The experts have used a processor that employs light for relaying signals very fast. They gave a demonstration of the device.
Engineers have combined electrons and protons in a single chip microprocessor. This is a milestone in miniature communication and it marks the passage to extremely fast signals.

Two processors were stuffed with 70 million transistors and 850 photonic components. The chips had a size that was 3X6 mm each. That is extremely small indeed. The processor was manufactured in a foundry where high performance computer chips are normally made.

The design of this component was planned on a scale that was unbelievable. And it could be mass produced which is indeed a boon. This is the next stage in the evolution of fiber optic communication technology.

The integration into a microprocessor of the photonic interconnections responsible for relay was what this venture was all about. It happens to be the very first such processor that can employ light to connect with the outer world. A chip on such a small scale is a marvel to gaze at. And the good thing is that it can run a program.

In comparison with electric wires, fiber optics holds greater scope. Bandwidth can be increased and data can travel at high speeds over greater distances. And less energy is consumed in the process.

The transfer of photonics into fiber optics had been a difficult proposal. But thanks to the advancement of science it is a possibility today. No one had hitherto integrated photonics into the makeup of the microchip processor.

It was an unheard of thought. But the impossible became possible. The functional basis of the chip was perfect as it relayed information from one point to another.

It had a bandwidth density of 300 gigabits. This is ten to fifty times more than the other microprocessors available in the market. The photonic component is very energy-efficient indeed. It uses 1.3 picojoules.

“This is a milestone. It’s the first processor that can use light to communicate with the external world,” said Vladimir Stojanović, an associate professor of electrical engineering and computer sciences at the University of California, Berkeley, who led the development of the chip.

“No other processor has the photonic I/O in the chip.”

Stojanović and fellow UC Berkeley professor Krste Asanović teamed up with Rajeev Ram at the Massachusetts Institute of Technology and Miloš Popović at the University of Colorado Boulder to develop the new microprocessor.

“This is the first time we’ve put a system together at such scale, and have it actually do something useful, like run a program,” said Asanović, who helped develop the free and open architecture called RISC-V (reduced instruction set computer), used by the processor.

In the experiment that got carried out, the info was relayed 10 meters to and from a source. The beautiful thing is that using the same amount of power the data can be sent a few centimeters, a few meters or many kilometers.

The choice rests with the experimenter alone. The bandwidth revolution is not to be underestimated. This sort of technology is also very clean and will help in the planning of a lean and green future that is pollution-free to boot.

The new chip is described in a paper published on Dec. 24 in the print issue of the journal Nature.

http://www.i4u.com/2015/12/101859/see-worlds-first-processor-uses-light-communications

Published on Feb 10, 2014
How long do you want to live? 80 years, 120 years, 150 years, or forever are possible answers to this question that bestselling science writer David Ewing Duncan, the author of Experimental Man, asked 30,000 people in his new TED e-book, “When I’m 164: The New Science of Radical Life Extension, and What Happens If It Succeeds”.

While riffing on the Beatle’s song “When I’m 164,” the book surveys the increasingly legitimate science of radical life extension—from Healthy Living and Genetics to Regeneration and Machine Solutions—and considers the pluses and minuses of living to age 164, or beyond; everything from the impact on population and the cost of living to what happens to love, curiosity, and health. He shares classic stories and myths of people determined to defeat aging and death, and offers real-life tales of the techno-heroes and optimists who believe that technology can solve the “problem” of aging. Concluding that anti-aging technologies will probably succeed in the next 30-50 years despite his earlier skepticism, he brings us back to the age-old question: “will you still need me, will you still feed me, when I’m…”

David Ewing Duncan, a best-selling author of eight books and an award-winning science journalist, is dedicated to exploring leading-edge science and technology, and its consequences in the present and in the future. A prolific writer, editor, commentator and television correspondent for NPR, ABC Nightline, NOVA, National Geographic, Wired, and many others, Duncan is famous for translating cutting-edge science and technology into provocative, accessible and entertaining content.

He founded the Center for Life Science Policy at UC Berkeley to focus on studies and initiatives on topics ranging from personalized medicine to extending human lifespan; the politics of stem cells; and the integration of environmental studies with human bioscience. Duncan is also the Founder of the BioAgenda Institute, an independent, non-profit program of events and educational initiatives that discusses and analyzes crucial issues in life sciences.

Duncan has always sought out stories and issues where clashes of ideas, cultures and discoveries occur. Chief Correspondent of NPR Talk’s Biotech Nation and a former commentator for NPR’s Morning Edition, Duncan is also a correspondent for Atlantic.com. He was a former contributing editor to Condé Nast Portfolio and was the “Natural Selection” science columnist for Portfolio.com. In addition, Duncan regularly contributes to National Geographic, Fortune, Wired, The New York Times, Atlantic Monthly, Smithsonian, and many others. He has won numerous awards including the Magazine Story of the Year from the American Association for the Advancement of Science. His articles have twice been cited in nominations for National Magazine Awards, and his work has appeared twice in The Best American Science and Nature Writing.

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=AwfAVrv1pvg

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=pPqGrKg_HqA

Published on Oct 28, 2015
Ray Kurzweil: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Ray_Kur…

Raymond “Ray” Kurzweil is an American author, computer scientist, inventor and futurist. Aside from futurology, he is involved in fields such as optical character recognition (OCR), text-to-speech synthesis, speech recognition technology, and electronic keyboard instruments. He has written books on health, artificial intelligence (AI), transhumanism, the technological singularity, and futurism. Kurzweil is a public advocate for the futurist and transhumanist movements, and gives public talks to share his optimistic outlook on life extension technologies and the future of nanotechnology, robotics, and biotechnology.

Kurzweil admits that he cared little for his health until age 35, when he was found to suffer from a glucose intolerance, an early form of type II diabetes (a major risk factor for heart disease). Kurzweil then found a doctor (Terry Grossman, M.D.) who shares his non-conventional beliefs to develop an extreme regimen involving hundreds of pills, chemical intravenous treatments, red wine, and various other methods to attempt to live longer. Kurzweil was ingesting “250 supplements, eight to 10 glasses of alkaline water and 10 cups of green tea” every day and drinking several glasses of red wine a week in an effort to “reprogram” his biochemistry. Lately, he has cut down the number of supplement pills to 150.

Facebook: https://www.facebook.com/agingreversed

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=Q9Ec7AvnufQ

The late film critic Roger Ebert famously declared that video games could never be art, much to the outrage of diehard gamers everywhere. While the artistic value of classics like “Portal” or “Doom” continues to be a matter of debate, another group of skeptics about the value of video games — namely medical researchers — are starting to come around to the idea that becoming engrossed in the virtual world of a video game may have value beyond pure fun.

Recent research in the fields of neuroscience, psychology and cognitive science has found evidence that playing certain video games can be like exercise for the brain.

Studies from the past decade have found that individuals who frequently play action games like first-person shooters outperform non-gamers on a variety of perceptual and cognitive measures — visual acuity, decision-making, object tracking, and task switching to name a few. Even players of casual video games, such as “Bejeweled Blitz” or “Candy Crush Saga,” report memory improvements and quicker response time as a result.

Now, researchers have discovered that playing 3-D video games — those that immerse the player in a three-dimensional world with a more true-to-life, first-person perspective — may boost memory and stimulate the brain.

A new study published this month in the Journal of Neuroscience, trained college students with either a simple 2-D game (“Angry Birds”) or an intricate 3-D game (“Super Mario 3-D World”). The subjects had little to no experience with video games before the experiment, and were instructed to play for a half-hour per day for two weeks. After the training period, the groups took memory tests designed to activate the brain’s hippocampus, which is highly involved in the formation of new memories and becomes stimulated when navigating an unfamiliar environment.

“It’s sometimes called explicit or declarative memory, but what it really comes down to is your ability to remember details of things that have happened to you — and that’s where the hippocampus comes in,” said study author Craig Stark, professor of neurobiology and behaviour at the University of California at Irvine.

For instance, structural MRI studies have found significantly larger cortical volume in the posterior hippocampi of London cab drivers — individuals with extensive navigation experience with first-hand knowledge of tens of thousands of streets — relative to control subjects. Stark and his colleagues wanted to determine whether exploration of a virtual world would lead to similar effects in the hippocampus through the use of a 3-D video game.

The group that played “Super Mario 3-D World” improved their scores by about 12 per cent after the two-week training, with performance correlating with the amount of exploration achieved in the game’s environment, while the 2-D “Angry Birds” cohort showed no significant progress. To get an idea of the magnitude of this boost, a typical score on these memory tasks has been seen to drop the same amount from ages 45 to 70.

“The amount that we were able to boost people’s memory performance by playing video games represents about 20 to 30 years of cognitive decline,” Stark explained in an interview. “But it would be the sort of thing that would require constant maintenance, like going to the gym. If you work out really hard for a month, that’s great — but it won’t last the rest of your life.”

Indeed, after two weeks of no gaming, the boost in memory performance seen in 3-D gamers had already started to dissipate. But Stark, whose research focuses on how the circuitry of the hippocampus changes with age, plans to further investigate how video games and other stimulating, enriching experiences can help ward off cognitive aging in an older population whose memory is on the decline.

“I don’t necessarily think there’s anything magical about 3-D games themselves,” he said. “I think they’re tapping into a lot of things — they’re complex, fun, engaging and immersive — and I think that’s what is really driving [the improvements in memory].”

While specific brain training games do exist to supposedly build up memory or concentration, Stark believes that more broad-spectrum approaches like complex video games, language classes, or even travelling abroad, may be more beneficial for brain health. Living a “cognitively engaged lifestyle” as he calls it, that also captivates our imagination and sense of wonder is a natural way to draw on a number of different brain processes and potentially improve functioning as a result.

Washington Post

http://www.thespec.com/living-story/6208967-why-3-d-video-games-might-actually-be-good-for-your-kid/

The latest details around the Samsung Galaxy S7 comes from case manufacturer DHGate, who are offering a number of low-cost Galaxy S7 and Galaxy S7 Plus cases. The cases are wrapped around (presumably) dummy S7 handsets, and the images match up with previous leaks around Samsung’s flagship device.

The cases may be listed at under two dollars per unit for wholesale distribution, but the tooling and manufacturing required for these cases does not come cheap. Building cases for unreleased smartphones early is a gamble that the physical information is correct – get it right and you’ll be one of the cases available at launch when people go looking. Get it wrong and you’re left with a lot of stock that not only doesn’t fit the new handset, but rarely fits any existing handset either.

The fact that the case design tallies up with the leaked design schematics that allowed CGI renders of the Galaxy S7 to be created (see Gordon Kelly previously on Forbes) lends more credibility to that previous leak. It would be unlikely that DHGate would commit to tool-making on the basis of a single source of information.

It also confirms that the Galaxy S7 family will continue to follow Samsung’s current design language of strengthened glass on the front and rear of the smartphone, with thin metal edging carrying the buttons and ports around the sides. The plans and the case show the S7 family using microUSB for connectivity and not USB-C, and do not feature any flaps or gaps that would suggest a return of microSD for expansion (although with a number of manufacturers adding microSD cards into the SIM tray in a piggyback arrangement that’s not a definite indicator).

Samsung Galaxy S6 vs Galaxy S6 Edge (image: Ewan Spence)
Samsung Galaxy S6 vs Galaxy S6 Edge (image: Ewan Spence)

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Repeating the design of the Galaxy S6 means that the demand for the curved screen S6 Edge, which Samsung under-estimated, can be leveraged by the new model, and it creates a familiar look that builds on what a Samsung phone should look like. It also means that Samsung is left with a design that has not seen stellar sales across the portfolio, and has forced the South Korean company to lean on its mid-range devices to keep revenue high.

It’s a long process to change hardware designs, so the appointment of DJ Koh as the head of the mobile division will not have had an impact on the physical design of the Galaxy S7. What’s more intriguing is the changes that he could bring to software. With Google set to help in improving TouchWiz, the outside of the Galaxy S7 may remain the same boring look, but how you use it could be where the improvements will be found when the handset is revealed in early 2016.

http://www.forbes.com/sites/ewanspence/2015/12/24/galaxy-s7-leak-case-design/

Skullcandy’s Bluetooth-equipped Uproar Wireless. Photo: Skullcandy

The iPhone 6s is just a few months old, but already rumors are swirling about Apple’s next handset.While the (presumably named) iPhone 7 will likely pack a number of new features, one of the moreintriguingrumors surrounding the device centers on what it may lack.

Last month, Japanese blog Macotakara reported that Apple is preparing to eliminate the headphone jack on the iPhone. For now this remains a mere rumor, but it makes sense intuitively, and wouldn’t be surprising. The 3.5 mm audio connector is tried and true, but downright ancient. Apple has never been shy about eliminating old technology (its Macs were among the first PCs to do away with floppy disk and CD drives), and by ditching the traditional headphone port, it could offer an iPhone with an even slimmer profile. Lightning-based headphones can offer a superior experience, and Bluetooth audio has come a long way in recent years.

Given the percentage of Apple’s revenue the iPhone generates, the iPhone 7 will likely be the single most important product Apple releases next year. But if this rumor proves true, there’s one company that stands to benefit even more: Skullcandy .

The only pure-play headphone company
The market for headphones is competitive, with a vast array of competing products. Apple has its own Ear Pods and the Beats brand. Sony remains a player, as does Bose, Audio-Technica, and Samsung, along with countless others. But none of these firms offer investors much exposure to the headphone market — they’re either privately held, or enormous consumer electronics conglomerates with many other, much more important products.

Skullcandy, however, is quite different. It’s publicly traded, and derives almost all of its revenue from headphones, making it perhaps the best way to play a massive headphone upgrade cycle.Last quarter, a full 93% of its revenue came from the sale of headphones (the remaining 7% from Bluetooth speakers and accessories). Skullcandy does sell expensive sets, but most of its models are affordable, typically retailing between $20 and $100. It sells both wired and wireless headphones. Earlier this fall, it introduced the Uproar Wireless Bluetooth-equipped headphones. At $49.99, they’re one of the most affordable sets of Bluetooth headphones available to consumers, and they’ve received generally favorable reviews. PCMag described them as “excellent.”

Apple could increase demand for Bluetooth headphones
Bluetooth headphones are nice to have (who likes wires?), but they’re not a necessity — at least not for now. Yet for tens of millions of consumers, a headphone jack-less iPhone could entice them to purchase a pair.

Apple could bundle a pair of Lightning-equipped Ear Buds with the iPhone 7, or sell an adapter, but neither is an ideal solution. The quality of Apple’s Ear Buds is widely considered horrific (Gizmodo described them as “garbage”), and Apple has a history of demanding exorbitant prices for its adapters: its 30-pin-to-Lightning adapter retails for $29.99, almost as much as Skullcandy’s Uproar.

Apple is expected to sell around 70 million iPhones this quarter. Exactly how many will be current models it won’t say, but a large percentage of buyers will likely choose the iPhone 6s or iPhone 6s Plus. The same is likely to hold true next year with the iPhone 7. That could mean tens of millions of buyers for Skullcandy’s Bluetooth headphones — enough to propel the company’s sales, which totaled just $67.2 million last quarter. And once Apple does away with a port, it’s not likely to bring it back. Additional iPhone models would also presumably lack the headphone jack, and as newer models slowly filter into the installed base, the demand for Bluetooth headphones could stay elevated for several years, particularly if Apple’s Android-based competitors follow suit.

Without confirmation, it may be too dangerous to wade into Skullcandy at this point. The stock has largely been a disappointment since its IPO, and is down almost 50% in 2015 alone. Yet Skullcandy will remain on my watch list. Come next September, it could be one of the biggest winners of the iPhone 7’s unveiling.

http://www.foxbusiness.com/investing/2015/12/23/iphone-7-could-be-great-for-skullcandy/

Researchers tout 10 to 50 times greater bandwidth with lower energy consumption by using light instead of electricity.

light chip11ga
Credit: Glenn Asakawa

University researchers are claiming a bandwidth breakthrough with the first light-based microprocessor that communicates with conventional electronic circuitry.

While optical computing is hardly a new concept, researchers at University of Colorado-Boulder, Massachusetts Institute of Technology, and University of California, Berkeley claim to have made it work on a more practical level. The photonic transmissions are built onto a single chip that also integrates traditional electronics, so it could in theory work with other standard electronic components and integrate into current manufacturing processes.

“It’s the first processor that can use light to communicate with the external world,” Vladimir Stojanović, the University of California professor who led the collaboration, said in a press release. “No other processor has photonic I/O in the chip.”

The big benefit of light-based computing is that it’s faster at transferring data within the space it’s given, with the new chip touting a density of 300 gigabits per second per square millimeter. That’s 10 to 50 times better than traditional electrical microprocessors. Light-based processors also promise to be more energy efficient, as they can transfer data over longer distances without using more power.

The lab processor isn’t especially powerful, as it packs just two computing cores, but researchers are hoping it could be a boon for networking chips, and could pave the way for faster computing overall. As such, they’ve set up a pair of startups to help commercialize the technology. But like so many other exciting university research projects, the timeframe for seeing light-based processors in actual products is murky at best.

Why this matters: Granted, CPU bandwidth is just one of many potential bottlenecks that computing systems can run into, and it always pays to be a bit skeptical of lab-based technological breakthroughs. But by slotting photonics into places where electronics would normally go, it sounds like the researchers are on a path faster networking with far lower energy consumption.

http://www.pcworld.com/article/3018382/hardware/revolutionary-light-based-photonic-processor-could-lead-to-ultra-fast-data-transfers.html

The Cannes Lions International Festival of Creativity celebrates the best advertising of the past year. But at this summer’s annual ode to ads, the big winner in the mobile category wasn’t an ad at all. It was a piece of cardboard.

Imaginatively named Cardboard by Google, its designer, it folds out into a small corrugated box with two plastic lenses that sells for as little as the price of a Starbucks venti latte. Pop in a smartphone and you’ve got a crude but surprisingly effective version of the Oculus Rift virtual-reality goggles due out early next year for an expected $350.

To the adland elite at Cannes, this signaled a momentous development: the dawn of the next great mass medium to sell us products and services. Now the nearly 2 billion consumers worldwide who own smartphones can potentially venture into immersive, ultra-realistic virtual reality games, short films, live streams and, already, ads. Brands ranging from North Face to Gatorade started creating VR experiences of their own, hoping to reach people in an even more magnetic medium than television.

And it may well be the lowly Cardboard that brings that medium to the masses. Earlier this year, Google estimated that about 1 million Cardboards had been distributed, and that was before the New York Times recently distributed more than a million to its subscribers. And some 15 million Cardboard apps have been downloaded, says Aaron Luber, head of partnerships and business development for Cardboard. The trifling cost of Cardboard, as well as its ease of use compared with bulky headsets such as the Rift and Samsung’s Gear, has some observers predicting it could appeal to more people more quickly than its better-known and more feature-rich rivals.

A bit of background on VR for the uninitiated: These devices allow viewers to navigate 3-D videos and animations that are shot or created to provide 360-degree views, up, down and all around, as well as directional sounds that shift with head movements. Your brain thinks it’s all real.

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How real? I recently strapped on an Oculus at the Palo Alto (Calif.) offices of VR production house Jaunt and watched a video it helped create for the outdoors retailer North Face. One scene had a mountain climber leaping off a sheer cliff in rocky Moab, Utah, before opening his parachute. Two seconds into seeing open air beneath my feet, my latent acrophobia flared and I forgot about how dorky I must look in this contraption. Suffice to say, the experience captured my full attention.

“This is the ‘holy crap’ moment that brand people get the first time they try VR,” says former Lucasfilm executive David Anderman, Jaunt’s chief business officer. Advertisers know how hard it has become to get people’s sustained attention as they flit across an ever more crowded media landscape. They hope the immersive nature and even intimacy of virtual reality will help them connect more deeply with consumers.

But with what kind of ads? Marketers are struggling to figure that out. It’s tough, because it’s not yet apparent what kind of programming besides games will catch on to provide a place for advertising. And if the VR equivalent of cinema’s “The Great Train Robbery” or television’s sitcom, let alone the Super Bowl, does not exist yet, how are advertisers supposed to come up with anything like that iconic and extremely lucrative 30-second spot? Both creators of content and creators of ads need to figure this out pretty quickly, or a promising new medium could be fade faster than you can say 3-D TV or Second Life, the virtual world that was hot in the aughts.

For now, marketers are producing mostly eye candy in their own apps and on YouTube’s 360 VR site. Borrowed buzz won’t cut it for long, though. TV and movie studios, newspaper and magazine companies, and websites are already starting to produce VR content of various kinds.

In January, Samsung, maker of the Gear VR headset, announced a VR video service and a partnership with David Alpert, executive producer of “The Walking Dead,” who plans to create a fictional series for the service. Newspaper publisher Gannett as well as the Times have also started creating longer-form content with advertising models roughly similar to those on TV and online.

http://www.forbes.com/sites/roberthof/2015/12/23/googles-cardboard-will-bring-vr-and-vr-ads-to-the-masses/2/