Contact lenses that could do away with TV screens - projects images onto the eyeball to be unveiled next week -

Contact lenses that could do away with TV screens - projects images onto the eyeball to be unveiled next week - 



Contact lenses that allow the wearer to see high-definition virtual screens are to be unveiled in Las Vegas next week.
Dubbed iOptik, the system allows the users to see projected digital information, such as driving directions and video calls.
The tiny 'screens', which are the invention of Washington-based group Innovega, sit directly on a users' eyeballs and work with a pair of lightweight glasses.

Together, they provide an experience equivalent to watching a 240-inch television at a distance of 10 feet, according to Innovega's chief executive Steve Willey.

The glasses are fitted with micro-projectors and nothing else. The contact lenses, however, are more complicated devices.
They can be worn on their own and only function with the iOptik software when a user looks  through the company's paired glasses.
The system can work with smartphones and portable game devices to deliver video - or switch to a translucent 'augmented reality' view, where computer information is layered over the world we know it.
‘Whatever runs on your smartphone would run on your eyewear,’ Innovega chief Stephen Willey said in an interview with CNET.  ‘At full HD. Whether it's a window or immersive.’
Crucially, the device can be worn while moving around in a similar way to Google Glass.
Innovega customised the standard contact lens manufacturing process with a unique filter to make the contact lenses.
'All the usual optics in the eyewear are taken away and there is a sub-millimeter lens right in the centre,' Mr Willey told CNET.
'The outside of the lens is shaped to your prescription if you need one and the very centre of the lens is a bump that allows you to see incredibly well half an inch from your eye.'
An optical filter also directs the light. 'Light coming from outside the world is shunted to your normal prescription. Light from that very near display goes through the center of the lens, the optical filter,' Mr Willey said
The contacts are due to be previewed at the Consumer Electronics Show and promise to provide a much more immersive experience than other head-work wearable devices. 
The company unveiled a prototype of the technology at the 2013 Consumer Electronics Show, but plans to show a more advanced, working version next week.

Read more: -

http://www.dailymail.co.uk/sciencetech/article-2533463/The-contact-lenses-away-TV-screens-System-projects-images-eyeball-unveiled-week.html

Smarterphones: Sensors to automatically react to users' needs... -

Smarterphones: Sensors to automatically react to users' needs... - 





A staff member sets up the new iPhone 5Ss for display picture at Apple Inc's announcement event in Beijing
The revolution in smartphones is over. This year’s focus will instead be on step changes in technology that will help the devices play an even greater role in people’s lives.

Sensors will be able to detect temperature, pressure, eye movement and gestures, location and magnetic fields. In effect, the screens of premium phones will look back at the user and know when they are sleeping, walking, running or taking the bus; whether or not they are holding up one, two or three fingers or swiping away.
Accenture, the consultancy group, credits advancements in microelectromechanical systems for the coming wave of smaller, more accurate, and more durable sensors.
David Sovie, managing director with Accenture’s communications group, said: “Sensors will step into the spotlight in 2014 like never before, enabling the digital transformation of people and companies and feeding increasingly interconnected networks with insightful data.”
Iris scanning is being planned by some handset makers, which will allow people to open the phone using eye contact rather than a password. This will also allow improved eye tracking for applications such as reading and web page scrolling. Sensors such as those for heart rate monitoring in wearable technology will also emerge this year, according to Canalys.
Crucially, the phone itself will become more intelligent by learning from what it is tracking in the habits of the user. The phone will know who you are and what you are doing, and react accordingly having learnt from past experience.
Luke Mansfield, head of product innovation at Samsung Europe, said: “2014 will see technology start to distil data, and provide even sharper insights, into something even more actionable that can help us make decisions about our health and wellbeing.”
Wearables and watches 
The proliferation of sensors will help wearable technology make the next step into mainstream use, with almost every major manufacturer lining up forms of mobile technology that can be worn on the wrist or elsewhere that will monitor activities and wellbeing on the move.
Most devices will be companion accessories to a smartphone rather than standalone products, although at least two smart watches will come with SIM cards installed that will allow them to connect independently to the mobile internet.
Most Android-based smartphone makers are planning to launch a smart watch, with Chinese makers such as ZTE already promising to bring down the prices with lower end alternatives. Apple, meanwhile, continues to work on the iWatch.
There will be a variety of forms, however, as makers seek to differentiate products with different displays, including at least one with an e-reader format. Many primarily offer notifications and controls for the phone in the pocket.
Many manufacturers are taking ideas already in the market – such as the fitness bands sold by Jawbone and Nike – and weaving them into wider applications where digitally connected people can log every aspect of their lives using their bands, watches and other wearable hardware.
This move by smartphone makers into this “lifestyle” market could cause a dip in the fortunes of specialised wearable devices that only have a single use, such as fitness tracking.
The wearable technology will also spawn new software applications – Ben Wood at CCS Insight has identified eight categories ranging from simple internet consumption and entertainment to the “quantified self” and “lifeblogging”.
Juniper predicts significant opportunities for app developers across the health, fitness, sports and communications markets.

Read more - 

http://www.ft.com/intl/cms/s/0/210864c6-72f9-11e3-b05b-00144feabdc0.html#axzz2pOBsfgq3

Now Disney Can Track Your Every Move with NSA-Style Wristbands -

Now Disney Can Track Your Every Move with NSA-Style Wristbands - 



Families planning trips to one of Disney’s theme parks can now get waterproof rubber wristbands embedded with computer chips in lieu of paper tickets. When scanned, the bands can act as a park entry ticket, a FastPass, a hotel room key and a credit card. The “Magic Bands” — which are currently optional — are part of a new MyMagic+ “vacation management system” that can track guests as they move throughout the park.

Efficient? Perhaps. But post-Snowden, some worry that Magic Bands are nothing more than NSA-esque tracking devices. The MyMagic+ system is designed to track users’ purchasing habits, and if parents agree to certain settings, employees playing characters in the park can use hidden sensors to track children and their information; so Goofy can walk up to a child and say something like, “Hi Bobby. Happy birthday.” Pretty creepy. Plus, others worry that someone might be able to hack your band and thus access your hotel room and credit card.

Massachusetts Rep Ed Markey publicly criticized the bands after they were announced last year, saying that he worried that the new tickets invade the privacy of millions of children. Disney’s CEO, Bob Iger, responded by calling Markey’s statements “ludicrous” and “ill-informed.”

Disney fanatics, for their part, can’t wait to get their hands on the devices.

Read more: -

http://entertainment.time.com/2014/01/02/disney-nsa-style-magic-bands-theme-park/

Walmart recalls donkey meat in China - after tests showed the meat contained DNA from other animals -

Walmart recalls donkey meat in China - after tests showed the meat contained DNA from other animals - 



Walmart has recalled donkey meat sold at some of its China stores after tests showed the meat contained DNA from other animals.

According to Reuters, Walmart said it had set up an investigation team to look into the incident, will strengthen its food safety rules and will take legal action against the supplier. 

The Shandong Food and Drug Administration earlier said the product contained fox meat.

The person in charge at the supplier factory has been detained, the report said. 

Walmart will reimburse customers who bought the "Five Spice" donkey meat.

"We are deeply sorry for this whole affair," Walmart's China president and CEO, Greg Foran, said. "It is a deep lesson (for us) that we need to continue to increase investment in supplier management."

Donkey meat is popular in some parts of China, although it only accounts for a tiny fraction of overall meat consumption.

Walmart came under fire in China last year after officials in the city of Nanning accused it of using expired eggs in baked goods, the Wall Street Journal reported. 

A Walmart spokeswoman said that the issue was resolved, without elaborating. 

Read more -

http://www.foxnews.com/world/2014/01/02/walmart-recalls-donkey-product-in-china-after-other-animal-dna-found-in-it/?intcmp=latestnews

US Feds Consider Vehicle Location Tracking in all New Cars -

US Feds Consider Vehicle Location Tracking in all New Cars - 



In a few weeks, federal officials may require new vehicles to have trackable GPS “safety” devices which could be hacked to cause automobile accidents and may even usher in mileage taxes.
With the V2V device, the GPS location for all new cars could be recorded. Credit: Minesweeper via Wiki
With the V2V device, the GPS location for all new cars could be recorded. Credit: Minesweeper via Wiki
The National Highway Traffic Safety Administration is spending the next couple of weeks mulling over its decision to install vehicle-to-vehicle communications – known as V2V for short – into new vehicles which would allow them to “talk” to each other through GPS data under the guise of “accident prevention,” according to ABC News.
However, one official involved with the government study of the devices admitted that hackers could abuse the system to create mass havoc on the road.
“Who has access and how do you secure the data?” David Wise of the Government Accountability Office asked.
He even said that the V2V would rely on GPS data that can be used to easily track a vehicle – and thus the occupants inside.
“Privacy is a real challenge,” Wise said.
This is refreshing honesty from a government official.
The fact that the V2V system could be hacked to cause high-speed pile-ups exposes the political lie that these devices were designed to prevent accidents. In fact, bureaucrats want the V2V installed in vehicles in order to track Americans like animals in another sick extension of the domestic spy grid pioneered by the NSA.
With vehicle tracking, big government politicians could also accomplish their goal of taxing drivers by every mile driven.
Lawmakers could even use this sort of technology to pass laws that allow local governments to mail drivers tickets for “recorded traffic violations” as they already do with red light cameras.
And to really stick it into drivers even further, the costs for the GPS technology will be tacked onto the price of new cars – forcing Americans to pay for their own enslavement.

Read more -

http://www.infowars.com/feds-may-require-vehicle-location-tracking-in-new-cars/

Mid-lifers who want to be active in their 70s, 80s should be hitting the gym now -

Mid-lifers who want to be active in their 70s, 80s should be hitting the gym now - 



No one likes to think about getting old and we generally don't do much to prepare for it. But the truth of the matter is that if you are lucky enough to live into your 70s, 80s and beyond, your fitness level is going to decline.

Some of it comes down to unstoppable biology. But how much and how fast you lose muscle, bone, flexibility and aerobic capacity is also influenced by your individual fitness level going into older age.

So if you want to be sprightly in your 70s, you need to be working out in your 40s, 50s and 60s, experts say.

Put another way: If you don't pay into your fitness bank in middle age, you won't have much to draw on later. And while you may not mind being too out of shape to go for a run when you are 55, you probably will care if you can't pull yourself out of a bathtub at 75.

"I think you are on a slippery slope. Or another analogy would be you're getting closer to the edge of the cliff," says Dr. Paul Oh, medical director of the cardiovascular prevention and rehabilitation program at Toronto Rehab, a hospital in the University Health Network.

"We need to be thinking about prevention all along, but particularly as we hit our middle years."

In your teens, 20s and 30s, for most people working out is about looking and feeling good, managing stress and keeping weight in check. But later in life, maintaining muscle is critical for independent and active living. In other words, we need to do it to be able to perform myriad functions we all take for granted — until we can no longer do them with ease.

You need strong leg muscles for walking, climbing stairs and getting up from the sofa. You need strong core muscles to protect your back. And you need upper body strength to carry groceries, push yourself up out of bed, open a jar or pick up a grandchild.

But adults begin to lose muscle mass as early as age 40, "so it's important to try to defend it through our adult years," says Oh.

In the U.S., the American Heart Association and the Centers for Disease Control recommend adults do weight training — with good reason, says Kent Adams, director of the exercise physiology laboratory at California State University Monterey Bay.

"For the boomers, critical to successful aging is strength training, resistance training,'' he says, adding that even people who exercise regularly but who focus exclusively on aerobic workouts should broaden their routines.

"Running alone is not suitable for maintaining muscle mass," Kent says. "From a public health perspective, we would do a lot of good if people would lift weights two or three days a week."

"We don't need to become Arnold Schwarzenegger.... But we do need to challenge ourselves and work harder."

Elaine Cress agrees.

"For a long time, the emphasis was all on heart disease and cardiovascular fitness. But people are really realizing the critical importance of having strength training for precisely this," says Cress, a former professor of kinesiology and gerontology at the University of Georgia who now lives in Bellingham, Wash.

Cress says performing day-to-day activities will not give you the fitness reserves you will need for later in life.

"You need structured exercise to keep the muscle capacity above what you need in your everyday life. Gardening's not enough."

Experts suggest a mix of types of exercise, aimed at maintain strength and bone density, aerobic capacity and flexibility.

"Stiffness is a factor as you get older," says Dr. Cy Frank, an orthopedic surgeon with the Alberta Bone and Joint Health Institute in Calgary. "So you have to do more stretching as you get older, because physiologically your tissues are tightening up.''

Cress suggests finding a reputable yoga or Pilates program, or other types of stretching classes to help you learn how to stretch properly.

For those who don't have access to or don't feel comfortable working out at a gym, brisk walking is a good option for an aerobic workout, Oh says.

He suggests a person in their 60s who walks at a pace of about 6.4 kilometres per hour would accrue real health benefits. He recommends 30 minutes of that five times a week. The aim is to exert yourself enough to be a little bit out of breath, Oh says.

Read more -

http://www.montrealgazette.com/health/seniors/Midlifers+want+active+their+should+hitting/9338136/story.html

Sleep Deprivation Could Damage Brain Tissue -

Sleep Deprivation Could Damage Brain Tissue - 



New research published in the journal SLEEP suggests that even one night of sleep deprivation could result in a loss of brain tissue.
Researchers from Uppsala University in Sweden found that in young, sleep-deprived men, there are higher blood concentrations of the molecules NSE and S-100B. These two molecules are typically found in the brain, so finding high blood concentrations of the molecules after sleep loss "may indicate that a lack of snoozing might be conducive to a loss of brain tissue," Uppsala University wrote in a statement.
   
For the study, the researchers tested 15 healthy, normal-weight men in their early 20s.
Prior to the study the men were interviewed to confirm that they kept typical sleep patterns in their regular routine, such as getting around eight hours of sleep per night and going to bed by 11:30 p.m. on a work night and waking up no later than 7:30 a.m. on a working day.
In one condition of the experiment, the men were were deprived of sleep for one night. The following morning the researchers examined their blood. In another condition, the men were allowed to sleep approximately eight hours before the blood test.
"We observed that a night of total sleep loss was followed by increased blood concentrations of NSE and S-100B. These brain molecules typically rise in blood under conditions of brain damage. Thus, our results indicate that a lack of sleep may promote neurodegenerative processes," said Christian Benedict, the leader of the study.
Benedict is a sleep researcher at Uppsala University's Department of Neuroscience.
"In conclusion, the findings of our trial indicate that a good night's sleep may be critical for maintaining brain health," Benedict said.

Read more -

http://www.natureworldnews.com/articles/5492/20140101/sleep-deprivation-damage-brain-tissue-study-suggests.htm

S-S-S-SCARY - Woman Finds Python In Her S-s-s-s-sofa -

S-S-S-SCARY - Woman Finds Python In Her S-s-s-s-sofa - 



Now here's a story guaranteed to make you squirm.

A woman in Michigan recently got the surprise of her life when she discovered a large reptile coiled in the folds of her couch.

According to ABC News, Grand Rapids resident Holly Wright made the shocking find over the weekend, when she spotted a large snake slithering around in a secondhand couch she had picked up.

"I picked this couch up off the street and it's been in my bedroom for a couple months, and today we found a python inside the couch," Holly Wright said in a video obtained by ABC News' Grand Rapids affiliate WZZM-TV.

Wright said she had cleaned the couch when she brought it home and never noticed the stowaway snake. She believes the reptile's appetite is what prompted it to come out of hiding.

"It didn't really react or hiss ... It was quite cold in the room, there was no food for the snake and I think it came out of the couch because it was dying," she said.

Wright may be right, as the python did die before she was able to get help for it.

"It's been really sad actually to realize all this time I was in proximity to that animal [and it] was probably suffering," she told WZZM.

The snake received a proper burial and the couch got kicked back to the curb, along with a written warning — "Do Not Pick Up."

Read more - 

http://www.huffingtonpost.com/2014/01/01/holy-wright-python_n_4527781.html?ref=topbar

Sun has 'flipped upside down' - Nasa - its north and south poles reversed -

Sun has 'flipped upside down' - Nasa - its north and south poles reversed - 



The sun has fully "flipped upside down", with its north and south poles reversed to reach the midpoint of Solar Cycle 24, Nasa has said.

Now, the magnetic fields have once again started moving in opposite directions to begin the completion of the 22 year long process which will culminate in the poles switching once again.

"A reversal of the sun's magnetic field is, literally, a big event," said Nasa's Dr. Tony Phillips.

"The domain of the sun's magnetic influence (also known as the 'heliosphere') extends billions of kilometers beyond Pluto. Changes to the field's polarity ripple all the way out to the Voyager probes, on the doorstep of interstellar space."

To mark the event, Nasa has released a visualisation of the entire process.

At the beginning, in 1997, the video shows the sun with its positive polarity on the top (the green lines), and the negative polarity on the bottom (the purple lines).

Over the next 11 years, each set of lines gradually move toward the opposite pole, eventually showing a complete flip.

By the end, both set of lines representing the opposing magnetic fields begin to work their way back, which will eventually culminate in the completion of the full 22 year magnetic solar cycle in approximately 11 years, before the whole process starts over again.

"At the height of each magnetic flip, the sun goes through periods of more solar activity, during which there are more sunspots, and more eruptive events such as solar flares and coronal mass ejections," said Nasa's Karen C. Fox.

"Cosmic rays are also affected," added Dr. Phillips. "These are high-energy particles accelerated to nearly light speed by supernova explosions and other violent events in the galaxy."

Read more -

http://www.nzherald.co.nz/world/news/article.cfm?c_id=2&objectid=11179370

Rabbi Sued After Baby's Penis Severed During Circumcision... -

Rabbi Sued After Baby's Penis Severed During Circumcision... - 



A local rabbi is being sued after allegedly botching a bris, the traditional Jewish circumcision ritual, and severing a newborn boy’s penis.
The incident detailed in the lawsuit happened at the Tree of Life Synagogue in Squirrel Hill within the last year.
The Jewish circumcision ceremony was performed by Pittsburgh Rabbi Mordechai Rosenberg – who is also a mohel.

Sometime during the bris, according to the lawsuit, Rosenberg severed the baby boy’s penis.
The baby was rushed to Children’s Hospital, where doctors performed emergency microsurgery.
“If your finger, your thumb was cut off and was put back on, that is pretty exciting,” said renowned UPMC plastic surgeon Dr. Joe Losee.
Dr. Losee was not involved in the boy’s treatment and he can’t talk specifics.
But our sources say it took eight hours. The baby needed six blood transfusions and was hospitalized for nearly two months. Sources describe the reattachment procedure as successful.
Dr. Losee says microsurgery advances every day, but it’s risky.
“Sometimes, it doesn’t always work,” he says. “When you’re reattaching a portion where you include nerves, sometimes the nerves don’t heal well beyond where you reattached it. So there are limitations for sure.”
On his website, Rabbi Rosenberg says he is recognized as a “certified mohel by the American Board of Ritual Circumcision.” His site also says “a doctor’s medical circumcision, usually performed in the hospital, is not considered valid according to Jewish law.”
“That is extraordinarily serious and is extraordinarily rare,” said attorney David Llewellyn.
Llewellyn handles cases involving injury during circumcision – injury brought on by both doctors in the hospital and mohels in religious ceremonies.
“Your average pediatric urologist probably spends about 20 percent of his or her time repairing children who have been circumcised,” Llewellyn says.
According to the American Academy of Pediatrics, one in every 500 newborn boys experience significant acute complications as a result of circumcision.
“This is pretty much unregulated,” Llewellyn said.
He says there is no regulated standard for training or certification of mohels, or any place for reporting injuries from circumcision.

Read more -
http://pittsburgh.cbslocal.com/2013/12/27/rabbi-sued-after-baby-injured-during-circumcision/