Computers tattooed into your skin? I can't wait for that! Then overclockers will be _wearing_ those nifty heatsinks! Oh, wait, with dermal interfaces you could swap pr0n and divx files by shaking hands, too - then when the RIAA/MPAA catches up with you, they literally extract a pound of flesh...
But then again, having digital storage implanted in your body would be kinda cool - I can think of one neat place to put a storage device...
"Wait, you say you need that report, boss? Hold on, let me pull it out of/my/ass"
Yeah, I think sharper image sells one, as do a number of random on-line retailers. Not exactly a high-popularity item, though - not too many people are really that thoughtful, and they cost at least a hundred bucks. Not to mention the fact that they need to be calibrated every so often. That could be another issue for in-car sensors? What of when they go out of whack?
So every time you hit the switch for the windshield washer and spray what, in many cases, is a fairly strong solution of ethanol onto your windshield - right by the ventilation system intakes in most cars by the way - this thingy signals to all police in range that you're having a 4-alarm kegger in your backseat?
That's not the only "innocent" source of ethanol vapours, either - there are plenty of things used in a car that could create them, and not to mention the fact that this better be one hell of a specific fuel cell to only detect ETHANOL vapours. From my chemistry days I seem to remember that fuel cells are quite versatile in their ability to catalyze not just the target reaction, but other similar reactions. Such as perhaps butyl alcohol or methyl alcohol, neither of which will get you drunk, but both of which are present in a lot of cleaning products...
Just what we need, really! Another "excuse" for cops (cough, cough, particularly southern cops) to pull us over because they don't like the little darwin-fishy on our car's backside...
So how long until we get to the point where instead of actually fighting wars, each side of a conflict just feeds "soldiers" into a little thingy that just disintegrates them, saving us the trouble of actual fighting, planes, bombs, you-name-it? Or maybe for starters we'll just send our soldiers onto the field with paintball guns, right? And when they get hit, they go back to base to be peacefully euthanized?
What the hell is wrong with our world?
nice start - but locutus is long off.
on
Working Nerve Chip
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· Score: 2, Interesting
It is certainly a nice start to what could be a promising field, but there are so many things to be dealt with before we could realistically use any technology like this for clinical purposes (ie: borg implants). Namely, if these were to be used in longer nerves (anything in the spine for example) they would have to come up with a way of dealing with myelinated nerve cells, not just bare cells. Myelin is a sheath that covers nerves to increase speed of signal transduction, and piercing it (with a chip interface) could lead to problems in propagating an action potential... However, this stuff looks like it has serious promise for starting research into "biological computing"
looking forward to the russian response...
on
Sklyarov Indicted
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· Score: 1
I can only imagine the US would be screaming bloody murder about this happening to one of its citizens: anyone recall the fracas that ensued when russian officials imprisoned a US-citizen student on bogus drug charges? Not that it would really get anything done (what with Dubya in office with his lovely fsck-all attitude towards other nations) but I would love to see Russia give us a little diplomatic hell for screwing with one of their own.
quite to the contrary - the way that these LEDs are driven, the real "flicker" frequency is well beyond the response time of the human optic nerve - that is to say that not even "subliminal" effects are possible as your nervous system can't recycle itself fast enough to pass action potentials at the speed the light will flicker. You perceive nice, constant light. I am waiting with bated breath for this stuff to really hit market...
We already have neon on computers - now I suppose that if we lose the ability to brag about how many GHz our boxes can pull we're going to see 4" stainless steel exhausts on fans, oversized chromed feet for optimal desk-holding traction, and perhaps even those wonderfully ludicrous fake HID bulbs installed in the place of HDD LEDs.
Ironically, gun companies are protected specifically under state laws. There was a suit against a gun company in California about someone using one of their guns to (gasp) kill people - a commentator on NPR said that the suit would have been successful in some other states without those protective statutes. I suppose it's time to being pestering our state legislators to make states "safe haven" for web music distributors...
Seems as though most people don't use the encryption - it slows down most 802.11b interfaces anyhow. Besides, if anybody is broadcasting sensitive info over RF in ANY format, they're pretty much asking for it. The most important layer of security is physical, after all.
Well, with a yearly revenue of 2.5 billion, I'm guessing that they certainly sell enough of them... Actually, I don't think every one that moves out has the full complement of 512 processors, either. I was always under the impression that these quite sexy machines were used for, well, not-so-sexy stuff. Plain-jane 3D visualization or transforms from data, brute-force number crunching, done by some of our big, scary corporations (I understand oil companies love these things). As a biochemist, I use a couple of their little baby machines, and should I ever score some fat gov't grant, I can tell you I'd love to be next in line to snap one of these beasts up...
I'm going to cross my fingers and HOPE that ATI misbehaves again. That way maybe they'll put a GeForce2 MX in there. Anybody want to help me set up ATI for a fall?
You are quite correct. Neuroscience is still a very young field, and having taken a few courses in the field, I have read some fairly conflicting bits of research. As soon as anything even vaguely resembling a statement comes out, it is challenged. The real progress that is being made is in the details, for example, "how does our brain process olfactory sensory input," not by groups who discover something then use it as the basis for a sweeping generalization. [interesting digression] Some quite fascinating research has been going on in the olfactory field, incidentally - specifically in how our brains may be able to encode extra information onto a nervous signal temporally (free registration with Nature required to view abstract...) [end digression] However, speaking as a scientist, I wouldn't get my knickers in a twist over something like this until they come out with something a bit more concrete. The bulk of the real progress being made in this field is typically being made by groups of hard science types who rarely make mainstream press when they discover something. As for these folks: They mentioned the release of calcium effecting the neurons. we've known this for a while, and let me just say that soaking a cell in calcium has more of a sledgehammer effect than a scalpel. Of course, this could be a huge finding, but what it sounds like is that someone made an interesting discovery but has very little idea of what it actually means.
Most certainly a cool vehicle. When they start making electric hybrid cars just a bit more practical, I'll be first in line to grab one. However, one thing that worries me is the bottom dollar for auto manufacturers: I'm under the impression that the only way the retail prices of these things approach reasonable dollar values is through heavy government subsidies... This is not a particularly good thing if these are to become mainstream. I'm sure there's someone out there in the flock of knowitalls that could confirm or deny this?
P.S: I'm waiting for someone to replace those batteries with flywheels...:-)
Slashdot Mirror
Whoa. COOL toy. That's going in my stocking.
Computers tattooed into your skin? I can't wait for that! Then overclockers will be _wearing_ those nifty heatsinks! Oh, wait, with dermal interfaces you could swap pr0n and divx files by shaking hands, too - then when the RIAA/MPAA catches up with you, they literally extract a pound of flesh...
/my/ass"
But then again, having digital storage implanted in your body would be kinda cool - I can think of one neat place to put a storage device...
"Wait, you say you need that report, boss? Hold on, let me pull it out of
This is a FANTASTIC reason why we should never allow cable networks to play 5 days straight of ST:TNG reruns. The collateral damage is just too high.
Yeah, I think sharper image sells one, as do a number of random on-line retailers. Not exactly a high-popularity item, though - not too many people are really that thoughtful, and they cost at least a hundred bucks. Not to mention the fact that they need to be calibrated every so often. That could be another issue for in-car sensors? What of when they go out of whack?
So every time you hit the switch for the windshield washer and spray what, in many cases, is a fairly strong solution of ethanol onto your windshield - right by the ventilation system intakes in most cars by the way - this thingy signals to all police in range that you're having a 4-alarm kegger in your backseat?
That's not the only "innocent" source of ethanol vapours, either - there are plenty of things used in a car that could create them, and not to mention the fact that this better be one hell of a specific fuel cell to only detect ETHANOL vapours. From my chemistry days I seem to remember that fuel cells are quite versatile in their ability to catalyze not just the target reaction, but other similar reactions. Such as perhaps butyl alcohol or methyl alcohol, neither of which will get you drunk, but both of which are present in a lot of cleaning products...
Just what we need, really! Another "excuse" for cops (cough, cough, particularly southern cops) to pull us over because they don't like the little darwin-fishy on our car's backside...
So how long until we get to the point where instead of actually fighting wars, each side of a conflict just feeds "soldiers" into a little thingy that just disintegrates them, saving us the trouble of actual fighting, planes, bombs, you-name-it? Or maybe for starters we'll just send our soldiers onto the field with paintball guns, right? And when they get hit, they go back to base to be peacefully euthanized?
What the hell is wrong with our world?
It is certainly a nice start to what could be a promising field, but there are so many things to be dealt with before we could realistically use any technology like this for clinical purposes (ie: borg implants). Namely, if these were to be used in longer nerves (anything in the spine for example) they would have to come up with a way of dealing with myelinated nerve cells, not just bare cells. Myelin is a sheath that covers nerves to increase speed of signal transduction, and piercing it (with a chip interface) could lead to problems in propagating an action potential... However, this stuff looks like it has serious promise for starting research into "biological computing"
I can only imagine the US would be screaming bloody murder about this happening to one of its citizens: anyone recall the fracas that ensued when russian officials imprisoned a US-citizen student on bogus drug charges? Not that it would really get anything done (what with Dubya in office with his lovely fsck-all attitude towards other nations) but I would love to see Russia give us a little diplomatic hell for screwing with one of their own.
quite to the contrary - the way that these LEDs are driven, the real "flicker" frequency is well beyond the response time of the human optic nerve - that is to say that not even "subliminal" effects are possible as your nervous system can't recycle itself fast enough to pass action potentials at the speed the light will flicker. You perceive nice, constant light. I am waiting with bated breath for this stuff to really hit market...
We already have neon on computers - now I suppose that if we lose the ability to brag about how many GHz our boxes can pull we're going to see 4" stainless steel exhausts on fans, oversized chromed feet for optimal desk-holding traction, and perhaps even those wonderfully ludicrous fake HID bulbs installed in the place of HDD LEDs.
Ironically, gun companies are protected specifically under state laws. There was a suit against a gun company in California about someone using one of their guns to (gasp) kill people - a commentator on NPR said that the suit would have been successful in some other states without those protective statutes. I suppose it's time to being pestering our state legislators to make states "safe haven" for web music distributors...
Seems as though most people don't use the encryption - it slows down most 802.11b interfaces anyhow. Besides, if anybody is broadcasting sensitive info over RF in ANY format, they're pretty much asking for it. The most important layer of security is physical, after all.
I'm going to cross my fingers and HOPE that ATI misbehaves again. That way maybe they'll put a GeForce2 MX in there. Anybody want to help me set up ATI for a fall?
You are quite correct. Neuroscience is still a very young field, and having taken a few courses in the field, I have read some fairly conflicting bits of research. As soon as anything even vaguely resembling a statement comes out, it is challenged. The real progress that is being made is in the details, for example, "how does our brain process olfactory sensory input," not by groups who discover something then use it as the basis for a sweeping generalization. [interesting digression] Some quite fascinating research has been going on in the olfactory field, incidentally - specifically in how our brains may be able to encode extra information onto a nervous signal temporally (free registration with Nature required to view abstract...) [end digression] However, speaking as a scientist, I wouldn't get my knickers in a twist over something like this until they come out with something a bit more concrete. The bulk of the real progress being made in this field is typically being made by groups of hard science types who rarely make mainstream press when they discover something. As for these folks: They mentioned the release of calcium effecting the neurons. we've known this for a while, and let me just say that soaking a cell in calcium has more of a sledgehammer effect than a scalpel. Of course, this could be a huge finding, but what it sounds like is that someone made an interesting discovery but has very little idea of what it actually means.
Most certainly a cool vehicle. When they start making electric hybrid cars just a bit more practical, I'll be first in line to grab one. However, one thing that worries me is the bottom dollar for auto manufacturers: I'm under the impression that the only way the retail prices of these things approach reasonable dollar values is through heavy government subsidies... This is not a particularly good thing if these are to become mainstream. I'm sure there's someone out there in the flock of knowitalls that could confirm or deny this?
:-)
P.S: I'm waiting for someone to replace those batteries with flywheels...