Category: Technology

Facebook’s Mind Reading Headset

Have you ever imagined a world where you would just think things and they would happen? For example, you thought to send a happy birthday message to your grandmother and your phone does it automatically? Well, this concept seems to be coming closer to becoming reality very soon. In 2017, Facebook decided to create a device which would use your thoughts to type. So whatever you were thinking at that moment would be typed out by Facebook’s new brain-computer. Now Facebook has started to show how far they have come with this invention and how soon consumers can have it in their hands. It is something that will revolutionize technology as it will let the disabled speak and make our daily lives much easier.

Facebook says that they are in collaboration with scientists and researchers at the University of California to work on this new invention. They stated that they want to connect the world without any limitations whether they are geographical, physical or mental. They want to make the world instantly accessible and completely hands-free. So with collaboration from researchers, Facebook is trying to build a device that will let patients with neurological diseases have a voice again by examining their brain’s activity in real-time.

An experiment was conducted by the researchers where a neurological patient who had been surgically implanted with electrodes on the surface of his brain was asked to answer questions aloud. Around 61% of the time, the computer was able to comprehend and present the correct answer through brain signals alone. Researchers now believe that this could have a real impact on society as it would enable those who cannot speak to now have a voice and share their opinion with the world too.

However, there is much more work to be done. Right now the project is just at the beginning stage where it is starting to take form. What the researchers aim to achieve will take many years of trials and practice. The researchers want to decode around 100 words per minute with a vocabulary of 1000 words, and they want less than a 17% chance of error. This is a huge goal for the researchers and if this is achieved, it could transform the technological world.

However there are a few downfalls too, the procedure is surgically invasive, which in itself is a huge risk. This is a different model compared to the one aimed for normal consumers which will be manual headsets. Also in the initial trials, there was very limited vocabulary that was tested which means very limited answers could be provided. It leaves a great deal of scope for improvement. This device will take many years to be completed and to reach the consumers and patients, and will need much more money and effort to become a reality.

Capturing CO2 from the Environment

CO2 is present in the air and is absorbed by trees and plants from the atmosphere, but to what extent? With all the trees that are being cut down through deforestation, which is credited to urbanization, the carbon dioxide in the air is increasing. Factories and transportation are releasing greenhouse gases into the environment and increasing the temperature of the planet and melting ice. All of this is due to excess carbon dioxide within the atmosphere. However, someone has found a way to use that to the advantage of the plant – by using the carbon dioxide in the air to create energy.  They plan to use CO2, equivalent to that absorbed by 40 million trees in a year.

Carbon Energy, which is backed by billions of dollars of support, has finally been able to gather enough money to start the design process for their negative emissions project. The purpose of the project is to suck the carbon dioxide out of the atmosphere and re-use it to create energy. This facility is based in Calgary, Canada at the moment. The company has been able to raise 68 billion dollars for its project of using carbon dioxide from the air to create energy and is to date the most money raised for technology.

Steve Oldham, the owner of the company believes that besides awareness of environmental change and money, we also need technology to play a part. And he believes technology can play a major role in trying to turn around the environmental disaster that stands ahead of us. Through technology, new and innovative ways can be discovered to fix a problem which seems to have no solution. Through one factory, if 40 million trees worth of carbon dioxide is being used, then with many different factories in different parts of the world, a big change can be brought about in the world.

What the company plans to do is to use the carbon dioxide in the air and create carbon out of the air. The carbon will then be stored under-ground in the 230-acre factory and used to create fuel for different cars. Many different companies, like Chevrolet, might be interested in the company as a way to decrease their carbon footprint.

If big companies start to invest in projects like this and also become their customers, the difference to the environmental crisis the world is facing could be huge. Not only does this open ways for new technology and new ways to help the environment but it is also creating jobs, an alternative way of acquiring fuel and also helping companies reduce their own carbon emissions.

AI Universe

Our universe is billions of years old, so old that sometimes it is hard to fathom. But the rate of change has steadily increased to the stage that we are now capable of giving intelligence to machines. However, a new artificial intelligence machine has been created which will also help the human race understand our own universe better. It will show it to us in a broader perspective and help deepen our understanding. For the first time in history, astrophysicists are using 3D technology and artificial intelligence to generate complex 3D simulations of our universe. The results are so fascinating that even the creators are baffled by them.

Shirley Ho, a group leader at the Flatiron Institute’s Center for Computational Astrophysics in New York City says that the simulations they have created can easily be run within a few milliseconds. However, other fast simulators take at least a couple of minutes to do the same thing. She also says that their simulations are much more accurate.

The project is called the “Deep Density Displacement model” or D3M for short. This is the name given to it because of the speed and accuracy of the project, which was not the biggest shock to researchers rather the fact that it could accurately predict how the universe would look after tweaking certain parameters. Shirley Ho says that it was like “teaching image recognition software with lots of pictures of cats and dogs, but then it’s able to recognize elephants.”

The predictions and model created by D3M have become a necessity for those working in the field of theoretical astrophysics. This is because scientists want to know how the cosmos might evolve or change under various scenarios and tweaks. It is also a way to test a few of their theories about the universe.

D3M is also able to show how gravity shapes and impacts on our universe. Gravity is the main focus of the model as gravity is the most important force with the greatest impact. These most accurate simulations are able to calculate effect on billions of particles over the entire age of the universe.

A deep neural network powers the D3M by feeding it 8000 different simulations from the highest accuracy model. The neural networks take training data and make calculations on the information, and then researchers compare the resulting outcomes with the expected outcomes. As time goes by, neural networks become faster and adapt.

After training the D3M, the researchers took it for a test run. They ran a simulation for a box shaped universe 600 million light years in size. Slower machines took hundreds of hours to compute the data, while the fastest previous model was a bit faster, but not as accurate. However, the D3M was able to compute it in 30 milliseconds.

The D3M is an amazing project that helps astrophysicists understand the universe better and make more accurate predictions and discoveries. It has made the universe a little more practical to explore.

Neuralink

Neuralink is a company founded by the ever famous Elon Musk. Musk is famous for Tesla and SpaceX, all of which have made much advancement in the field of science and technology. He has now come up with another brilliant technological idea that may revolutionize medicine. His company Neuralink is a medical technology startup which aims to create a brain machine. He aims to create an ultra- bandwidth machine which interferes with the brain and connects humans and computers together. Neuralink recently held a conference where a few key details were revealed.

  1. It is a product

There are various ways to read or manipulate brain waves and neural connections within our brain. Some are non-invasive and use tools like helmets to read brain waves. A perfect example is an EEG. Yet, it is quite imprecise. However, there are invasive ways of interfering with the brain’s functioning. They are more precise, but can harm the individual too. For example, brain surgery. The probes used in it are big and cause destruction. Neuralink also has an invasive product, but it will not have huge probes, rather it will be a microchip inserted within the brain. It will read the brain with minuscule probes weaving through.

The chip is called N1 and contains 1024 electrodes. It is very small and will be inserted into the brain to read it and connect it to the machines.

  1. It can be viable soon

By next year, the company plans on having a human clinical study trial. They aim to focus on healthcare than any other advancement, so in their trial they have decided to include patients that have quadriplegia due to C1-C4 spinal cord injuries. This set up will be such that 4 chips will be used and the patients will be able to use their smart phones using their brain. They can also control a mouse and keyboard through a Bluetooth connection. The team currently is using animals for testing and Musk claims they made a monkey control a computer with his brain.

  1. The surgery for the product will be Lasik

As the probes are too small and fine to be inserted by human hands, Neuralink has created a robot alongside to perform the surgery. The surgery will generate an incision of no more than eight millimetres and will be performed under an hour.

  1. There’s an application

Neuralink has developed an application that is available on your iPhone. The chip will connect to your iPhone through an application and the person using it will be trained through that as well. There will be no big probes – it will all be through Bluetooth.

  1. Artificial Intelligence

Elon Musk’s original goal has always been to merge with artificial intelligence so at the end of the day it does not turn on the human race. This is a concept he strongly believes in. Right now Neuralink is focusing on the healthcare aspect of the chip; however, the end goal for Musk is to create symbiosis with artificial intelligence.

Graphene

Have you ever given a second thought to the lowly material inside your pencil? All you might remember is from 6th grade science that it is a part of carbon. Well, now scientists have developed Graphene to become a super material. Graphene really could be the future and include Graphene eye wear and Graphene armour, are all possibilities after this remarkable discovery by scientists. However, you must be wondering what it really is and how it can qualify as a super material that could revolutionize the world like lighter smart phones and bullet proof armour.

What is Graphene?

Graphene is a single layer of graphite. Another example is that it’s the flaky and soft material used in the lead of your pencil that we use for our everyday use. Graphite is an allotrope of the element carbon which means both of them possess carbon atoms, but they are arranged in a different manner which is why they are so different from one another. Diamond is also an allotrope, but it’s the hardest material in the world and nothing can cut it while graphite is soft and flaky. Graphene’s atoms are arranged in a hexagonal manner.

What is interesting is that when a single layer of these molecules of graphite, are isolated, they show some miraculous properties. Despite the fact that it is only one thin layer, it is one of the strongest materials known to man. It has the strength of 130 GPa (gigapascals), which is a 100 times stronger than steel. This shows the immense power this material can hold and how beneficial it can be to us in the future. The fact that it is so powerful and has incredible strength should be enough, yet it is not. There are many other characteristics it holds such as being transparent, flexible, highly conductive and mostly impermeable to most gases and liquids. It seems there is no area that Graphene does not excel in.

Potential Applications:

The potential applications of Graphene are endless. It can be used in countless products due to its versatility and strength. However, a few of them are listed and explained below. Scientists have considered creating flexible electronics with this amazing material because it is so highly flexible and transparent, and has immense strength that makes it perfect for portable electronics. Our smartphones and tablets could become way more durable and could even be folded like a piece of paper with the help of Graphene. Also, another use could be wearable electronics. With Graphene, these could fit the skin perfectly and could fit any size or shape. Another use for Graphene could be solar cells. As it is highly conductive, it is the perfect material for conduction of solar energy. Its photovoltaic properties will also allow it to develop better sensors for cameras.

All of this however, is in research and theory at the moment, but we never know, we might be using a foldable phone in the very near future.

Neural Implants for the Blind

Due to various diseases including cancer, many people become blind. It really is a sad story, however, it is their eyes that cause the issue and not their visual cortex. In this way, their visual cortex which is part of the brain is completely fine and undamaged, but as there is no information coming in from the eyes, it holds no use for the person. This, however, is not the case anymore. Through an amazing medical trial, 6 people who were blind are now able to partially see. The device that helps achieve this is called Orion. It takes pictures from a camera and inputs them directly into the brain, acting as the eyes for the person.

Doctors believe that this is a ray of hope for those who are completely blind and have lost their eyesight due to a disease or accident. They believe that if the camera completely erases the purpose of the eyes, it could lead to many more opportunities for people who cannot see.

Orion is made up of 2 parts. It includes an implant within the person’s brain and a pair of glasses which contain the camera. The camera in the glasses takes pictures and sends information to 60 electrodes which are placed in the implant within the brain. These electrodes process information and present it to the visual cortex. This then shows the blind person a partial image of what is in front of them. Meaning the device removes the need for natural eyesight.

For testing the device, researchers used a computer. They first chose completely blind people and showed them a black screen on a computer with a white square, which moved within a random pattern. They would then ask them to point at the square at whatever position it was at. They pointed at the correct place, making scientists believe their invention truly worked.

It is believed that the square which was shown to the patients may just be the beginning. If they were to introduce many more electrodes within the brain, they would be able to create a proper image, which would show the blind person everything around them. What they aim to do is use the reference of a style of painting. When you paint tiny thousands of spots, they come together and represent a full picture – this could be done in the brain too. When electrodes are stimulating thousands of places in the brain while the camera is feeding the information, there is potential that a proper image may be created in the same way as a painting.

Even the way the device is at the moment, it really has the potential of changing lives.