New system allows for high-accuracy, through-wall, 3-D motion tracking Imagine playing a video game like Call of Duty or Battlefield and having the ability to lead your virtual army unit while moving freely throughout your house. Gaming could become this realistic, thanks to new technology developed by Dina Katabi’s research group at the MIT Computer Science and Artificial Intelligence Lab (CSAIL) that allows for highly accurate, 3-D motion tracking. The new system, dubbed “WiTrack”, uses radio signals to track a person through walls and obstructions, pinpointing her 3-D location to within 10 to 20 centimeters — about the width of an adult hand. The researchers will present their findings during the Usenix Symposium on Networked Systems Design and Implementation in April 2014. Earlier this year, Katabi and her graduate student Fadel Adib unveiled WiVi, a system that detects humans through walls and can track the direction of their movement using WiFi signals.
Wildlife Sound Recording Society | Getting started in Wildlife Sound Recording listen to a group of Long-Tailed Tits feeding recorded using equipment described. Richard Mudhar The newcomer to wildlife sound recording has a bewildering choice of a wide variety of sound recording equipment, designed for a whole range of applications from recording voice notes to recording orchestras. The obvious question he will ask is "what is the cheapest equipment to make wildlife sound recordings". This is what I have tried to make sense of here. Because most people starting out with wildlife sound recording are interested in recording birds, and generally want to record them from where they view them, this is written from that standpoint. Having the right gear is part of the story. I have pitched this at the amateur recordist in temperate latitudes, for whom cost is usually a greater issue than others, such a time and ruggedness. A basic sound recording kit is quite small the basics Let me start with the basics - what are the items you really need to record wildlife sounds?
The Twelve Senses - Fairy Dust Teaching Welcome to Saturday Senses! For the next twelve Saturdays I will feature one of the twelve senses. I am absolutely passionate about this model and what it provides in understanding how we process life. Actually, it is incredible to me that at the turn of the last century, Rudolf Steiner had realized we had more than the traditional five senses. He asserted we had twelve senses. What is so powerful about Steiner’s 12 senses model is the implications on teaching. Today, I want to give you a quick tour and overview. The Lower Senses – “Sensation” Senses – The Physical Senses The lower senses give us a certain consciousness of our body. Sense of Life – This sense allows us to experience our own constitution, whether we feel well or not (editic).Sense of Touch – This sense tells you something about the object you are touching and your sense of boundary (tactile).Sense of Movement – Gives us a sense of our joints and muscles when we move. Did you enjoy this post?
Here's Why People Love Deep Bass Sounds In Music Why do music lovers like it so much when the beat drops? Scientists may now have an answer. A new study from Canada's McMaster Institute for Music and the Mind investigated how the brain reacts to low- and high-pitched tones in order to explain how humans detect rhythm -- and it's much easier for us to follow deep bass sounds. "There is a physiological basis for why we create music the way we do," study co-author Dr. Laurel Trainor, a neuroscientist and director of the institute, told LiveScience. "Virtually all people will respond more to the beat when it is carried by lower-pitched instruments." Songs typically feature high-pitched melodies with deeper bass lines. (Story continues below) McMaster student Kristin Tonus tries on sensors at the McMaster Institute for Music and the Mind. In the study, Trainor and her colleagues monitored electrical activity in the brains of 35 people. Next, the researchers played those sequences through a computer model of the human ear.
Watch a robotic cube walk and balance under its own power Cubes aren't usually the go-to shape when creating an object that's meant to move around, but researchers in Switzerland have created one that can do just that — along with a handful of other surprising talents. Called the Cubli, it measures nearly 6 inches on each side and can walk around by continually flipping itself over. Perhaps more impressively, it can also balance on any of its sides or even just a single corner. As the research team from ETH Zurich's Institute for Dynamic Systems and Control demonstrates in a video, the cube can even remain balanced while a surface is raised up at an angle beneath it. Though it's a moving cube, the Cubli still relies on a series of spinning wheels to get going. A separate group of researchers at MIT demonstrated another use for blocks like this back in October: allowing a basic robot to reassemble itself.
To Find Your Next Great Business Idea, Narrow Your Focus When you’re just starting out in business, narrowing your target market can be difficult for fear you’ll be excluding part of your potential customer base. But if you can clearly define a market and its needs upfront, you can tailor your product or service offerings narrowly to meet that demand and quickly gain more wallet share than your competitors. Related: How to Target Your Message to Find Customers What exactly does this mean? 1. 2. 3. These examples illustrate a general truth about business opportunity: The true opportunity may not be apparent at the outset. Related: Three Ways to Find an Edge in a Crowded Market Looking at the marketplace this way could also change your thinking on the true nature of a startup. Simply walk or drive along any street and you’ll pass any number of businesses struggling to make ends meet because they aren’t selling what their market truly wants or needs. Category leaders tend to be highly focused, and many times, that focus can appear too narrow. 1.
Illusion An illusion is a distortion of the senses, revealing how the brain normally organizes and interprets sensory stimulation. Though illusions distort reality, they are generally shared by most people.[1] Illusions may occur with any of the human senses, but visual illusions (optical illusions), are the most well-known and understood. The emphasis on visual illusions occurs because vision often dominates the other senses. For example, individuals watching a ventriloquist will perceive the voice is coming from the dummy since they are able to see the dummy mouth the words.[2] Some illusions are based on general assumptions the brain makes during perception. These assumptions are made using organizational principles (e.g., Gestalt theory), an individual's capacity for depth perception and motion perception, and perceptual constancy. The term illusion refers to a specific form of sensory distortion. Mimes are known for a repertoire of illusions that are created by physical means.
Video of China's Historic Moon Landing Released It’s been a busy weekend for China’s moon mission Chang’e 3. After a successful landing on Saturday, the Beijing Aerospace Flight Control Center commanded the lander’s rover to roll onto the lunar surface early Sunday morning (Beijing Time). Now, a beautiful video has been released of the full landing sequence, shown here. At approximately 3 minutes into the video, the Chang’e 3 lander rotates to begin its vertical descent onto Sinus Iridum (the Bay of Rainbows), an ancient lava plain in the moon’s northern hemisphere. The descent onto lunar regolith had a very Apollo-landing feel as the lander’s thrusters blew moon dust away from the landing site at around the 6 minute mark. More Discovery News coverage of China’s moon landing: Video credit: Beijing Aerospace Flight Control Center
My 7-Day Work Week Experiment Recently, I religiously tried to follow a new routine I created for myself: a 7-day work week routine. The idea was quite simple: I would work 7 days a week, rest 7 days a week, go to the gym 7 days a week, reflect 7 days a week. This was less about working lots, much more about feeling fulfilled every day, feeling stretched during the day but also rested. I aimed to work less each day, and replace two hours of work with a long break in the middle of the day. The biggest thing I wanted to do was to satisfy my craving of “why not?” and to challenge the status quo of working 5 days a week and then taking 2 days off. Some of the hypotheses I had about my new 7-day work week: The 7-day work week routine I’ve been an early riser for a couple of years now, and during this experiment I was rising at 4:30am. Results of the 7-day work week routine In the end, I have decided that I won’t continue with the 7-day work week routine. How the world works does affect you The wisdom of the day of rest
How to Use Meditation to Help You Out of a Depressive State By Robert L. Rupp Guest Writer for Wake Up World We live in interesting times. Depression is a formidable opponent for millions. From a neurological standpoint, most people effected by depression show reduced alpha activity in the frontal lobes. It should be understood that meditation, although simple, has been proven to offer moderate relief in addressing psychological stress. Knowing that meditating causes an increase in alpha brainwave activity and that those with depression show reduced alpha wave activity in the frontal lobes helps many to place belief in their meditative practice. In order to use meditation to help bring you out of a depressive state, the first thing you must do is believe it will work. Once you have the desire to improve your mental health and mood with the aid of meditation, you need to simply start practicing. Because the alpha brainwave state is the goal and alpha is a state of relaxation, it is important that you be relaxed. Reference: About the author:
BI V2.0: The self-replicating 3D printer 3D printing promises that one day we may be able to print out goods in our own homes rather than popping down to the shops or ordering widgets online. But what happens when the printers are able to print themselves? Boots Industries’ BI V2.0 takes a step down that road with a design aimed at self-replication. Currently the subject of a Kickstarter campaign, the open-source printer is capable of printing its own core components. Founded in 2012 by Jean Le Bouthillier and François Crête, Boots Industries already has several other printers on the market, but the BI V2.0 is something of a departure for the company. The key to the BI V2.0 is that it’s a delta-style 3D printer, based on the delta robots developed in the 1980s for picking up small objects rapidly and precisely.