Positive Technology Journal

Yet another nice video about AR

Via Leandeer

This great video by Keiichi Matsuda shows how augmented reality "may recontextualise the functions of consumerism and architecture, and change in the way in which we operate within it". The scenario is also interesting because it suggests how AR may be (ab)used by commercial companies. On the other hand, it is difficult to imagine how AR could go mainstream without them... of course any suggestion is welcome.

Augmented (hyper)Reality: Domestic Robocop from Keiichi Matsuda on Vimeo.

From the press release:

The National Library of Medicine's Mobile Medline Plus builds on the NLM's MedlinePlus Internet service, which provides authoritative consumer health information to over 10 million visitors per month. These visitors access MedlinePlus (http://medlineplus.gov) from throughout the United States as well many other countries, and use desktop computers, laptops and even mobile devices to get there.

Mobile MedlinePlus is available in English and Spanish (http://m.medlineplus.gov/spanish) and includes a subset of content from the full Web site. It includes summaries for over 800 diseases, wellness topics, the latest health news, an illustrated medical encyclopedia, and information on prescription and over-the-counter medications.

Mobile MedlinePlus can also help you when you're trying to choose an over-the-counter cold medicine at the drug store.

And if you're traveling abroad, you can use Mobile MedlinePlus to learn about safe drinking water.

The exploration of meditation in the neuroscience of attention and consciousness.

Cogn Process. 2009 Dec 30;

Authors: Raffone A, Srinivasan N

Many recent behavioral and neuroscientific studies have revealed the importance of investigating meditation states and traits to achieve an increased understanding of cognitive and affective neuroplasticity, attention and self-awareness, as well as for their increasingly recognized clinical relevance. The investigation of states and traits related to meditation has especially pronounced implications for the neuroscience of attention, consciousness, self-awareness, empathy and theory of mind. In this article we present the main features of meditation-based mental training and characterize the current scientific approach to meditation states and traits with special reference to attention and consciousness, in light of the articles contributed to this issue.

Via Chris Jablonski's blog

Researchers at the Massachusetts Institute of Technology have created a working prototype of a bidirectional LCD (captures and displays images) that allows a viewer to control on-screen objects without the need for any peripheral controllers or even touching the screen. In near Minority Report fashion, interaction is possible with just a wave of the hand.

The BiDi is inspired by emerging LCDs that use embedded optical sensors to detect multiple points of contact and exploits the spatial light modulation capability of LCDs to allow lensless imaging without interfering with display functionality. According to MIT researchers, this technology can lead to a wide range of applications, such as in-air gesture control of everything from CE devices like mobile phones to flat-panel TVs.

BiDi Screen, 3D gesture interaction in thin screen device from Matt Hirsch on Vimeo.

Via MilTech

Nanotechnology researchers in France have developed a hybrid transistor called NOMFET (Nanoparticle Organic Memory Field-Effect Transistor) that shows the main behavior of a biological spiking synapse and can lead to a new generation of neuro-inspired computers, capable of responding in a manner similar to the nervous system. The organic device is made of a molecule called pentacene (an organic semiconductor) and gold nano-particles.

“Basically, we have demonstrated that electric charges flowing through a mixture of an organic semiconductor and metallic nanoparticles can behave the same way as neurotransmitters through a synaptic connection in the brain,” Dominique Vuillaume, a research director at CNRS and head of the Molecular Nanostructures & Devices group at the Institute for Electronics Microelectronics and Nanotechnology (IEMN) tells Nanowerk.

The study is published in the 22 January 2010 issue of the journal Advanced Functional Materials, and can be accessed on Scribd.

Credit: Mil-Tech.com

Evidence for grid cells in a human memory network.

Nature. 2010 Jan 20;

Authors: Doeller CF, Barry C, Burgess N

Grid cells in the entorhinal cortex of freely moving rats provide a strikingly periodic representation of self-location which is indicative of very specific computational mechanisms. However, the existence of grid cells in humans and their distribution throughout the brain are unknown. Here we show that the preferred firing directions of directionally modulated grid cells in rat entorhinal cortex are aligned with the grids, and that the spatial organization of grid-cell firing is more strongly apparent at faster than slower running speeds. Because the grids are also aligned with each other, we predicted a macroscopic signal visible to functional magnetic resonance imaging (fMRI) in humans. We then looked for this signal as participants explored a virtual reality environment, mimicking the rats' foraging task: fMRI activation and adaptation showing a speed-modulated six-fold rotational symmetry in running direction. The signal was found in a network of entorhinal/subicular, posterior and medial parietal, lateral temporal and medial prefrontal areas. The effect was strongest in right entorhinal cortex, and the coherence of the directional signal across entorhinal cortex correlated with spatial memory performance. Our study illustrates the potential power of combining single-unit electrophysiology with fMRI in systems neuroscience. Our results provide evidence for grid-cell-like representations in humans, and implicate a specific type of neural representation in a network of regions which supports spatial cognition and also autobiographical memory.

Sense of agency primes manual motor responses.

Perception. 2009;38(1):69-78

Authors: Longo MR, Haggard P

Perceiving the body influences how we perceive and respond to stimuli in the world. We investigated the respective effects of different components of bodily representation--the senses of ownership and agency--on responses to simple visual stimuli. Participants viewed a video image of their hand on a computer monitor presented either in real time, or with a systematic delay. Blocks began with an induction period in which the index finger was (i) brushed, (ii) passively moved, or (iii) actively moved by the participant. Subjective reports showed that the sense of ownership over the seen hand emerged with synchronous video, regardless of the type of induction, whereas the sense of agency over the hand emerged only following synchronous video with active movement. Following induction, participants responded as quickly as possible to the onset of visual stimuli near the hand by pressing a button with their other hand. Reaction time was significantly speeded when participants had a sense of agency over their seen hand. This effect was eliminated when participants responded vocally, suggesting that it reflects priming of manual responses, rather than enhanced stimulus detection. These results suggest that vision of one's own hand-and, specifically, the sense of agency over that hand-primes manual motor responses.

An Adaptive Display for the Treatment of Diverse Trauma PTSD Victims.

Cyberpsychol Behav. 2009 Dec 20;

Authors: Botella C, García-Palacios A, Guillen V, Baños RM, Quero S, Alcaniz M

Abstract Posttraumatic stress disorder (PTSD) can develop after exposure to a terrifying event. People who suffer from PTSD experience hyperarousal and avoidance, and they reexperience symptoms that provoke distress and impairment in significant life areas. Cognitive behavior programs, including exposure therapy, are currently the treatment of choice for PTSD. Although these programs are effective, there is room for improvement; utilization of exposure therapy by clinicians is low, and attrition rates are high. Application of new technologies, especially virtual reality (VR), could help to overcome these issues. Several VR programs that address PTSD already exist. This study presents preliminary data on the efficacy of a VR adaptive display called EMMA's World, as applied in the treatment of diverse trauma PTSD victims. This VR program is unique; its flexibility allows it to be used to treat patients who suffer from PTSD due to different kinds of traumatic events. Results support the utility of EMMA's World in the treatment of PTSD.

Virtual reality for obsessive-compulsive disorder: past and the future.

Psychiatry Investig. 2009 Sep;6(3):115-21

Authors: Kim K, Kim CH, Kim SY, Roh D, Kim SI

The use of computers, especially for virtual reality (VR), to understand, assess, and treat various mental health problems has been developed for the last decade, including application for phobia, post-traumatic stress disorder, attention deficits, and schizophrenia. However, the number of VR tools addressing obsessive-compulsive disorder (OCD) is still lacking due to the heterogeneous symptoms of OCD and poor understanding of the relationship between VR and OCD. This article reviews the empirical literatures for VR tools in the future, which involve applications for both clinical work and experimental research in this area, including examining symptoms using VR according to OCD patients' individual symptoms, extending OCD research in the VR setting to also study behavioral and physiological correlations of the symptoms, and expanding the use of VR for OCD to cognitive-behavioral intervention.

A hungry cat resorts to increasingly desperate measures to catch a housefly.

Cyberspace is first and foremost a mental space. Therefore we need to take a psychological approach to understand our experiences in it. In Interface Fantasy, André Nusselder uses the core psychoanalytic notion of fantasy to examine our relationship to computers and digital technology. Lacanian psychoanalysis considers fantasy to be an indispensable "screen" for our interaction with the outside world; Nusselder argues that, at the mental level, computer screens and other human-computer interfaces incorporate this function of fantasy: they mediate the real and the virtual.

Interface Fantasy illuminates our attachment to new media: why we love our devices; why we are fascinated by the images on their screens; and how it is possible that virtual images can provide physical pleasure. Nusselder puts such phenomena as avatars, role playing, cybersex, computer psychotherapy, and Internet addiction in the context of established psychoanalytic theory. The virtual identities we assume in virtual worlds, exemplified best by avatars consisting of both realistic and symbolic self-representations, illustrate the three orders that Lacan uses to analyze human reality: the imaginary, the symbolic, and the real.

Nusselder analyzes our most intimate involvement with information technology—the almost invisible, affective aspects of technology that have the greatest impact on our lives. Interface Fantasy lays the foundation for a new way of thinking that acknowledges the pivotal role of the screen in the current world of information. And it gives an intelligible overview of basic Lacanian principles (including fantasy, language, the virtual, the real, embodiment, and enjoyment) that shows their enormous relevance for understanding the current state of media technology.

Read more at MIT press.

Hundreds of robots have gathered at the International Robot Exhibition (IREX) held in November 2009 at Tokyo Big Sight. Here are a few photos from the event, collected by Pink Tentacle.

http://pinktentacle.com/2009/11/photos-international-robo...

In this video, Chris Anderson (chief editor of Wired) explains why giving your products for free is a winning strategy. The "freemium" (free+premium) approach enhances customers' expectations and their involvement in your work. Once you have gained the attention of customers, you can choose other approaches, i.e. selling higher-quality products or proposing better packages, in order to generate revenues.

Sleep contribution to motor memory consolidation: a motor imagery study.

Sleep. 2009 Dec 1;32(12):1559-65

Authors: Debarnot U, Creveaux T, Collet C, Doyon J, Guillot A

STUDY OBJECTIVES: Sleep is known to enhance performance following physical practice (PP) of a new sequence of movements. Apart from a pilot study, it is still unknown whether a similar sleep-dependent consolidation effect can be observed following motor imagery (MI) and whether this mnemonic process is related to MI speed. DESIGN: Counterbalanced within-subject design. SETTING: The laboratory. PARTICIPANTS: Thirty-two participants. INTERVENTIONS: PP, real-time MI, fast MI, and NoSleep (control) groups. MEASUREMENTS AND RESULTS: Subjects practiced an explicitly known sequence of finger movements, and were assigned to PP, real-time MI, or fast MI, in which they intentionally imagined the sequence at a faster pace. A NoSleep group subjected to real-time MI, but without any intervening sleep, was also tested. Performance was evaluated before practice, as well as prior to, and after a night of sleep or a similar time interval during the daytime. Compared with the NoSleep group, the results revealed offline gains in performance after sleep in the PP, real-time MI, and fast MI groups. There was no correlation between a measure of underestimation of the time to imagine the motor sequence and the actual speed gains after sleep, neither between the ease/difficulty to form mental images and performance gains. CONCLUSIONS: These results provide evidence that sleep contributes to the consolidation of motor sequence learning acquired through MI and further suggests that offline delayed gains are not related to the MI content per se. They extend our previous findings and strongly confirm that performance enhancement following MI is sleep dependent.

From Scientific American

Two European designers, Dries Verbruggen and Lucas Maassen used their alpha waves as a source of inspiration for their design work, which resulted in a piece of furniture, the Brain Wave Couch.

“The process is a wink to a rather futuristic design process,” the couch creators wrote in a press release, “for which a designer merely has to close his or her eyes, or merely rest, to have the brain do all the work, and create the data needed to have the CNC machine cut the shape of the sofa.”

The x-axis of the couch represents Maassen’s brain waves in hertz, while the y-axis shows the amount of alpha activity as a percentage, and the z-axis is the time in milliseconds. Once the foam core of the sofa was completed, the designers covered it by hand in soft gray felt and decorated the valleys of the brain waves with buttons.

The Brainwave Sofa was presented at the Bits ‘n Pieces Exhibition in New York.

from Edward Ross (Division of Nephrology, Hypertension & Transplantation, UFla) in The Lancet today …

To die while awaiting the review… alone.
Ernest Hemingway

It is the nature of reviews to be late.
Aristotle

I invented slow manuscript reviews.
Al Gore

There is more to life than simply increasing the speed of manuscript reviews.
Gandhi

I deny reviewing any author. What is your definition of reviewing?
Bill Clinton

Am I late, did I miss the date? It is so sad, this work is bad.
Dr Seuss

Imagine all the reviews in the world being returned, on time, in peace.
John Lennon

Hasten the review slowly.
Augustus Caesar

All things come round to the author who will but wait.
Henry Wadsworth Longfellow

The review isn’t over until it’s over.
Yogi Berra

Never in the field of manuscript conflicts was so much owed by so many authors to so few tardy reviewers.
Winston Churchill

Is the review really late, or is the rest of the world moving faster?
Albert Einstein

Stressed by technology? Let out your office anger and smash up your computer!

This short movie, entitled The Future of Augmented Cognition, depicts DARPA’s vision of how augmented cognition will in the future be used to integrate multiple sources of information. The film is set in the year 2030, and takes place in a command centre which monitors cyberspace activity for threats to the global economy. The movie  was commissioned by DARPA and directed by Alexander Singer.

Via Mobile Active

From traffic to construction to everyday chatter, noise pollution is a part of city life. But with the ubiquity of mobiles, documenting noise pollution is getting a little bit easier. NoiseTube and LHR NoiseMap are two projects that use mobile phones to record and map instances of noise pollution.

NoiseTube uses crowd-sourcing to monitor noise pollution. Users with GPS-enabled phones can install a free application that measures the noise level wherever they are. Users tag the recordings with a description of the noise, its source, the time of day, and other criteria, and the data is then mapped onto GoogleEarth; in this way participants can use their phones as noise sensors to automatically share information about their city with other members of the community.