2. Cyberwarfare. The U.S. should also unleash cyber capabilities it has steadily built over the last decade. Computer viruses alone can't prevent North Korea from launching nuclear missiles, but they could degrade the Kim regime's ability to conduct research and development, test and control weapons and gather intelligence. Cyberwarfare could also complement economic sanctions by freezing North Korean offshore bank accounts, paralyzing communications and disrupting Chinese companies that continue to trade with Pyongyang.

3. Space weapons. With launch costs falling (thank you SpaceX), and the capabilities of precision-guided munitions improving, the U.S.could rush the development of a space-based anti-missile system. Though still on the drawing board, space weapons will someday be able to target intercontinental ballistic missiles during their initial boost phase, when the large plume of their engines makes them easiest to detect and their slow upward ascent makes them most vulnerable.

Using advanced technology should appeal to a commander in chief who rails against the "waste" of American blood and treasure expended abroad and at the same time deplores "the very sad depletion of our military." "Fire and fury" and "America first" mesh poorly, unless technology is employed to resolve the paradox.

The potential is clear. In the Kosovo air war, the U.S. Air Force dropped graphite bombs to disable the Serbian electrical grid; in the Iraq invasion, allied air power crippled Saddam Hussein's military and civilian transportation network. New technologies can create those pressures and more with far greater effect, less permanent damage and less risk to troops. They can be deployed quickly and precisely in a crisis, and they provide strategic deterrence as well.

The main obstacle to deploying such weapons will be hearts and minds in the West. There are already calls to ban new weapons because they are destabilizing. United Nations officials, for example, attacked President Barack Obama's drone campaign because it made war too easy to wage. Elon Musk, founder of SpaceX, recently called artificial intelligence "the greatest risk we face as a civilization" and predicted that it could trigger wars. These critics fear a new technology arms race that will encourage the promiscuous use of these weapons.

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3 US technology solutions to war with North Korea - Dallas News

A few years ago when I wrote about technology of benefit to elders, there was limited interest and adoption by much of the older adult population.

Take, for example, the smartphone. According to the Pew Research Center, four in 10 seniors own smartphones, which is more than double the number of users than in 2013. In these past few years, more elders have been going online with an estimated 67 percent of adults over 65, plus adults regularly logging on. Younger seniors are also using social media with increased frequency. Social media platforms such as Facebook and Skype are very effective in helping to stay in touch with both local and

Younger seniors are also using social media with increased frequency. Social media platforms such as Facebook and Skype are very effective in helping to stay in touch with both local and long-distance friends and family and provide many with the opportunity to reconnect with old acquaintances. This can be very beneficial in helping many to feel less isolated. As elders continue to embrace this new world, technology companies are focusing much of their energies toward addressing interests and preferences of this population.

When conducting a very informal Internet search on technology and older adults, I was presented with pages of results. Furthermore, as reported in Tech Crunch (a leading technology website) when the App Store debuted in 2008, it grew to 5,000 apps by the end of its first year, and that growth has continued to be explosive ever since. By the end of 2015, it reached 1.75 million apps, and today hosts 2 million apps worldwide.

One particular area that seems to be of great interest is the technology focused on helping older adults who may be experiencing some memory challenges. There are now, for example, a number of smart pill boxes and apps to help remind people about their medication regimen. This might include visual and auditory reminders. This supportive assistance extends beyond the user and can be programmed to alert a family member if a loved one may have forgotten to take prescribed medication. There are now activity sensors that can be placed around the home to provide a family member a snapshot of a loved ones daily routine. Should something seem off such as a suspected fall, or little activity in the home emergency contacts will be alerted. Although likely somewhat intrusive for the elder, there are now indoor video cameras that enable a loved ones activity to be monitored on a family member or caregivers smartphone.

A recent online posting from the website Aging in Place Technology Watch highlighted some exciting new innovations. As seen in a recent episode of the television series Saturday Night Live, voice activated technologies can function as a virtual assistant. Among countless other applications, these devices can adjust the thermostat, help to stay informed about current events, provide weather reports, answer questions, create personalized music play lists, and provide reminders of upcoming appointments. It is not too far in the future that these devices will become more interactive with additional capabilities directed toward keeping elders engaged and self-reliant.

Please feel free to email me if you would like additional information on this topic. It is important to note that if there is an understanding that an elder requires supportive assistance, even the most sophisticated technology cannot take the place of a human caregiver.

Marci Vandersluis is a licensed social worker and has a masters degree in gerontology. She is employed as a care manager assisting older adults in the community connect with needed services. Email: marcirobinvandersluis@gmail.com.

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A few things that may surprise you about seniors and technology - Dayton Daily News

MOUNTAIN VIEW, CALIF.

Its still fresh in my mind, the scene of female genital mutilation, said Purity Achieng, a 17-year-old from Kenya.

Achieng was speaking on stage in the finals of the Technovation Challenge World Pitch Summit, a competition that invites girls from around the world to come up with tech solutions to local community problems. Since it began in 2009, 15,000 girls from more than 100 countries have participated in the competition.

Achieng and her team of four other Kenyan teen girls call themselves The Restorers. They are taking on Female Genital Mutilation or FGM. They have created an app, called i-Cut, which connects girls at risk of FGM with rescue agents and offers support for those who have already been cut. It also provides information for anyone seeking to learn more about the practice.

The pain of having your clitoris cut just because someone wants to have you go through a rite of passage, said Achieng, during her pitch at the competition. Its painful and no one wants to listen to you. You cry and there you are, almost dying but nobody is caring about that.

At least 200 million girls and women have undergone female genital mutilation or FGM in 30 countries, reports UNICEF.And 44 million are girls 14 and younger. The practice involves cutting out all or part of a womans clitoris, which is said to eliminate almost completely a womans sexual pleasure, in hopes of ensuring her virginity and keeping her faithful in marriage.

The Kenyan girls in this competition have not experienced FGM firsthand, as their tribe does not practice it, but they have friends who have. One of Achiengs best friends was forced to drop out of school and into an early marriage at 15 after FGM, which greatly affected Achieng.

I think for teenagers to be able to identify problems around them and provide a solution, that is really, really inspiring, said Dorcas Owinoh, the teams mentor, who works as a community manager at LakeHub, a technology innovation hub in Kisumu, Kenya. It was Owinoh who brought the idea of the Technovation Challenge to the team.

Achieng said it was her friend dropping out of school after FGM that inspired the team to create the app.

Other teams in the international event came from Armenia, Kazakhstan, Canada, Cambodia, the U.S. and other countries. The Restorers were the only team who qualified from the African continent.

Its always better when the people who face the problems, come up with their own solutions because theyre the most organic, said Tara Chklovski, founder and CEO or Iridescent, the nonprofit behind Technovation.

Though the i-Cut app has the potential to save lives, it has not been embraced by all Kenyans.

One village elder drove six hours to their school to protest the app because, according to him, thats an African culture and the girls are being, according to him, Westernized, Owinoh said.

The man had learned of the app after local media reported of the girls acceptance into Technovation. Owinoh said school leaders and teachers remained calm, spoke with him, and then asked him to leave.

Technovation comes at a time when women in tech are facing blowback, not just in Kenya, but even at the Google headquarters where the competition was held.A Google employee was recently fired after writing a memo positing that women are biologically inferior to men in regards to working in technology.

I know the journey wont always be easy but to the girls who dream of being an engineer or an entrepreneur and who dream of creating amazing things, I want you to know that theres a place for you in this industry, theres a place for you at Googledont let anyone tell you otherwise, Google CEO Sundar Pichai told the girls.

The Restorers did not win the Technovation Challenge, but they will continue their fight against FGM and hope to get i-Cut into the Google Play Store soon.

Read the rest here:

Kenyan Girls Use Technology to Combat Genital Cutting - Voice of America

Monday, Aug. 21, a total solar eclipse will occur. It will be visible across North America.

Monday, Aug. 21, a total solar eclipse will occur. It will be visible across North America.

Living With Technology / Watching the Solar Eclipse on Monday Aug. 21

On Monday, Aug. 21, a total solar eclipse will occur. It will be visible across North America.

A solar eclipse is when the moon is between the Earth and the Sun and the moon obscures all or part of the sun. Total solar eclipses dont happen very often and for one to cover a large swath of North America is pretty exciting.

For the best viewing, one should be in the path of totality, which generally runs diagonally from Oregon to South Carolina. Two good sites for information about the eclipse are: https://eclipse2017.nasa.gov/ and http://www.eclipse2017.org.

During a total eclipse, which generally lasts about 7 minutes, as the moon comes between the Earth and the Sun, the skies get dark, animals can get restless and people generally have a lot of fun.

Here in Westport, the partial eclipse will start at 1:24 p.m., maximum eclipse (approximately 70 percent obscured) will be at 2:45 p.m. and the eclipse will end at 4 p.m.

For astronomers, its an opportunity to look at the area near the sun that is not normally visible because of the bright light of the sun. In fact, total eclipses have been used to confirm Einsteins theories about gravity (of which the sun has a LOT) and its ability to bend light.

If you cant get to the path of totality, you can still see it through many community organizers including astronomy clubs, libraries, museums, schools and more.

Viewing the eclipse is a different story. Whatever you do, DONT LOOK DIRECTLY AT THE ECLIPSE! There are a number of different goggles and glasses that people are providing that claim to give you the ability to watch an eclipse directly. I do NOT recommend using ANY of them.

The sun gives off lots of light (visible and invisible) that is not good for eyes. Between the basic brightness of the sun, infrared, ultra violet and other light, its very difficult to filter it to a safe level.

To view an eclipse safely, I recommend that people use a telescope that can project an image onto a piece of paper or some other surface so that the eclipse can be viewed indirectly. If someone wants to point a video camera or other device at the sun and let you watch it on a screen, thats OK, too, although it may damage the cameras image sensor.

NASA provides a video for people to make their own safe eclipse viewer out of a cereal box. You can watch the video here: https://eclipse2017.nasa.gov/how-make-pinhole-projector-view-solar-eclipse

Find a location that has a good viewing support from professionals who are astronomers or other scientists. Be sure to have your family and friends experience one of the great astronomical phenomenon right here on Earth.

Mark Mathias is a 35+ year information technology executive and a resident of Westport, Connecticut. His columns can be read at blog.mathias.org. He can be contacted at livingwithtechnology@

mathias.org.

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Living With Technology / Watching the Solar Eclipse on Monday Aug. 21 - Newcanaannewsonline

Chris Hughes of Facebook: briefly publisher of New Republic magazine. Photograph: Jason Gardner/New Republic

Where might James Graham find another journalism drama to rival Ink, his triumphant Birth of the Bun saga this time maybe on Broadway? Easy. He could call Franklin Foer, whose emerging chronicle of his second, and last, stint as editor of the New Republic sums up the profound clash of attitudes to the news trade in wincingly human terms. A play for two characters.

The New Republic (founded 1914) is one of those great American magazines of liberal opinion that stagger perpetually between boom and bust. Five years ago, it was on the market again, bust fears back. Enter Chris Hughes, a 28-year-old from the Facebook engine room, Harvard roommate of Mark Zuckerberg, a young man high on ambition and altruism, his millions of dollars already banked.

When I first heard the New Republic was for sale, he says, I went to the New York Public Library and began to read. Issues of the magazine stretching back, writers like Rebecca West, Virginia Woolf, Edmund Wilson and James Wood: the fascination to own all this was overwhelming.

So Foer, a decade older and wiser, becomes editor once more. He aims for the stars while Hughes tutors him in the use of Upworthy (for virality) and Chartbeat (for maximising clicks). Theres a data guru installed in the newsroom soon enough, charged with maximising reach. This is a new/old Republic, except that the old propensity for losing money remains constant and eventually the young master of the universe insists something, something big, must be done. To save the magazine, we need to change the magazine, he tells Foer. Engineers and marketers are going to begin playing a central role in the editorial process.

They would give its journalism the cool, innovative features that would help it stand out in the marketplace, a vexed Foer writes. Of course, this required money, and that money would come from the budget that funded long-form journalism. We were now a technology company.

This from Foers account of his second editorship in the Atlantic magazine and a forthcoming book is a contested assertion: Hughes says he never made that precise technology divide. But nor can he be happy about what swiftly happened afterwards: the forced exit of Foer, the resignation in protest of many of the staff, the sale of the poor old Republic yet again.

You can feel twinges of sympathy for the protagonists. Both had good intentions, but hugely different preconceptions. Yet three conclusions from Foer stand clear of such complexity.

One significant because he felt it early on, before the rest of the media world began to catch up is stark, and now commonplace.

Foers second conclusion is equally bleak.

And then theres the big picture.

In some ways, these criticisms are merely the culmination of rising apprehension over the years. Journalists have been used to promoting good tales for themselves and for inserting stories they consider serious into the mix. Chartbeat, parse.ly and the rest seem poised to take that choice out of their hands. Upworthy tests dozens of headline pitches for them. Reporters want their copy to be read, to be sure. But they dont like to think of themselves as robots especially when, as we see, the clicks fail to deliver advertising riches.

And beyond that, peering into the mists from atop Trump Tower, theres a fundamental change of focus. Of course the Donald revolutionises ratings: observe what he has done for MSNBC or the New York Times. Hes a malign saviour. Every fresh outrage last week the Nazis and the banishing of Bannon is click heaven. But where is there any sense of balance in this particular mix?

There are stories with viral appeal. Take a bow, Cecil. But some continuing stories over years, never mind minutes produce only indifference. Polling, for instance, rates Northern Irelands border as a Brexit problem far inferior to others in national opinion; just as the twists and turns of the Troubles failed to sell papers long ago. Yet how are we supposed to live in a country that closes its mind to issues that viscerally engage its citizens?

Theres a real conflict here, a choice of democracy good or bad. James Grahams Ink sees Hugh Cudlipps earnestly educational Mirror pitched in battle against Rupert Murdochs determinedly entertaining Sun. Now see the same battle, with a walk-on part for Virginia Woolf, waged in tomorrows world. Not as a struggle between good and evil, but one where Silicon Valley seeks, with benign incomprehension, to write the programs and push the vital buttons that take control of our information and imagination.

Originally posted here:

Technology and the New Republic just never seemed to click - The Guardian

What if the internet isnt just a resource, but actually an extension of mind? A cognitive brain enhancement tool that is transforming the way humans think?

Some experts eagerly pursue that notion, while others believe that technology is dumbing us down, making us lazy and incapable of thinking for ourselves.

According to the Marist Poll,49 percent of Americans think technology makes people dumber, while 46 percent say it makes people smarter. So were about an even split on this topic.

We have immediate access to knowledge and to each other, making us more productive now than ever before. But are we getting any smarter as a result?

Experts disagree, and so do the intelligence test results. While non-verbal IQ tests results are rising, Verbal IQ, the Flynn Effect and others are decreasing.

There are varying opinions as to why this is happening. Some believe that humans have reached their genetic potential and are now on the decline. Others believe its because we let technology do the thinking for us. Still others say its just plain laziness.

To further complicate the issue, consider the many types of intelligence. Theres social intelligence, emotional intelligence, problem solving, spatial relations, language, musical, kinesthetic, existential, mathematical, logical and all of them contain both learned and unlearned aspects.

But theres another type of intelligence. When were not connected to a device, were more intellectually vulnerable. Without online access, even a connected 7-year-old could outsmart us.Thats one aspect of whats called Fluid Intelligence.

Lets be honest. When you need a good map, suggestions for hurricane survival, investment advice, cancer research results, what do you do? If youre like most people, youre tap-tap-tapping away on a device, looking for answers. Is it because the device itself is smarter? Of course not. But some say,yes it is.

Weve stopped memorizing, stopped calculating, and there is less concrete info stored in the noggin. Thats a form of Crystallized Intelligence."

So obviously, this a loaded question. There are a lot of moving parts, and I cant possibly tackle them in one article. But I can give you some food for thought.

At the heart of it, the real question is not whether technology is dumbing us down, but whether were allowing technology to think for us.

I dont mean research,I mean actually think. Make decisions. Think critically. Develop ideas. Define our imagination. Are we relying on tech to perform these things which used to define us as uniquely human?

In my podcast Is Technology Dumbing Us Down we unpack this question with four leading experts in the fields of Critical Thinking, Analytical Instrument Manufacturing, Strategic Studies, Psychology, Education, Mathematics, Theology, Engineering and more. You can listen to this podcast by pressing play below.

The opinions of these experts vary. Educators remark that in research, many college students allow technology to think for them, tailoring their conclusions to align with the professors political and social beliefs. They believe that dependence on technology changes the way people value intellectualism.

Science fiction author Isaac Asimov brought this to light when he said, "There is a cult of ignorance in the United States, and there has always been. The strain of anti-intellectualism has been a constant thread winding its way through our political and cultural life, nurtured by the false notion that democracy means that my ignorance is just as good as your knowledge."

John Donvan, a four time Emmy Award winner, is a longtime moderator of the Intelligence Squared U.S. Debates and former White House correspondent for ABC News. He hasnt noticed a shift in critical thinking among debaters, whether due to technology or otherwise. People present good debates and bad debates. They use emotionalism, but in the end, truth and a well-presented argument always triumphs.

Journalist Charles Pierce, author ofIdiot America,explained: The rise of idiot America today represents--for profit mainly, but also and more cynically, for political advantage in the pursuit of power--the breakdown of a consensus that the pursuit of knowledge is a good. In the new media age, everybody is an expert.

Therein lies the danger. Online, everybody is an expert. How can you know whats true? Here on Komando.com, it has always been my mission to help you use technology safely and effectively. With that said, if you dont want to be dumbed down by technology - if you dont want to go soft in the brain or get lazy - its up to you to do the work. When youre researching something online, be sure to consider all sides with a mind willing to reason, analyze and above all, think critically.

Nearly all the tools you need to learn are on the web. Never before have we had access to so much information, and yet at the same time, scholastic test results are not impressive. So, obviously, this article is just the tip of the iceberg. Hopefully it will spark some juicy discussions in your neck of the woods.

If you want to hear more, be sure to download the podcast. Listen to what the experts have to say. Its thought provoking and informative - a good use of your brain and your time!

Solar Eclipse 2017: Expert tips and everything you need to know beyond the dark

Back from the dead - Hollywood spends major cash to resurrect entertainers for movies and concerts

The billion dollar podcast - Success secrets from today's top tech innovators

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Tech takeover Is technology stealing our ability to think critically? - Komando

Posted: Aug. 20, 2017 12:01 am

SPARTA -- Environmental and safety training provider Lion Technology Inc. is celebrating 40 years in business.

Founded in 1977 by chemical industry specialist and entrepreneur William P. Taggart, Lion develops and delivers training programs that prepare professionals to maintain compliance with complex regulations for managing hazardous waste, shipping hazardous materials, OSHA workplace safety, and more.

Taggart's vision and passion led Lion from its origins as a one-man operation to being one of the nation's most trusted sources for effective compliance training. Today, Lion presents more than 250 training workshops in more than 60 U.S. cities. Lion also offers online training and live, instructor-led webinars. More than 100,000 environmental professionals in the manufacturing, chemical, aerospace, defense, and other industries have trusted Lion Technology provide effective, engaging training.

In 2016, Lion cut the ribbon on a new Environmental Training Center in Sparta, where training classes are already quickly selling out. For managers and personnel who perform hazardous substance cleanup work at New Jersey's many Superfund sites, Lion will present eight-hour OSHA HAZWOPER Refresher Workshops on Aug. 23 and Oct. 25. More information is available at Lion.com/HAZWOPER.

An active member of the northern New Jersey community, Lion Technology contributes and participates in charity events to benefit the Manna House, Family Promise, Sussex County Food Pantry, Father John's Animal House, Project Self-Sufficiency, Karen Ann Quinlan Hospice and many more local and national organizations.

More information about the company can be found at http://www.Lion.com. A full list of training available at the new Sparta Training Center is available at Lion.com/Sparta.

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Sparta-based training leader Lion Technology marks 40 years - New Jersey Herald

Today, Facebook is a dominant social networkthats not enough for CEO Mark Zuckerberg. He wants to help us see things that arent there.

Facebook is working on designing augmented reality glasses that could display digital objects in the physical world, according to a patent application filed Aug. 17. Zuckerberg had previously shown photos of similar glasses, saying that they would be the future of augmented reality, but he didnt reveal that Facebook was developing such a product. If the company creates its own AR hardware, it would have its own Apple-like computing platform, marrying both hardware and software.

Zuckerberg has been particularly vocal about stating that augmented reality will be the next big consumer tech platform after smartphones. Think about how many of the things you use [that] dont actually need to be physical, Zuckerberg told Recode earlier this year. You want to play a board game? You snap your fingers, and heres the board game.

The application for a waveguide display with two-dimensional scanner details a pair of glasses with transparent displays for lenses. Light would flow into the displays, which would distribute the light and refract it into a users eyes. Its unclear whether the image displayed would also be visible to those looking at the glasses.

The waveguide display may be included in an eye-wear comprising a frame and a display assembly that presents media to a users eyes, the patent application says.

This technology is being developed at Oculus, the virtual reality company Facebook acquired in 2014. One of the patents authors, a lead optical scientist at Oculus, previously helped build the optical system for Microsofts HoloLens, as noted by Business Insider. An executive at Oculus says the technology wont really be viable until 2022.

The field for developing augmented devices is growing, but the technology is tricky. Microsofts HoloLens is the first available, but its aimed mainly at academia, developers, and a handful of professional uses that Microsoft has touted. Apple and Magic Leap (partially funded by Google) reportedly are working on similar technologies.

View post:

Facebook (FB) is locking down the technology for its smart ... - Quartz - Quartz

Humanity has a method for trying to prevent new technologies from getting out of hand: explore the possible negative consequences, involving all parties affected, and come to some agreement on ways to mitigate them. New research, though, suggests that the accelerating pace of change could soon render this approach ineffective.

People use laws, social norms and international agreements to reap the benefits of technology while minimizing undesirable things like environmental damage. In aiming to find such rules of behavior, we often take inspiration from what game theorists call a Nash equilibrium, named after the mathematician and economist John Nash. In game theory, a Nash equilibrium is a set of strategies that, once discovered by a set of players, provides a stable fixed point at which no one has an incentive to depart from their current strategy.

To reach such an equilibrium, the players need to understand the consequences of their own and others potential actions. During the Cold War, for example, peace among nuclear powers depended on the understanding the any attack would ensure everyones destruction. Similarly, from local regulations to international law, negotiations can be seen as a gradual exploration of all possible moves to find a stable framework of rules acceptable to everyone, and giving no one an incentive to cheat because doing so would leave them worse off.

But what if technology becomes so complex and starts evolving so rapidly that humans cant imagine the consequences of some new action? This is the question that a pair of scientists Dimitri Kusnezov of the National Nuclear Security Administration and Wendell Jones, recently retired from Sandia National Labs explore in a recent paper. Their unsettling conclusion: The concept of strategic equilibrium as an organizing principle may be nearly obsolete.

Kusnezov and Jones derive insight from recent mathematical studies of games with many players and many possible choices of action. One basic finding is a sharp division into two types, stable and unstable. Below a certain level of complexity, the Nash equilibrium is useful in describing the likely outcomes. Beyond that lies a chaotic zone where players never manage to find stable and reliable strategies, but cope only by perpetually shifting their behaviors in a highly irregular way. What happens is essentially random and unpredictable.

The authors argue that emerging technologies especially computing, software and biotechnology such as gene editing are much more likely to fall into the unstable category. In these areas, disruptions are becoming bigger and more frequent as costs fall and sharing platforms enable open innovation. Hence, such technologies will evolve faster than regulatory frameworks at least as traditionally conceived can respond.

What can we do? Kusnezov and Jones dont have an easy answer. One clear implication is that its probably a mistake to copy techniques used for the more slowly evolving and less widely available technologies of the past. This is often the default approach, as illustrated by proposals to regulate gene editing techniques. Such efforts are probably doomed in a world where technologies develop thanks to the parallel efforts of a global population with diverse aims and interests. Perhaps future regulation will itself have to rely on emerging technologies, as some are already exploring for finance.

We may be approaching a profound moment in history, when the guiding idea of strategic equilibrium on which weve relied for 75 years will run up against its limits. If so, regulation will become an entirely different game.

Mark Buchanan, a physicist and science writer, is the author of the book Forecast: What Physics, Meteorology and the Natural Sciences Can Teach Us About Economics. He wrote thisfor Bloomberg View.

Originally posted here:

Could technology be getting out of control? - Newsday

Imagine walking into your bank and telling the cashier you wanted to open a savings account.

Youd expect to be offered a small choice of terms and rates and you probably would not expect any of those rates to be absolutely best in class.

What you would not expect is to be offered an enormous swathe of savings options including many accounts from other financial institutions. A Dutch bank, or a Swedish one? Yes, these lenders want your sterling savings too, it seems, and in the near future you may be able to save with them and get some exceptional rates via accounts operated by your own, existing banks.

Welcome to open banking something that sounds like technology jargon but which, whatever words you use, is real and revolutionary. And about to arrive in Britain.

I confidently predict it will change the way we save cash, and very quickly.

The British love cash. There is an inherent...

The rest is here:

How technology is about to transform the way we save cash forever - Telegraph.co.uk

Your DNA is some of the most intimate information out thereencoded in it is information about your health, your personality, your family history. Its not hard to imagine how such sensitive details could be damaging should they fall into the wrong hands. And yet, the privacy practices of the people and programs handling that information isnt exactly up to snuff.

Researchers at Stanford, though, say they may have a fix for the lagging privacy protocols putting anyone whos ever done a DNA test at risk of indecent exposure. In a study published Friday in Science, researchers say that they have developed a genome cloaking technique that makes it possible to study the human genome for the presence of disease-associated genes without revealing genetic information not directly associated with the information being sought.

The hope, they wrote, is to lessen the concerns of genomic privacy violations and genetic discrimination that taint DNA testing.

Applying the principals of cryptography to human biology, researchers were able to correctly identify gene mutations in groups of patients responsible for causing four different rare diseases, as well as the likely cause of a genetic disease in a baby by comparing his DNA to his parents. They could also determine which out of hundreds of patients shared gene mutations. In doing all this, though, they also managed to keep 97 percent or more of the participants unique genetic information completely hidden from anyone other than the owners of the DNA.

To do this, they had each participant encrypt their genome using a simple algorithm on their computer or smart phone. The encrypted information was then uploaded into the cloud, and the researchers used a secure, multi-party computation to analyze it, revealing only the genetic information important to the investigation. They were able to do so within a matter of minutes.

In 2008, Congress passed the Genetic Information and Nondiscrimination Act, but both loopholes in the law and multipleCongressional actions threaten to erode protections that already exist, making people wary of the consequences of genetic testing. The protections of GINA, for example, do not apply to life insurance, long-term care, or disability insurance, meaning those companies are free to ask for genetic information and reject people deemed too risky. Some scientists have said that fears of genetic discrimination could impact the health of patients, if they refuse testing that could help doctors treat them, and could stymy medical research if patients wary of testing opt not to participate in studies.

Ultimately, we will have to strike a balance: A way to share the secrets of our biology with doctors and scientists, while also protecting our privacy.

Continued here:

Encryption Technology Could Protect the Privacy of Your DNA - Gizmodo

Jeff Francis August 19, 2017 10:30 am

Blockchain technology has proven itself to be invaluable for many different applications and now the Pentagon is looking at using blockchain technology to vastly bolster national security.

Theres no denying the fervent interest generated by blockchain technology. The primary focus of blockchain for many people is in cryptocurrency, such as Bitcoin. However, an unlikely player is looking at this fascinating innovation: the Pentagon.

The Washington Times is reporting that the US military is looking into applications of blockchain technology to help heighten security across multiple arenas, such as fending off mega-hacks, tampering, and the hijacking of vehicles and satellites through cyber attacks. This focus on blockchain by the Pentagon has been strengthened as they see an increased threat due to Chinese intelligence services targeting commercial transactions.

Stop asking if any governments ARE looking at #blockchain. Start asking if any governments AREN'T (if not quietly): fewer responses to that.

Justin Doc Herman (@JustinHerman) August 16, 2017

The very nature of blockchain is leading to it being adapted for many different uses. The fact that blockchain is a decentralized ledger that is essentially tamper-proof has led many institutions, companies, and countries to use the database technology for their own specific needs.

Just last year, Estonia awarded Guardtime a contract to secure all of the countrys one million health records by using blockchain technology. The overall goal is to create a permanent record that will also eliminate fraud from the medical marketplace.

A consortium of 47 Japanese banks is using this distributed ledger technology to allow real-time domestic and international payments at a lower cost than before. Japan is also is in the trial phase of moving their entire property registry to a blockchain-based system.

Now the Pentagon is seriously working on how to use blockchain for their own specific purposes. Military analysts love that blockchain has such incredible security as any changes made to the database are sent out to all users, which means that the database as a whole will stay secure even if some of the users are hacked. NATO (of which the USA is a part of) launched the Innovation Challenge last year and asked participants to submit blockchain proposals for military logistics, procurement, and finance.

As for the Pentagon and U.S. military, the Defense Advanced Research Projects Agency (DARPA) are looking to use blockchain as a secure messaging service that could even be used on the battlefield. DARPA writes:

If significant portions of the [Defense Department] back-office infrastructure can be decentralized, smart documents and contracts can be instantly and securely sent and received, thereby reducing exposure to hackers and reducing needless delays in DoD back-office correspondence.

Of course, the use of blockchain has many more possibilities for the Pentagon. DARPA could use blockchain to help develop an unhackable code, and a recent memo by the Foundation for Defense of Democracies goes into some detail on how blockchain can help protect the countrys national security industrial base (NSIB) from dangers posed by enemy networks that seek to harm the U.S. through the globalization of manufacturing supply chains.

Its fascinating to see how widely blockchain technology can be used. Its inherent security is a perfect fit for the military, and one wonders if well eventually see the Pentagon paying people in Bitcoin.

Do you think the Pentagon is wise to look at how to use blockchain technology to help increase national security? Let us know in the comments below.

Images courtesy of Wikimedia Commons, PCMag.com

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Pentagon Looking to Draft Blockchain Technology for Security Purposes - Bitcoinist

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Goodyear names new chief technology officer - Akron Beacon Journal

Before Arizona could be recognized as a leader in blockchain technology legislation there was one major challenge helping lawmakers get your head around exactly what the technology is.

It was very difficult, you know, trying to explain to people, said Arizona State Rep. Jeff Weninger, R-Chandler. You never want to vote for something that you dont fully understand and this is, to say the least, a tough thing to get your head around.

Weninger sponsored a bill that makes Arizona one of a handful of states to accept electronic signatures on contracts, a law that is made possible through the use of blockchain.

Blockchain is best known as the technology behind bitcoin, the system that lets people use digital currency in place of standard government-issued money. The technology was created in 2009 as a decentralized, replicated, peer-to-peer review network to serve as a public ledger for bitcoin but quickly found other uses in online data verification and the transfer of value.

Weninger called his bill a little stab at getting acceptance and understanding of the new and often misunderstood technology that backers say could ultimately lead to more-secure voting, money handling, identification and more.

Lawmakers have called the new technology bulletproof, saying that it adds a level of trust in the management of records and identity management, among other applications.

One such application is the electronic signature law passed by Arizona. Using blockchain, an encoded, or smart, contract allows the technology to act as a witness to an agreement, validating, overseeing and imposing terms of the contract with no need of a middleman or third-party organization.

In March, Gov. Doug Ducey signed Weningers bill, HB 2417, to recognize signatures and smart contracts secured though blockchain as valid forms of contracts.

Ducey said the smart-contract bill shows Arizona to be a state thats really leading the way in embracing and recognizing these new technologies, said Patrick Ptak, a spokesman for the governor.

Blockchain technology is new and emerging, Ptak said. It kind of started out as an application for Bitcoin but now industries across the spectrum are seeing new applications for it from finance to healthcare to law and its something that we think has a lot of potential. I think that were just barely tapping its potential uses and applications.

Blockchain works by recording transactions whether they be digital currencies, smart contracts or something like an electronic vote as blocks of data, with each updated added to the others chronologically hence a blockchain.

This encryption algorithm of blockchain has been called un-hackable due to the nature in which it distributes information to multiple parties creating a shared database. Because blockchain is decentralized, there is no one central computer that can be hacked. If one computer were to be hacked, every other computer running that database would cry foul.

What makes blockchain appealing is that it allows a standard for trust for online transactions, or a starting point for untrusted parties to carry out transactions without a normal intermediary such as a bank.

In Arizona, lawmakers are looking forward to numerous possibilities that a future with this technology could provide.

It (blockchain) adds a level of trust for a citizen to know that their data is being properly managed, but also having access to knowing who and for what purposes their data is being looked at, said Tommy Leander, a legislative assistant for Rep. David Schweikert, R- Fountain Hills.

Schweikert in February helped launch the Congressional Blockchain Caucus, saying it is critical for members of Congress to begin comprehending both their current applications and future use cases. Weninger also credits Schweikert with inspiring the smart contract bill.

Weninger, who said he shared YouTube videos of TED Talks with fellow lawmakers in an effort to help them understand blockchain, said that despite the confusion his colleagues were eager to be at the forefront of this technology.

Democrats and Republicans like being at the tip of the spear of new technologies and new ways of doing things, he said.

Weninger added that besides business applications, he hopes to see more government applications of blockchain in the future.

I think the technology will get better, I think the proof of concept will get better and here in Arizona well keep expanding, he said

As one of a half-dozen states to embrace blockchain legislation, Arizona hopes to see new companies come to the state, Ptak says.

Arizona, in general, has been a national leader in being the first to recognize and embrace these technologies and youre seeing the result in that a lot of tech companies are now coming to Arizona and coming to the Phoenix area, Ptak said.

Cronkite News reporter Joe Gilmore contributed to this report.

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Arizona edges to front of states eyeing blockchain technology - Arizona Daily Star

A group of high-tech business owners joined Montana Sen. Jon Tester on Thursday at the Bozeman Public Library to discuss how the state could continue to attract and retain high-paying jobs for the state.

The forum, Tester said, was to hear from the technology community about issues important to them. The senator sat alongside a panel of four business owners in the Gallatin County area and heard from each of them before taking questions from the audience.

To the folks out there doing, I want to say thank you, he said.

The panel included Stan Abel, chief executive officer of SiteOne Therapeutics; Bill Stoddard, founder of NorthFork Financial; Pat LaPointe, managing director for Frontier Angels; and Ali Knapp, president at Wisetail. The four presented what their companies do and offered their suggestions on improving the business climate to the senator.

Traditional tech-hubs like San Francisco, San Diego and Cambridge, Massachusetts, are getting crowded and extremely expensive, Abel said. The time to try to attract more businesses in Montana is ideal, he said.

All our competitor states are recognizing this opportunity that there are people that want to get out of those major tech-hubs, Abel said. South Dakota, North Dakota, Utah, Texas, Nevada I mean, theyre all offering aggressive incentives to leave those states and put their business there.

Knapp said the state should extend STEM science, technology, engineering and mathematic programs across the state to rural areas. Montana is really great at having the programs in Bozeman and Missoula, she said, but in rural areas these programs are lacking or dont exist.

She also said that public lands were a big recruiting tool for companies and should be protected.

This has been a huge advantage for us, and its something that we just need to keep in mind to continue recruiting methods, she said.

Other suggestions included upgrading infrastructure, providing more opportunities to seek start-up funding, mental health services in rural areas and bridging the gap to rural parts of the state.

Lance Trebesch, CEO of Ticket River in Harlowton, said that rural Montana is in decline. The company is the biggest employer in its county and aims to employ people from Harlowton, he said.

But its tough, Trebesch said. And its tough because the education. The schools in these rural places, and you know this very well, are not getting enough funding.

Tester praised Trebesch for establishing a business in a rural area like his hometown. He acknowledge that rural school systems need to have better opportunities for kids.

Its a fundamental building block for economic development, Tester said. If you dont have a good K-12 system, no families are going to move there.

The discussion was centered on improving the business climate in the state, but the senator also took the opportunity to talk about the opioid problem in the state. Tester directed his attention to Abel and the companys pursuit of non-opioid and non-narcotic pain medication.

The drug and opioid problem is a social catastrophe happening right now, Tester said. The senator asked Abel if there was anything at the federal level that can be done to help speed up a eight-to-10-year process in developing the non-opioid pain medication.

Its going to take all of us to combat this problem, but it will take us some time, Abel said.

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Tester talks technology with local business leaders - The Bozeman Daily Chronicle

You're reading Entrepreneur India, an international franchise of Entrepreneur Media.

Bengaluru-based G7 CR Technologies India headed by CHRISTOPHER RICHARD is among the most prominent small business technology enablers in India. It helps SMEs with free custom application development for their business process automation even as SMEs pay only hosting charges. The company has built over a dozen applications like payment tracking system, leave management system, and recruitment management system. Richard details out more about his vision for SMEs.

From a freelance IT consultant to running G7 CR Technologies, how the transition happened?

I started as a technology consultant for leading brands like Microsoft and Accenture. I was brought in as a technology consultant at G7 InfoTech, part of G7 Group of companies and helped it to become a 700-people company. I took over that company in 2012 and rebranded it to G7 CR Technologies India. The organization has seen a growth of 500 per cent with 100 per cent customer retention. I am also the President of Karnataka Small & Medium Business Owners Association to empower, enable and support SMEs.

What differentiates you from existing software development businesses?

We are the only company globally offering software development for SMEs at no cost. Also the charges for hosting are as low as Rs 2k-6k per month. We manage the entire life cycle of digitalizing an SME, starting with building affordable technology solutions, driving adoption and extending support services. Our earning comes from the incentives paid by cloud service providers. My aim is to bring a disruptive change in the technology industry andoffer innovative technology solutions to every SME.

So how do you derive value for yourself?

Deriving value can be subjective to every business. You can only focus on your growth by extracting maximum from your customer or you can do that by making your growth a part of their growth. We choose latter. We have delivered smart technology solution for over 300+ businesses. Since our earnings are from the cloud incentives, each time our customer acquires a new customer or adds an employee, our revenue grows.

GST has opened up tremendous opportunity for software development. Have you tapped onto it?

Yes, we are working with a handful from the first batch of GST Suvidha Providers (GSP) who have hosted with us. We are engaging with two dozen from the second batch. We work with 270 SMEs who are very small in size whom we bill as low as Rs 600 per month. They might not be on radar of large corporations or GSPs but certainly on ours. We have initiated strategic engagement with GSPs to help these SMEs leverage an economical technology platform.

Any innovative solution you are coming up with?

We have built a revolutionary learning platform called Machine for Learning (M4L) which had over 2,000 active users in 60 days of its launch. It gives you virtual machines of any size with the software required for practice preinstalled on it. A lot of investment and maintenance is required otherwise by engineering colleges and corporate to set up such labs for practical training purposes. The charges for using the platform are on pay-as-you-go basis with only per minute billing. In addition, it can be accessed 24*7 from any location and device. M4L is built to help businesses cut capital expenditure, nullify hardware depreciation and administrative efforts.

(This article was first published in the Augustissue of Entrepreneur Magazine. To subscribe, clickhere)

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This Entrepreneur is Bridging Small Business Technology Gap - Entrepreneur

South Floridas state universities have added faculty, classes, research and technology after receiving millions of bonus dollars from the state.

Students at Florida Atlantic University in Boca Raton can expect more instructors and more summer classes. At Florida International University, there will be increased career services for students, including a free post-graduation career course. The Honors Program will be expanded and more scholarships will be offered to undergraduates as well as medical and law students.

The money comes from the $121 million that the Legislature allocated for a world class faculty and scholar program and to improve the states medical, law and business graduate schools. FAU got $6.6 million; FIU got $16 million.

The schools presidents sent letters to Gov. Rick Scott this week explaining how they were using the funds.

Our administrators, faculty and staff continue to work with passion and focus to find new efficiencies and guide our students toward success, first in their academic experience and later in their chosen career, FAU President John Kelly wrote.

He said new faculty were added to work in areas that are a major focus for FAU, including neuroscience, ocean and environmental science and engineering. That has enabled FAU to add more courses, especially in the summer, where credit hours have increased by 10 percent in recent years.

Kelly said he wants to support efforts to increase student success. In recent years, the university has added more counselors and math tutoring programs, while updating its software to better track how students are doing. The efforts have helped FAU increase its graduation rates from 40 percent to 49 percent in the past three years.

The university also wants to expand research opportunities for students. After Kelly arrived in 2014, he initiated a program where undergraduate students work with faculty to conduct research. He said FAU students have been involved in 4,500 research experiences in the past year. He also wants to provide more stipends for graduate students to conduct research.

FIU is using its $16 million mostly on one-time investments to improve graduation rates and faculty recruitment and retention, President Mark Rosenberg said.

This is a holistic approach to ensuring we graduate our students on time, help them succeed in finding a great job and career path, providing world class graduate and professional school opportunities and recruiting and retaining faculty who are excellent teachers and researchers, Rosenberg said.

The $121 million in statewide funding was included in the $82 billion state budget for 2017-18, but a shadow was cast over the new programs when Scott vetoed a policy bill that would have made more permanent the world-class scholar and graduate-school initiatives.

In a letter to each university last month, Scott urged the schools to spend the funds judiciously and invest this funding in initiatives that will help your students graduate in four years with less debt and the ability to get a great job.

And he noted that although the programs were designed to be in place for subsequent years, funding for the future was uncertain.

The News Service of South Florida contributed to this report.

stravis@sunsentinel.com, 561-243-6637 or Twitter @smtravis

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New money means new faculty and technology at FAU, FIU - Sun Sentinel

More than $2 billion in investment capital was raised for HR technology in 2015. The HR function is inundated with technology options to help automate, secure and streamline internal processes. These advancements encompass everything from benefits, enrollment, compliance, reporting, payroll, wellness, to employee engagement and more.

In 2016, Deloittes Global Human Capital Trends survey found that 75% of respondents believed digital HR support to be a strong priority, yet only 38% of companies are even thinking about digitizing their HR tools and only 9% are fully on board with digital HR systems.

Why? These companies are thinking short term when they need to be evaluating the long-term impact that intuitive software programs could have on their bottom line. Streamlining and automating HR processes reduces cost redundancies and eliminates unnecessary errors by offering an easier way to track, report and maintain important company records.

Another important consideration is the emerging workforce in which millennials will make up about 50% of the U.S. working population by 2020. This cohort has a very different viewpoint on technology and how they interact with it often to improve the efficiency and quality of their lives. If you want the millennial generation to be as engaged and loyal as previous generations have been before them, your company needs to be evolving right alongside the new digitized era of healthcare technology.

Benefits technology and new innovations in healthcare delivery have made it easier for employees to access and interact with their employer-sponsored health programs, allowing for more engagement when it comes to selecting their benefits, practicing preventive care and even saving for the future.

Healthcare tech integration can seem complex, considering the amount of sensitive data that must be distributed to various stakeholders. However, according to a recent Aflac Report on Workforce Open Enrollment, employees are increasingly going online to enroll in their benefits, as opposed to manually filling out paper forms or going through a call center. Additionally, these employees are expected to carry a greater percentage of their healthcare costs, so they expect advanced decision-making tools and online calculators for support in the process of selecting the coverage that best fits their needs.

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ADP, Deloitte and Maestro Health are just a few of the providers offering employers advanced software and service that promise to improve worker engagement and productivity.

The benefit of these HR technology systems doesnt just support employees. They streamline HR tasks and allow managers to take care of multiple jobs at once via a single online platform. And they provide countless opportunities to increase productivity, eliminate common errors, and free up time for HR functions to focus on more important goals such as recruiting and hiring. Data quality can also increase with the use of technology and you can gain greater insight into your employees, rather than trying to guess when they need you and how best to employ your staff to help them.

Key considerations for adopting a new HR platform:

These days even small to mid-size employers must be adopting new, advanced HR technology platforms to keep them compliant and align them with the needs of their employees. Its not enough to take a wait and see approach because that will put any company behind the curve, especially when it comes to recruiting and retaining top talent.

Durkin is director of sales and business development at benefitsContinuum.

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Views Taking action on HR technology - Employee Benefit News (registration)

New camera and image-processing technology promises to change how smartphones and virtual-reality headsets see the world.

Apples AAPL, -0.40% upcoming iPhone 8 is widely expected to have facial-recognition and iris-detection abilities, raising fears that Android phones would fall behind in a key technological area.

Now Qualcomm QCOM, -1.04% the dominant chipset, processor, and wireless connectivity provider for Android-based devices, has released information about an updated set of Spectra image processors that will enable similar capabilities in Android phones, tablets and VR headsets later this year.

How a smartphone senses the physical world impacts the ability to include security features in the device, add realism to gaming and augmented reality, and open up markets for new uses that dont yet exist. This capability comes from depth sensing, an ability for the device to passively or actively locate itself in the physical world while measuring the spaces and items around it.

Depth sensing isnt new to smartphones and tablets, first seeing significant use in Googles GOOG, +0.51% GOOGL, +0.66% Project Tango and Intels INTC, -0.53% RealSense technology. Tango uses a laser-based implementation but requires a bulky lens on the rear of the device. Intel RealSense used a pair of cameras and calculated depth based on parallax mapping between them, just as the human eye works.

Devices like the iPhone 7 Plus and Samsung Galaxy S8 offer faux depth perception for features like portrait photo modes. In reality, they only emulate the ability to sense depth by use different-range camera lenses and dont provide true depth-mapping capability.

The market for depth-sensing capability will grow significantly with the buzz Apple inevitably creates with its new iPhone, and Qualcomm can ride that wave of interest into Android devices from the numerous phone vendors eager to compete, including Samsung 005930, +2.67% HTC 2498, -0.79% and LG Electronics 066570, +0.41%

For consumers, this means more advanced security and advanced features on mobile devices. Face detection that combines the standard camera input along with infrared (IR) depth sensing will allow for incredibly accurate and secure authentication. Qualcomm claims the accuracy level is enough to prevent photos and even 3-D models of faces from unlocking a device thanks to interactions of human skin and eyes with IR light.

It also will be possible to have 3-D reconstruction of physical objects with active depth sensing, allowing gamers to bring real items into virtual worlds. Designers will be able to accurately measure physical spaces that they can look through in full 3-D. Virtual reality and augmented reality will benefit from the increased accuracy of its localization and mapping algorithms, giving systems like Samsung Gear VR and Google Daydream a better sense of where the user is in physical space.

Entry-level phones that today dont have any depth-sensing capability will have integrations that open up new features. Low-cost phones will have the ability to integrate image quality enhancements like blurred bokeh (portrait mode) and basic mixed or augmented reality, previously only available on flagship devices at much higher prices.

The more advanced, and costly, integration for depth sensing uses infrared projects and cameras to more accurately measure spaces. This increased resolution opens up more areas for development and innovation.

Qualcomm is going to accelerate adoption of this higher performance depth sensing technology by offering pre-built and pre-optimized modules that phone vendors can simply chose from a menu of options. This decreases costs and time to market, and should lead to a greater level of adoption than previous next-generation technologies in the Android market.

Though Apple is letting developers build applications and integrations with current hardware, it will likely build its own co-processor to handle the compute workloads that come from active depth sensing to help offset power consumption concerns from using a general-purpose processor.

Early leaks indicate that Apple will focus its face-detection technology on a similar path as Qualcomm: security and convenience. By using depth-based facial recognition for both login and security (as a Touch ID replacement), users will have an alternative to fingerprints. That is good news for a device that is having problems moving to a fingerprint sensor design that uses the entire screen.

Now read: Apple might be a money maker, but its behind the curve on almost all of its products

Ryan Shrout is the founder and lead analyst at Shrout Research, and the owner of PC Perspective. Follow him on Twitter @ryanshrout.

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Opinion: This technology shift opens up new possibilities for iPhones, Androids and virtual reality - MarketWatch

Photo: Elizabeth Conley, Staff

The Night Shift feature in Apple's iOS operating system for iPhones and iPads filters out the display's blue light during hours the user specifies. The company says this can lead to better sleep.

The Night Shift feature in Apple's iOS operating system for iPhones and iPads filters out the display's blue light during hours the user specifies. The company says this can lead to better sleep.

The glow of technology has a dark side

The reason your smartphone, laptop, flat screen or any manner of electronic gadgetry keeps you up nights may not be what you think.

Obsessive surfing, scrolling and binge watching doesn't help. But the larger culprit is the bright blue glow cutting through the darkness and tricking the brain into thinking it is daytime, scientists have figured out in recent years.

Just how much all this personal technology messes with sleep was a question a team of University of Houston researchers set out two years ago to find out.

"We believed that blocking blue light would improve sleep quality and duration" said Lisa Ostrin, lead researcher and an assistant professor at the UH College of Optometry.

They weren't prepared for the magnitude of their finding.

Just by slapping on a pair of cheap orange sunglasses a few hours before bedtime while still using their regular devices, study participants' melatonin levels shot up by 58 percent. Melatonin is the hormone released by the pineal gland in the brain that signals it's time to sleep.

In addition, by simply shifting the visual hue from blue to orange (think sunset) the group reported drifting off earlier and more easily, plus staying asleep longer. Most added about a half-hour to their sleep total, one volunteer caught an extra hour and a half.

To read this article in one of Houston's most-spoken languages, click on the button below.

For a nation where reportedly one in three are sleep deprived, that just might sound like heaven.

The UH project was completed in early 2016 and its findings were published in June in Ophthalmic & Physiological Optics, the national medical journal of the college of optometrists.

Twenty-one volunteer participants, ages 18 to 40, pledged they would wear the tinted glasses - safety glasses bought at Walmart for about $10 - for two weeks during the hours leading up to bed. Most importantly they would continue usual routines of reading phones or tablets, watching television or working on computers while wearing the glasses.

They also wore specialized smart watches to bed to monitor sleep duration and patterns. While some similar studies have been conducted in sleep labs, Ostrin said she wanted hers to more closely replicate the way people live. Each night and again in the morning the participants underwent saliva swabs to measure melatonin levels.

"I've had poor sleep quality since I was a teenager," said Krista Beach, a 38-year-old post-doctoral student who signed up for the study. She said by wearing the glasses she was able to fall asleep earlier. Even now if she is worried about getting enough sleep before a big day she will grab the glasses.

"Yes, you look kind of funny," she admitted. The biggest cringe-worthy moment was when she showed up at a night performance at the Houston Shakespeare Festival sporting them. In the end she found herself getting sleepier earlier, which meant she slept more.

While it is now understood in scientific circles that there is a link between blue-wavelength light and sleep disruption, Ostrin said she wanted to objectively quantify it. She also wanted to explore the "how" behind this modern-day sleep-tech conundrum.

One of the answers lies in the recent discovery of a third sensory element in the eyes, beyond the more well-known rods and cones. Cones control the ability to distinguish colors, while rods are used for night vision, motion detection and peripheral vision.

The third sensor, called intrinsically photosensitive retinal ganglion cells, signals light changes. It is those sensors that send a message to the brain to start or stop the pineal gland. They have also been found to be the most sensitive to blue light.

"It is very unnatural to receive any blue light at night," explained Kaleb Abbott, one of the study co-authors.

So it stood to reason that exposure to blue light would disrupt the natural order of things.

The UH researchers pondered how they could reset the body's sleep clock.

"It's not like we're all going to turn off our computers and go to bed at 8 o'clock," Ostrin said.

One of the great ironies of unintended consequences is that just about the time one group of scientists was figuring out the third sensor in the retina that cued sleep, another group was paving the way for the tech explosion.

Although most personal device screens may appear white, they are usually illuminated with blue LED lights, which were found to be more energy efficient and easier to see.

A breakthrough to help people work better and longer also worsened their sleep, Ostrin said.

The tech world has jumped on the phenomenon lately, offering devices with night-time modes that switch to softer hues with longer wavelengths and a reddish tint. It is a shift the UH researchers predict is coming in the next tech wave.

One complaint, though, is some consumers say the nighttime modes make it harder to read so they give up.

That helps with sleep, too.

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The glow of technology has a dark side - Houston Chronicle