd, are using aerial drones to find and the track factory ship used by Japanese whalers. The group claims the tactic shortened the Japanese whaling season last year by a month and 200 whales, and this year they've spotted the factory ship even earlier. Heroes, dicks, or geeks?

Submission + - Harnessing the energy of Galloping Gertie (newscientist.com)

Submitted by FatLittleMonkey on Thursday June 02, 2011 @10:44AM

FatLittleMonkey writes: You've all seen the footage of Galloping Gertie, the infamous Tacoma Narrows bridge. This is due to a type of turbulence called Wake Galloping, caused by airflow creating lift on the lee-side of cylinders (or cables on suspension bridges.) Now researchers in South Korea have developed a way of harnessing the turbulence to generate electricity. Their device works most efficiently at wind speeds too low for conventional wind turbines.

Submission + - Can computers be used to optimise the US tax code? (dailykos.com) 1

Submitted by FatLittleMonkey on Monday May 16, 2011 @07:57PM

FatLittleMonkey writes: Science Fiction author, David Brin, wonders whether the US tax code, described by President Obama as a "10,000-page monstrosity", could be dramatically simplified. No, he's not trying to get support a libertarian wet-dream "Flat Tax", this is about using computers to... shuffle the existing system.

"I know a simple way the sheer bulk of the tax code could be trimmed by perhaps 70% or more, without much political pain or obstructionism! ... it should be easy to create a program that will take the tax code and experiment with zeroing-out dozens, hundreds of provisions while sliding others upward and then showing how these simplifications would affect, say, one-hundred representative types of taxpayers ... Let the program find the simplest version of a refined tax code that leaves all 100 taxpayer clades unhurt. If one group loses a favorite tax dodge, the system would seek a rebalancing of others to compensate. No mere human being could accomplish this, but I have been assured that a computer could do this in a snap."

With all the talk about Open Government, perhaps the computer code currently used in tax modelling could be released to the wider community, leading eventually to a Folding@Home type project.

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