Researchers at the Washington University School of Medicine have created a technical implant enabling users to control computer functions simply by thinking of certain sounds. Historically, these brain/computer interface implants have been linked to the part of the brain that controls muscle movement. This approach differs as it tries to mimic the process used when humans speak.
With Amazon's recent entry into consumer cloud storage, we've got quite a few competitors offering great and varying options—but which one is the best? Here's a look at Windows Live SkyDrive, Dropbox, and Amazon Cloud Drive, and our top pick for storing you files in the cloud.
If IT shops want to prevent users from going to the cloud, they have to bring the cloud to the users.
That was Microsoft's message to customers Tuesday as the Microsoft Management Summit kicked off with a preview of System Center 2012. When IT shops don't provision services to end users fast enough, Microsoft officials said, the users will get what they want from Amazon's Elastic Compute Cloud or perhaps from Windows Azure.
Chances are that if you're calling 9-1-1 (or 9-9-9, or whatever it is where you are), you're not likely to tell the operator that your case isn't all that urgent, and that it can wait. The problem is, sometimes emergency dispatch centers are so overloaded with callers – all of them stating that they need assistance right now – that some sort of system is required in order to determine who should get help first. Dutch researchers claim to have developed just such a system, which analyzes callers' voices to determine how stressed-out they are.
Six workers were exposed to excessive radiation at the Fukushima Daiichi nuclear plant on Saturday as a mile-long power line was connected to Reactor No. 2 in an effort to restore power to its cooling system. Crews hope to restart the system Sunday, The New York Times reported, but meanwhile observers have been speculating how many robots authorities have deployed to keep people out of harm's way.
The answer, apparently, is zero.
Computer chips continue to get smaller and that’s a good thing. A smaller chip is faster and more energy-efficient than a larger chip, while also being more affordable to produce. More to the point, as gadgets become smaller, chipmakers have to try to keep up. The problem is that while shrinking a chip has all sorts of benefits, the tinier they are, the more fragile and easily broken they become. What to do?
