Greg Gage is a neuroscientist. He started out as an electrical engineer before taking a doctorate in neuroscience. Gage also co-runs a company called Backyard Brains. The aim of the company is to promote education and to entice more people into studying neuroscience. Given that an estimated 20 percent of the world will have a neurological disorder, the company argues such research is of social importance.

This was the theme of Dr. Gage’s recent TED talk (and the second time that Gage had been given the opportunity to appear on the TED channel). TED (Technology, Entertainment and Design) is a nonprofit devoted to spreading ideas, usually in the form of short, powerful talks.

In the presentation, Gage outlines his latest neuroscience equipment. For this he picks out a young woman from the audience and places electrodes onto her arm. Gage then proceeds to play the neuron activity via a speaker as the woman squeezes her arm and generates motor activity.

Gage then calls on a male volunteer and connects him to a “human-to-human interface.” The young woman then uses her brain to control the arm of the man. This is performed through the transmission of electrical impulses. The remarkable feat is shown in the video below.

The educational aspect of Gage’s company involves providing similar neuroscience experiment kits for students of all ages to learn about electrophysiology. The products on offer include kits designed to let people see and hear brain signals from living neurons and devices to allow the robotic control of ordinary cockroaches (termed the “Roboroach.”) With the brain signals, the kit allows students to stimulate neurons in insects and record the resulting electrical signals on a smartphone.

With the Roboroach, those who wish to use the kit can snip the ends of a cockroach’s antennae and thread them with a wire. The wire connects to a battery pack paired with a mobile app. Once this is set up, a finger swipe sends an electrical impulse down the antennae to the insect’s nervous system, steering it left or right. This was a succesful Kickstarter project.

The approach is not without controversy, as Digital Journal reported back in 2013. Here we noted that some people were concerned about cruelty to cockroaches while others, like Michael Allen Fox of Queen’s University in Canada, thinks that the kits trivialize science for they “encourage thinking of complex living organisms as mere machines or tools.”

Read more: http://www.digitaljournal.com/science/how-to-control-someone-else-s-arm-with-your-brain/article/432072#ixzz3YkQj13tF

SAN FRANCISCO — Microsoft hopes to get more people using the next version of its Windows software on all kinds of devices by giving them access to many of the same apps they’re already using on Apple or Android phones.

In a major strategy shift, a top executive told an audience of several thousand software developers Wednesday that Microsoft will release new tools to help them quickly adapt the apps they’ve built for Apple or Android gadgets, so they will work on smartphones, PCs and other devices that use the new Windows 10 operating system coming later this year.

On the first day of the company’s annual software conference, other executives showed off more uses for Microsoft’s holographic “augmented reality” headset, the HoloLens — although it’s not yet for sale. They also announced the official name for a new web browser, called “Edge,” that they promised will be faster and more useful than the Internet Explorer that’s been a Microsoft mainstay for 20 years.

All those initiatives are tied to the impending release of Windows 10, the centerpiece of Microsoft’s ambitions to regain the stature it commanded when Windows-based PCs dominated the computing world. Today, after losing ground to smartphones and tablets that run software from rivals Apple and Google, Microsoft wants to make Windows 10 the universal software for PCs, phones and other Internet-connected gadgets.

“Windows 10 represents a new generation of Windows, built for an era of more personal computing,” CEO Satya Nadella said during a keynote speech, adding that today’s consumers and corporate workers want to have the same experience when they are using a variety of devices.

Although Microsoft has previously shown off some features of Windows 10, it’s hoping to enlist an army of software developers as allies in its campaign to build enthusiasm for the new release. The company is using the three-day conference, called Build, to demonstrate more features and app-building tools, with an emphasis on mobile devices as well as PCs.

“Our goal is to make Windows 10 the most attractive development platform ever,” Vice President Terry Myerson said.

To win over consumers who use competing software, Microsoft needs to persuade outside developers, who create software for consumers and corporate clients, it’s worth their time to create new apps and programs for Windows 10.

“Getting developer buy-in is absolutely the crucial thing,” said J.P. Gownder, a tech industry analyst at Forrester Research. He said Microsoft has struggled with a “chicken-and-egg” problem, in which developers have been reluctant to build mobile apps for Windows because relatively few people use Windows phones and tablets.

Currently, there are more than 1.4 million apps for Android phones and about the same for Apple devices, while there are only a few hundred thousand apps that work on Windows phones and tablets.

Microsoft’s move to help developers adapt their Apple and Android apps for Windows 10 is a major change from the past, when each company maintained rigid differences in their software platforms. Microsoft is also hoping to entice developers by promising that apps for Windows 10 will work equally well on PCs, mobile gadgets, Xbox game consoles and even the HoloLens.

The company has another big carrot to wave in front of those developers: Microsoft has already said it will release Windows 10 as a free upgrade to people who now have PCs or other gadgets running the previous two versions of Windows, provided they upgrade in the coming year. That could help create a huge new audience of Windows 10 users in a relatively short time, Gownder said.

Myerson predicted there will be a billion devices using Windows 10 within the next two to three years. Apps for all those devices will be distributed through a single Windows app store. Myerson also said Microsoft will partner with wireless carriers so consumers who lack credit cards can pay for apps on their phone bill — a popular method in developing nations.

Microsoft has not said exactly when Windows 10 is coming, although some were hoping the company would announce a date on Wednesday.

Since he became CEO last year, Nadella has been presiding over a major overhaul at Microsoft. He has redesigned some of Microsoft’s most popular programs for mobile users and invested in new “cloud-computing” services, in which businesses pay to use software that’s housed in Microsoft’s data centers.

Microsoft announced several new initiatives Wednesday for its Azure cloud-computing service, which has emerged as a fast-growing rival to a popular cloud business operated by Amazon. Microsoft is releasing new programming tools for Azure clients to create programs for computers that run Apple and Linux software, as well as those that run Windows.

http://www.nytimes.com/aponline/2015/04/29/business/ap-us-microsoft-big-show.html?_r=0

Media Release | April 29, 2015

http://news.ubc.ca/2015/04/29/researchers-closer-to-being-able-to-change-blood-types/

April 3, 2015

By Casey Fabris

Under a settlement with the U.S. Department of Justice announced on Thursday, edX, the nonprofit MOOC provider created by Harvard University and the Massachusetts Institute of Technology, has agreed to make its offerings more accessible to people with disabilities.

The settlement agreement, which marks the department’s first effort to challenge the accessibility of massive open online courses, affects the colleges that are members of edX as well as the nonprofit consortium itself.

The agreement calls for a number of changes, such as making edX’s website, mobile applications, and learning-management system fully accessible in the next 18 months; providing guidance to course creators on best practices for making online courses fully accessible; hiring a web-accessibility coordinator with specific responsibilities; and developing a web-accessibility policy.

The settlement notes that edX maintains that it was not inaccessible to people with disabilities and that the group did not admit any wrongdoing.

The changes were prompted by a compliance review begun by the Department of Justice.

“We were very aware in 2012 or so about the emergence of MOOCs and the importance, or the potential importance, that they offer to students who have distance barriers and cost barriers to getting good educational content,” said Eve L. Hill, the department’s deputy assistant attorney general for civil rights. “And they offer a potentially really good avenue for students with disabilities.”

But if those platforms are inaccessible, she added, it closes off that opportunity for students with disabilities.

Though Ms. Hill would not share details about the problems with the edX platform, she said they were common website-accessibility problems. She gave examples of those, including videos that lack captions, pop-up windows that aren’t recognized by screen-reader applications used by visually impaired people, and tables of data that lack header information or aren’t organized in a way that screen readers can translate.

The settlement occurred as part of the Justice Department’s broader efforts to make many websites more accessible to people with disabilities. Those efforts have included reaching settlement agreements or filing statements of interest in cases involving Netflix, H&R Block, and Louisiana Tech University, to name a few.

But the agreement with edX, Ms. Hill said, is different because it concerns both platform technology, created by edX, and the content itself, which is largely created by the consortium’s member colleges.

Room for Improvement

The settlement acknowledges that edX has taken steps to make its programs accessible to people with disabilities, but it says there is still room for improvement.

Anant Agarwal, edX’s chief executive, said accessibility had always been a priority for the nonprofit organization.

“Our mission has been to provide learning to anyone, anywhere, including people with disabilities,” Mr. Agarwal said. edX and the Justice Department worked together to develop a “road map” to accessibility that will help edX to “continue to stay on that path.”

Mr. Agarwal said users of edX will see continuous improvements, not sudden, sweeping changes. As an example, he cited an accessible text-annotation tool called Student Notes, which has custom keyboard controls to assist students who are visually impaired. Mr. Agarwal said the program would be released in a few weeks. He also mentioned improvements in edX’s mobile platform.

The settlement also requires edX to appoint a web-accessibility coordinator. Ms. Hill explained that this person would be responsible for monitoring compliance, conducting regular audits, and making sure the settlement agreement was being carried out.

That doesn’t necessarily mean that edX must create a new position — Mr. Agarwal said the nonprofit already employs an accessibility coordinator — but rather it outlines the responsibilities of an accessibility coordinator.

Ms. Hill would not say whether the Justice Department was looking into any other MOOC providers, but she said she hoped that others took note of the settlement with edX, adding that her office “will be watching.”

Peter Blanck, chairman of the Burton Blatt Institute at Syracuse University and author of eQuality: The Struggle for Web Accessibility by Persons With Cognitive Disabilities (Cambridge University Press, 2014), said edX was part of a new generation of services that are essentially content-management services rather than content providers. The settlement acknowledges that, he said.

“It’s reflective of a recognition of the responsibility of these new content-provider management systems to enable a platform that is accessible with content,” said Mr. Blanck.

The settlement also acknowledges “the responsibility of all parties to work together,” he added, in that it holds edX and its member colleges accountable.

http://chronicle.com/article/edX-to-Improve-Access-to-MOOCs/229059/?cid=at&utm_source=at&utm_medium=en

When a crystal lattice is excited by a laser pulse, waves of jostling atoms can travel through the material at close to one sixth the speed of light, or approximately 28,000 miles/second. Scientists now have a new tool to take movies of such superfast movement in a single shot.

Researchers from Japan have developed a new high-speed camera technology, called STAMP, that can record events at a rate of more than 1-trillion-frames-per-second. The prototype camera is shown here in the lab. (Photo: Keiichi Nakagawa, University of Tokyo)

Researchers from Japan have developed a new high-speed camera that can record events at a rate of more than 1-trillion-frames-per-second. That speed is more than one thousand times faster than conventional high-speed cameras. Called STAMP, for Sequentially Timed All-optical Mapping Photography, the new camera technology “holds great promise for studying a diverse range of previously unexplored complex ultrafast phenomena,” said Keiichi Nakagawa, a research fellow at the University of Tokyo, who worked to develop the camera with colleagues from an array of Japanese research institutions.

Conventional high-speed cameras are limited by the processing speed of their mechanical and electrical components. STAMP overcomes these limitations by using only fast, optical components.

Another optical imaging technique, called the pump-probe method, can create movies with an even higher frame rate than STAMP, but can only capture one frame at a time — limiting its use to processes that are exactly reproducible.

“Many physical and biological phenomena are difficult to reproduce,” said Nakagawa. “This inspired me to work on an ultrafast camera that could take multiple frames in a single shot.”

Nakagawa himself experienced the need for such a camera while he was a master’s student studying how acoustic shock waves changed living cells. Scientists believe mechanical stress, like that caused by acoustic waves, might increase bone and blood vessel growth, but they had no tools for capturing the dynamics of such a fast, transient event as a shock wave passing through a cell.

“Since there was no suitable technique, I decided to develop a new high-speed imaging technique in my doctoral program,” Nakagawa said.

STAMP relies on a property of light called dispersion that can be observed in the way a misty sky splits sunshine into a rainbow of colors. Similarly, STAMP splits an ultrashort pulse of light into a barrage of different colored flashes that hit the imaged object in rapid-fire succession. Each separate color flash can then be analyzed to string together a moving picture of what the object looked like over the time it took the dispersed light pulse to travel through the device.

In the first iteration of STAMP, which the team described in a paper published in Nature Photonics in August 2014, the number of frames that the camera could take in a single shot was limited to six.

Currently, the team is constructing an improved STAMP system that can acquire 25 sequential images. Nakagawa believes the number of frames could eventually be increased to 100 with current technology.

Nakagawa notes that because STAMP operates on the assumption that all the differently colored daughter pulses interact with the imaged object in the same way, the camera should not be used to image samples whose optical properties change over the range of wavelengths STAMP uses.

Even given STAMP’s limitations, the technology has enormous potential, Nakagawa says. His team has already used it with image electronic motion and lattice vibrations in a crystal of lithium niobate and to observe how a laser focused onto a glass plate creates a hot, rapidly expanding plume of plasma.

Nakagawa notes that the camera could be used to explore a wide range of ultrafast phenomena for the first time, including the laser ignition of fusion, the phase transition of materials, and the dynamics of a Coulomb explosion, an event in which intense electromagnetic fields (for example from a narrow laser beam) can force a small amount of solid material to explode into a hot plasma of ionized atomic particles.

“I think it is important to note that there might be many potential applications of STAMP that I have not imagined,” Nakagawa said. “I hope more researchers will become interested in STAMP.”

About the Presentation

The presentation, “Motion Picture Femtophotography with Sequentially Timed All-optical Mapping Photography,” by Keiichi Nakagawa, Atsushi Iwasaki, Yu Oishi, Ryoichi Horisaki, Akira Tsukamoto, Aoi Nakamura, Kenichi Hirosawa, Hongen Liao, Takashi Ushida, Keisuke Goda, Fumihiko Kannari, Ichiro Sakuma, will take place from 16:00 – 18:00, Tuesday, 12 May 2015, in Salon IV, San Jose Marriott, adjacent to the San Jose Convention Center, San Jose, California, USA.

Media Registration: A media room for credentialed press and analysts will be located on-site in the San Jose Convention Center, 11-14 May 2015. Media interested in attending the event should register on the CLEO website media center: Media Center.

About CLEO

With a distinguished history as the industry’s leading event on laser science, the Conference on Lasers and Electro-Optics (CLEO) is the premier international forum for scientific and technical optics, uniting the fields of lasers and opto-electronics by bringing together all aspects of laser technology, from basic research to industry applications. CLEO: Expo showcases the latest products and applications from more than 300 participating companies from around the world, providing hands-on demonstrations of the latest market innovations and applications. The Expo also offers valuable on-floor programming, including Market Focus and the Technology Transfer program.

Sponsored by the American Physical Society’s (APS) Laser Science Division, IEEE Photonics Society and The Optical Society (OSA), CLEO provides the full range of critical developments in the field, showcasing the most significant milestones from laboratory to marketplace. With an unparalleled breadth and depth of coverage, CLEO connects all of the critical vertical markets in lasers and electro-optics. For more information, visit www.cleoconference.org. CLEO 2015 takes place 10-15 May 2015 at the San Jose Convention Center, San Jose, California, USA. Follow developments and updates on CLEO 2015 on Twitter @CLEOConf, #CLEO15.

http://www.digitaljournal.com/pr/2537689#ixzz3YiK1tqHH