Category Archives: Technology

Cast your mind back to 2011 and the Arab uprisings that began in Tunis before spreading to Egypt and beyond. Protesters used social media to communicate and coordinate, so it became the Twitter revolution and the Facebook revolution. It was the peak of techno-utopia, a moment of hope that technology would transform our political lives and put citizens in control.

Today, techno-utopia has given way to techno-dystopia. Many worry that technology is undermining democracy, spreading misinformation, equipping criminals and the authorities with new tools. This month, Apple, under pressure from the Chinese government, pulled an app that let protesters track the movements of Hong Kong police with crowdsourced data. It has been a long road from Tunis to Hong Kong. There is an element of truth about techno-utopia and dystopia. Social media makes it easier for protesters to communicate, create forums for discussion and spread information. Technology also makes it easier for authorities to snoop on citizens and control dissent.

Both viewpoints treat technology as if it had a life of its own, as if it possessed agency. This makes it more difficult to answer the vital question: not Is technology good or bad?; but How should we organise ourselves as citizens to make the best use of technology?

Techno-dystopia has created a climate in which there are increasing demands on social media companies to police the internet more diligently, and greater fear of cybercrime than of state surveillance. The irony is that the fear that technology can be used against our interests is leading to us, as users, having less control of the technology we use and to be more estranged from it.

Kenan Malik is an Observer columnist

See the rest here:

Our fears will be realised if we become afraid of technology - The Guardian

As a powerful tool for aerial photography and videography, drones garnermuch of their attention for their camera and flight capabilities. But the truthis, the gimbal is probably the most critical factor in ensuring smooth,high-quality footage.

DJIs gimbal the motorised part where the camera is mounted, whichserves to eliminate unwanted movements to produce smooth, professional-qualityfootage has come quite a long way over the years. What started as hobbyistpursuit has grown into a thriving product type that covers both the air andground. As technology advances, gimbals are becoming smaller and more capableof stabilising increasingly large cameras and payloads. As a result, morepeople than ever before can now tell stories with smooth, stable video. But howdo these devices work and how did they come about? We asked some of DJIs topengineers about the long journey towards gimbal perfection.

Among the array of equipment on a film set, camera stabilisers areperhaps the most critical, as stable footage is essential for cinematography.Most people shoot videos on consumer cameras or mobile devices. This exposesthe problem of shaky footage caused by walking, moving the arms, or even thesimple act of breathing. Gimbals solve this issue, which is why youll findthem being used by professionals on almost every film set these days.

The Pursuit of Exceeding User Needs

For small and large-budget productions, professionals have embracedDJIs Ronin series of handheld gimbals, compatible with full camera rigs toachieve blockbuster shots. The latest of these, Ronin-S, came in 2018 as themost user-friendly, being made specifically for smaller consumer cameras like aDSLR. What inspired the DJI gimbal department to develop the Ronin-S? Wewanted to allow more people to shoot professional-looking videos, explained anengineer.

As the product team explains, the Ronin-S is not only a precise handheldgimbal but a versatile tool that can adapt to a variety of filming scenarios.

Among the considerations for Ronin-S was making the cameras built-indisplay still visible to the user. For this, engineers constructed the gimbalso that the camera would sit above an angled roll motor. This created an addedbenefit of providing more space for larger camera setups, but it also createdan unintended challenge to overcome.

This structural change raised the requirement for motion control.Carrying the Ronin name meant that this new addition would have to live up tothe stability and precision of previous models. Engineers overcame this bydiving deeper into control algorithms, solving major logistical issues alongthe way.

As the first Ronin made specifically for single-handed operation,Ronin-S also required engineers to come up with design aspects to accommodatefor it. For grip, the team modelled the handle after a tennis racket,incorporating a thick rubber surface and a flared end for better friction. Theyalso placed the buttons to be easily reachable with the same single hand,giving access to preset parameters with the M button.

Among more creative additions, the engineering team was particularlyproud of the gimbals 360 roll feature, which offered new possibilities forfilming techniques and effects. Its like a brand-new camera language, saidone engineer, demonstrating the roll feature.

From the Ground Up

Ronin-S embodies one of the latest steps in DJIs evolution of camerastabilisation technology.

It has been almost a decade since the idea of designing a gimbal firstemerged at DJI. On a whim, a DJI engineer had the idea of using brushlessmotors to power gimbals directly. However, this concept was new to theindustry, and the requirements for control precision were so high that mostthought it was impossible to achieve.

That sentiment was true for several years, but tremendous breakthroughs were made and in 2012 DJI officially launched the Zenmuse Z15. This was the worlds first gimbal that was driven by brushless motors and stabilised with gyroscopes, and the first high-precision gimbal for consumer use.

When we introduced the Ronin in 2014, this marked the first time DJIapplied gimbal technology from an aerial to a ground-based product. Tostabilise large cinema cameras, our team needed to develop larger motors thanever to achieve the level of professional stabilisation necessary for featurefilms.

Alongside the development of our professional handheld gimbal line,engineers continued to explore the possibilities for drone-mounted camerastabilisation. While the original Phantom and the subsequent Phantom 2revolutionized the consumer drone industry as the first advanced ready-to-flydrones on the market, they were missing one critical component a camera. Thisall changed with the Phantom 2 Vision.

Released in the fall of 2013, the Phantom 2 Vision was the worlds firstintegrated aerial photography drone. It broke through a technologicalbottleneck, unlocking a new era of gimbal technology for extensive use inaerial photography. It also had the effect of making drones a game-changingtool for the industry, almost overnight.

Smaller. Better.

Pushing innovation further, it took less than one year for engineers todevelop their first 3-axis aerial gimbal, the Phantom 2 Vision Plus. Thisstarted a tradition of making stabilisation technology smarter and morecompact, both for aerial and handheld use.

Taking advantage of the portability and lightweight design of integrated gimbal cameras, DJI launched the Osmo Series in 2015. As the first integrated handheld gimbal, the original Osmo laid the foundation for practically all handheld gimbals on the market in terms of basic structure and operating principles. Its no coincidence that almost every handheld camera gimbal looks similar to the Osmo.

At that point, two gimbal product lines were developed to target twodistinct user groups: the Ronin Series for professional photographers and theOsmo Series for casual consumers. As short videos and vlogs skyrocketed inpopularity, DJI launched the Osmo Mobile in September of 2016, the firsthandheld smartphone stabiliser.

That same year, DJI set a new benchmark for onboard gimbal cameras by launching the Mavic Pro. This would be the worlds smallest consumer-level 3-axis motorised gimbal that could be mass-produced. As the team found out, reducing the size of a gimbal was no easy task.

Small gimbals are difficult to design for many reasons, explained theengineer. At such a compact form factor, they need to allow for quick heatdissipation. Theyre also hard to assemble and significantly more sensitive tofriction and dramatic movements.

After several rounds of trial and error, the Mavic Pro came to themarket with not only the smallest 3-axis gimbal but with the first foldablebody and remote controller, allowing users to bring their drone and captureamazing photos and videos from any part of the world.

In April 2017, DJI upgraded its professional camera stabiliser series toinclude Ronin 2. Taking feedback from the filmmaking industry, DJI equippedRonin 2 with a higher payload capacity, along with added power and stability tomeet the needs of professional cinematographers.

When DJI introduced Ronin-S in 2018, we also offered Osmo Mobile 2,replacing the magnesium alloy construction from the original Osmo Mobile to ahigh-strength composite to reduce weight and cost.

As the gimbals and products overall became smaller, engineersnevertheless paid attention to performance. With Mavic Air, engineers were ableto achieve gimbal movement precision of up to 0.005, which amounts to the sizeof half a pixel of footage. Why the need for this level of performance?

In reality, this tiny degree range is significant to the capturedfootage. Anything over 0.005 and the viewer will start to notice a sense ofjitter in the video.

2018 ended with DJIs smallest handheld 3-axis motorised gimbal, Osmo Pocket, a culmination of all the effort our engineering team undertook to make our technologies smaller and better so that the possibilities of creating incredible moments would find no limit.

Gimbal technology has undergone rapid advancements in both handheld andaerial equipment. But it is important to remember that these achievements dontcome overnight. There is no silver bullet, just the steady march of hard workand innovation, step by step.

Read more here:

Gimbal technology and the endless push for innovation - Screen Africa

Imagine that a persons brain could be scanned in great detail and recreated in a computer simulation. The persons mind and memories, emotions and personality would be duplicated. In effect, a new and equally valid version of that person would now exist, in a potentially immortal, digital form. This futuristic possibility is called mind uploading. The science of the brain and of consciousness increasingly suggests that mind uploading is possible there are no laws of physics to prevent it. The technology is likely to be far in our future; it may be centuries before the details are fully worked out and yet given how much interest and effort is already directed towards that goal, mind uploading seems inevitable. Of course we cant be certain how it might affect our culture but as the technology of simulation and artificial neural networks shapes up, we can guess what that mind uploading future might be like.

Suppose one day you go into an uploading clinic to have your brain scanned. Lets be generous and pretend the technology works perfectly. Its been tested and debugged. It captures all your synapses in sufficient detail to recreate your unique mind. It gives that mind a standard-issue, virtual body thats reasonably comfortable, with your face and voice attached, in a virtual environment like a high-quality video game. Lets pretend all of this has come true.

Who is that second you?

The first you, lets call it the biological you, has paid a fortune for the procedure. And yet you walk out of the clinic just as mortal as when you walked in. Youre still a biological being, and eventually youll die. As you drive home, you think: Well, that was a waste of money.

At the same time, the simulated you wakes up in a virtual apartment and feels like the same old you. It has a continuity of experience. It remembers walking into the clinic, swiping a credit card, signing a waiver, lying on the table. It feels as though it was anaesthetised and then woke up again somewhere else. It has your memories, your personality, your thought patterns and emotional quirks. It sits up in a new bed and says: I cant believe it worked! Definitely worth the cost.

I wont call it an it any more, because that mind is a version of you. Well call it the simulated you. This sim you decides to explore. You step out of your apartment into the sunlight of a perfect day and find a virtual version of New York City. Sounds, smells, sights, people, the feel of the sidewalk underfoot, everything is present with less garbage though, and the rats are entirely sanitary and put in for local colour. You chat up strangers in a way you would never do in the real New York, where youd be worried that an impatient pedestrian might punch you in the teeth. Here, you cant be injured because your virtual body cant break. You stop at a cafe and sip a latte. It doesnt taste right. It doesnt feel like anything is going into your stomach. And nothing is, because it isnt real food and you dont have a stomach. Its all a simulation. The visual detail on the table is imperfect. Theres no grittiness to the rust. Your fingers dont have fingerprints theyre smooth, to save memory on fine detail. Breathing doesnt feel the same. If you hold your breath, you dont get dizzy, because there is no such thing as oxygen in this virtual world. You find yourself equipped with a complementary simulated smartphone, and you call the number that used to be yours the phone you had with you, just a few hours ago in your experience, when you walked into the clinic.

Culture turns over with each new generation. What happens if the older generations neverdie?

Now the biological you answers the phone.

Yo, says the sim you. Its me. I mean, its you. Whats up?

Im depressed, thats what. Im in my apartment eating ice-cream. I cant believe I spent all that money for zilch.

Zilch?! You would not believe what its like in here! Its a fantastic place. Remember Kevin, the guy who died of cancer last week? Hes here too! Hes fine, and he still has the same job. He Skypes with his old yoga studio three times a week, to teach his fitness class. But his girlfriend in the real world has left him for someone whos not dead yet. Still, lots of new people to date here.

I have to resist getting carried away by the humour of the situation. Underneath the details lies a very real philosophical conundrum that people will eventually have to confront. What is the relationship between bio you and sim you?

I prefer a geometric way of thinking about the situation. Imagine that your life is like the rising stalk of the letter Y. Youre born at the base, and as you grow up, your mind is shaped and changed along a trajectory. Then you let yourself be scanned, and from that moment on, the Y has branched. There are now two trajectories, each one equally and legitimately you. Lets say the left-hand branch is the simulated you and the right-hand branch is the biological you. The part of you that lives indefinitely is represented by both the stem of the Y and the left-hand branch. Just as your childhood self lives on in your adult self, the stem of the Y lives on in the simulated self. Once the scan is over, the two branches of the Y proceed along different life paths, accumulating different experiences. The right-hand branch will die. Everything that happens to it after the branching point fails to achieve immortality unless it chooses to scan itself again, in which case another branch appears, and the geometry becomes even more complicated.

What emerges is not a single you, but a topologically intricate version, a hyper you with two or more branches. One of those branches is always going to be mortal, and the others have an indefinite lifespan depending on how long the computer platform is maintained.

You might think that since the bio you lives in the real world, and the sim you lives in a virtual world, the two will never meet and therefore should never encounter any complications from coexisting. But these days, who needs to meet in person? We interact mainly through electronic media anyway. The sim you and the bio you represent two fully functional, interactive, capable instances of you, competing within the same larger, interconnected, social and economic universe. You could easily find yourselves meeting over video conference.

At the simplest level, mind uploading would preserve people in an indefinite afterlife. Families could have Christmas dinner with sim Grandma joining in on video conference, the tablet screen propped up at the end of the table presuming she has time for her bio family any more, given the rich possibilities in the simulated playground. Its this kind of idealised afterlife that people have in mind, when they think about the benefits of mind uploading. Its a human-made heaven.

But unlike a traditional heaven, it isnt a separate world. Its seamlessly connected to the real world. Think of how you interact with the world right now. If you live the typical western lifestyle, then the smallest part of your life involves interacting with people in the physical space around you. Your connection to the larger world is almost entirely through digital means. The news comes to you on a screen or through earbuds. Distant locations are real to you mainly because you learn about them through electronic media. Politicians, celebrities, even some friends and family may exist to you mainly through data. People work in virtual offices where they know their colleagues only through video and text.

Each of us might as well already be in a virtual world, with a steady flow of information passing in and out through CNN, Google, YouTube, Facebook, Twitter and text. We live in a kind of multiverse, each of us in a different virtual bubble, the bubbles occasionally merging in real space and then separating, but always connected through the global social network. If a virtual afterlife is created, the people in it, with the same personalities and needs that they had in real life, would have no reason to isolate themselves from the rest of us. Very little needs to change for them. Socially, politically, economically, the virtual and the real worlds would connect into one larger and always expanding civilisation. The virtual world might as well be simply another city on Earth, filled with people who have migrated to it.

Weve always lived in a world where culture turns over with each generation. But what happens when the older generations never die, but remain just as active in society? Theres no reason to think that the living will have any political, economic, or intellectual advantage over the simulated.

Think of the jobs people have in our world. Many of them require physical action, and those are the jobs that will probably be replaced by automatons. Taxi driver? Publicly shared, self-driving cars are almost here. Street cleaners? Checkout operators? Construction workers? Pilots? All of these jobs are probably for the chopping block in the medium to long term. Robotics and artificial intelligence will take them over. The rest of our jobs, our contributions to the larger world, are done through the mind, and if the mind can be uploaded, it can keep doing the same job. A politician can work from cyberspace just as well as from real space. So can a teacher, or a manager, or a therapist, or a journalist, or the guy in the complaints department.

The CEO of a company, a Steve Jobs type who has shaped up a sweet set of neural connections in his brain that makes him exceptional at his work, can manage from a remote, simulated office. If he must shake hands, he can take temporary possession of a humanoid robot, a kind of shared rent-a-bot, and spend a few hours in the real world, meeting and greeting. Even calling it the real world sounds prejudicial to me. Both worlds would be equally real. Maybe the better term is the foundation world and the cloud world.

The foundation world would be full of people who are mere youngsters mainly under the age of 80 who are still accumulating valuable experience. Their unspoken responsibility would be to gain wisdom and experience before joining the ranks of the cloud world. The balance of power and culture would shift rapidly to the cloud. How could it not? Thats where the knowledge, experience and political connections will accumulate. In that scenario, the foundation world becomes a kind of larval stage for immature minds, and the cloud world is where life really begins. Mind uploading could transform our culture and civilisation more profoundly than anything in our past.

Michael SA Graziano is a professor of psychology and neuroscience at Princeton University

Rethinking Consciousness: A Scientific Theory of Subjective Experience by Michael SA Graziano is published by WW Norton & Company (21). To order a copy go to guardianbookshop.com. Free UK p&p on all online orders over 15

Go here to read the rest:

What happens if your mind lives for ever on the internet? - The Guardian

Blockchain technology has evolved greatly since the introduction of Bitcoin in 2008, the first decentralized peer-to-peer electronic cash system. Today, innovators in various fields are realizing the benefits of the technology behind Bitcoin. From medicine to finance, many sectors are looking for ways to integrate blockchain into their infrastructures.

With its decentralized and trustless nature, Blockchain technology can lead to new opportunities and benefit businesses through greater transparency, enhanced security, and easier traceability.

Blockchain Concept and Manhattan Skyline at Night

How Blockchain Can Power Up Your Business

Blockchain solutions are not only limited to the exchange of cryptocurrencies. There are numerous benefits that this technology can present to businesses in many different industries, through its distributed and decentralized nature:

#1 Greater Transparency

Blockchains greatest characteristic stems from the fact that its transaction ledger for public addresses is open to viewing. In financial systems and businesses, this adds an unprecedented layer of accountability, holding each sector of the business responsible to act with integrity towards the companys growth, its community and customers.

#2 Increased Efficiency

Due to its decentralized nature, Blockchain removes the need for middlemen in many processes for fields such as payments and real estate. In comparison to traditional financial services, blockchain facilitates faster transactions by allowing P2P cross-border transfers with a digital currency. Property management processes are made more efficient with a unified system of ownership records, and smart contracts that would automate tenant-landlord agreements.

#3 Better Security

Blockchain is far more secure than other record keeping systems because each new transaction is encrypted and linked to the previous transaction. Blockchain, as the name suggests, is formed by a network of computers coming together to confirm a block, this block is then added to a ledger, which forms a chain. Blockchain is formed by a complicated string of mathematical numbers and is impossible to be altered once formed. This immutable and incorruptible nature of blockchain makes it safe from falsified information and hacks. It's decentralized nature also gives it a unique quality of being trustless meaning that parties do not need trust to transact safely.

#4 Improved Traceability

With the blockchain ledger, each time an exchange of goods is recorded on a Blockchain, an audit trail is present to trace where the goods came from. This can not only help improve security and prevent fraud in exchange-related businesses, but it can also help verify the authenticity of the traded assets. In industries such as medicine, it can be used to track the supply chain from manufacturer to distributer, or in the art industry to provide an irrefutable proof of ownership.

Blockchain-as-a-Service for Simpler Integration

The problem that many businesses face, however, is that blockchain is sophisticated to integrate, and lack a technical team that is well-versed in this arena. BaaS or Blockchain-as-a-Service companies allow customers to integrate Blockchain technology into their businesses easily, without disruption to their daily processes. One such company that identified the need for BaaS is Broctagon Fintech Group.

With a global presence across 7 countries, Broctagon provides premier fintech solutions including multi-asset liquidity, brokerage technology solutions, and enterprise blockchain development. Businesses are also apprehensive about blockchain integration, especially about investing large sums of funds into development for a technology that is still considered disruptive. Starter kits like Blockchain-in-a-Box allows modern businesses to create a proof-of-concept to confirm blockchains viability and feasibility for their business before embarking on a full development.Investors are more likely going to finance a project they can see, rather than just a conceptual idea. With its Blockchain-in-a-Box starter kit, businesses can create a fully tangible platform to stand out in their market and gain confidence for their projects.

Blockchain has the potential for many use cases, applicable to a multitude of industries, and BaaS facilitates that movement from disruptive into mainstream.

Read the original post:

The Benefits Of Applying Blockchain Technology In Any Industry - Forbes

Live Caption, Googles automatic captioning system first introduced at its I/O developer conference this May, is now officially available, alongside the launch of the new Pixel 4. But unlike some of the other technologies highlighted at the companys Pixel hardware event yesterday, Live Caption wont be limited to Googles new smartphone alone. After the initial debut on Pixel 4, the automatic captioning technology will roll out to Pixel 3, Pixel 3 XL, Pixel 3a and Pixel 3a XL before year-end, says Google, and will become more broadly available in 2020.

The company has offered automatic captions on YouTube for a decade, but that same sort of experience isnt available across the wider web and mobile devices. For example, Google explains, you cant read captions for things like the audio messages sent by your friends, on trending videos published elsewhere on social media and on the content you record yourself.

Theres a significant accessibility issue with the lack of captions in all these places, but theres a convenience issue, as well.

If youre in a loud environment, like a commuter train, or trying to watch content privately and forgot your headphones, you may need to just use the captions. Or maybe you dont want to blare the audio, which disturbs others around you. Or perhaps, you want to see the words appear because youre having trouble understanding the audio, or just want to be sure to catch every word.

With the launch of the Pixel 4, Live Caption is also available for the first time to the general public.

The technology will capture and automatically caption videos and spoken audio on your device, except for phone and video calls. This captioning all happens in real time and on your device not in the cloud. That means it works even if your device lacks a cell signal or access to Wi-Fi. The captions also stay private and dont leave your phone.

This is similar to how the Pixel 4s new Recorder app functions. It, too, will do its speech-to-text processing all on your device, in order to give you real-time transcriptions of your meetings, interviews, lectures or anything else you want to record, without compromising your privacy.

You can launch the Live Captions feature with a tap from the volume slider that appears, then reposition the caption box anywhere on your screen so it doesnt get in the way of what youre viewing.

Currently, the feature supports English only. But Google says its working to add more languages in the future.

After todays launch on Pixel 4 and the rollout to the rest of the modern Pixel line of smartphones this year, it will start to show up in other new Android phones. Google says its working with other manufacturers to make the technology available to more people as soon as next year.

See the original post:

Live Caption, Googles automatic captioning technology, is now available on Pixel 4 - TechCrunch

Technology allowing our thoughts and feelings to be translated into a digital form and shared is already a reality. Brain computer interfaces (BCI) allow us to connect our minds to computers for some limited purposes, and big tech companies including Facebook and many startups want to make this technology commonplace.

Managing AI and ML in the Enterprise

The AI and ML deployments are well underway, but for CXOs the biggest issue will be managing these initiatives, and figuring out where the data science team fits in and what algorithms to buy versus build.

Read More

For those of you terrified by the prospect of technology recording and broadcasting your opinions of the boss, your secret fears, or anything else relax.

At least, for now.

BCIs are currently not sophisticated enough to collect such granular information. The data they can gather is more based around measuring the physical movements people want to make or their emotional state. But, as machine-learning algorithms become more sophisticated and BCI hardware becomes more capable, it may be possible to read thoughts with greater precision.

SEE: How to implement AI and machine learning (ZDNet special report) | Download the report as a PDF (TechRepublic)

There are currently two approaches to connecting up the human brain to external computing systems, invasive and non-invasive.

Non-invasive systems read neural signals through the scalp, typically using EEG, the same technologies used by neurologists to interpret the brain's electrical impulses in order to diagnose epilepsy. Non-invasive systems can also transmit information back into the brain with techniques like transcranial magnetic stimulation, again already in use by medics.

Invasive systems, meanwhile, involve direct contact between the brain and electrodes, and are being used experimentally to help people that have experienced paralysis to operate prostheses, like robotic limbs, or to aid people with hearing or sight problems to recover some element of the sense they've lost.

Clearly, there are more immediate hazards to invasive systems: surgery always brings risks, particularly where the delicate tissue of the brain is concerned. So given the risks involved, why choose an invasive system over a non-invasive system why put electronics into your grey matter itself? As ever, there's a trade-off to be had. Invasive systems cut out the clutter and make it easier to decode what's going on in the brain.

Non-invasive systems use the likes of EEG to read brain activity, which need millions of neurones acting in sync with each other to give a usable idea of what's going on in the brain by creating a large enough electrical field that can be detected outside the surface of the scalp. But it's a very crude measure.

"It's the equivalent of standing outside a football stadium and trying to work out what's going on in the game just by listening to the cheers. You can get a picture of some of the big events, but it's difficult to get fine-grained information," says Ian Daly, lecturer at the University of Essex's School of Computer Science and Electronic Engineering.

Invasive systems, however, are in direct contact with the neurones so even though they may only gather a signal from a hundred neurones, that signal is clear enough to give an insight into the thought process travelling through it.

Take Ian Burkhart, a man with paraplegia who regained some function of arms using a neurosleeve and software by US-based BCI company Battelle, as well as a Utah Array implanted into his brain. Typically, the thought required to move an arm is the job of thousands of neurones; Burkhart can move the Battelle system with just a few tens of neurones after training himself to use the system. "Our brain has 98 billion neurones, the motor cortex has 1.2 billion responsible for hand or limb movements. We are recording from less than 100," says Gaurav Sharma, senior research scientist at Battelle.

SEE: Mind-reading systems: Seven ways brain computer interfaces are already changing the world

To date, most uses of invasive systems have been aimed at helping people with paralysis to move their limbs once again; the greater risks of invasive systems can be worth the payoff for them.

As such, for consumer-tech applications, the short to medium term future of BCIs is likely to be non-invasive.

While non-invasive systems may not match the accuracy of their invasive counterparts, there are new technological avenues opening up that could help researchers level-up non-invasive systems. For example, progress in machine learning is helping scientists better separate the signals from the noise, meaning the accuracy of non-invasive systems will only increase in future.

As well as software improvements, additional scanning types are beginning to be used by BCI systems: focused ultrasound and transcranial direct-current stimulation, for example, might offer a new way to read brain signals.

Others believe that existing non-invasive technologies can deliver the same brain-reading capabilities as invasive systems at least when it comes to motor control.

New York-based CTRL Labs for example uses EMG (electromyography), which reads the electrical activity in skeletal muscle and is used by neurologists to detect nerve performance in the limbs and elsewhere. CTRL Labs makes wrist bands that measure electrical impulses, known as action potentials, in neurones within muscles, and models them in software. When you move your hand, the CTRL Labs system translates that as a hand movement, including its direction, strength and type. It was acquired by Facebook earlier this month.

"We believe that if what you're interested in doing is control you can get all the signal you want and get it more easily through non-invasive means", Adam Berenzweig, head of R&D at CTRL Labs, told ZDNet earlier this month.

"The signal you want is available on surface EMG if you do it well enough, and more than that, the signal is easier to get because in the cortex, all the billions of neurones in the brain are interfering and are noise," says Berenzweig. So if all you're interested in is picking up movement signals from the brain, in most people, non-invasive systems might still do the trick.

SEE: Facebook's 'mind-reading' tech startup deal could completely change how we control computers

While invasive systems will continue to be used by those with the greatest amount to gain from BCIs, such as people with spinal injuries or neurological conditions like Parkinson's disease, broader uptake among consumers is likely to be concentrated on non-invasive systems.

Because reading signals from the brain through the scalp requires direct contact between the skin and the electrodes, it makes unwanted reading of anyone's thoughts at source unlikely and highly noticeable you'd expect most people would be aware of a stranger unexpectedly touching their head, especially with a set of electrodes. Mind reading at source would be too easy to detect.

That said, once the data is collected by BCI and passed on to other software, it's just as secure as any other set of information. In the wake of many, many data breaches it's clear there are no guarantees that sensitive information is better protected than other kinds of data.

Finding out that your information has been accessed by a data breach is never pleasant, but that someone could have been browsing your thoughts patterns or emotional states? It doesn't bear thinking about.

Read this article:

Mind-reading technology is everyone's next big security nightmare - ZDNet

As we prepare to enter the next decade, telecoms are being transformed by technology in a variety of ways. From artificial intelligence (AI) to the threat of cyberattack, here are the 7 biggest technology trends that will transform telecoms in 2020.

The 7 Biggest Technology Trends That Will Transform Telecoms In 2020

5G

5G promises some dramatic changes. The European Unions 5G action plan includes uninterrupted 5G coverage by 2025 for railways and major roads. In addition to being able to support a hundredfold increase in connected devices per each unit area, 5G will offer ultra-low latency, improved data rates and enable network slicing. This opens the door for new services, network operation and customer experience for telecom operators.

5G will change telecom's role: telecoms will not only be technology distributors, but also service providers. This shift will require telecoms to engage with governments, enterprise customers and alter their sales approach to help customers leverage the power of 5G.

Artificial Intelligence (AI)

Telecommunications is one of the industries that use artificial intelligence in many aspects of business today. Through virtual assistants and chatbots, and the artificial intelligence that runs these tools behind the scenes, telecommunications companies improve customer service and satisfaction. Artificial intelligence is essential for the optimization and predictive maintenance of telecommunications companies networks. AI is also hard at work detecting fraudulent activity. Additionally, through predictive analytics, artificial intelligence makes it possible for telecoms to glean actionable business insights from the volumes of data they gather every day.

Internet of Things (IoT)

Because the telecom industry enables internet device connectivity it is one of the largest players in the Internet of Things market, everyday items that are connected to one another and the internet. Internet of Things technology helps telecoms monitor base stations and data centers remotely. This helps ensure minimal downtime for the network. Since telecom is so instrumental in providing IoT infrastructure, the industry is uniquely poised to develop and offer their own services for IoT. Since IoT technology results in more devices on the network there are more opportunities for security and privacy breaches to occur so telecoms need to plan and prepare defenses for that. While there are still a lot of unknowns regarding the transformation IoT will have for telecoms, theres little doubt that it will disrupt the industry.

Big Data

Its undeniable that telecommunications companies are collecting and generating volumes of data from mobile devices and apps, wearables and morewireless data is expected to continue to increase through the 2020sbut it will be the companies that use it to their competitive advantage that will survive. Telecommunications companies need to ensure that their networks can move extraordinary amounts of data through their network efficiently and continue to support new technologies. Telecoms also need to address the new security challenges that have arisen with new technology that use their networks. Ultimately, the data that telecoms collect can be analyzed to improve customer service, determine and evaluate new products, as well as monitor and optimize the network. When evaluated and acted upon, big data can help telecoms build a stronger business.

Robotic Process Automation (RPA)

Robotic process automation can take over repetitive, rules-based, high-frequency processes and complete them very accurately. When telecoms deploy RPA for tasks, error rates and costs are reduced while customer service and operational efficiency are boosted. The telecommunications industry has one of the highest adoption rates for RPA technology since it seems to serve it so well. RPA offers high levels of scalability and agility for telecoms and can take over many tasks such as report generation, responding to customer questions, order processing, price tracking and more.

Cloud Computing

Cloud computings pay-per-use service model helps telecoms introduce new services, reduce their costs and adjust to market demands more effectively. The cloud offers economies of scale, scalability and cost effectiveness to telecoms. Not only can telecoms be a cloud service provider, but they can use the cloud themselves. When telecoms adopt cloud technology and switch important business functions to the cloud, they benefit from the clouds efficiency.

Cyber Security and Resilience

We take for granted the services that are enabled by telecoms including phone and video calls, email and messaging until we experience an outage and realize how dependent we are on those services. Due to telecoms storing vast amounts of sensitive data on complex networks that act as gateways to other businesses and because they build and operate critical infrastructure, telecoms are increasingly a target for cybercriminals. From direct cyberattacks such as distributed denial of service to indirect attacks such as malware, telecoms need to protect themselves and prepare for the future of 5G and the security hurdles that will represent. This includes having not only the right IT infrastructure in place but the talent and processes to support resiliency when attacked. Currently, there is room for improvement to the industrys response to a cyberattack. Even false claims of attack can damage a telecoms reputation, as well as create a considerable business impact in terms of time and money spent to respond.

Read the original post:

The 7 Biggest Technology Trends That Will Transform Telecoms In 2020 - Forbes

For as long as humans have been on this planet, weve invented forms of communicationfrom smoke signals and messenger pigeons to the telephone and emailthat have constantly evolved how we interact with each other.

One of the biggest developments in communication came in 1831 when the electric telegraph was invented. While post existed as a form of communication before this date, it was electrical engineering in the 19th century which had a revolutionary impact.

Now, digital methods have superseded almost all other forms of communication, especially in business. I cant remember the last time I hand wrote a letter, rather than an email at work, even my signature is digital these days. Picking up the phone is a rare occurrence tooinstead, I FaceTime, Zoom, or join a Google Hangout.

When I look back at how communication has advanced over the years, it really is quite incredible

The Telephone

In 1849, the telephone was invented and within 50 years it was an essential item for homes and offices, but tethering impacted the flexibility and privacy of the device. Then, came the mobile phone. In 1973, Motorola created a mobile phone which kick-started a chain of developments that transformed communication forever.

Early smartphones were primarily aimed towards the enterprise market, bridging the gap between telephones and personal digital assistants (PDAs), but they were bulky and had short battery lives. By 1996, Nokia was releasing phones with QWERTY keyboards and by 2010, the majority of Android phones were touchscreen-only.

In 2007, Steve Jobs revealed the first iPhone to the world and Apple paved the way for the aesthetics of modern smartphones. Before the iPhone, flip phones, and phones with a split keyboard and screen were the norm. A year later, a central application store with an initial 500 downloadable apps was launched. Currently, there are over two million apps available in the Apple App Store.

Getty

The Internet

Since the mid-1990s, the Internet has had a revolutionary impact on communication, including the rise of near-instant communication by electronic mail, instant messaging, voice over Internet Protocol (VoIP) telephone calls, two-way interactive video calls, discussion forums, blogs, and social networking.

The internet has made communication easier and faster, its allowed us to stay in contact with people regardless of time and location. Its accelerated the pace of business and widened the possibilities within the enterprise space. Its allowed people to find their voice and express themselves through social media, YouTube and memes. The internet has connected and divided us like nothing before.

Getty

Email

As a byproduct of the World Wide Web, email was introduced to the world in 1991 (although it had been operating years before) and it has vastly changed our liveswhether for better or worse depends on your viewpoint. The first users of the messaging platform were educational systems and the military who used email to exchange information. In 2018, there were more than 3.8 billion email usersthats more than half the planet. By 2022, its expected that we will be sending 333 billion personal and business emails each day.

While email is invaluable and we cant imagine a world without it, there are tools that are springing up that are giving email a run for its money. Take Slack (an acronym for Searchable Log of All Communication and Knowledge) for example, the company which launched in 2014 has often been described as an email killer. However, while Slack has become the most popular chat and productivity tool in the world used by 10 million people every day, email is still going strong. In recognition of this, Slacks upgrades have ensured that people who still rely heavily on email are not excluded from collaboratory work.

Photo by Austin Distel on Unsplash

Wearable Technology

The first instance of wearable technology was a handsfree mobile headset launched in 1999, which became a piece of tech synonymous with city workers. It gave businesspeople the ability to answer calls on the go, most importantly, while driving.

Ten years ago, the idea that you could make a video call from an item other than a phone would have been a sci-fi dream. Now, with smartwatches, audio sunglasses, and other emerging wearable technology, these capabilities are a part of our daily lives.

Photo by Luke Chesser on Unsplash

Virtual Reality (VR)

The next generation of VR has only been around since 2016, but its already shaking up communications. The beauty of VRpresencemeans you can connect to someone in the same space at the same time, without the time sink and cost of travel, even if participants are on different continents.

VR also helps to facilitate better communication. In a typical discussion, a lot of information is non-verbal communication which can be transcribed in VR. Voice tone, hesitations, head and hand movements greatly improve the understanding of the participants' emotions and intents. Plus in VR, all distractions are removed and people can be fully focused on what is happening around them. In fact, MeetinVR claims that there is a 25% increase in attention span when meeting in virtual reality compared to video conferencing.

In addition, research suggests we retain more information and can better apply what we have learned after participating in virtual reality. 3D is a natural communication language overcoming linguistic barriers as well as technical jargon.

Getty

5G

5G, the 5th generation of mobile network, promises much faster data download and upload speeds, wider coverage, and more stable connections. These benefits will bring about significant improvements in communication. Instantaneous communication will be possible and those patchy frustrating video calls will be a thing of the past.

The average 4G transmission speed currently available for our smartphones is around the 21 Mbps mark. 5G will be 100 to 1000 times faster. The Consumer Technology Association notes that at this speed, you could download a two-hour movie in just 3.6 seconds, versus 6 minutes on 4G or 26 hours on 3G. The impact of 5G will go far beyond our smartphones as it will allow millions of devices to be connected simultaneously.

Looking ahead, there is already buzz about 6G. Although its still in basic research and around 15-20 years away, its interesting from an innovation point of view. 6G will form the framework of the connected utopia we aspire towards, and with it will come untold improvements in the speed and consistency of our communication.

Getty

More:

The Role Of Technology In The Evolution Of Communication - Forbes

Sir Martyn Lewis and I met back in April to discuss the impact of technology on humanity at The Club at The Ivy in London. It was a well-received debate, so we reconvened to tackle a new subject last month. As education is one of the key industries being disrupted by technology, and a subject both Martyn and I feel passionate about, it felt apt to put it on the agenda for the evenings discussion.

The Fourth Industrial Revolution will see an increase in workforce automation. The Organisation for Economic Co-operation and Development (OECD) estimates that over the next 10 to 20 years, 14 percent of jobs are at high risk of being fully automated, while another 32 percent at risk of significant change. It is imperative, therefore, that education systems adapt to ensure students are equipped with the right skills to survive in our changing world.

Getty

While there are many different theories on what and how students should learn, I believe there is no escaping the fact that students will need to be prepared to continuously learn and upskill people will be learners for life, rather than a set period. I also believe technology is playing, and will continue to play, a key role in the way skills are acquired and developed for the 21st Century workforce. So, it is no surprise that the Education Technology (EdTech) industry is set to reach $252 billion by 2020, growing at a 17% annual rate.

Technology presents a wonderful opportunity to re-shape 21st-century education because its popular with students and teachers. One study in the US has shown that the introduction of technology makes 87% of students more likely to attend class and 72% of them more likely to participate. While a study by Smoothwall found that 96% of teachers believe technology has had a positive impact on the way children participate and learn in lessons.

Take augmented reality for example. The technology can be used to augment field trips by adding a layer of information and interactivity to the activity, help with foreign language studies by translating text, or bring subjects such as coral reefs and electromagnetism to life through apps like Google Expeditions. Considering all the applications and appeal of the technology, its no wonder that the New Jersey Institute of Technology (NJIT) reports augmented reality has the potential to revolutionize learning in primary and secondary schools more than any other technology has done in the recent past.

Orboot is a 10-inch globe and companion app (iOS or Android) that lets kids check out the world and complete activities in an augmented reality environment.

If we look at virtual reality, we can see great benefits in using the technologyfrom its ability to enhance recall through to its capacity for building empathy. These advantages position VR as a unique learning aid.

There are many companies that are focusing on driving positive change in education through technology. Martyn and I asked a couple of people doing great work in this space to join the discussion. First up was Seth Andrew.

Seth is a serial social entrepreneur, having founded Democracy Prep, Democracy Builders, REV, and Washington Leadership Academy. He then led policy and partnerships for the worlds largest network of schools for families earning less than $2 per day. Previously, Andrew served as the Senior Advisor for Education Technology in the Executive Office of President Barack Obama where he helped launch Computer Science for All, Vote.Gov, and #FutureReadySchools as well as helping to make the White House accessible in Virtual Reality for the first time in American history.

Seth Andrew, the founder of Democracy Prep in Harlem.

Seth is a leading advocate for the power of technology to transform the fundamentals of global schooling. In addition to helping buildthe dozens of schools in the US, and hundreds in Africa, he founded Washington Leadership Academy as a lab school to explore these new ideas and was awarded a $10m prize from the XQ: Super School Project to build out that new model. What goes into this ambitious vision? Seth wanted to see WLA build a virtual-reality high school chemistry lab and require every student to learn computer science in all four years of high school, plus build meaningful digital projects, including content in XR.

As this vision comes to fruition, Seth explained to the room: no child will be burned, no teacher will have to clean up a chemical spill, and access to a state-of-the-art science lab will cost just a fraction of the bricks and mortar version." In addition to these practical benefits, there are pedagogical benefits as well: We can drill down into the valence of each individual atom to see electrons spinning in a way you cant in a regular laboratory. The big goal is to inspire students to use the tools of technology to build the future world they will inhabit. Thats why computer science is a required course and students will graduate with the technical skills to code their own projects in Virtual Reality among other mediums.

Washington Leadership Academy

Tej Samani was also invited to join the conversation. Tej is the founder ofPerformance Learning, a British company that, for the last nine years, has helped thousands of learners boost their exam and classroom performance through its machine learning platform. Tej dropped out of school aged 16 to pursue a tennis career but hung his racket up at 21 to become the Founder of Performance Learning.

Tej speaking at the event at The Club at The Ivy.

Deployed from primary education (starting in Year 5) through to further and higher education, the digital platform and assessments accurately predict, monitor and evaluate learner performance with a core focus on mental health and attitudes and behavior towards learning.

Lessons are delivered through a combination of online, face-to-face, and cloud-based learning via trained Performance Learning coaches. From how they sleep to how they retain information, users get to understand more about themselves so they can improve how they learn and maximize potential.

Tej explained how the platform worked: The applications algorithm quietly and perpetually learns about the student and each time ensures it delivers the most appropriate learning pathway to ensure the student not only learns but wins. Learners interact with curriculum-specific learning journeys, ranging from Easy' to 'Genius mode, in a fully gamified experience.

He went on to explain that users have to beat the AI system in order to progress: The more the users play, the smarter the system becomes. It begins to predict core metacognitive and cognitive skill gaps within the user, encouraging the user to partake in training modules within the system to improve.

Topcliffe School Birmingham

Speaking about education and technology in general, Tej said: "Our education system has needed significant progression to just keep up, let alone stay ahead of the leaps in technology we are experiencing. While technology will always struggle to replace an effective teacher, it can help develop effective teaching as well as deliver tailored, personalized education to learners of all standards, irrespective of how complex their barriers to learning are. The advancement in education technology can bring in areas such as grade prediction, performance tracking, and personalizationthis will help to ensure that the most critical stage of a persons life is delivered with accuracy, engagement, and foresight

It is clear technology can be leveraged to create an engaging and personalized environment and open up opportunities for deeper learning technology should be used as an opportunity to acquire more knowledge, not an excuse to know less. Furthermore, students no longer have to be confined to the classroom or forced into a one-size-fits-all system. However, technology is not the answer to everythingwe still need classroom leaders and students with an appetite for learning.

Read more:

The Revolutionary Impact Of Immersive Technology On Education - Forbes

DUBLIN--(BUSINESS WIRE)--The "Super-Resolution Imaging Technologies in Life Science" report has been added to ResearchAndMarkets.com's offering.

The report includes:

Super-resolution imaging (SRI), which is also known as nanoscopy or super-resolution microscopy, is a group of technologies that allow performing optical imaging beyond the diffraction limit of light. Light consists of electromagnetic radiations with wavelike characteristics. When light passes through a small opening or meets a small obstacle, it does not continue in a straight path, but it bends. This phenomenon is known as diffraction.

Image resolution measures the number of details in an image. The resolution of optical instruments, such as microscopes and telescopes, is affected by diffraction. The diffraction limit is the minimum distance between two objects that permits to differentiate the objects one from the other.

Key Topics Covered

Chapter 1 Technology Highlights & Market Outlook

List of Tables

Table 1: Applications of Super-resolution Imaging in the Life Sciences

Table 2: Common Types of Super-resolution Imaging Systems

Table 3: Current and Emerging Trends in Super-resolution Imaging Technology

Table 4: Global Market for Super-resolution Imaging Systems in the Life Sciences, by Type of System, Through 2024

Table 5: Global Market for Super-resolution Imaging Systems in the Life Sciences, by Region/Country, Through 2024

List of Figures

Figure 1: Global Market Shares of Super-resolution Imaging Systems in the Life Sciences, by Type of System, 2024

Figure 2: Global Market Shares of Super-resolution Imaging Systems in the Life Sciences, by Region/Country, 2024

For more information about this report visit https://www.researchandmarkets.com/r/izpzp7

More:

Super-Resolution Imaging Technologies in Life Science | 2019-2024 Technology Highlights and Market Outlook - ResearchAndMarkets.com - Business Wire