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Submission + - Do-it-yourself brain stimulation has scientists worried (nationalpost.com)

Freshly Exhumed writes: Dave Siever always fancied himself as something of a musician, but also realized he did not necessarily sing or play in perfect key. Then he strapped on the electrodes of a device made by his Edmonton company, and zapped his brain’s auditory cortex with a mild dose of electricity. The result, he claims, was a dramatic improvement in his ability to hear pitch, including the sour notes he produced himself. “Now I tune everything and I practise my singing over and over and over again, because I’m more sensitive to it.” Mr. Siever was not under the supervision of a doctor or psychologist, and nor is he one himself. He is part of an extraordinary trend that has amateur enthusiasts excited, and some scientists deeply nervous: do-it-yourself brain stimulation.The device he used delivers transcranial direct current stimulation (tDCS), a technology that researchers worldwide have used to produce a flood of intriguing, if preliminary, studies in recent years. They suggest tDCS can both treat diseases like depression and make healthy people’s minds work better. The devices are also simple, cheap to make and relatively safe, helping drive a burgeoning DIY movement.
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Apple, RIM, Google All Bid On Palm 117

imamac writes "It seems HP was only one of many bidders for the struggling Palm. The others included Apple, RIM and even Google. You may now commence speculation on why the various companies wanted Palm."

Comment Blogoshpere (Score 1) 186

The announcement is very exciting - I was there when he made it.

But it's scary, too.

At the panel. "Doc" Searles praised GeoCities as being an early example of web apps helping people publish online - empowering folks to put their own shit out there.

As former Senior Web Developer for GeoCities, I appreciate his sentiment. That's why I loved working there - and what makes the Internet special.

On the Net - no matter how much big media wants to monopolize it as a pipe to deliver the same old content - the Net is about the uploads, not the downloads. It's about you, and me, and that grrrl over there.

I fervently hope the Google purchase of Pyra doesn't result in a Borg-like assimilation of Blogger.com; GeoCities _disappeared_ as a brand after we were assimilated by Yahoo!

If Blogger lowers the threshold by making web publishing as easy as sending an email, the other interesting tidbit that came out of the Blogosphere event was the demonstration of audio blogging from the folks from AudBlog.com.

Dial AudBlog, enter your s3kr!+ PIN on the cell phone, and you're on the air! You can hold up the phone to record events (this was the mind-blowing way they showed off the product) or talk to the hand to "tell your story."

If Blogger made self-publishing as easy as email AudBlog makes it easy as dialing a phone!

Congrats to the Pyra people, props to Doc, and good luck AudBlog!

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