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A Momentary Flow

Rebuilding worldviews one world at a time

The newly unveiled robot is able to understand and act on voice commands. - Remember ApriPoco? It’s okay, we’ll forgive you if not, but we can’t say the same about a similar question asked about that fellow above here in a few years. With a heart and soul as warm as that found in Wall-E, Toshiba’s newly-unveiled ApriPetit is around half as large as the aforesaid predecessor, standing just 5.9-inches tall and sporting a pair of eyes capable of staring straight through your being. It’s described as a “portable robotic interface,” able to understand and act on voice commands using a combination of speech recognition and text-to-speech software. The eyes themselves are said to double as “stereo cameras, which can find and recognize faces and determine how close they are.” As of now, there doesn’t seem to be any hard-and-fast plans for use, but it’s clear that home health and service is an area of interest. (via Service and Healthcare: ApriPetit Portable Robotic Interface | Robotics Trends)

The newly unveiled robot is able to understand and act on voice commands.

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Remember ApriPoco? It’s okay, we’ll forgive you if not, but we can’t say the same about a similar question asked about that fellow above here in a few years. With a heart and soul as warm as that found in Wall-E, Toshiba’s newly-unveiled ApriPetit is around half as large as the aforesaid predecessor, standing just 5.9-inches tall and sporting a pair of eyes capable of staring straight through your being. It’s described as a “portable robotic interface,” able to understand and act on voice commands using a combination of speech recognition and text-to-speech software. The eyes themselves are said to double as “stereo cameras, which can find and recognize faces and determine how close they are.” As of now, there doesn’t seem to be any hard-and-fast plans for use, but it’s clear that home health and service is an area of interest. (via Service and Healthcare: ApriPetit Portable Robotic Interface | Robotics Trends)

Source roboticstrends.com

Swedish researchers are building a computer interface for your body. With a paper published in Nature Communications, researchers at Linköping University in Sweden have described a means of inserting “ion gates” into neurons. The goal, Dr. Magnus Berggren tells Wired, is to create an interface that lets machines control and regulate “physiology pathways in biological systems” — and that includes you. Neurons communicate through specialized molecules that trigger what are called neurotransmitters. Acetylcholine, for instance, controls muscle movement. The device described by the researchers would sit inside your body and act as a kind of repository for neurotransmitters. When the brain — or an outside computer — signals that these neurotransmitters are needed in a muscle or organ, the device would release these neurotransmitters so that the proper instructions could be carried out. “Our technology could be used to distribute all the chemicals along your muscle. That’s where we are aiming,” Berggren says. “Preferably, this is something that is coating your organ.” (via Swedes Explore Computer Interface for Your Biceps | Wired Enterprise | Wired.com)

Swedish researchers are building a computer interface for your body. With a paper published in Nature Communications, researchers at Linköping University in Sweden have described a means of inserting “ion gates” into neurons. The goal, Dr. Magnus Berggren tells Wired, is to create an interface that lets machines control and regulate “physiology pathways in biological systems” — and that includes you. Neurons communicate through specialized molecules that trigger what are called neurotransmitters. Acetylcholine, for instance, controls muscle movement. The device described by the researchers would sit inside your body and act as a kind of repository for neurotransmitters. When the brain — or an outside computer — signals that these neurotransmitters are needed in a muscle or organ, the device would release these neurotransmitters so that the proper instructions could be carried out. “Our technology could be used to distribute all the chemicals along your muscle. That’s where we are aiming,” Berggren says. “Preferably, this is something that is coating your organ.” (via Swedes Explore Computer Interface for Your Biceps | Wired Enterprise | Wired.com)

Source Wired

Conversations between people include a lot more than just words. All sorts of visual and aural cues indicate each party’s state of mind and make for a productive interaction. But a furrowed brow, a gesticulating hand, and a beaming smile are all lost on computers. Now, researchers at MIT and Tufts are experimenting with a way for computers to gain a little insight into our inner world. Their system, called Brainput, is designed to recognize when a person’s workload is excessive and then automatically modify a computer interface to make it easier. The researchers used a lightweight, portable brain monitoring technology, called functional near-infrared spectroscopy (fNIRS), that determines when a person is multitasking. Analysis of the brain scan data was then fed into a system that adjusted the user’s workload at those times. A computing system with Brainput could, in other words, learn to give you a break. (via A Computer Interface that Takes a Load Off Your Mind - Technology Review)

Conversations between people include a lot more than just words. All sorts of visual and aural cues indicate each party’s state of mind and make for a productive interaction. But a furrowed brow, a gesticulating hand, and a beaming smile are all lost on computers. Now, researchers at MIT and Tufts are experimenting with a way for computers to gain a little insight into our inner world. Their system, called Brainput, is designed to recognize when a person’s workload is excessive and then automatically modify a computer interface to make it easier. The researchers used a lightweight, portable brain monitoring technology, called functional near-infrared spectroscopy (fNIRS), that determines when a person is multitasking. Analysis of the brain scan data was then fed into a system that adjusted the user’s workload at those times. A computing system with Brainput could, in other words, learn to give you a break. (via A Computer Interface that Takes a Load Off Your Mind - Technology Review)

Source technologyreview.com

The Urban Culture of Sentient Cities: From an Internet of Things to a Public Sphere of Things

At certain points in the history of architecture and urban plan­ning, the disciplinary debate on how to apply new technologies surpasses the boundaries of the professions involved. At those times, the hopes and fears found in the disputes between architects, policy makers, engineers and planners are extended to a broader discussion about urban and societal change. Then, the central issue is not merely how to solve a specific spatial problem or improve a construction method with the help of a new technology. Rather, the debate revolves around its possible impact on urban society at large. What does this new technol­ogy mean for urban culture, what impact does it have on how we shape our identities and live together in the city? When those questions surface, Dutch philosopher René Boomkens argues, the professional debate has turned ‘philosophical’. [1]