What Future?

Posted by Carol at January 6th, 2008

You can soup up and reengineer your video recorder with the full consent and encouragement of the manufacturer. It does neat things.  Is this an industry changed or just distractioneering?

Posted by Carol at December 28th, 2007

In November, 2007, the University of of Delaware announced that two its professors “outfitted kid-size robots to provide mobility to children who are unable to fully explore the world on their own”.

Infants with Down Syndrome, cerebral palsy, autism and other disorders can have mobility limitations that disconnect them from the ongoing exploration that their peers enjoy. The tiny robot is ringed with sensors that can determine the obstacle-free roaming space, and will either allow infants to bump obstacles or will take control from the infant and drive around the obstacle itself. The next prototype, UD2, will build on the current technology to provide additional control to a parent, teacher or other supervising adult.

“In this way, we can bind technology and human need together to remove barriers for movement in the environment,” [co-investigator] Agrawal said. They believe the training, robot design and new technology derived from the project will provide the foundation for the first generation of safe, smart vehicles for infants born with mobility impairments.”

At first glance, this project seems to fall lock step in line with the walking chairs and sensor bots that have made assistive robotics a headline-maker throughout 2007.

What differs, however, is that unlike Toyota’s walking chair, the Delaware research was conducted at the University’s Early Learning Center - a daycare that conducted the in-house research for these prototypes.

The larger set of concerns this prototype raises is an old one: commercialization and ubiquity are key to mass adoption of assistive robots, but are hampered by current models of innovation dissemination and the limited set of choices for robotics development - corporate or academic research.

That the Delaware researchers were able to meet proof of concept is no small feat, but a working model does not a viable tool make. Incubation arms and technology transfer units within universities sometimes speed the deployment of store-shelve ready models, but often this comes at the cost of retained IP rights.  By contrast, corporate incubation units focus on fiddling with expensive showpieces designed not for commercialization but instead to grab media attention, demonstrate thought leadership and, of course, secure valuable patents.

Posted by Carol at February 23rd, 2007

Four years since its original prototype, I’m greatly anticipating the deployment of DartMail, a type of RFID-enabled file transfer system attached to, you guessed it, a dart.

See this video for a demo.

Posted by Greg at February 8th, 2007

So, the Calgary Health Region has finally rolled out their Electronic Health Record program, after years in development. They even hope to make it available to to home user:

The public will eventually be able to access their own health information, but that won’t happen until a consultation process is completed.

Wait a minute. What about privacy? What if a hacker gets access to our most personal of personal information, that about our own biological bodies? Worry not:

Bill Trafford, the head of advanced technology for the health region, said the system was secure against hacking. None of the information is downloadable and it is password protected.

Anyone who says systems are secure against hacking and that none of the information is downloadable while promising to let people view the information from home over the internet needs to a) give their head a shake and b) not be in charge of advanced technology.

Posted by Greg at December 13th, 2006

I’ve talked about stem cells before, and I don’t think that clumps of cells inside women count as anything more than clumps of cells. No matter when you believe that clump of cells becomes a human, I think everyone can agree that this is even more wrong than it is weird:

Healthy new-born babies may have been killed in Ukraine to feed a flourishing international trade in stem cells, evidence obtained by the BBC suggests.

So, to recap–

Risky but ok:

There is a trade in stem cells from aborted foetuses, amid unproven claims they can help fight many diseases.

Not ok:

But now there are claims that stem cells are also being harvested from live babies.

This is a real “what the hell” moment.

Posted by Carol at December 9th, 2006

Well, isn’t this just neat?