Nokia, NASA to install 4G on the Moon

Finnish multinational telecommunications, information technology, and consumer electronics company Nokia announced its expansion into a new market on Monday, winning a deal to install the first cellular network on the Moon.

The Finnish equipment manufacturer said it was selected by NASA to deploy an “ultra-compact, low-power, space-hardened” wireless 4G network on the lunar surface, as part of the US space agency’s plan to establish a long-term human presence on the Moon by 2030, according to a report by AFP.

The $14.1 million contracts, awarded to Nokia’s US subsidiary, is part of NASA’s Artemis program which aims to send the first woman, and next man, to the moon by 2024.

The astronauts will begin carrying out detailed experiments and explorations which the agency hopes will help it develop its first human mission to Mars.

Nokia’s network equipment will be installed remotely on the Moon’s surface using a lunar hopper built by Intuitive Machines in late 2022, Nokia said.

“The network will self-configure upon deployment,” Nokia said in a statement, adding that the wireless technology will allow for “vital command and control functions, remote control of lunar rovers, real-time navigation and streaming of high definition video.”

The 4G equipment can be updated to a super-fast 5G network in the future, Nokia said.

In all, NASA announced last week it would distribute $370 million to 14 companies to supply “Tipping Point” technologies for its mission, which include robotics and new methods of harvesting the resources required for living on the moon, such as oxygen and energy sources.

Among them, Elon Musk’s SpaceX received $53.2 million for a demonstration of the transferring of ten metric tons of liquid oxygen between tanks on a starship vehicle, NASA said.Source: AFP Source: https://www.daily-bangladesh.com
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Artificial Telepathy: Prosumers, Cicerones and Mugges


Small electronic devices and social networking software are on the verge of creating a sort of artificial telepathy where images and ideas can be broadcast instantly to a group of people. 'If you get lost, my mobile will guide you' from the MUGGES project. TECNALIA Research & Innovation and TelefĂłnica R+D have succeeded in taking one more step with social networks; with MUGGES, they have managed that any person with a mobile telephone in his or her hand is able to become a “cicerone”, a journalist or mobile reporter and, in fact, a provider of a huge amount of new services from their own terminal. The MUGGES project investigates the transformation of users of mobile telephones into prosumers, i.e. producers, providers and consumers of content from their own mobile telephone. The user generates and stores his or her own micro-services - known as mugglets - on their mobile telephone. This involves small applications that take advantage of the experience of the user and make use of the information of the context in real time, combining searching with social interaction. With MUGGES it is possible to share routes, follow the routes of others, visualise which routes are being followed when others are at the same point where the user is, comments by other users of the site, challenge other users on a specific route, create a service to share a car, to obtain a parking place, etc., become a mobile paparazzi present anywhere …. and a multitude of services more. In this way the user can obtain and provide information and content, share these services for their consumption or re-use (creation of new services from existing ones), thus making it possible to develop new business models. This new concept is opening up a pioneering path for a new generation of mobile services for the Internet of the Future, a priority line of research. One step forward in social networks: MUGGES stands out from the social networks in which one's own mobile phone is also enabled for social interaction in any place and at any time, without depending on an internet connection. Millions of potential providers, millions of journalists, a multitude of users informing about traffic, events, recommendations, etc. This is MUGGES, one step beyond social networks. The infrastructure and mobile devices are now sufficiently powerful to enable the development of new business models. The mobile terminal is evolving at great speed, even becoming a content server, so that a mobile user can constantly provide updated information, in real time and relevant for users. This trend will move to the mobile environment, much more suited to the way we carry out social interactions, anywhere and anytime. Mobile infrastructures and devices are now powerful enough to allow for new business models. The mobile terminal will evolve to become a server and therefore, a mobile user will provide constantly updated information, relevant to others users instantaneous interests and current context. 
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Researcher Gains Control Of Another Man's Brain Over The Internet

Human To Human Brain Interface Allows Researcher To Control Another Person Hand Motions Over The Internet, Credit: University of Washington
University of Washington researchers have performed what they believe is the first noninvasive human-to-human brain interface, with one researcher able to send a brain signal via the Internet to control the hand motions of a fellow researcher. University of Washington researcher Rajesh Rao, left, plays a computer game with his mind. Across campus, researcher Andrea Stocco, right, wears a magnetic stimulation coil over the left motor cortex region of his brain. Stocco’s right index finger moved involuntarily to hit the “fire” button as part of the first human brain-to-brain interface demonstration. Using electrical brain recordings and a form of magnetic stimulation, Rajesh Rao sent a brain signal to Andrea Stocco on the other side of the UW campus, causing Stocco’s finger to move on a keyboard. While researchers at Duke University have demonstrated brain-to-brain communication between two rats, and Harvard researchers have demonstrated it between a human and a rat, Rao and Stocco believe this is the first demonstration of human-to-human brain interfacing. “The Internet was a way to connect computers, and now it can be a way to connect brains,” Stocco said. “We want to take the knowledge of a brain and transmit it directly from brain to brain.” The researchers captured the full demonstration on video recorded in both labs. The following version has been edited for length. Rao, a UW
professor of computer science and engineering, has been working on brain-computer interfacing in his lab for more than 10 years and just published a textbook on the subject. In 2011, spurred by the rapid advances in technology, he believed he could demonstrate the concept of human brain-to-brain interfacing. So he partnered with Stocco, a UW research assistant professor in psychology at the UW’s Institute for Learning & Brain Sciences. On Aug. 12, Rao sat in his lab wearing a cap with electrodes hooked up to anelectroencephalographymachine, which reads electrical activity in the brain. Stocco was in his lab across campus wearing a purple swim cap marked with the stimulation site for the transcranial magnetic stimulation coil that was placed directly over his left motor cortex, which controls hand movement. The team had a Skype connection set up so the two labs could coordinate, though neither Rao nor Stocco could see the Skype screens. Rao looked at a computer screen and played a simple video game with his mind. When he was supposed to fire a cannon at a target, he imagined moving his right hand (being careful not to actually move his hand), causing a cursor to hit the “fire” button. Almost instantaneously, Stocco, who wore noise-canceling earbuds and wasn’t looking at a computer screen, involuntarily moved his right index finger to push the space bar on the keyboard in front of him, as if firing the cannon. Stocco compared the feeling of his hand moving involuntarily to that of a nervous tic. “It was both exciting and eerie to watch an imagined action from my brain get translated into actual action by another brain,” Rao said. “This was basically a one-way flow of information from my brain to his. The next step is having a more equitable two-way conversation directly between the two brains.” The cycle of the experiment. Brain signals from the “Sender” are recorded. When the computer detects imagined hand movements, a “fire” command is transmitted over the Internet to the TMS machine, which causes an upward movement of the right hand of the “Receiver.” This usually results in the “fire” key being hit.
Credit: University of Washington
The technologies used by the researchers for recording and stimulating the brain are both well-known. Electroencephalography, or EEG, is routinely used by clinicians and researchers to record brain activity noninvasively from the scalp. Transcranial magnetic stimulation is a noninvasive way of delivering stimulation to the brain to elicit a response. Its effect depends on where the coil is placed; in this case, it was placed directly over the brain region that controls a person’s right hand. By activating these neurons, the stimulation convinced the brain that it needed to move the right hand. Computer science and engineering undergraduates Matthew Bryan, Bryan Djunaedi, Joseph Wu and Alex Dadgar, along with bioengineering graduate student Dev Sarma, wrote the computer code for the project, translating Rao’s brain signals into a command for Stocco’s brain. “Brain-computer interface is something people have been talking about for a long, long time,” saidChantel Prat, assistant professor in psychology at the UW’s Institute for Learning & Brain Sciences, and Stocco’s wife and research partner who helped conduct the experiment. “We plugged a brain into the most complex computer anyone has ever studied, and that is another brain.” At first blush, this breakthrough brings to mind all kinds of science fiction scenarios. Stocco jokingly referred to it as a “Vulcan mind meld.” But Rao cautioned this technology only reads certain kinds of simple brain signals, not a person’s thoughts. And it doesn’t give anyone the ability to control your actions against your will. Both researchers were in the lab wearing highly specialized equipment and under ideal conditions. They also had to obtain and follow a stringent set of international human-subject testing rules to conduct the demonstration. “I think some people will be unnerved by this because they will overestimate the technology,” Prat said. “There’s no possible way the technology that we have could be used on a person unknowingly or without their willing participation.” Stocco said years from now the technology could be used, for example, by someone on the ground to help a flight attendant or passenger land an airplane if the pilot becomes incapacitated. Or a person with disabilities could communicate his or her wish, say, for food or water. The brain signals from one person to another would work even if they didn’t speak the same language. Rao and Stocco next plan to conduct an experiment that would transmit more complex information from one brain to the other. If that works, they then will conduct the experiment on a larger pool of subjects. Their research was funded in part by the National Science Foundation’s Engineering Research Center for Sensorimotor Neural Engineering at the UW, the U.S. Army Research Office and the National Institutes ofHealth. Contacts and sources:Doree ArmstrongSource: Article
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Smartphones May Soon Include High Power Microscopes


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Photo by ANU Photographer Stuart Hay
Australian scientists have invented a simple and cheap way of making a high-powered lens that can transform a smart phone into a high-resolution microscope. Costing less than a cent, the lenses promise a revolution in science and medicine in developing countries and remote areas. The lens fabrication technique was invented by Dr Steve Lee from The Australian National University (ANU) Research School of Engineering, who collaborated with Dr Tri Phan from Sydney’s Garvan Institute of Medical Research to find ways to transform the lentil-sized lens into a medical imaging tool. The lenses are made by using the natural shape of liquid droplets. “We put a droplet of polymer onto a microscope cover slip and then invert it. Then we let gravity do the work, to pull it into the perfect curvature,” Dr Lee said. “By successively adding small amounts of fluid to the droplet, we discovered that we can reach a magnifying power of up to 160 times with an imaging resolution of four micrometers.” The polymer, polydimethylsiloxane (PDMS), is the same as that used for contact lenses, and it won’t break or scratch. “It would be perfect for the third world. All you need is a fine tipped tool, a cover slip, some polymer and an oven,” Dr Lee said. The first droplet lens was made by accident. “I nearly threw them away. I happened to mention them to my colleague Tri Phan, and he got very excited,” Dr Lee said. “So then I decided to try to find the optimum shape, to see how far I could go. When I saw the first images of yeast cells I was like, ‘Wow!’” Dr Lee and his team worked with Dr Phan to design a lightweight 3D-printable frame to hold the lens, along with a couple of miniature LED lights for illumination, and a coin battery. The technology taps into the current citizen science revolution, which is rapidly transforming owners of smart phones into potential scientists. There are also exciting possibilities for remote medical diagnosis. Dr Phan said the tiny microscope has a
Photo by ANU photographer Stuart Hay
wide range of potential uses, particularly if coupled  with the right smartphone apps. “This is a whole new era of miniaturization and portability – image analysis software could instantly transform most smartphones into sophisticated mobile laboratories,” Dr Phan said. “I am most able to see the potential for this device in the practice of medicine, although I am sure specialists in other fields will immediately see its value for them.” Dr Lee said the low-cost lens had already attracted interest from a German group interested in using disposable lenses for tele-dermatology. “There are also possibilities for farmers,” he said. “They can photograph fungus or insects on their crops, upload the pictures to the internet where a specialist can identify if they are a problem or not.” The lens making technology is described in the latest issue of Biomedical Optics Express, published by The Optical Society. Contacts and sources: Australian National University. Source: Article
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Who could be Possible Competitors of Google Glass?

Glass Magic
Google is known for setting the trends then be its search engines or YouTube. Early his year Google has launched an amazing product called Google glass. Although this product had its own lacunas but still, this product was well received by the veterans of Silicon Valley. Now towards the end of 2013, Google is ready to launch the updated version of Google glass in which they will be launching upgraded software and some unique applications. When the review came for Google glass most of the users found the following problems with them:
  • Very fragile design
  • Low battery life
  • Lack of cuter stealthier design
It is expected that Google will deal with all these problems in its updated version of Google glass and this product will be very robust however, the price is expected to be just same. So, I was the other day thinking of some small players who already have same product and they are very economical as well. Some of the companies who are manufacturing similar product like Google glass are:

#1Recon jet: This is one of the company which can take Google glass in the boxing ring head on. Their product is available in one third of the cost as compared to Google and they have some amazing features like GPS, social media, weather, maps etc.
#2 Epiphany eyewear: The design of this glass is not as cooler as recon jet but still it is fulfilling the purpose like any other glass would not. This glass is also synchronized very well with all the social platforms specially twitter, Instagram and Facebook. In all honesty, this glass is lacking lots of functions which Google glass is offering.
#3 GlassUp: GlassUp again offers an amazing design and it can be used for e-mails, texting, tweets, Facebook updates etc. This glass makes sure that the user is always connected with the outer world. This glass has taken the concept of augmented reality to the whole new level and it is likely to give tough competition to so many apps available in Google glass. This glass can also be called as- enterprise solution provider.
#4 Vuzix Smart glassesNow this is not actually a glass because it’s an extension of your smart phone however, it has all the functions which other glasses are offering. The user can use social media apps, use this device as a hands free etc. This device is an edge which is providing a new dimension to augmented reality and mobility.
In the end it can just be said that soon GPS will be replaced by the cool glasses which will not only give us directions while driving but will also do other tasks for the users simultaneously. Source: Article, Image: flickr.com
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