As we get older, our cognitive skills go down. There will be problems related to memory, attention, perception and problem solving will never be as easy as when we used to be younger. But scientists from the University of Iowa appear to have found a way to stop and even reverse these effects of aging. They are claiming that cognitive skills of test subjects aged 50 and over have been improved by playing a specific video game.

Prof. Fredric Wolinsky and his team assigned a group of volunteers to do 10 hours of computer-based crossword puzzles (as a control). While three other groups were told to play a video game known as Road Tour. One group played in a lab for 10 hours, another one for 14 hours, and the last group for 10 hours at home. The Road Tour game briefly shows a vehicle and then asks the player to find it from a rotating circle of vehicles. There will be distractions and higher levels of course will be more challenging.

After a year of tests, it has been found that an average of three years’ worth of cognitive improvement has been achieved by those who played the game for 10 hours, and that increases to four years for the 14 hour group. Meanwhile, the control group showed improvement in “concentration, nimbleness with shifting from one mental task to another, and the speed at which new information is processed”.

Of course, it is a known fact that the best way to keep the brain in good working condition is to give it work. And the more variety of work it gets the better. Experts have suggested many ways, such as reading, meditation, exercise, working with numbers and more, to keep the brain in good form. And now you can add one more to that list.

[Source]

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As you’ll see in the demo video below, you effectively reach “into” your computer monitor to manipulate the different windows, documents and other elements in a virtual 3D space. There are two cameras that make this possible. First, there is a camera there to track your hand gestures, allowing you to literally “grab” a window and move it around. Second, there is a camera to try your eye movements so that the UI can adjust accordingly.

The display itself is powered by a transparent LED so that you are able to see “into” the flat panel into the 3D space behind it. This could completely change the way that we use our computers in the future, assuming that the big computer companies get on board and work to refine this kind of system. You can see how a 3D space like this would be great for product designers and architects, as well as the possibilities for augmented reality. If you thought the Nintendo 3DS was neat, you ain’t seen nothing yet.

Of course, the SpaceTop is still very much in early development, but even in these early stages, it demonstrates a lot of promise. Would you want a computer UI like this? Is this, perhaps along with Google Glass, the precursor to real Minority Report style interfaces?

[Source]

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Looking for a gift for a loved one, or even yourself this holiday shopping season?  The new ultra-thin iMacs are now available for order via Apple’s online store.

The latest iMac model comes in a 21.5 inch and 27 inch form factors.  The 21.5 inch comes with a 2.7GHz quad-core Intel Core i5 processor with Nvidia GeForce GT 640M graphics. The larger 27 inch model comes with a 2.9GHz quad-core Core i5 with Nvidia GeForce GTX 660M graphics. These bad boys will set you back $1,299 for the 21.5 inch, or $1,799 for the 27 inch.

Shipping times for the 21.5 inch model are one to three days on average, with some configurations taking seven to ten days.  If you want the 27 inch model it has a two to three week ship time. If you are looking to get a new iMac in time for the holidays, you better act soon.

[ source ]

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We’re getting that much closer to the robot apocalypse. We already have computers beating us at trivia games. We already have robot flying machines that can act like a swarm. And now, we have computers that can read our minds, decipher our thoughts, and reconstruct them into comprehensible speech.

To be completely fair, the tech isn’t quite there yet, but they are making some monumental strides. The study was published in PLos Biology and it describes the initial steps made in converting brain activities into audio. The computer program effectively reads your brain waves, figures out what those waves mean, and plays it back as a sound.

“This is exciting in terms of the basic science of how the brain decodes what we hear,” said Robert Knight, a senior member of the team and director of the Helen Wills Neuroscience Institute at the University of California, Berkeley.

“Potentially, the technique could be used to develop an implantable prosthetic device to aid speaking, and for some patients that would be wonderful. The next step is to test whether we can decode a word when a person imagines it. That might sound spooky, but this could really help patients. Perhaps in 10 years it will be as common as grandmother getting a new hip,” Knight said. 

The video on The Guardian illustrates some basic word recognition, but you can see how more advances would be able to take this concept to a much higher level. Forget about motion control and Kinect for Windows 8. We could have mind control for Windows 9. Who needs speech recognition when you can just think it instead?

The post Resistance Is Futile: Mind-Reading Computer Voices Your Thoughts appeared first on Mobile Magazine.

The self-incriminating clause of the Fifth Amendment is always a great help for defendants who want to keep their encrypted hard drives from being decrypted when prosecution asks for it, until now. A Colorado federal judge has ruled that decrypting a computer hard drive does not violate the defendant’s rights.

The ruling came in a case against Ramona Fricosu, who is charged with mortgage fraud. She had argued that decrypting the data on her hard drive would require her to testify against herself, which is prohibited by the US Bill of Rights.

But Judge Robert Blackburn decided differently. According to him, “the Fifth Amendment is not implicated by requiring production of the unencrypted contents of the Toshiba Satellite M305 laptop computer”.

He cited the case of one Sebastien Boucher, who was asked to decrypt an incriminating hard drive, to support his ruling. In Boucher’s case, the court took the decision that, while the defendant’s encryption password was protected, the data on the drive could be considered evidence in the case.

Fricosu has been ordered to decrypt her drive no later than February 21 or face contempt of court. But her lawyers are fighting the decision and have asked for a stay.

But the question now is not whether Fricosu will be found guilty, but how courtrooms should consider access to data. Debates are on at the moment and the case is definitely going to be an important one considering the application of the Fifth Amendment rights in the digital age.

[ source ]

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At the present many scientists are already convinced that quantum computers are the future. So what is this quantum computing? Let’s take a look.

“A quantum computer is a device for computation that makes direct use of quantum mechanical phenomena, such as superposition and entanglement, to perform operations on data…..The basic principle behind quantum computation is that quantum properties can be used to represent data and perform operations on these data.”

That’s according to an article on Wikipedia.

We know that some of you might have felt the above definition passing over your head like a speeding bullet.

To make things a bit simpler, a quantum computer uses the principles of quantum physics to make its computational power far greater than that of a traditional computer. Quantum computing makes computations on atoms themselves.

As you might know, the machine that you are staring onto at the moment stores data in a binary number format. A classical computer has bits which represent either a 1 or a 0.

In place of bits, a quantum computer has quantum bits (qubits) which can represent a 0, 1, or a superposition of both. While a quantum computer is capable of storing more than one number in a single register at a time, a traditional computer can store only a number. Quantum computers will also be capable of making calculations on a far greater order of magnitude than the machines that are available on the market nowadays.

At the present moment, Japan’s K computer, which is the world’s fastest supercomputer, has approximately the processing power of a human brain. If ever humans manage to master the technology of quantum computing, the computing power available as a result will be larger than life itself.In reality we are very far away from that, though.

Although many think that quantum computers will replace silicon chips in the coming years, there are many challenges ahead and many more will arise as studies advance.

So far, a handful of quantum computers have been built. The first one was a 2-qubit quantum computer which was built in 1998. After a couple of years, a 7-qubit quantum computer was achieved. Then later on, D-Wave, a Canadian company, built a 16-qubit quantum computer which was able to compute several complex patterns and identify matching systems.

Despite these early successes, we have a long way to go and a lot of challenges as well. One such challenge is managing the disturbance that exists in the world around a quantum computer. The tiniest disturbances can affect the quantum computing system, and the uncertainty that is a fact when it comes to the quantum level is yet another issue.

But if man succeeds in harnessing the power available at the quantum level, life definitely won’t be the same for all. Let’s wait and see what the future holds for quantum computing.

The post What Is Quantum Computing? appeared first on Mobile Magazine.

Magnusson geared up with his wearable computer

Wishing you could get a little more intimate with your computer? Swedish researcher and entrepreneur, Martin Magnusson has created a wearable computer that stays very close by. The concept behind it is really quite simple, but the engineering within is what makes it so clever. First, Magnusson bought a cheap CD case, ripped out the CD pockets and replaced them with velcro, causing the case to open like a book for all of the components. It’s then attached via a shoulder strap so you don’t have to worry about holding it up constantly or the computer falling off. Magnusson then hacked a pair of Myvu media glasses, connected with his home made machine based on a Beagleboard single computer.   In order to get online, Magnusson uses bluetooth connected to his iPhone.  The Beagleboard is powered using four AA batteries, allowing it to last around three hours, and if that isn’t enough time, he believes you could add battery packs to last all day if need be.   “A computer is a window to the virtual world, but as soon as I get up and about, that window closes and I’m stuck within the limits of physical reality.” Magnusson says. “Wearable computers make it possible to keep the window open. All the time.”

A more realistic scenario would be for Magnusson to build a Bluetooth wireless transmitter for his Myvu glasses, projecting his iPhone display to the glasses and using that as the computer.  All other hardware is really unnecessary, but a fun project I’m sure if you are going for the cyborg look.

Gizmodo via Magnusson’s Blog

Computer case

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I’d really like to find something with a good build quality and a 13.3-inch screen, but I’d rather stick with the PC side of things rather than make the jump to a Mac. For this purpose, the Asus UL30Jt sounds like it could fit the bill to a tee.

On display at the Consumer Electronics Show in Las Vegas, the Asus UL30Jt notebook features a 13.3″ 16:9 slim-type LCD display, Intel Core i7-640UM/620UM processor, up to 4GB of DDR3 RAM, up to 640GB 7200rpm SATA HDD, and up to 12 hours of battery life, all in a package less than one-inch thick.

One of the more interesting features that seems to be infiltrating much of the Asus lineup is the combination graphics. You get an integrated Intel GMA HD processor, as well as discrete graphics from an NVIDIA GeForce 310M (1GB). The system will auto-switch between the two for battery life or performance as needed.

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