On a Channel 4 somewhere around the world Volkswagen decided to sponsor the scientific documentaries. To promote the partnership VW created these TV spots that aired on the channel. Wow, amazing cars and sponsoring the educational television of the world. Is there anything Volkswagen can’t do? (I told you I love VW).
0
(Nitro Lab - Department of Biomedical Engineering University of Wisconsin-Madison)
Article by | Renee Miller
“In early April, Adam Wilson posted a status update on the social networking Web site Twitter - just by thinking about it.
Just 23 characters long, his message, “using EEG to send tweet,” demonstrates a natural, manageable way in which “locked-in” patients can couple brain-computer interface technologies with modern communication tools.
See the video here.
A University of Wisconsin-Madison biomedical engineering doctoral student, Wilson is among a growing group of researchers worldwide who aim to perfect a communication system for users whose bodies do not work, but whose brains function normally. Among those are people who have amyotrophic lateral sclerosis (ALS), brain-stem stroke or high spinal cord injury.
Some brain-computer interface systems employ an electrode-studded cap wired to a computer. The electrodes detect electrical signals in the brain - essentially, thoughts - and translate them into physical actions, such as a cursor motion on a computer screen. “We started thinking that moving a cursor on a screen is a good scientific exercise,” says Justin Williams, a UW-Madison assistant professor of biomedical engineering and Wilson’s adviser. “But when we talk to people who have locked-in syndrome or a spinal-cord injury, their No. 1 concern is communication.”
In collaboration with research scientist Gerwin Schalk and colleagues at the Wadsworth Center in Albany, N.Y., Williams and Wilson began developing a simple, elegant communication interface based on brain activity related to changes in an object on screen.
The interface consists, essentially, of a keyboard displayed on a computer screen. “The way this works is that all the letters come up, and each one of them flashes individually,” says Williams. “And what your brain does is, if you’re looking at the ‘R’ on the screen and all the other letters are flashing, nothing happens. But when the ‘R’ flashes, your brain says, ‘Hey, wait a minute. Something’s different about what I was just paying attention to.’ And you see a momentary change in brain activity.”
Wilson, who used the interface to post the Twitter update, likens it to texting on a cell phone. “You have to press a button four times to get the character you want,” he says of texting. “So this is kind of a slow process at first.”
However, as with texting, users improve as they practice using the interface. “I’ve seen people do up to eight characters per minute,” says Wilson.
A free service, Twitter has been called a “micro-blogging” tool. User updates, called tweets, have a 140-character limit - a manageable message length that fits locked-in users’ capabilities, says Williams.
Tweets are displayed on the user’s profile page and delivered to other Twitter users who have signed up to receive them. “So someone could simply tell family and friends how they’re feeling today,” says Williams. “People at the other end can be following their thread and never know that the person is disabled. That would really be an enabling type of communication means for those people, and I think it would make them feel, in the online world, that they’re not that much different from everybody else. That’s why we did these things.”
Schalk agrees. “This is one of the first - and perhaps most useful - integrations of brain-computer interface techniques with Internet technologies to date,” he says.
While widespread implementation of brain-computer interface technologies is still years down the road, Wadsworth Center researchers, as well as those at the University of Tübingen in Germany, are starting in-home trials of the equipment. Wilson, who will finish his Ph.D. soon and begin postdoctoral research at Wadsworth, plans to include Twitter in the trials.
Williams hopes the Twitter application is the nudge researchers need to refine development of the in-home technology. “A lot of the things that we’ve been doing are more scientific exercises,” he says. “This is one of the first examples where we’ve found something that would be imediately useful to a much larger community of people with neurological deficits.”
Funding for the research comes from the National Institutes of Health, the UW-Madison Institute for Clinical and Translational Research, the UW-Madison W.H. Coulter Translational Research Partnership in Biomedical Engineering and the Wisconsin Alumni Research Foundation.”
Source | Wisconsin Technology Network
0
(image source | Elsewares)
I don’t know about you, but I must know the chemical composition of anything I am about to ingest. Helping to make this obsession a little easier is the Good Chemistry Salt and Pepper Shakers, featuring the chemical make-up of my two favorite spices right on the dispensers. Get yours here.
0
(image source | Olga Helmy and Douglas Emlen via NY Times)
The NY Times has an interesting article on natures arms race. It is interesting to think of Mother Nature in the same way you would two nations battling for weapons superiority. Check out the great slide show featuring the weaponry of beetles here.
Read the article.
0
(image source | Coroflot)
The “Immaculate Prosthetic, from Hans A. Huseklepp, is a conceptual design that explores new possibilities for the prosthetic devices. Why simply attempt to hide ones false limb by making a poorly imitated, flesh colored piece? By taking an alternative approach when designing such devices, a prosthetic can go beyond pure functionality, but cross into the realm of fashion and give the person a much needed boost to their sense of identity, just when they may need it most. Having known a few people suffer the loss of an arm or leg, and seeing the depression that can come along with such an ordeal, I am all for anything that can make someone who already had the misfortune of losing a limb feel better about themselves. Besides, with tattoos, piercings and other form of body mods becoming the mainstream, this might just be the next level of cool!
For related design, also check out the ECKO prosthetic.
0
(click on image for larger view) (image source | Edward Tufte)
Edward Tufte is an American Statistician and Professor Emeritus of Political Science, Statistics, and Computer Science at Yale University. With several books under his belt, Tufte’s work is highly regarded in the field of information design, where he is considered an unequaled expert. Tufte is famed for having introduced the term “chart junk”, referring to non-informative, or information-obscuring aspects of information displays, as well as for developing “Sparklines“. Tufte’s most notable books include; “Envisioning Information“, “The Visual Display of Quantitative Information“, Visual Explanations: Images and Quantities, Evidence and Narrative and his latest “Beautiful Evidence“. Having sold nearly 1.5 million copies of his books at around $40.00 a piece, well you can do the math on just how successful the writings of Edward Tufte have been. Beyond the millions of readers his publications attract, Tufte has also brought tens of thousands of students into his one day course, “Presenting Data and Information“, that tours around the United States annually.
Perhaps beyond all the success Tufte has experienced throughout his career, he may most notably, or notoriously, be known for his livid criticism of the use of Microsoft’s PowerPoint. Through the essay “The Cognitive Style of PowerPoint“, Tufte effectively criticizes the typical use of PowerPoint, amongst other things, for being used to reassure the presenter, rather than enlightening the audience.
Whether you walk away thinking Tufte to be a genius or fool, you will no doubt have a clearer vision and better tools for the analyzing and understanding of data and its presentation, by knowing the works of Edward Tufte.
0
Stay updated on our posts via RSS (Syndicate).
When we're not wasting time spewing our opinion on this blog, we're an interactive design firm. These are some of our latest projects...
