Coolest University Tech Lab Projects in the Works 53
NW writes "While universities like MIT, Berkeley and CMU don't tend to shout as loudly about their latest tech innovations as do Google, Cisco and other big vendors, their results are no less impressive in what they could mean for faster, more secure and more useful networks, computers, etc. Here's a good roundup of 25 of them, from studies on putting T-Rays to use in computers to advancing wireless to the next level to outsmarting terrorists on the Web."
Skull (Score:4, Interesting)
2-3 cm seems to be rather large, especially since it has to go through the skull - can anyone comment on this ?
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Re:Skull (Score:5, Informative)
Step 1: Take generic TV / Stereo remote, complete with low power infrared LED (not even a laser).
Step 2: Put hand over LED.
Step 3: Place remote and hand directly in front of detector.
Step 4: Observe that enough IR gets through your hand for the remote to work.
Of course, I have no idea how much IR is needed to have an effect on the brain, or how well it propagates through your skull. But if the answers are "not much" and "more than zero" then this is plausible.
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Obcomments (Score:2)
And
"I for one welcome our new mind-controlling laser overlords"
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I can believe it. In the area of the forehead they are discussing, there is a large hollow space known as the frontal sinus [wikipedia.org]. Even a simple doctor's penlight (which is about as bright as a single LED) can be used medically in what's called "frontal sinus transillumination" to check for fluid or pus in this space. It seems quite reasonable that a much brighter light could penetrate enough to visu
55 saves gas (Score:3, Informative)
Re:55 saves gas (Score:5, Insightful)
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Gen
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Slower than what? I doubt driving at 1mph would save much fuel.
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Just keep a steady speed.
And if you really wanted to save gas you would demand that all cities re-design their traffic control systems to eliminate unneeded red light stops at night (main roads are always green, secondary roads are flashing red) and give up on the idea of comming to a complete stop. Stop signs are dumb in most cases - all thats needed is yield signs and strict follo
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Re:55 saves gas (Score:4, Insightful)
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Anyways, in my estimation there are basically two problems -- 1) environmental factors, and 2) effect of human error in the
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55 vs 75 makes an easy 10-15% difference in fuel consumption. Just try it out, both over a 10 or 20 km with cruise control.
Re:55 saves gas (Score:4, Interesting)
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The actual research into MPG performance carried out by US government agencies with acronymic names and only vaguely remembered by old men such as myself and widely available in many interesting forms on many interesting interwebs found that the best gas mileage was achieved by driving a constant 30MPH. Not 20 or 25 or 32, gas mileage peaked at 30MPH.
Mileage then slowly decreased as speed increased until 60MPH was hit whereupon
T-Rays, cool! (Score:2, Insightful)
Re:T-Rays, cool! (Score:4, Funny)
Maybe not.
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I can beat that... (Score:5, Insightful)
I have a better algorithm that achieves 80% accuracy, verses their 74%....
int QueryTypeClassifier(char *str)
{
return INFORMATIONAL;
}
I better starting working on the research paper before those conference deadlines hit.
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If they considered a skill score, I don't know why they quoted the error rate in the abstract. The 80% number was based on automatic classification instead of the
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My favorite cool science project (Score:1)
Due to lack of funding (Score:1)
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Nail on the head (Score:4, Insightful)
I feel that hits the nail on the head. A lot of impressive innovations come out of universities, but it's the corporate world that makes most of the hype. Sometimes, they promote inventions that originally came from universities. Sometimes, they promote inferior technology to what already exists. But it's usually the hyped technology that wins. I think we should be paying more attention to university research.
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MIT blows its own horn very loudly. Hell, they do a better job of marketing and hyping themselves than Apple do.
The Media Lab [mit.edu] might not produce a great deal of "legitimate" scientific output, but it does a fantastic job of capturing the imagination of the public.
Their magazine [technologyreview.com] also serves as a fantastic vehicle for bolstering their own reputation.
This isn't all necessarily a bad thing, although you've got to acknowledge that most o
R&D are two different things (Score:5, Insightful)
Universities do research.
Corporations do design.
You might be pleasantly distracted by the shiny toys that corporations make, but those toys rely on the knowledge gained in university labs.
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Increasingly this is how universities operate as well, as they become beholden to corporate interests to secure funding.
false positives (Score:2)
If an individual suddenly stops communicating or socializing with others with whom they have previously had frequent contact, then the technology could alert investigators to such changes.
It happens a lot when people become bored of Facebook or whatever the social platform du jour is. There will be many false positives in a digital environment, this being one of them.