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Technology-assisted mind-reading is inching closer to reality, with advances that could help those unable to communicate on their own. According to research presented at the Society for Neuroscience conference in Chicago this week, scientists can determine what vowel and consonants a person is thinking of by recording activity from the surface of the brain. The system, which has about a 50-to-70% accuracy rate, could one day be used as a neural prosthesis for people with severe paralysis, translating their thoughts into actions on a computer or prosthetic limb.

Gerwin Schalk and colleagues at the Wadsworth Center, in Albany, NY, used a technology called electrocorticography (ECoG), in which a sheet of electrodes is laid directly on the surface of a patient's brain. The procedure is currently used to locate the source of seizures in patients with severe epilepsy that is resistant to drugs. Neuroscientists take advantage of the unparalleled access to the human brain during the test--which can last for days--by asking these patients to participate in experiments.

Source: http://www.technologyreview.com/blog/editors/24279/

At the Web 2.0 Summit in San Francisco recently, NVIDIA announced a GPU-powered 3D Web platform. Called the NVIDIA RealityServer, it consists of Tesla GPUs, rendering software and a Web service environment, all integrated into a platform designed to deliver photorealistic image streams via a cloud computing model. The new offering is yet another example of how the company intends to push its high-end GPUs into CPU territory.

The basic idea behind RealityServer is to do all the heavy computation lifting of image rendering on the server side, such that photorealistic 3D content can be delivered interactively across the Web. That means mass-market devices from smart phones to desktops and everything in between can be used to do high-end imaging.

Applications include architectural design, product design, manufacturing and apparel styling, as well as HPC visual applications in such areas as oil and gas, medical diagnostics, and scientific research. As a result, potential users span the entire population: consumers, artists, product designers, doctors, architects, engineers, and scientists.

Source: http://www.hpcwire.com/features/NVIDIA-Pitches-GPU-Computing-in-the-Cloud-65217572.html

Scientists have generated a magnetic version of electricity, which they have called magnetricity.

The discovery marks an important advance in theoretical physics. The existence of magnetic “charges” has been predicted for nearly 70 years but has never been observed in practice.

The study was led by Professor Steve Bramwell, of the London Centre for Nanotechnology. He said: “It is not often in the field of physics you get the chance to ask, ‘How do you measure something?’, and then go on to prove a theory unequivocally. This is a very important step to establish that magnetic charge can flow like electric charge.”

While electrical current is carried by electrons, magnetricity is based on atomic-sized “north” and “south” charges that flow through materials when placed in a magnetic field.

It is unlikely to become an immediate replacement for electricity because the crystals have to be cooled to below minus 272.15C — just above absolute zero — to be conducting. However, Professor Bramwell said that the discovery could have important applications in the emerging field of nanocomputing.

Source: http://www.timesonline.co.uk/tol/news/science/physics/article6875326.ece

For the first time, physicists have demonstrated the quantum entanglement of three light beams, all of different wavelengths. Entanglement of two light beams of different wavelengths has already been demonstrated, but the researchers explain that going beyond two beams is important since three beams can serve as connections at the nodes of a quantum network.

The team of scientists, from the University of Sao Paulo in Brazil, and the Max Planck Institute for the Science of Light and the University of Erlangen-Nuremberg, both in Erlangen, Germany, has published their results in a recent issue of Science Express.

The physicists are working toward the goal of building a quantum information network, in which entangled light beams convey information from one place to another

Source: http://www.physorg.com/news174133022.html

They can’t extract secret terrorist plots yet, but Utah bioengineers have implanted a brain chip in human test subjects that enables researchers to download brain data onto hard drives. The team working with the chip is hoping to make immediate improvements in the lives of people with epilepsy, paralysis or blindness, but say the chips may one day enable brain-native Internet browsing or most any other function currently possible with a computer.

The Utah Electrode Array’s purpose is analogous to a modem: It relays data from the brain to a computer, and vice-versa. It may soon enable thought control of bionic limbs like Luke Skywalker’s in Star Wars and, further in the future, may help the blind to see.

Neural Engineering Lab supervisor and University of Utah assistant professor Bradley Greger describes the chip as “a platform technology that is going to enable many, many new things.” With a grant from the National Institutes of Health, Greger and dozens of other scientists are pioneering brain-computing technology.

Source: http://www.cityweekly.net/utah/article-9318-brain-chip-may-help-the-blind-see.html