Computed·Blg

Via Smithsonian

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Via The Verge

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Next week at the World Cup, a paralyzed volunteer from the Association for Assistance to Disabled Children will walk onto the field and open the tournament with a ceremonial kick. This modern miracle is made possible by a robotic exoskeleton that will move the user's limbs, taking commands directly from his or her thoughts.

This demonstration is the debut of the Walk Again Project, a consortium of more than 150 scientists and engineers from around the globe who have come together to show off recent advances in the field of brain machine interfaces, or BMI. The paralyzed person inside will be wearing an electroencephalographic (EEG) headset that records brainwave activity. A backpack computer will translate those electrical signals into commands the exoskeleton can understand. As the robotic frame moves, it also sends its own signals back to the body, restoring not just the ability to walk, but the sensation as well.

Just how well the wearer will walk and kick are uncertain. The project has been criticized by other neuroscientists as an exploitative spectacle that uses the disabled to promote research which may not be the best path for restoring health to paralyzed patients. And just weeks before the project is set to debut on television to hundreds of millions of fans, it still hasn’t been tested outdoors and awaits some final pieces and construction. It's not even clear which of the eight people from the study will be the one inside the suit.

The point of the project is not to show finished research, however, or sell a particular technology. The Walk Again Project is meant primarily to inspire. It's a demonstration that we’re on the threshold of achieving science fiction: technologies that will allow humans to truly step into the cyborg era.

It’s only taken a little over two centuries to get there.

The past

Scientists have been studying the way electricity interacts with our biology since 1780, when Luigi Galvani made the legs of a dead frog dance by zapping them with a spark, but the modern history behind the technology that allows our brains to talk directly to machines goes back to the 1950s and John Lilly. He implanted several hundred electrodes into different parts of a monkey’s brain and used these implants to apply shocks, causing different body parts to move. A decade later in 1963, professor Jose Delgado of Yale tested this theory again like a true Spaniard, stepping into the ring to face a charging bull, which he stopped in its tracks with a zap to the brain.

In 1969, professor Eberhard Fetz was able to isolate and record the firing of a single neuron onto a microelectrode he had implanted into the brain of a monkey. Fetz learned that primates could actually tune their brain activity to better interact with the implanted machine. He rewarded them with banana pellets every time they triggered the microelectrode, and the primates quickly improved in their ability to activate this specific section of their brain. This was a critical observation, demonstrating brain’s unique plasticity, its ability to create fresh pathways to fit a new language.

Today, BMI research has advanced to not only record the neurons firing in primates’ brains, but to understand what actions the firing of those neurons represent. "I spend my life chasing the storms that emanate from the hundreds of billions of cells that inhabit our brains," explained Miguel Nicolelis, PhD, one of the founders of Center for Neuroengineering at Duke University and the driving force behind the Walk Again Project. "What we want to do is listen to these brain symphonies and try to extract them from the messages they carry."

Nicolelis and his colleagues at Duke were able to record brain activity and match it to actions. From there they could translate that brain activity into instructions a computer could understand. Beginning in the year 2000, Nicolelis and his colleagues at Duke made a series of breakthroughs. In the most well known, they implanted a monkey with an array of microelectrodes that could record the firing of clusters of neurons in different parts of the brain. The monkey stood on a treadmill and began to walk. On the other side of the planet, a robot in Japan received the signal emanating from the primate’s brain and began to walk.

Primates in the Duke lab learned to control robotic arms using only their thoughts. And like in the early experiments done by Fetz, the primates showed a striking ability to improve the control of these new limbs. "The brain is a remarkable instrument," says professor Craig Henriquez, who helped to found the Duke lab. "It has the ability to rewire itself, to create new connections. That’s what gives the BMI paradigm its power. You are not limited just by what you can physically engineer, because the brain evolves to better suit the interface."

The present

After his success with primates, Nicolelis was eager to apply the advances in BMI to people. But there were some big challenges in the transition from lab animals to human patients, namely that many people weren’t willing to undergo invasive brain surgery for the purposes of clinical research. "There is an open question of whether you need to have implants to get really fine grained control," says Henriquez. The Walk Again Project hopes to answer that question, at least partially. While it is based on research in animals that required surgery, it will be using only external EEG headsets to gather brain activity.

The fact that these patients were paralyzed presented another challenge. Unlike the lab monkeys, who could move their own arms and observe how the robot arm moved in response, these participants can’t move their legs, or for many, really remember the subconscious thought process that takes place when you want to travel by putting one foot in front of the other. The first step was building up the pathways in the brain that would send mental commands to the BMI to restore locomotion.

To train the patients in this new way of thinking about movement, researchers turned to virtual reality. Each subject was given an EEG headset and an Oculus Rift. Inside the head-mounted display, the subjects saw a virtual avatar of themselves from the waist down. When they thought about walking, the avatar legs walked, and this helped the brain to build new connections geared towards controlling the exoskeleton. "We also simulate the stadium, and the roar of the crowd," says Regis Kopper, who runs Duke’s VR lab. "To help them prepare for the stress of the big day."

Once the VR training had established a baseline for sending commands to the legs, there was a second hurdle. Much of walking happens at the level of reflex, and without the peripheral nervous system that helps people balance, coordinate, and adjust to the terrain, walking can be a very challenging task. That’s why even the most advanced robots have trouble navigating stairs or narrow hallways that would seem simple to humans. If the patients were going to successfully walk or kick a ball, it wasn’t enough that they be able to move the exoskeleton’s legs — they had to feel them as well.

The breakthrough was a special shirt with vibrating pads on its forearm. As the robot walked, the contact of its heel and toe on the ground made corresponding sensations occur along parts of the right and left arms. "The brain essentially remapped one part of the body onto another," says Henriquez. "This restored what we call proprioception, the spacial awareness humans need for walking."

In recent weeks all eight of the test subjects have successfully walked using the exoskeleton, with one completing an astonishing 132 steps. The plan is to have the volunteer who works best with the exoskeleton perform the opening kick. But the success of the very public demonstration is still up in the air. The suit hasn’t been completely finished and it has yet to be tested in an outdoor environment. The group won't confirm who exactly will be wearing the suit. Nicolelis, for his part, isn’t worried. Asked when he thought the entire apparatus would be ready, he replied: "Thirty minutes before."

The future

The Walk Again project may be the most high-profile example of BMI, but there have been a string of breakthrough applications in recent years. A patient at the University of Pittsburgh achieved unprecedented levels of fine motor control with a robotic arm controlled by brain activity. The Rehabilitation Institute of Chicago introduced the world’s first mind controlled prosthetic leg. For now the use of advanced BMI technologies is largely confined to academic and medical research, but some projects, like DARPA’s Deka arm, have received FDA approval and are beginning to move into the real world. As it improves in capability and comes down in cost, BMI may open the door to a world of human enhancement that would see people merging with machines, not to restore lost capabilities, but to augment their own abilities with cyborg power-ups.

"From the standpoint of defense, we have a lot of good reasons to do it," says Alan Rudolph, a former DARPA scientist and Walk Again Project member. Rudolph, for example, worked on the Big Dog, and says BMI may allow human pilots to control mechanical units with their minds, giving them the ability to navigate uncertain or dynamic terrain in a way that has so far been impossible while keeping soldiers out of harms way. Our thoughts might control a robot on the surface of Mars or a microsurgical bot navigating the inside of the human body.

There is a subculture of DIY biohackers and grinders who are eager to begin adopting cyborg technology and who are willing, at least in theory, to amputate functional limbs if it’s possible to replace them with stronger, more functional, mechanical ones. "I know what the limits of the human body are like," says Tim Sarver, a member of the Pittsburgh biohacker collective Grindhouse Wetwares. "Once you’ve seen the capabilities of a 5000psi hydraulic system, it’s no comparison."

For now, this sci-fi vision all starts with a single kick on the World Cup pitch, but our inevitable cyborg future is indeed coming. A recent demonstration at the University of Washington enabled one person’s thoughts to control the movements of another person’s body — a brain-to-brain interface — and it holds the key to BMI’s most promising potential application. "In this futuristic scenario, voluntary electrical brain waves, the biological alphabet that underlies human thinking, will maneuver large and small robots, control airships from afar," wrote Nicolelis. "And perhaps even allow for the sharing of thoughts and sensations with one individual to another."

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ComputedBy comments:

Now, the kick-off video:

Via PCWorld

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Qualcomm is getting high on 64-bit chips with its fastest ever Snapdragon processor, which will render 4K video, support LTE Advanced and could run the 64-bit Android OS.

The new Snapdragon 810 is the company’s “highest performing” mobile chip for smartphones and tablets, Qualcomm said in a statement. Mobile devices with the 64-bit chip will ship in the first half of next year, and be faster and more power-efficient. Snapdragon chips are used in handsets with Android and Windows Phone operating systems, which are not available in 64-bit form yet.

The Snapdragon 810 is loaded with the latest communication and graphics technologies from Qualcomm. The graphics processor can render 4K (3840 x 2160 pixel) video at 30 frames per second, and 1080p video at 120 frames per second. The chip also has an integrated modem that supports LTE and its successor, LTE-Advanced, which is emerging.

The 810 also is among the first mobile chips to support the latest low-power LPDDR4 memory, which will allow programs to run faster while consuming less power. This will be beneficial, especially for tablets, as 64-bit chips allow mobile devices to have more than 4GB of memory, which is the limit on current 32-bit chips.

The quad-core chip has a mix of high-power ARM Cortex-A57 CPU cores for demanding tasks and low-power A53 CPU cores for mundane tasks like taking calls, messaging and MP3 playback. The multiple cores ensure more power-efficient use of the chip, which helps extend battery life of mobile devices.

The company also introduced a Snapdragon 808 six-core 64-bit chip. The chips will be among the first made using the latest 20-nanometer manufacturing process, which is an advance from the 28-nm process used to make Snapdragon chips today.

Qualcomm now has to wait for Google to release a 64-bit version of Android for ARM-based mobile devices. Intel has already shown mobile devices running 64-bit Android with its Merrifield chip, but most mobile products today run on ARM processors. Qualcomm licenses Snapdragon processor architecture and designs from ARM.

Work for 64-bit Android is already underway, and applications like the Chrome browser are already being developed for the OS. Google has not officially commented on when 64-bit Android would be released, but industry observers believe it could be announced at the Google I/O conference in late June.

Qualcomm spokesman Jon Carvill declined to comment on support for 64-bit Android. But the chips are “further evidence of our commitment to deliver top-to-bottom mobile 64-bit leadership across product tiers for our customers,” Carvill said in an email.

Qualcomm’s chips are used in some of the world’s top smartphones, and will appear in Samsung’s Galaxy S5. A Qualcomm executive in October last year called Apple’s A7, the world’s first 64-bit mobile chip, a “marketing gimmick,” but the company has moved on and now has five 64-bit chips coming to medium-priced and premium smartphones and tablets. But no 64-bit Android smartphones are available yet, and Apple has a headstart and remains the only company selling a 64-bit smartphone with its iPhone 5S.

The 810 supports HDMI 1.4 for 4K video output, and the Adreno 430 graphics processor is 30 percent faster on graphics performance and 20 percent more power efficient than the older Adreno 420 GPU. The graphics processor will support 55-megapixel sensors, Qualcomm said. Other chip features include 802.11ac Wi-Fi with built-in technology for faster wireless data transfers, Bluetooth 4.1 and a processing core for location services.

The six-core Snapdragon 808 is a notch down on performance compared to the 810, and also has fewer features. The 808 supports LTE-Advanced, but can support displays with up to 2560 x 1600 pixels. It will support LPDDR3 memory. The chip has two Cortex-A57 CPUs and four Cortex-A53 cores.

The chips will ship out to device makers for testing in the second half of this year.

Via The New York Times

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Via Slash Gear

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We’ve been hearing a lot about Google‘s self-driving car lately, and we’re all probably wanting to know how exactly the search giant is able to construct such a thing and drive itself without hitting anything or anyone. A new photo has surfaced that demonstrates what Google’s self-driving vehicles see while they’re out on the town, and it looks rather frightening.

The image was tweeted by Idealab founder Bill Gross, along with a claim that the self-driving car collects almost 1GB of data every second (yes, every second). This data includes imagery of the cars surroundings in order to effectively and safely navigate roads. The image shows that the car sees its surroundings through an infrared-like camera sensor, and it even can pick out people walking on the sidewalk.

Of course, 1GB of data every second isn’t too surprising when you consider that the car has to get a 360-degree image of its surroundings at all times. The image we see above even distinguishes different objects by color and shape. For instance, pedestrians are in bright green, cars are shaped like boxes, and the road is in dark blue.

However, we’re not sure where this photo came from, so it could simply be a rendering of someone’s idea of what Google’s self-driving car sees. Either way, Google says that we could see self-driving cars make their way to public roads in the next five years or so, which actually isn’t that far off, and Tesla Motors CEO Elon Musk is even interested in developing self-driving cars as well. However, they certainly don’t come without their problems, and we’re guessing that the first batch of self-driving cars probably won’t be in 100% tip-top shape.

Via Slash Gear

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IBM has developed a light-based data transfer system delivering more than 25Gbps per channel, opening the door to chip-dense slabs of processing power that could speed up server performance, the internet, and more. The company’s research into silicon integrated nanophotonics addresses concerns that interconnects between increasingly powerful computers, such as mainframe servers, are unable to keep up with the speeds of the computers themselves. Instead of copper or even optical cables, IBM envisages on-chip optical routing, where light blasts data between dense, multi-layer computing hubs.

“This future 3D-integated chip consists of several layers connected with each other with very dense and small pitch interlayer vias. The lower layer is a processor itself with many hundreds of individual cores. Memory layer (or layers) are bonded on top to provide fast access to local caches. On top of the stack is the Photonic layer with many thousands of individual optical devices (modulators, detectors, switches) as well as analogue electrical circuits (amplifiers, drivers, latches, etc.). The key role of a photonic layer is not only to provide point-to-point broad bandwidth optical link between different cores and/or the off-chip traffic, but also to route this traffic with an array of nanophotonic switches. Hence it is named Intra-chip optical network (ICON)” IBM

Optical interconnects are increasingly being used to link different server nodes, but by bringing the individual nodes into a single stack the delays involved in communication could be pared back even further. Off-chip optical communications would also be supported, to link the data-rich hubs together.

Although the photonics system would be considerably faster than existing links – it supports multiplexing, joining multiple 25Gbps+ connections into one cable thanks to light wavelength splitting – IBM says it would also be cheaper thanks to straightforward manufacturing integration:

“By adding a few processing modules into a high-performance 90nm CMOS fabrication line, a variety of silicon nanophotonics components such as wavelength division multiplexers (WDM), modulators, and detectors are integrated side-by-side with a CMOS electrical circuitry. As a result, single-chip optical communications transceivers can be manufactured in a conventional semiconductor foundry, providing significant cost reduction over traditional approaches” IBM

Technologies like the co-developed Thunderbolt from Intel and Apple have promised affordable light-based computing connections, but so far rely on more traditional copper-based links with optical versions further down the line. IBM says its system is “primed for commercial development” though warns it may take a few years before products could actually go on sale.

Via engadget

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Spoiler alert: a reoccurring cast member bids farewell in the latest James Bond flick. When the production of Skyfall called for the complete decimation of a classic 1960s era Aston Martin DB5, filmmakers opted for something a little more lifelike than computer graphics. The movie studio contracted the services of Augsburg-based 3D printing company Voxeljet to make replicas of the vintage ride. Skipping over the residential-friendly MakerBot Replicator, the company used a beastly industrial VX4000 3D printer to craft three 1:3 scale models of the car with a plot to blow them to smithereens. The 18 piece miniatures were shipped off to Propshop Modelmakers in London to be assembled, painted, chromed and outfitted with fake bullet holes. The final product was used in the film during a high-octane action sequence, which resulted in the meticulously crafted prop receiving a Wile E. Coyote-like sendoff. Now, rest easy knowing that no real Aston Martins were harmed during the making of this film. Head past the break to get a look at a completed model prior to its untimely demise.

Via dvice

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What happens when you combine advances in 3D printing with biosynthesis and molecular construction? Eventually, it might just lead to printers that can manufacture vaccines and other drugs from scratch: email your doc, download some medicine, print it out and you're cured.

This concept (which is surely being worked on as we speak) comes from Craig Venter, whose idea of synthesizing DNA on Mars we posted about last week. You may remember a mention of the possibility of synthesizing Martian DNA back here on Earth, too: Venter says that we can do that simply by having the spacecraft email us genetic information on whatever it finds on Mars, and then recreate it in a lab by mixing together nucleotides in just the right way. This sort of thing has already essentially been done by Ventner, who created the world's first synthetic life form back in 2010.

Vetner's idea is to do away with complex, expensive and centralized vaccine production and instead just develop one single machine that can "print" drugs by carefully combining nucleotides, sugars, amino acids, and whatever else is needed while u wait. Technology like this would mean that vaccines could be produced locally, on demand, simply by emailing the appropriate instructions to your closes drug printer. Pharmacies would no longer consists of shelves upon shelves of different pills, but could instead be kiosks with printers inside them. Ultimately, this could even be something you do at home.

While the benefits to technology like this are obvious, the risks are equally obvious. I mean, you'd basically be introducing the Internet directly into your body. Just ingest that for a second and think about everything that it implies. Viruses. LOLcats. Rule 34. Yeah, you know what, maybe I'll just stick with modern American healthcare and making ritual sacrifices to heathen gods, at least one of which will probably be effective.

Silas R. Beane, Zohreh Davoudi, Martin J. Savage

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Observable consequences of the hypothesis that the observed universe is a numerical simulation performed on a cubic space-time lattice or grid are explored. The simulation scenario is first motivated by extrapolating current trends in computational resource requirements for lattice QCD into the future. Using the historical development of lattice gauge theory technology as a guide, we assume that our universe is an early numerical simulation with unimproved Wilson fermion discretization and investigate potentially-observable consequences. Among the observables that are considered are the muon g-2 and the current differences between determinations of alpha, but the most stringent bound on the inverse lattice spacing of the universe, b^(-1) >~ 10^(11) GeV, is derived from the high-energy cut off of the cosmic ray spectrum. The numerical simulation scenario could reveal itself in the distributions of the highest energy cosmic rays exhibiting a degree of rotational symmetry breaking that reflects the structure of the underlying lattice.

PDF

Via TechHive

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The iPhone 5 is the latest smartphone to hop on-board the LTE (Long Term Evolution) bandwagon, and for good reason: The mobile broadband standard is fast, flexible, and designed for the future. Yet LTE is still a young technology, full of growing pains. Here’s an overview of where it came from, where it is now, and where it might go from here.

The evolution of ‘Long Term Evolution’

LTE is a mobile broadband standard developed by the 3GPP (3rd Generation Partnership Project), a group that has developed all GSM standards since 1999. (Though GSM and CDMA—the network Verizon and Sprint use in the United States—were at one time close competitors, GSM has emerged as the dominant worldwide mobile standard.)

Cell networks began as analog, circuit-switched systems nearly identical in function to the public switched telephone network (PSTN), which placed a finite limit on calls regardless of how many people were speaking on a line at one time.

The second-generation, GPRS, added data (at dial-up modem speed). GPRS led to EDGE, and then 3G, which treated both voice and data as bits passing simultaneously over the same network (allowing you to surf the web and talk on the phone at the same time).

GSM-evolved 3G (which brought faster speeds) started with UMTS, and then accelerated into faster and faster variants of 3G, 3G+, and “4G” networks (HSPA, HSDPA, HSUPA, HSPA+, and DC-HSPA).

Until now, the term “evolution” meant that no new standard broke or failed to work with the older ones. GSM, GPRS, UMTS, and so on all work simultaneously over the same frequency bands: They’re intercompatible, which made it easier for carriers to roll them out without losing customers on older equipment. But these networks were being held back by compatibility.

That’s where LTE comes in. The “long term” part means: “Hey, it’s time to make a big, big change that will break things for the better.”

LTE needs its own space, man

LTE has “evolved” beyond 3G networks by incorporating new radio technology and adopting new spectrum. It allows much higher speeds than GSM-compatible standards through better encoding and wider channels. (It’s more “spectrally efficient,” in the jargon.)

LTE is more flexible than earlier GSM-evolved flavors, too: Where GSM’s 3G variants use 5 megahertz (MHz) channels, LTE can use a channel size from 1.4 MHz to 20 MHz; this lets it work in markets where spectrum is scarce and sliced into tiny pieces, or broadly when there are wide swaths of unused or reassigned frequencies. In short, the wider the channel—everything else being equal—the higher the throughput.

Speeds are also boosted through MIMO (multiple input, multiple output), just as in 802.11n Wi-Fi. Multiple antennas allow two separate benefits: better reception, and multiple data streams on the same spectrum.

LTE complications

Unfortunately, in practice, LTE implementation gets sticky: There are 33 potential bands for LTE, based on a carrier’s local regulatory domain. In contrast, GSM has just 14 bands, and only five of those are widely used. (In broad usage, a band is two sets of paired frequencies, one devoted to upstream traffic and the other committed to downstream. They can be a few MHz apart or hundreds of MHz apart.)

And while LTE allows voice, no standard has yet been agreed upon; different carriers could ultimately choose different approaches, leaving it to handset makers to build multiple methods into a single phone, though they’re trying to avoid that. In the meantime, in the U.S., Verizon and AT&T use the older CDMA and GSM networks for voice calls, and LTE for data.

LTE in the United States

Of the four major U.S. carriers, AT&T, Verizon, and Sprint have LTE networks, with T-Mobile set to start supporting LTE in the next year. But that doesn’t mean they’re set to play nice. We said earlier that current LTE frequencies are divided up into 33 spectrum bands: With the exception of AT&T and T-Mobile, which share frequencies in band 4, each of the major U.S. carriers has its own band. Verizon uses band 13; Sprint has spectrum in band 26; and AT&T holds band 17 in addition to some crossover in band 4.

In addition, smaller U.S. carriers, like C Spire, U.S. Cellular, and Clearwire, all have their own separate piece of the spectrum pie: C Spire and U.S. Cellular use band 12, while Clearwire uses band 41.

As such, for a manufacturer to support LTE networks in the United States alone, it would need to build a receiver that could tune into seven different LTE bands—let alone the various flavors of GSM-evolved or CDMA networks.

With the iPhone, Apple tried to cut through the current Gordian Knot by releasing two separate models, the A1428 and A1429, which cover a limited number of different frequencies depending on where they’re activated. (Apple has kindly released a list of countries that support its three iPhone 5 models.) Other companies have chosen to restrict devices to certain frequencies, or to make numerous models of the same phone.

Banded together

Other solutions are coming. Qualcomm made a regulatory filing in June regarding a seven-band LTE chip, which could be in shipping devices before the end of 2012 and could allow a future iPhone to be activated in different fashions. Within a year or so, we should see most-of-the-world phones, tablets, and other LTE mobile devices that work on the majority of large-scale LTE networks.

That will be just in time for the next big thing: LTE-Advanced, the true fulfillment of what was once called 4G networking, with rates that could hit 1 Gbps in the best possible cases of wide channels and short distances. By then, perhaps the chip, handset, and carrier worlds will have converged to make it all work neatly together.