Category Archives: News

A group of scientists have presented, early today, a “Hidden Motion Amplification” software. What is that?… well… its goal is quite simple: to amplify subtle movements that we cannot easily detect.

They achieve this goal by running mathematical calculations on every frame of a given video, and they exaggerate movements.

What is it good for?. Well… to begin with, this software allows you to check the heartbeat rate of a person, by simply analyzing his (or her) face. It’s pretty amazing to see how technology evolves into non-intrusive  techniques: they don’t even need to touch you, to check  how your heart is doing.

By seeing anything, and everything, with this new filter… we can discover “new” things, that have been always around us, but we have been unable, so far, to notice them.

If you’d like to read more about the subject, this is the project’s main website. They’ve even posted the source code. Beware… it’s written in MATLAB!.

Google has just announced they’d be releasing a new iteration of their chromebooks. They’d call it ‘Pixel’, because they want the pixels, literally, to disappear.

It has a 12.85 inches screen, with a stunning resolution of 2560×1700. That’s beyond Mac Retina… well, just a little bit. Furthermore, it has a touchscreen built with Gorilla Glass display.

Hardware?. Intel i3 running at 1.8ghz, 8gb of ram, and 32gb of flash storage. Not much, but you need to consider that this notebook has been built to work in the cloud… so you wouldn’t be storing, locally, documents.

Personally, i don’t like it. I’m not comfortable with the idea of not having my documents stored in my own machine. Furthermore, at a 1200 dollars price tag (for the wifi version), and 1400 for the 3g capable, i believe that local storage should be far beyond 32gb.

I’ve tested the previous version of the chromebooks, built by Samsung… and let me say just this. It’s less useful than an iPad, but it has a built in keyboard. So, if you’re still interested in buying this device, i strongly suggest you take a look at an iPad + Keboard. You might find it interesting!.

I’ve been waiting for, probably, a while year… to get a sneak peak of Google Glass. How it works… what’s the UX like, how you command it. And, of course, what can you do with it.

Google has released a short video giving a short sneak peak of… what i dare to say… the future of mobile computing. Think about it. Why do you want a phone?. Why do you wanna press a screen?.

Glass seems to be fully controlled using your voice, plus gestures. I can’t wait to get my hands on one of their prototypes!!

Artificial Intelligence has become a part of our lifes. Almost everyone has a smartphone capable of running simple AI… Siri became a commodity. But the limitations are not easily dismissed… the current state of the art is far beyond what you might believe.

Self awareness is a no-go.. specially when we don’t even fully understand where consciousness emerges. Is it a side effect of the multi-dimensional neuron network?. Or is it something else?.
Well, luckily, i’m not the only one thinking about these questions. The European Union announced that they will invest 1200 million dollars over the next ten years, in order to build a model of the human brain.

The goal is to map every single network in our brain. And they won’t just stop there. The team responsible of this project intends to simulate a human body, connected to this brain.As a result, we will have… in a couple years, a baby-mind modeled. Who knows what will happen, or what we will learn?. Check out the video..!!

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 As a brief sidenote, i’d like to point out that there is yet another brain simulation project, that has been going on for the past couple of years. I’m referring to the Blue Brain Project, which, the same as its european counterpart, intends to replicate the neural connections of an entire human brain.

Downside to that is… they don’t have the funding that the previous project has, so the EU counterpart is almost a safe bet.
If you wanna simulate a brain, you need raw power. A LOT!… and the only way to build the hardware, is with a mountain of money, literally speaking.

I’ve came across this amazing video featuring a new technology, recently discovered by professor Ric Kaner, from UCLA university. Imagine you could charge any electronic device… say… a cellphone, a notebook, or even a car… within a couple minutes. And use it for hours..!!!.

Well, that’s exactly what Prof. Kaner have discovered. It’s called ‘Super supercapacitor’. Check out their video!

The Super Supercapacitor | Brian Golden Davis from Focus Forward Films on Vimeo.