Cell phone usage and sleep

Research Proves Mobile Phones and Sleep Do Go Together, astudy conducted by Swinburne's Brain Sciences Institute examined the impact of mobile phone use immediately before bedtime on the brain and sleep patterns:

The quality of sleep for Australia's 12 million mobile phone users is not affected by calls on mobiles before bedtime, according to the world's largest independent study into mobile phones and sleep quality. Although the results showed there were differences in the brain's electrical activity in the initial part of sleep as a result of using a mobile before bedtime, this had no affect on sleep variables such as the time it takes to get to sleep, the length of time asleep or whether the person slept lightly or deeply and therefore does not affect the overall quality of a person's sleep. (...)

PhD student, Sarah Loughran, undertook the study and said the results indicate that using a mobile phone before going to sleep does not appear to influence whether a person has a good night's sleep. (...) The study confirms the results of a previous study carried out in Switzerland involving a smaller number of participants.

A social itune?

Fabien just sent me this tool that seems highly interesting: MyStrands, a kind-of 'social itune':

• Explore Recommended Songs: Songs are recommended based on the song that is actively playing and recently played songs. You may read about a song and in most cases listen to a clip by clicking the arrow which will take you to the songs homepage at the MusicStrands website.
• Explore Recommended Tags: Tags of interests are recommended realtime based on recently played songs. You may explore music related to the tag by clicking on the tag of interest.
• Publish Playlists: You may tag and publish your active playlist by clicking the edit button next to your playlist tags. When you tag a playlist, the playlist is uploaded to the website and published.
• Tag songs: You may add/edit tags for your active song clicking the edit button. When you add a tag, the tag is also added to the MusicStrands community for others to explore.

Why do I blog this? I am interested in social sharing phenomenon like this, besides I find it could be a powerful way to discover new something. I believe a lot in social navigation recommender systems like this.

Technorati Tags: mystrands

Yubi-Wa: Wearable handset featuring a bone conduction transceiver

(via yahoo news), this amazing device:

A model demonstrates NTT DoCoMo's wearable handset device 'Yubi-Wa' at the CEATEC JAPAN 2005, a technology trade exhibition, in Makuhari, east of Tokyo October 4, 2005. The prototype handset which the company believes is the world's first wearable handset, features a bone conduction transceiver, and is used by inserting a finger with the device into the earhole, the company officials said. The exhibition runs from Tuesday until Saturday and feature around 700 companies in this year. REUTERS/Issei Kato

Why do I blog this? it's a good example of a product (and not a prototype) using a bone conduction transceiver!

Want to build your own fullsize, working Johnny Five?

Dunno whether you remember who is Johnny Five but here is an good topic: >Want to build your own fullsize, working Johnny Five? :

Would you like to own a radio-controlled Johnny Five like those seen in Short Circuit 2? Want to build your own fullsize, working Johnny Five? If you answered "yes" to either question, then head to this messageboard post and put your "order" in.

It's not for sure, but Eric Allard, the man who originally built Johnny Five, is considering reproducing the toys and creating blueprints of the big guy for fans. It will only happen if there is enough support for it. So, show your support by posting on the board and maybe someday soon this will be available.

Social Networks as Health Feedback Displays

A relevant application using the social network concept is described in this article in the IEEE Pervasive Computing Journal:Social Networks as Health Feedback Displays by Margaret E. Morris from Intel (September/October 2005 (Vol. 9, No. 5) pp. 29-37):

Social networks have thus far served primarily as analytic tools for social scientists. Leveraging pervasive computing, this new research transforms social-network models into behavioral feedback displays. These ambient displays, which reflect data on remote and face-to-face interaction gathered by wireless sensor networks, were intended to raise awareness of social connectedness as a dynamic and controllable aspect of well-being. An interdisciplinary health technology research group at Intel recently developed and tested prototypes in the homes of older adults and their caregivers. This article reviews the psychological rationale for the project and highlights some reactions of participants to the displays.

Why do I blog this? I think it's an highly pertinent and innovative usage of such technique!

Wolframtone: wolfram's computational universe, mathematica and ring tones

(via kathryn kramer's insightful blog) Wolframtones is a compelling new tool based on the wolfram-esque "new kind of science" idea (developed by the Wolfram Research Labs)

WolframTones works by taking simple programs from Wolfram's computational universe, and using music theory and Mathematica algorithms to render them as music. Each program in effect defines a virtual world, with its own special story--and WolframTones captures it as a musical composition.

It's all original music--fresh from "mining" Wolfram's computational universe. Sometimes it's reminiscent of familiar musical styles; sometimes it's like nothing ever heard before. But from just the tiniest corner of the computational universe WolframTones can make everyone on Earth their own unique cellphone ringtone. It's a taste of what it's like to explore the computational universe--and a hint what's to come...

Go try here! There will be some interesting development as mentioned here.

Technorati Tags: wolfram, puppy

Weird pyramidal keyboard

An impressive list of weird keyboards can be found here. My favorite is definitely this one (patent here), it's crazy!!!

An ergonomic, efficient unitary pyramidal-shaped data entry device includes left and right hand members separated from each other by a thumb control surface. Each hand member is formed with four cavities for receiving the four fingers of the left and right hands, respectively, of a user, with the user's thumbs being juxtaposed with the thumb control surface. Each cavity contains three switches, with one switch being operated when the user extends the appropriate finger, a second being operated when the user depresses the finger, and a third being operated when the user retracts the finger. Each switch generates a signal representative of a character of a character set, with thumb switches being operable by the user's thumbs to invoke one of a plurality of sets. The sets include a character set that mimics the conventional QWERTY layout, and also include sets which represent language-optimized layouts. The device can also assume the function of a telephone and a cursor control pad.

Pillcam: a video capsule to view the esophagus

My oh my: Pillcam, with this kind of stuff I really feel like living in 2005, do some people think about deviant usage of this?!

The PillCam™ ESO video capsule is specifically designed to view the inner lining of the Esophagus. The capsule is equipped with miniature cameras on both ends and is about the size of a multi-vitamin, which can be swallowed easily. The patient swallows the capsule lying down, and is then raised in a series of inclinations over a total of 5 minutes. The PillCam™ ESO travels through the esophagus by normal peristaltic waves, flashing 14 times per second, each time capturing images of the inner lining of the esophagus.

During this five-minute procedure, the PillCam™ ESO captures images, which are transmitted to the sensor arrays. These images then travel from the sensors, along the wires to the DataRecorder™. (...) Once all equipment is removed from the patient, the portable DataRecorder™ downloads the video images to a designated workstation, from which the physician views and assesses the results in order to recommend next steps in the patient’s treatment.

Technorati Tags: pillcam

USB-controlled car?

Funny way to control your car: Mazda's new concept hatchback, Sassou, ditches the traditional cylinder lock key system in favor of USB flash drives as explained here:

On the inside is a high-tech, interactive interior concept reflecting the lifestyle of young people. It uses a USB stick as a key and an interface port for programming the hard disc drive conceived for the concept.

Why do I blog this? it's an intriguing new way of 'authenticating' and controlling a car. The key is a way to memorize parameters/preferences of the vehicles.

Communications of the ACM on RFID

The last issue of Communications of the ACM is a special issue about RFID tags. Here is a summar by editor Gaetano Borriello about the contribution:

Joshua R. Smith et al. describe an approach to integrating basic movement-sensing with tags and how they might be used to infer human activity, specifically, which objects people manipulate.

Ramesh Raskar et al. take this concept further by integrating light sensors into tags to add location- and geometric-reasoning to RFID tag/reader combinations. Applications range from identifying warehouse contents, to shelving books in libraries, to assisting robotic assembly procedures, to detecting obstructions on remote railroad tracks Sherry Hsi and Holly Fait focus on a particularly interesting application involving the Exploratorium in San Francisco, a science museum using RFID tags to help visitors interact with exhibits within the museum, allowing them to register and document their interests, then extend the visit after they've gone home. However, as appealing as such extended scientific discovery may be to most of us, many museum visitors, in fact, forgo this potentially rewarding experience, fearing it could open them up to violations of personal privacy.

Miyako Ohkubo et al. address the problem of lost personal privacy head on, providing a way to continuously scramble a tag's ID after every read so that only the tag's authorized users are able to keep track of their scrambled IDs.

Oliver Günther and Sarah Spiekermann take on the consumer's view of the inherent risks to their personal data privacy in RFID-based applications and why solutions (such as scrambled IDs) are only the first of a series of measures to ensure consumer participation in RFID-based retail deployments. The goal is to win consumer trust by giving them some amount of control—possibly legally mandated—over the RFID infrastructure and its uses. Otherwise, RFID vendors and RFID-enabled retailers risk losing them as customers.

And, finally, Bruce Eckfeldt cautions RFID-enabled retailers everywhere that they risk the same fate if they fail to consider—in advance—how the consumer might directly benefit or lose from their technology investment..

Why do I blog this? RFID is a more and more important technology but privacy issues are REALLY not that simple. I skimmed through the pages quickly but it seems to give a good overview of the field, judging from other studies I read in the past 2 years. I think the editor's conclusion is quite standard in nowadays' feeling about RFID:

This sampling of RFID technologies and their applications will help show what is possible and what is promised in consumer uses of passive RFID tags. Moreover, as tags get cheaper, smaller, and more capable, we can expect many as-yet unimagined beneficial yet potentially invasive uses in areas as diverse as health care and entertainment. As RFID technologists, application developers, and consumers, we must all be vigilant as to how these systems are designed not only for the sake of efficiency and cost but also to safeguard consumers' privacy and instill their trust in the technology

"The network is the church"

"The network is the church" is the motto of the Next Scribe, an organization in New Mexico that conducts the research and development to assess and develop the long term potential of ubiquitous personal digital networks to enrich human relationships and spiritual community. The aim is to develop the spiritual potential of social digital networks. From what I could gather, they advocate for making digital media the instrument of spirituality (as explained by Genevieve Bell from intel in a report for the IFTF).

NextScribe's mission to develop the Network Centric Church began in 1994. NextScribe brings to this task a multidisciplinary expertise that is unique in the world:

• Spiritual Experience: A mission born in the purely contemplative monastic experience of the desert — informed by a 1,500 year tradition of community and spiritual life — that has been further extended by work with international, multi-denominational expressions of spiritual life and community;
• Technological Expertise: Long term, ongoing development of the multiple components of the Network Centric Church, including:
  • systems research and architecture
  • web and database design and programming
  • internet-based collaborative systems
  • IM system design and programming
  • wireless device integration
  • digital privacy and security
  • human/computer interaction research and design;
• Focus: a singular, long-term focus on developing technology to serve the spiritual life and community.

Why do I blog this? first because connection between technology and religion is kind of odd (especially for westerners where the catholic religion is quite conservative, especially with means of communication means that already fostered some problems for them, think about gutenberg and the reform). Second because I find this curious, especially when it's about AI and religion!

Technorati Tags: puppy, religion

Mobile phones for kids

• Firefly: with just 5 keys:
• Tictalk (by Leapfrog and Enfora): parents can control Parents control the phone numbers online at mytictalk.com:
• MyScene Mobile phone (Mattel):
• ChatNow: The ChatNow two-way radio communicator is the new personal communicator that allow kids to ‘call’ or ‘text’ their friends. With the digital camera kids can take and store up to 30 images that can be viewed on the unit’s black-and-white screen.

Why do I blog this? I am looking at interface for kids (because of various projects for video game companies that target kids users). What I like in those phones is that they are not fully featured handsets (for instance calls can be limited to a set of numbers provided by the parent or some other features are missing). Either there are some interesting add-ons like the possiblity for children to make their own ringtones with the Leapfrog phone as well as the existence of five games on the phone, teaching math, spelling and social-science skills. Parents can also reward children with phone minutes for reaching certain levels in the games and they can set "quiet" times for the phone, for instance during school hours (as mentioned in this article in the WSJ).

IEEE, sports and pervasive computing

The last issue of IEEE Pervasive Computing journal is specially dedicated to the use of pervasive computing in sports, which is a highly relevant topic (giving the mobility and multi-players potentialities/settings).

Sensors and other ubiquitous computing technologies have slowly penetrated the arena of sports. This special issue gives some excellent examples of pervasive technology in sports and points to future directions.

Why do I blog this? the article about real time analysis of football might sound good: Computerized Real-Time Analysis of Football Games by Michael Beetz, Bernhard Kirchlechner and Martin Lames.

Real-time game analysis systems must be able to automatically recognize intentional activities in a multiagent system with continually acting agents. To meet these demands, the authors developed the Football Interaction and Process Model and a software system that can acquire, interpret, and analyze this model. The system can acquire models of player skills, infer action-selection criteria, and determine player and team strengths and weaknesses. They tested it on the RoboCup simulation league and received promising results.

Technorati Tags: hci, interface, location-based games, pervasive, pervasive gaming, tangible interaction

Mobile multimedia penetration

Superstars of the Mobile Internet: Top 10 Mobile Multimedia Nations identifies the leading nations in terms of mobile multimedia usage. The report illustrates the types of indicators used to measure mobile multimedia penetration and identifies the 10 leading mobile multimedia nations in the world.

In a new report, Telecommunications Management Group, Inc. (TMG) identifies the leading nations in mobile multimedia. Entitled “Superstars of the Mobile Internet,” the publication provides the statistical basis to show which countries lead in using mobile handsets to download entertainment, exchange picture messages and access the Internet. The report compares often conflicting, exaggerated or vaguely defined mobile operator statistics with government surveys on mobile Internet use to arrive at its conclusions.

Japan and South Korea are neck and neck, leading the world in mobile multimedia use. The only other nation with double-digit penetration is France, part of a quartet of large European countries in the top ten (along with Germany, Spain and the United Kingdom). The tech-savvy Nordic nations are also present in the list, represented by Finland, Norway and Sweden. The only other Asian country in the top ten is Singapore, ranked number four.

Why do I blog this? I am not a great fan of market penetration studies/figures because I am dubious of the method used to gather such cues. Anyway, sometimes, it might be interesting to have a glance. I was a bit surprised that US are missing from this list. The datasheet gives an overview of the phenomenon. France 3rd position is also interesting as well as promising in terms of potential market to investigate users' behavior towards these services.

Automatic extraction of FOAF information

This morning I was in a masters thesis jury at the University of Geneva. The presenter, Melie Genet showed her work, which consists in three tools allowing to discover communities of interest and to find help in a collaborative learning context. The most relevant part of the work is certainly the automatic extraction of personal information (identity, interests) and known relationships. These information are then turned into a FOAF file. Then you can query those foaf, investigating who knows whom, who's known by whom and which person share the same interests with you.The tools can be found here as well as the masters thesis which is only available in french.

Friend-Of-A-Friend (FOAF) est un langage dérivé du XML qui permet de décrire les personnes et leurs liens, et de manipuler ces données avec une grande facilité. Il s’impose donc comme une référence pour l’étude des réseaux sociaux. Cependant, la plupart des gens négligent de créer des métadonnées les concernant et préfèrent publier des informations non structurées sur leurs pages personnelles. Nous faisons la proposition d’un système de génération automatique de profils FOAF à partir des données des pages personnelles, qui va produire une banque de données interrogeable sous forme visuelle et textuelle. Le programme utilise par ailleurs une technique statistique pour détecter des termes sémantiquement proches et déceler des communautés d’intérêts au sein des membres du TECFA (Technologie de Formation et d’Apprentissage, unité de la FPSE, Université de Genève) : l’analyse de sémantique latente. Les prototypes fournis, quoi que nécessitant des développements ultérieurs importants, présentent de nombreux aspects novateurs et pourraient être utilisés afin de promouvoir la perception de communautés de pratiques, de supporter la localisation d’experts et de soutenir le travail collaboratif.

Why do I blog this? I found the project relevant and brought me back one year ago when roberto and I were thinking about all this FOAF buzz! Foaf seems to be a bit downhill lately :( Any people interested can write to her (email is genet1 (at) etu dot unige dot ch), she's fluent in english.

Self-designed artifacts

I really like Hydra's tagline: "Living" Building Blocks for Self-designing Artefacts"

The HYDRA project works towards the design of building blocks for self-reconfigurable artefacts. The building blocks shall allow robust and efficient morphological development of artefacts. In order to allow end-users of our approach to design new artefacts in an easy manner, we will provide an architecture (the HYDRA architecture) made up of simple building blocks, simple connections, and simple interactions. Inspired by biological principles, the HYDRA project realises engineering structures with the properties of differentiation and self-reconfiguration.

Also there are plenty of interesting related projects here.

Bionic arms!

(via), an impressive artificial arm. What is very impressive is that the arms are attached to the guy's muscles. Therefore, he could commande them.

Researchers have developed artificial arms that can be moved as it if they were real limbs, simply by thinking about making them move,. The world's first bionic man, Jesse Sullivan, 54, accidentally touched live wires while working as a utility lineman in Tennessee. He suffered severe burns, causing him to lose his arms.

I don't know why it reminded the time when Slayer's guitarist had his huge prothesis.

IM and the future of language

Viewpoint: Instant messaging and the future of language by Naomi Baron, Communications of the ACM, Volume 48 , Issue 7 (July 2005). In this paper, the author claims that the writing style commonly used in IMing, texting, and other forms of computer-mediated communication need not spell the end of normative language.

Are email, instant messaging (IM), and text messaging on cell phones degrading the language? This question surfaces in debates among language professionals and, perhaps more important, among parents and their teenage offspring. (...) The most important effect of IM on language turns out to be not stylized vocabulary or grammar but the control seasoned users feel they have over their communication networks. (...) Adolescents have long been a source of linguistic and behavioral novelty. Teens often use spoken language to express small-group identity. It is hardly surprising to find many of them experimenting with a new linguistic medium (such as IM) to complement the identity construction they achieve through speech, clothing, or hair style. (...) Our research suggests that IM conversations serve largely pragmatic information-sharing and social-communication functions rather than providing contexts for establishing or maintaining group identity. Moreover, college students often eschew brevity. Our data contains few abbreviations or acronyms (...) IM conversations are not always instant. (...) The most important effect of IM on language turns out to be not stylized vocabulary or grammar but the control seasoned users feel they have over their communication networks. (...) Our data suggests that when teenagers transition to college, they naturally shed some of their adolescent linguistic ways in favor of more formal writing conventions

Why do I blog this? analysis of IM, focused on whatever domain (forms, content, social networks...) is amazingly intriguing!

Robotic C-leg for humans

Getting a leg up, thanks to robotic limbs By Michel Marriott The New York Times. An interesting piece about a new trend: incorporating new technologies into the body. It's about Cameron Clapp new robotic legs.

For people who see Cameron Clapp for the first time, he is an object of wonderment: a young man walking tall on shiny robotic legs. (...) Clapp lost both his legs above the knee and his right arm just short of his shoulder after falling onto train tracks almost five years ago near his home in Grover Beach, California. After years of rehabilitation and trying a series of prosthetics, each more technologically sophisticated than the last, he finally found his legs. (...) In the last few years, technology has definitely been on his side, in the form of the C-Leg. Introduced by Otto Bock HealthCare, a German company that makes advanced prosthetics, the C-Leg combines computer technology with hydraulics. It literally does the walking for the walker. Blazing advancements, including lightweight composite materials, keener sensors and tiny programmable microprocessors are restoring remarkable degrees of mobility to amputees. (...) "There is a kind of cyborg consciousness, a fluidity at the boundaries of what is flesh and what is machine, that has happened behind our backs," said Sherry Turkle, director of the Initiative on Technology and Self at the Massachusetts Institute of Technology, who is writing a book on robots and culture. "The notion that your leg is a machine part and it is exposed, that it is an enhancement, is becoming comfortable in the sense that it can be made a part of you."

Why do I blog this? the article is worth reading, it summarizes the crux issues raised by this kind of technology and its impact. Besides, I am wondering when handicapped will do better performance in competition with such devices. Update! regine just pointed me on this article about artificial legs, which is... intriguing: The ethics of amputation by choice "People should be able to have healthy limbs removed by choice, say two Australian philosophers who are exploring the phenomenon of "amputee wannabes".".

When the XML world meets neural network

Wrning, Hardcore post here: I would not bet on it but there is now a connection between XML and neural network. For people not confortable with neural network, it's an artificial intelligence technique that aim to simulate some properties of real neural networks in order to do cognitive modeling (which actually works pretty well for pattern recognition and classification tasks). XML is data formalism. Now let's turn to this: XML-BASED FORMAT FOR TRAINED NEURAL NETWORK DEFINITION by D.V. Rubtsov, S.V. Butakov.

In this work a format for neural network models description is introduced. Its main purpose is to provide a unified way for neural network model definition. Format allows interchanging neural models as well as documentation, store and manipulating them independently from the simulation system that produced it. We propose to use XML notation for full description of neural models, including data dictionary, properties of training sample, preprocessing methods, details of network structure and parameters, method for network output interpretation. The first version of DTD for neural model description language is developed. A model description structure, contents of main issues in XML document and example of software structure for handling files with neural model description are presented.

Roughly speaking, here is a concrete example (it might be not so concrete for those not aware with both concepts): The scary image on the left is described by the XML format and turned into another scary image on the right. Why do I blog this? because this providing a unified description of a neural network is a vers relevant idea. I am interested by this because I do think it's relevant for cognitive science research. Besides, the use of the XML technology (a web tech!) is an intriguing by-product of this project: the underlying presence of the Internet/Web: it's implicitly present in the project: the Internet takes a central part here (which is not obvious with regard to the neural network definition).