RSS
Twitter
Facebook
Showing posts with label top news. Show all posts
top news
You're in fast moving traffic on a busy motorway approaching a complicated junction with just seconds to get into the right lane. Your phone, sensing that now is not the moment to disturb you, diverts an incoming call straight to voicemail. Later, when you are in a more relaxed state, it plays the message back and offers to ring the caller back.
Even if you are packing an iPhone 5 or the latest Samsung, it is fair to say that your phone is still a long way from doing this. Despite the impressive array of features offered by today's handsets – including voice commands - most people still interact with their phones by pressing buttons, prodding a screen or the occasional swipe or pinch.
It is a similar story with computers. Take Microsoft’s new Windows 8 operating system, due to be launched later this week. Its colourful, tile-laden start screen may look startlingly different to older versions of Windows, but beneath the eye candy it's still heavily reliant on the keyboard and mouse.
In fact, with one or two notable exceptions, it is striking just how little the way we interact with computers has changed in the last few decades.
"The keyboard and mouse are certainly a hard act to follow," says George Fitzmaurice, head of user interface research for US software maker Autodesk. But, despite an apparent lack of apparent novelty in the majority of interfaces of today's mass market devices, there are plenty of ideas in the pipeline.
Take, for instance, technology that can monitor your stress levels. One technique being developed is functional near-infrared spectroscopy(fNIRS) that monitors oxygen levels in the blood, and therefore activity, in the front of the brain. "It measures short term memory workload, which is a rough estimate of how 'busy' you are," says Robert Jacob, professor of computer science at Tufts University, near Boston, Massachusetts.
The technology is currently used in medical settings, but could one day be used to help filter phone calls, for example. Today fNIRS works via a sensor placed on your forehead, but it could also be built into baseball caps or headbands, allowing the wearer to accept only important calls. Perhaps more immediately, it could also help organisations assign workloads efficiently. "You could tell your phone only to accept calls from your wife if you get busy beyond a certain gradation of brain activity," adds Jacob. "If a machine can tell how busy you are it can tell if you can take on an additional workload, or it could take away some of your work and assign it to someone else if you are over-stretched."
Other forms of "brain-computer interface" are already being used and developed for a growing number of applications. Electroencephalography (EEG) picks up electrical signals generated by brain cell interactions. It has long been used to diagnose comas, epilepsy and brain death in hospitals and in neuroscience research. The variation of frequencies of signals generated can be used to determine different emotions and other brain states. Recent years have seen the launch of simplified EEG headsets that sell for as little as $100.
For example, a British company called Myndplay makes interactive short films, games and sports training software which users interact with via these brain wave measuring headsets. Those who can successfully focus their minds or mentally relax sufficiently when required can influence film plots and progress to higher levels in games.
Similar technologies are increasingly being used to help the disabled. Two years ago an Austrian company called Guger Technologies released a system designed to help paralysed patients type by highlighting letters on a grid one by one until the desired letter is selected and the associated EEG signal is detected. Spanish researchers have developed EEG-controlled wheelchairs and are working on using the same method to control prosthetic arms.
top news
The PlayStation 4, reportedly codenamed Orbis, may utilize custom chips based on AMD's A8-3850 APU and Radeon HD 7670 GPU, sources have told IGN, offering the combined performance of both integrated and discrete graphics processors. According to the official product specs, the A8-3850 packs a quad-core 2.9GHz processor with an integrated graphics chip. The APU will work in tandem with the system's dedicated GPU, the HD 7670, a DirectX 11-enabled card clocked to 1GHz with up to 1GB of dedicated VRAM. User Submitted Concept Mock The HD 7670 is a rebranded version of last year's HD 6670, sporting identical specs across the board. If you recall, the HD 6670 is the same card that we reported will be used in the Xbox 720. The implication, of course, is that the two systems will effectively go toe-to-toe as far as discrete graphics are concerned. By current standards, the HD 6670 is an entry-level processor with a price of about $74.99. Benchmark tests place framerate performance for taxing titles games like Metro 2033 and Crysis 2 set to high settings at a resolution of 1920x1080 (1080p) with average framerates of just over 30 frames-per-second. The chip also supports HDMI1.4a output, which is necessary for the system's rumored 4k output. Naturally, a comparably lightweight operating system and console-optimized games will likely improve performance, but the PS4's real edge could come from the secondary GPU provided by the APU. Onboard the A8-3850 is an HD 6550D, which makes the APU capable of running games at baseline specs and lower resolutions without the help of a discrete GPU. When the APU is paired with the HD 7670, however, Sony will be able to utilize an asymmetrical CrossFire configuration to share the load of realtime graphics processing. Our sources caution that while current plans for the device make use of the the chipsets mentioned, it is possible that changes could be made prior to the system's launch. With publishers rumored to have already begun development for the system and the system slated for a 2013 release, additional details are sure to emerge over the next few months.
top news
Ben Gazzara dead at 81
 |
| Photo credit: AP | In this file photo, actor Ben Gazzara attends The National Board of Review of Motion Pictures awards gala in New York. Gazzara, whose powerful dramatic performances brought an intensity to a variety of roles and made him a memorable presence in films, on television and on Broadway in the original "Cat on a Hot Tin Roof," has died at age 81. Longtime family friend Suzanne Mados said Gazzara died Friday, Feb. 3, 2012, in Manhattan after being in hospice care with cancer. (Jan. 11, 2011) Galleries In this 1968 file photo originally released by Ben Gazzara dead at 81 In this file photo the former host of Recent notable deaths James Arness, 88 Actor The quot;Gunsmokequot; star died Notable deaths of 2011 |
Ben Gazzara, method actor known for intense film, Broadway, TV performances, dies in NY at 81
In this file photo, actor Ben Gazzara attends
Ben Gazzara, whose powerful dramatic performances brought an intensity to a variety of roles and made him a memorable presence in such iconic productions over the decades as the original "Cat on a Hot Tin Roof" on Broadway and the film "The Big Lebowski," has died at age 81.
Longtime family friend Suzanne Mados said Gazzara died Friday in Manhattan. Mados, who owned the Wyndham Hotel, where...
top news
Rome - Ben Gazzara's last film, which is yet to be released in Italy, is "Ristabbanna" ("Right here" in the dialect of Marsala), an original work by Gianni Cardillo and Daniele De Plano taken from the multi-award-winning short film "Regalo di Natale" (Christmas Present). In the film, which is produced by Francesco Tagliabue's Fastrewind, Gazzara is an old Sicilian fisherman whose story is told with a series of flashbacks, beginning with his own funeral. The old man provides the thread that sees the return to his home town of his granddaughter (Tiziana Lodato), a beautiful girl who had left for America to pursue a career as an actress. In the short film that won a Nastro d'Argento prize and is in the running for a David award, the fisherman was keen to send a video message to his granddaughter. The film tells the of the simple and dramatic story of emigrants who are forced to return home disappointed by reality. Ben Gazzara has died without seeing his last film hit the big screen. Despite Ristabbanna's success at a number of foreign festivals (including the prestigious Shanghai festival, the most prestigious in Asia), it has not been adopted by Italian cinemas and, as is often the case, has struggled to find a distributor. . .
