Positive Technology Journal

Re-blogged from Networked Performance

Synthecology combines the possibilities of tele-immersive collaboration with a new architecture for virtual reality sound immersion to create a environment where musicians from all locations can interactively perform and create sonic environments.

Compose, sculpt, and improvise with other musicians and artists in an ephemeral garden of sonic lifeforms. Synthecology invites visitors in this digitally fertile space to create a musical sculpture of sythesized tones and sound samples provided by web inhabitants. Upon entering the garden, each participant can pluck contributed sounds from the air and plant them, wander the garden playing their own improvisation or collaborate with other participants to create/author a new composition.

As each new 'seed' is planted and grown, sculpted and played, this garden becomes both a musical instrument and a composition to be shared with the rest of the network. Every inhabitant creates, not just as an individual composer shaping their own themes, but as a collaborator in real time who is able to improvise new soundscapes in the garden by cooperating with other avatars from diverse geographical locations.

Virtual participants are fully immersed in the garden landscape through the use of passive stereoscopic technology and spatialized audio to create a networked tele-immersive environment where all inhabitants can collaborate, socialize and play. Guests from across the globe are similarly embodied as avatars through out this environment, each experiencing the audio and visual presence of the others.

Continue to read the full post here

Virtual reality helmet display quality influences the magnitude of virtual reality analgesia.

J Pain. 2006 Nov;7(11):843-50

Authors: Hoffman HG, Seibel EJ, Richards TL, Furness TA, Patterson DR, Sharar SR

Immersive Virtual Reality (VR) distraction can be used in addition to traditional opioids to reduce procedural pain. The current study explored whether a High-Tech-VR helmet (ie, a 60-degree field-of-view head-mounted display) reduces pain more effectively than a Low-Tech-VR helmet (a 35-degree field-of-view head-mounted display). Using a double-blind between-groups design, 77 healthy volunteers (no patients) aged 18-23 were randomly assigned to 1 of 3 groups. Each subject received a brief baseline thermal pain stimulus, and the same stimulus again minutes later while in SnowWorld using a Low-Tech-VR helmet (Group 1), using a High-Tech-VR helmet (Group 2), or receiving no distraction (Group 3, control group). Each participant provided subjective 0-10 ratings of cognitive, sensory, and affective components of pain, and amount of fun during the pain stimulus. Compared to the Low-Tech-VR helmet group, subjects in the High-Tech-VR helmet group reported 34% more reduction in worst pain (P < .05), 46% more reduction in pain unpleasantness (P = .001), 29% more reduction in "time spent thinking about pain" (P < .05), and 32% more fun during the pain stimulus in VR (P < .05). Only 29% of participants in the Low-Tech helmet group, as opposed to 65% of participants in the High-Tech-VR helmet group, showed a clinically significant reduction in pain intensity during virtual reality. These results highlight the importance of using an appropriately designed VR helmet to achieve effective VR analgesia (see ). PERSPECTIVE: Pain during medical procedures (eg, burn wound care) is often excessive. Adjunctive virtual reality distraction can substantially reduce procedural pain. The results of the present study show that a higher quality VR helmet was more effective at reducing pain than a lower quality VR helmet.

Validating the efficacy of neurofeedback for optimising performance.

Prog Brain Res. 2006;159:421-31

Authors: Gruzelier J, Egner T, Vernon D

The field of neurofeedback training has largely proceeded without validation. Here we review our studies directed at validating SMR, beta and alpha-theta protocols for improving attention, memory, mood and music and dance performance in healthy participants. Important benefits were demonstrable with cognitive and neurophysiological measures which were predicted on the basis of regression models of learning. These are initial steps in providing a much needed scientific basis to neurofeedback, but much remains to be done.

Via Mindware Forum

Do the test here

I did the test and got 102, which corresponds to "average intelligence".

A score of 124 or higher is required to qualify for membership in the International High IQ Society. This means that I cannot become a member of this society :-(

Combined optimization of spatial and temporal filters for improving brain-computer interfacing.

IEEE Trans Biomed Eng. 2006 Nov;53(11):2274-81

Authors: Dornhege G, Blankertz B, Krauledat M, Losch F, Curio G, Müller KR

Brain-computer interface (BCI) systems create a novel communication channel from the brain to an output device by bypassing conventional motor output pathways of nerves and muscles. Therefore they could provide a new communication and control option for paralyzed patients. Modern BCI technology is essentially based on techniques for the classification of single-trial brain signals. Here we present a novel technique that allows the simultaneous optimization of a spatial and a spectral filter enhancing discriminability rates of multichannel EEG single-trials. The evaluation of 60 experiments involving 22 different subjects demonstrates the significant superiority of the proposed algorithm over to its classical counterpart: the median classification error rate was decreased by 11%. Apart from the enhanced classification, the spatial and/or the spectral filter that are determined by the algorithm can also be used for further analysis of the data, e.g., for source localization of the respective brain rhythms.

Via Engadget

HAL (short for Hybrid Assistive Limb) is a robotic suite designed "to expand and improve physical capabilities of human being".

The system, a brainchild of Yoshiyuki Sankai, engineering professor at Tsukuba University, is getting ready for mass production, Engadget reports. The  robotic suite could be used in applications such as "walking assistance and rehabilitation, nursing, factory work and disaster relief."  

HAL is originally developed to help elderly or disabled people walk around with their own legs and HAL-3 achieved the primary goal in 2000.

In 2005, the latest model HAL-5 was given upper body limbs as well as weight saving and more compact POWER units, longer life battery and much smaller control unit and spectacularly designed outer shells.

HAL is a robot suit which can expand and improve physical capabilities of human being. By wearing HAL-5 and you can hold up to 40 kg load by arms and can increase the maximum weight of leg press from 100 kg to 180 kg.

 

Read more at Engadget

via Medgadget

UNICEF has released a game to help Swahili youths educate themselves about HIV prevention and testing.

From the UN homepage:

Seeking to reach East African adolescents and young people in the battle against AIDS, the United Nations Children's Fund (UNICEF) has launched its first interactive feature in Swahili, an online game that empowers the young to make good life choices and prevent HIV.

The game, called 'Ungefanyaje' or 'What would you do?' in Swahili, takes the player through a series of relationship-based scenarios that emphasize the importance of HIV prevention and testing.

"Although prevention is essential to half the spread of HIV/AIDS, an alarming 80 per cent of all young people still don't know how to protect themselves from the virus," UNICEF said in a news release, noting that sub-Saharan Africa has been especially hard-hit by the epidemic.

"By speaking openly about the threat that HIV and AIDS poses to young people, we can help give them the knowledge they need to keep them safe from infection," said Amber Oliver, Coordinator of Voices of Youth, an Internet site created by UNICEF for the young who want to know more, do more and say more about the world.

"It is estimated that of the 2.3 million children under 15 living with HIV, 2 million are in sub-Saharan Africa. Reaching young people with prevention education and services is a crucial step towards an AIDS-free generation."

 

The game is available in English as well as Swahili