The technology blows away the competition by scanning 200 pages a minute |
A new super-fast book-scanning technology could make publishers cringe even more than when they heard about Google Book Search. A University of Tokyo researcher has developed a “book flipping scanning” method that does exactly what it sounds like, digitizing 200 pages per minute, according to IEEE Spectrum. The Japanese researchers hope to enable a digital library for Japanese manga comics. |
The scanner’s camera runs at 500 frames per second, and captures rapidly flipping book pages in two modes. First, a regular line shines on the page to capture text and images. The second mode then manages neat the trick of reconstructing the curved, distorted pages in their original form. A laser device projects lines onto each page that the system can use to recreate the 3-D page model and correct the deformed lines. Read more at www.popsci.com |
Far from calming us, wealth and technology have made us more stressed |
If your great-great-grandparents fell through a hole in time and landed here today, they would dance for joy to see the miraculous advances we have made in technology, healthcare and entertainment. But soon they would also begin to wonder why, amid all this amazing stuff, do we look so stressed, anxious and snippy? |
| Credit crunch notwithstanding, our society is technologically and materially far richer than ever before in human history. It is much safer, too. But our levels of stress, anxiety and depression are higher than ever. So, too, are our rates of stress-related physical illnesses such as hypertension. The insurer, Aviva UK Health, says that psychological stress was the primary cause of sickness claims last year. Read more at www.timesonline.co.uk |
New York and other cities are working with Microsoft to bring computers, Webcams, and other high-tech gear to the homebound elderly
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Not even the vibrancy of the city that never sleeps could get lifelong New Yorker Milton Greidinger to leave his home. Chronic illness kept Greidinger, 86, from participating in outside activities. Loneliness set in. “I was just waiting for my time to finish,” Greidinger says. Now Greidinger, a former department store salesman, has revived some social interests with the help of a private-public partnership between Microsoft (MSFT) and the City of New York that introduces seniors to computer, video, and Internet technology in their homes. The program, known as the Virtual Senior Center, uses technology to fight social isolation and give older, homebound New Yorkers better access to community services. |
Microsoft’s model for urban seniors |
Breakthroughs in battery technology are expected to power the next generation of electronic devices. |
What is the potential for carbon “nanotubes” in battery technology? I heard them referred to as the biggest battery breakthrough to come along in years. And what else can we expect to see in terms of new battery technology in coming years? – R.M. Koncan, via e-mail
The rechargeable lithium-ion batteries now so common in everything from iPods to hybrid cars can store twice the energy of similarly sized nickel-metal hydride batteries and up to six times as much as their lead-acid progenitors. But these advances are only a small evolutionary step from the world’s first battery designed by Alessandro Volta in 1800 using layers of metal and blotting paper soaked in salt water.
With battery technology advances long overdue, researchers are racing to develop more efficient ways to store power. Read more at www.thedailygreen.com |
Almost all young men use the internet every day, and it is the technology they are most attached to, according to new study. Research conducted by Sparkler for Microsoft Advertising across the UK found that 99% of young males go online either every day or nearly every day, and half of them already use their mobile phones to do so. And 80% even go so far as to say that they would be lost without it. The Internet is the technology 57% of men between 18 and 44 are most attached to, closely followed by mobile phones with 49%, and TV with 46%. In fact, the internet is so important for today’s men, that it is often the first thing they think about when they wake up: 25% of young men admitted to checking their email and 18% to looking at social networking sites on their mobile phone before they get out of bed in the morning. Some 94% use email at least once per day, compared with 60% that use a social network such as Facebook. Read more at www.guardian.co.uk |
There are now dozens of websites to help budding authors to publish their novels, poems and pictures and, perhaps, even make a profit from it |
If you want to realise a dream by publishing your own book, there are lots of companies willing to extract upwards of $500 from you for the privilege. At the other end of the spectrum is Amazon’s digital text platform, which allows you to upload your pre-prepared files to its Kindle reader and then set your own price. The catch? Amazon takes 65% of the income from sales. Ouch. Fortunately, there are lots of other options – of which more later – for budding authors. What you get out of them is subject only to the limits of your imagination. It doesn’t have to be an embryonic bestseller because self-publishing is best suited to limited editions. Anything over 1,000 copies and you would be better off going to a traditional printer to take advantage of economies of scale. Read more at www.guardian.co.uk |
Wildlife managers now have access to real-time displays of bird activity on and around Seattle-Tacoma International airport thanks to a recently deployed bird tracking system.
Following the ditching of U. S. Air 1549 in the Hudson River on January 15, 2009, there has been an increased awareness of bird aircraft strike hazards. More than 7,000 bird strikes are reported to the Federal Aviation Administration (FAA) annually. |
Using this enhanced tracking technology, wildlife staff can access the “as it happens” data from airport avian radars using laptop computers as they patrol the airport and its known bird hazard “hot spots.” |
Other options are available to follow movements on larger monitoring screens, or screens at other locations. System users also can call up daily summaries of bird track histories on a day-to-day, week-to-week, or season-to-season basis to better assess bird movement patterns and analyze flock and individual bird dynamics. Read more at futurity.org |
No need to worry about losing the remote with new touchless technology. |
Touchscreens are so yesterday. Remote controls? So last century. |
The future is controlling your devices with a simple wave of the hand. |
A wiggle of the fingers will change television channels or turn the volume up or down. In video games, your movements will control your onscreen digital avatar. |
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