Technology
Making the World Smaller
Carnegie Melon University along
with a team of German scientists have unveiled
a new technology that will allow people to speak
one language and be understood in another.
The prototype which is unlikely to be commercially viable
for at least a decade, involves a series of electrodes
being attached to various points on a person’s face.
When the person speaks electrical signals from their
facial muscles are sent to a computer which analyzes the
facial patterns and converts them into various languages.
A person need not even speak aloud; simply mouthing the
words is enough for the translation to occur.
"In the future, we could implant the electrodes into
your mouth and throat if you want and have your mouth become
multilingual," said CMU computer science professor,
Alex Waibel, in a statement.
Is RFID Getting Under Your Skin?
A new application of RFID
technology is gaining popularity and all it
requires is $52 and an injection. RFID chips
the size of a grain of rice can now be injected
under a person’s skin allowing that person
to have a built in wireless key for various
uses.
RFID (Radio Frequency Identification) is relatively new
but is turning out to look like an important technology
for the near future. RFID tags are small and cheap and are
used in conjunction with a scanner that reads data from
the tags. This latest application sees the tag being used
with a scanner that is attached to things like the lock
on a person’s door or the password of a person’s
computer.
With the wave of a hand a person could unlock
their door or log onto their computer. The chip can never
be lost and
it’s built to last 100 years.
Although admittedly not for everyone, these injections
reflect one of many new applications being formulated for
this burgeoning technology.
Want to Play in NASA’s
Sandbox?
NASA is asking for volunteers to help sift through their
space sand.
This weekend a NASA probe name Stardust will be returning
from outer space where it spent seven years collecting interstellar
dust. The surface containing the dust is going to be photographed
in incredible detail. The resulting 1.5 million pictures
will then be placed on the internet where volunteers will
examine them for signs of submicroscopic bits of dust.
With 30,000 hours expected to be required to effectively
search Stardust’s collector plate, it is no wonder
that NASA is looking for volunteers to help.
Scientists hope the dust will help them understand distant
stars, and how they generate elements like carbon and oxygen
that are necessary for life.
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