Cool tech news

Burton rolls out True 3D laser plasma display article tells that Engineers from Burton Inc. in Japan have rolled out a “True 3D” display. This new system, which can function in air or under water, needs no screen of any sort, and the effect is quite impressive. This display is like Star Wars 3D holo display coming true. This system uses a laser to creates luminous points of light at desired locations in air or underwater. It works by focusing laser light, to produce plasma excitation from the oxygen and nitrogen in the air.

Mimicking the brain, in silicon article tells how new computer chip developed by MIT researchers models how neurons communicate with each other at synapses. The MIT researchers designed their analog computer chip so that the transistors could mimic the activity of different ion channels. With about 400 transistors, the silicon chip can simulate the activity of a single brain synapse. By the way there are about 100 billion neurons in the human brain, each of which forms synapses with many other neurons. The MIT boffins are planning to use their synaptic chip to model specific parts of the brain, such as the visual cortex. Compared to trying to simulate it in software on a supercomputer cluster, by using the analog synaptic chip, the simulation will run faster than your own brain does. (The brain has a 65Hz to 80Hz cycle time).

7 Comments

  1. Tomi Engdahl says:

    A 3D Display You Can Touch
    http://tech.slashdot.org/story/11/11/29/0413257/a-3d-display-you-can-touch?

    Are we getting closer to really effective volumetric 3D display technology? A new display, designed in Russia, uses cold fog and a laser projector to create a volumetric 3D image that you can touch.

    There have been cold fog 3D displays before this but this one has a reasonable resolution and looks near to being a finished product that could be on sale soon.

    Solid 3D Projection That You Can Touch
    http://www.i-programmer.info/news/144-graphics-and-games/3397-solid-3d-projection-that-you-can-touch.html

    Move over Kinect — Displair from Russia is a gesture interface in thin air
    http://eu.techcrunch.com/2011/11/23/move-over-kinect-%E2%80%94-displair-from-russia-is-a-gesture-interface-in-thin-air/

    Displair is not alone in using the cold fog as a screen to project images but they appear to be far more advanced with the multi-touch technology. Fog Screen from Finland adds wow factor with its large air displays to the entertainment and retail industries.

    Reply
  2. tomi says:

    To build a holodeck: an exclusive look at Microsoft’s Edison lab
    http://www.theverge.com/2011/12/28/2665794/microsoft-edison-lab-holodeck-tour

    Microsoft’s working on some wild technology in its Redmond labs, and our own Joshua Topolsky recently toured the facilities to see the latest innovations

    A wall where it can teleport you to another world without really going anywhere.” Bathiche shows off a number of systems that aim to accomplish this vision, including a system that projects LED light to detect a human being’s movements in space, and a glasses-free stereoscopic display that can be “steered” by the viewer as they move.

    Reply
  3. Tomi Engdahl says:

    Boffins render fibre obsolete
    Just point your neutrino gun and say hello
    http://www.theregister.co.uk/2012/03/14/neutrino_comms_demonstration/

    Working at Fermilab, a research team from the North Carolina State University and the University of Rochester have sent one word – “neutrino” – through 240 meters of rock.

    Of course, merely generating neutrinos in one place and detecting them in another is fairly routine at Fermilab, since that’s one of the things that big particle accelerators do well. In this case, the neutrinos are detected by the MINERvA instrument 100 meters underground.

    However, modulating a message onto the neutrinos is another matter entirely, since the reason a neutrino can pass through galaxies without shedding much of their energy is that they interact so weakly with ordinary matter.

    Nor was the modulation particularly complex, but that’s okay, since a simple on-off cycle is good enough to carry binary information.

    The research, which has been submitted to the journal Modern Physics Letters A, points out a few other challenges in actually using neutrinos for communication – such as the need for a particle accelerator to generate the beam, and that even a detector weighing four tons only captures a few neutrinos out of every ten billion.

    Reply
  4. Tomi Engdahl says:

    Turning Soap Film Into a Projector Screen
    http://hardware.slashdot.org/story/12/05/20/2013231/turning-soap-film-into-a-projector-screen

    3 graduate students from University of Tokyo, Carnegie Mellon University, and the University of Tsukuba have developed a colloidal display — a clear projector screen that can control its transparency.

    They have created several prototypes, such as 3D planar screen, to show how this technology can be useful.

    Here’s a video [youtube.com] showing the display in operation and how it works. Pretty neat…
    A Colloidal Display: membrane screen that combines transparency, BRDF and 3D volume
    http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=tvxJs_4m0ZE

    A Colloidal Display: membrane screen that combines transparency, BRDF and 3D volume (2012)
    http://96ochiai.ws/colloidaldisplay

    We developed an ultra thin and flexible BRDF screen using the mixture of two colloidal liquids.

    Our membrane screen can be controlled using ultrasonic vibrations. Membrane can change its transparency and surface states depending on the scales of ultrasonic waves. Based on these facts, we developed several ap- plications of the membranes such as 3D volume screen.

    This project is patent pending and submitted.

    Reply
  5. Tomi says:

    MIT develops holographic, glasses-free 3D TV
    http://www.extremetech.com/computing/132681-mit-develops-holographic-glasses-free-3d-tv

    HR3D involved a sandwich of two LCD displays, and advanced algorithms for generating top and bottom images that change with varying perspectives.

    The researchers plan to present a tri-panel prototype display at Siggraph.

    Reply
  6. Tomi Engdahl says:

    Digital techniques render real-time response in holography
    http://online.qmags.com/LFW0712?sessionID=54EF8964BEE43815102755CA2&cid=2175058&eid=16861#pg54&mode2?fs=2&pg=55&mode=2

    Digital imaging and display technology opens new possibilities for holography. Digital holographic microscopes can display 3D images of living cells in real-time on computers, and digital holographic telepresence is emerging on the technological horizon.

    Reply
  7. Tomi Engdahl says:

    Cyborg tissue is half living cells, half electronics
    http://www.newscientist.com/article/dn22217-cyborg-tissue-is-half-living-cells-half-electronics.html

    Versions of this souped-up, “cyborg” tissue have been created for neurons, muscle and blood vessels. They could be used to test drugsMovie Camera or as the basis for biological versions of existing implants such as pacemakers. If signals can also be sent to the cells, cyborg tissue could be used in prosthetics or to create tiny robots.

    “It allows one to effectively blur the boundary between electronic, inorganic systems and organic, biological ones,” says Charles Lieber, who leads the team behind the cyborg tissue.

    Reply

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