Worried about dozing off during your favorite TV show? You might be able to remove it from your worries list in near future.
Two young students, Ryan Oliver(15) and Jonathan Kingsley(14) were given a task by Virgin media. The task is our problem description. They need to find a solution for missing TV shows due to sleep. And these two young kids are now working with KipstR wristband.
At first many people wondered why Virgin media asked two ordinary young kids to be partners with them in a task like this. These two kids are young, definitely not ordinary. These two have been working together for long time. They have been creating software, helping big brands with solution for critical problems and unique ideas since they were around nine years old.
So what is KipstR? A simple wristband-like device that will record the TV shows when you fall asleep while watching it. This device, which is now a prototype, will do this by measuring the blood flow and amount of oxygen in blood with the help of pulse. It communicates to Virgin media TiVo box through a wireless sensor.
This device is currently just a prototype. These kids are planning to give it a trial this Christmas. Interested UK customers can register their interest in KipstR band here.
Why just UK customers? Because this band is currently limited only to UK customers of Virgin media. It is expected that upon successful functioning, Virgin media will make it available to worldwide market within an year.
No more worries of missing favorite TV shows. Just wear KipstR and watch them. You don't have to wake whole night, suffer your next morning and you won't miss the programs too.
To know about another fascinating wearable device, click here.
History has seen lot of individuals who adore science and human welfare take ultimate risks. Forssmann is one among them. This guy risked his life to develop an important medical procedure - Cardiac Catheterization.
Werner Forssmann (Werner Theodor Otto Forssmann) was a German physician who got his degree in medicine from University of Berlin.
He proposed a hypothesis regarding cardiac treatment. His idea was to send a catheter through vain to heart and perform diagnosis/treatment using that. Sort of modified endoscope (developed in 1806).
The problem with his hypothesis is, if injuries happen to heart due to this, it would be fatal. Though Forssmann believed that the possibility is very low, he couldn't prove his theory as nobody was ready to risk their life.
Out of desperation, Forssmann decided to prove this using himself. Not listening to his director as well as the nurse who assisted him for this experiment (that nurse assisted him only after getting a promise that he will make the trial on her, not on him. But she was tricked by Forssmann), Forssmann tested his theory on himself.
He inserted a catheter through vein from his lower arm all the way to right atrium of heart. He took a X-Ray picture of it as a proof.
Though he was fired from his job for not listening to his superior officer, this experiment brought him - fame, a job in hospital as Surgeon, a Honorary Professor job and a Nobel Prize (For Medicine in 1956/shared with two more people).
His Cardiac Catheter procedure helps doctors to diagnose and also to treat some heart conditions. Doctors use this to detect plaques, blockages in arteries. Sometimes they even take samples of blood/heart muscle or perform minor surgeries.
Werner has risked his life to prove this procedure. He bet his heart to develop a procedure that has been saving numerous hearts since then.
To know about another guy who risked his life for science, click here
There are certain books that people who adore science should not miss. One among the list is Space Odyssey series by Arthur C. Clarke. I have came across this series recently and trust me, you don't wanna miss this space fiction series. 1st two books of this four books series are adopted as movies.
After the description of books, you will also be notified where you can get this series.
1. 2001: A Space Odyssey
This is the first one of this four novel series.
There should be a start for every intelligence. What is the start of Human Intelligence? Clarke tried to answer this question and he didn't stop there.
This novel is written in 1968 and he predicted how Science and technology will be in the year 2001.The heights science can reach in future. He also gives glimpses of AI (also problems that can be caused due to it) and intra - solar system travels in this book.
2. 2010: Odyssey Two
In the second novel, Clarke continues where he left. Is there life in any other world inside our own solar system ?
The answer is here in this book. Even though he made fictional predictions in 1982, scientists have recently agreed as there is a chance that his statement might become true !!
What if I tell you there is a possibility of no dark nights in Earth ..
Check out that possibility in odyssey two.
3. 2061: Odyssey Three
We all know that Philae has made a comet landing recently on 12 November 2014. It became the 1st robotic lander to make controlled touchdown on a comet nucleus (Comet 67P/Churyumov-Gerasimenko). Clarke predicted it in 1987 in this science fiction.
He predicted man landing in the famous comet of all time. And Clarke didn't stop his landing there. He landed in a mysterious forbidden world where intelligence life is found.
4. 3001: The Final Odyssey
This is the final book of the series. This book brings anachronisms and fancy human lifestyle to our view. This book is a mixture of Science and Technology and makes a good ending for this series.
This series sooth-says answers for lot of questions like Presence of Aliens, Generation of new species, Effect of Science and Technology in human life, etc etc. Even though you might feel boring in few parts, Clarke will fill those gaps with some mind blowing fantasies.
You can order for a hardcopy of the Space Odyssey Series here:
Space Odyssey Series (Amazon)
For soft copies of the Series, feel free to contact me :)
Selfies are the trend of photography now. When no one is there to capture a moment for you, you go for a selfie. What if you yourself can't take a picture (selfie) but you desperately need one?
This thought gave rise to a $500K worth Idea.
Nixie - the wearable camera drone, won $500K as prize in Intel's Make it Wearable contest. Christoph Kohstall is the guy who came up with this idea and this prize might help him to move this idea from prototype to reality.
What is basically Nixie ? It is a Quadcopter with a camera which will get attached to wrist. Just like a Wrist watch. When initiated by a gesture - Nixie will leave your arm, go to a reasonable distance, take a picture of you and return back to your wrist (like a Boomerang).
This technology is currently just a prototype. But the designer was able to impress the tech giant Intel with just a prototype. When it becomes a complete product, there might be lot of people waiting for this new Selfie stuff's release. May be it might become a part of our wrist watches in future!!!
We are in the era of Social Media and last Thursday (24-Oct-2014) Facebook added a new entry to the long list of Social networks. A new initiative called "Rooms".
What is the specialty of this new app developed only for mobiles? To be precise, this is a more developed version of Facebook Groups. You don't have to be member of Facebook to use this app and it allows anonymous usage!
Rooms allow the user to create unique chat rooms (like forums/ Facebook groups) specific for something. It allows the creator to share the QR code of the group (generated during Room creation) which can be used by other users to join a particular chat room.
This app also allows the creator to design his/her chat room theme like unique background, changeable emoji for traditional Facebook Like buttons, etc. The creator can remove any user @ anytime and they won't be allowed to join the group again. He/She can also decide whether to have the Room discoverable (so that it will be suggested for the new joiners) or secret.
Though new joiners might have trouble in finding groups, it provides a great sharing platform with ultimate privacy. Users can discuss any information that they want only their team to know (Of-course Facebook will know, so be specific on what you share). Creation of discoverable general forums is also possible and if you want to be anonymous on a general forum, that too is possible.
This Rooms app is a glorified version of Facebook groups which might become viral in near future, if it beats Whatsapp groups which is currently trending among people of all ages. As of now, Rooms app is available only for IOS 7.0 or above
(Rooms for IOS). The android version is expected to be released by next year (2015).
Lab rats are one of the pitiful creatures in this world. For scientific researches, they become the test victim. But there is a scientist in history who turned himself into such test material. His name is Barry Marshall. A man who adore science more than himself.
Barry Marshall is an Australian Physician. Barry met Robin Warren (pathologist) when he was working in Royal Perth hospital. They both shared a common interest - gastritis. Gastritis and Ulcer were major issues back in 1980s and the most common misconception was that ulcers were caused due to stress only.
When they (Barry and Robin) started to study about this, they found presence of a bacterium (Helicobacter Pylori) in the gut of patients infected with ulcer. They autopsied patients died of ulcer and cultured that bacterium in laboratory.
When Barry and Robin tried to prove this to the world, nobody believed them. Scientists and Physicians were obsessed with their old theory and were not ready to come out of it. Since this bacterium - H.Pylori affects only primates, they were not able to prove it using rats. Testing using humans was not permitted by the Government.
Out of desperation, Barry drank the bacterium himself and developed ulcer. To prove their theory and to help people, he made himself a lab rat! He created proof using the only human subject that the Government will not stop him from using.
Due to Barry's discovery, it became easy to treat ulcer just using antibiotics. Meanwhile he also found out that this bacterium is also the reason for peptic cancer in some cases. Barry and Robin uncovered the mysterious organism that was reason for many stomach related issues. This earned Nobel Prize (2005 - Physiology) for both of them.
To know about another guy who risked his life for science, click here
Any Marvel comic / Spider-man series fan will be familiar to Dr.Octopus, the scientist turned villain with multiple arms. People witnessed what a person can do with multiple arms, in both movies and comics. Despite the evilness, Dr.Octopus created a dream. A dream where there is no constraint because of just two arms.
MIT researchers have been developing such robotic limbs named as Supernumerary Robotic Limbs(SRL).
These limbs are not designed to act as a replacement for natural arms, but to act as additional ones for carrying out various tasks that cannot be done with two arms.
The current prototype of SRL will not act as independent arm but as a shadow arm. The current design is something like this - You will wear the arms in such a way that the controller reside over your shoulders. The robotic limbs replicate whatever you do with your arms based on shoulder stimuli.
This current prototype is functioning perfectly and demonstrated successfully by MIT researchers. They also mentioned that they are trying to find a way to make these arms work independently.
Its a great news and wonderful invention with wide range of usage. As long as they don't plan to pierce the body to integrate this arms, I
will await for this technology eagerly.
Windows 8 - A much anticipated OS which failed to scale up to the expectations.
Microsoft claims that 200 million Windows 8 licenses sold in 12 months. This indicates that it is not a failure like Windows Vista, which was a huge blow for Microsoft in past. It took Vista 18 months to sell 180 million licenses.
But speaking of licenses, Windows 7 steals the show. Windows 7 sold 240 million licenses in 12 months and by now (after 4 years) around 600 million licenses for Windows 7 is sold . Desperate Microsoft is planning to reduce Windows 8 cost by 200%. Though this information is not official, it is clearly visible that Windows 8 is not a big success.
Windows 8 came with a metro, which instead of boosting up, backfired. Many desktop users are not fond of metro. And its dual mode(metro, desktop) was difficult for naive users. So they stuck to the old one which was better than the new..Windows 7.
This is the 2nd time Microsoft facing this issue. The same thing happened with Vista and XP.
Moreover in Windows 8, MS forgot to change the appearance, other than introducing metro. The desktop and many other regions of UI remained same. Those who expected a big attractive difference as from XP to Win 7 were much disappointed.
Despite all these drawbacks, positives like speed, increased security helped Win 8 to get pass Vista's mark.
Its been more than an year before which Win 8 came out (October, 2012). After that there has been only one update (Windows 8.1) which was released on October 2013. And they were not a hit as expected. So what's next? How to recover from this?
Windows 9......
According to Microsoft blog, Windows 9 might be released by April 2015. It had been codenamed as ' Threshold ' :) No more information available about Windows 9 yet. But it is almost confirm that next Windows will be available in market by 2015. Let us expect that Microsoft correct the mistakes they made with Win 8.
With new CEO Satya Nadella, Microsoft is expected to bounce back in Windows 9.
To know more about Windows Versions, Visit Windows Versions
