Thought Powered Game Controller – Emotiv Releases a ‘Mindreader’

Stephan: 

Emotiv systems, a pioneer in brain computer interface technology has now launched the Emotiv Development Kit. ‘With the EDK, developers will be able to create games that respond to a player’s emotions and allow players to control their characters’ expressions and manipulate objects using only the power of their brain.’ This is some really cool technology and I think it will be the first of many, progressively more advanced methods of computer input devices and methodology. Eventually I anticipate this sort of tech will make the argument between Qwerty, Dvorak, Xpert, Colemak, etc layouts completely redundant. Effectively this technology uses a range of data gatherers. The main part of the kit is the Headset, which has multiple sensors that can detect various sorts of brain activity. This includes conscious and unconscious thoughts, along with different emotions. ‘For example, they can enable players to move an object in a game without the use of a keyboard or joystick, make their character smile when they smile, or require that a player stays calm in order to ensure his or her character remains undiscovered in a stealth game. As a result, developers can create a more interactive, immersive, […]

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Chance To Make History

Stephan: 

Europe’s leaders will launch a new ‘green’ agenda today after Tony Blair said a ‘huge’ climate change deal was on the cards. The Prime Minister told Sky News he was convinced the US, China and India would be prepared to discuss a ‘realistic plan’. He said: ‘I think it’s potentially, this summit, a turning point for Europe for its policy, for it’s leadership in the world.’ However, despite the optimism, governments remain deeply divided over how far to go in taking a lead in the developed world. Summit host Angela Merkel, the German chancellor, emerged from talks over dinner with fellow leaders last night, declaring: ‘Europe is playing a pioneering role – and it is necessary for Europe to play this role.’ But she admitted there were still arguments over whether tough new targets for switching to renewable energy sources should be made compulsory – with hefty fines for failure to comply. Advertisement Before leaving Brussels this afternoon, the summiteers will formally approve an ambitious goal of cutting overall levels of greenhouse gas emissions by 20% by 2020 compared with 1990 levels. But agreeing a separate legally-binding target of obtaining at least […]

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Two New Studies on Aspartame and Diet Drinks Confirm Source of Obesity, Cancer/Malignant Brain Tumor

Stephan:  Aspartame is bad stuff. Get it out of your diet. If you do search the medical literature on this subject make sure the research was not paid for by a company involved with Aspartame. 'An analysis of peer reviewed medical literature using MEDLINE and other databases was conducted by Ralph G. Walton, MD, Chairman, The Center for Behavioral Medicine, Professor of Clinical Psychiatry, Northeastern Ohio Universities College of Medicine. Dr. Walton analyzed 164 studies which were felt to have relevance to human safety questions. Of those studies, 74 studies had aspartame industry-related sponsorship and 90 were funded without any industry money. Of the 90 non-industry-sponsored studies, 83 (92%) identified one or more problems with aspartame. Of the 7 studies which did not find a problems, 6 of those studies were conducted by the FDA. Given that a number of FDA officials went to work for the aspartame industry immediately following approval (including the former FDA Commissioner), many consider these studies to be equivalent to industry-sponsored research. Of the 74 aspartame industry-sponsored studies, all 74 (100%) claimed that no problems were found with aspartame. This is reminiscent of tobacco industry research where it is primarily the tobacco research which never finds problems with the product, but nearly all of the independent studies do find problems. The 74 aspartame industry-sponsored studies are those which one inveriably sees cited in PR/news reports and reported by organizations funded by Monsanto/Benevia/NutraSweet (e.g., IFIC, ADA). ' [from http://www.holisticmed.com/aspartame/100.html] It is hard to find anything on either side of this issue, outside of the research literature, that does not rely heavily on hyper-adjectives. It's kind of like discussions on the President's policies. This piece suffers from some of that, but is, at least, a reasonable survey of the subject. Thanks to Betty Sue Flowers and Amy McBride.

The Cancer Research Center of the European Foundation of Oncology and Environmental Sciences in Bologna, Italy reported this week that a long-term study to evaluate the potential carcinogenic effects of aspartame demonstrates the chemical sweetener ‘induces an increase in lymphomas and leukemia in female rats.’ The research will be presented at a September international scientific conference, ‘Framing the Future in the Light of the Past: Living in a Chemical World.’ Neurosurgeon Russell Blaylock M.D. commented: ‘The new study released in the European Journal of Oncology by Morando Soffritti and co-workers should terrify mothers and all those consuming aspartame sweetened products. This was a carefully done study which clearly demonstrated a statistically significant increase in several types of lymphomas and leukemia in rats. Both of these malignancies have increased significantly in this country since the widespread use of aspartame. ‘This study confirmed the previous study by Dr. Trocho and co-workers, which also found the formaldehyde breakdown product of aspartame to be damaging to cellular DNA and that this damage was accumulative. The type of damage was a duplicate of that associated with cancers. Along with this most recent study, this means that drinking a single diet cola sweetened with […]

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Apple and LG Plan Flash Laptops

Stephan: 

Apple Inc. may sell zippy notebook computers later this year that use the same type of fast memory as music players and digital cameras, driving down prices of hard disk drives, an analyst said today. In a separate report, LG Electronics Inc. is also said to be planning the release of a laptop this month that uses a hybrid (flash/spinning disk) drive. The laptop news comes in the same week that Samsung Electronics Co. announced it was shipping its first so-called hybrid drive, which uses a combination of nonvolatile NAND flash memory and magnetic spinning disk to save on power consumption and boot-up time (see ‘ Samsung ships its first hybrid disk drive ‘). Samsung is the world’s largest maker of NAND flash memory for gadgets such as USB flash drives. Apple hopes to introduce so-called flash memory in small computers known as subnotebooks in the second half of 2007, Shaw Wu, an analyst at American Technology Research Inc., said in investor notes yesterday and today. A shift to flash memory for storage in place of much slower hard disk drives would eliminate one headache for consumers: lengthy start-up times when turning on computers. Apple already […]

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Walter Reed Disgrace Shows Outsourcing’s Dark Side

Stephan:  Guess who's involved? Can you spell H-a-l-l-i-b-u-r-t-o-n?

The abysmal conditions at the Army’s Walter Reed hospital reflect an appalling lack of respect for men and women who suffered grievous injuries fighting for this country. They also show what can happen when an outsourcing project goes awry. In January of last year, the U.S. Army awarded a support contract to IAP Worldwide Services, a well connected contractor whose CEO, Al Neffgen, is a former executive at Halliburton subsidiary Kellogg Brown and Root. Under the $120 million deal, IAP is to provide administrative, managerial and operational support services at Walter Reed Army Medical Center in Washington, D.C., through 2011. I have no reason to believe that IAP is not fully capable of providing the services specified, though the company reportedly had difficulty fulfilling an earlier contract to deliver ice to Hurricane Katrina victims. What is becoming apparent is that Army officials did not properly supervise Walter Reed’s transition from a facility served by in-house workers to one that contracts out for basic services. Last September, Walter Reed Garrison Commander Peter Garibaldi sent a revealing memo to Colonel Daryl Spencer, the Assistant Chief of Staff for Resource Management with the U.S. Army Medical Command. In that memo, […]

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