Researchers develop eyeball camera with zoom capabilities

Researchers have used the human eye as inspiration for a new type of camera that boasts the simple lens system of the eye, but features the variable zoom capability of a single-lens reflex (SLR) camera without the bulk and weight of a complex lens system. As a result, the “eyeball camera” measures less than an inch in diameter, is inexpensive to make and should be suited to a variety of applications, including night-vision surveillance, robotic vision systems, endoscopic imaging and consumer electronics.
Developed by researchers from Northwestern University and the University of Illinois at Urbana-Champaign, the first of its kind curvilinear camera overcomes the problem of previous eyeball camera designs that were incompatible with variable zoom. This was because they used rigid detectors, but because the image changes shape with magnification, the detector must also change shape to keep the image in focus.
To achieve this the researchers used an array of interconnected and flexible silicon photodetectors on a thin, elastic membrane, which can easily change shape. Additionally, the camera system also has an integrated “liquid lens” constructed by putting a thin, elastic membrane on a water chamber, with a clear glass window underneath.
Initially the chambers beneath the membranes of the detector and the lens are filled with water, making both the detector and the lens flat. But as water is extracted from the detector’s chamber, the detector surface becomes a concave hemisphere. Meanwhile, injecting water into the lens chamber makes the thin membrane become a convex hemisphere.
By controlling the hydraulics to change the curvatures of the lens and detector in a coordinated way to ensure the shape of the detector matches the varying curvature of the image surface, the camera is able to produce an in-focus and magnified image. The camera developed by the researchers currently has a 3.5x optical zoom, but they say a higher zoom is possible using the technology.
“We were inspired by the human eye, but we wanted to go beyond the human eye,” said Yonggang Huang, Joseph Cummings Professor of Civil and Environmental Engineering and Mechanical Engineering at Northwestern’s McCormick School of Engineering and Applied Science. “Our goal was to develop something simple that can zoom and capture good images, and we’ve achieved that.”
The research carried out by the researchers from Northwestern University and the University of Illinois at Urbana-Champaign will be published in the Proceedings of the National Academy of Sciences (PNAS).

TASER announces wildlife management stungun

We've seen TASER electroshock weapons designed for law enforcement, personal protection and even riot control, but in all of the above cases, it's a human on the receiving end. Now the company has a different target in sight for its "less lethal" technology ... and it's one that could create as much controversy as its predecessors – the TASER Wildlife Electronic Control Device (ECD).
Introduced at this week's SHOT Show in Las Vegas, the TASER Wildlife ECD has been developed as an alternative tool for less effective methods of animal control used by wildlife professionals like chemical or acoustic repellents. It is designed for use on large animals like bears and elk.
"The TASER Wildlife ECD is an extension of TASER's technology to save animal lives," said Rick Smith, CEO and co-founder of TASER International. "It is designed to incapacitate larger animals more effectively and safer than current animal control tools."
The wildlife specific model is a three-shot, semi-automatic that can deliver a pulse from up to 35 feet (10.6 m) away. It's been ruggedized to stand-up to sea spray, rain, dust and short-term water submersion, and has the same logging and dual range laser targeting systems as the TASER X3 on which it is based. The MSRP has been set at US$2,000.
The company says that while it "believes that the modification of human behavior is the key to the management of human-animal conflicts, it sometimes becomes necessary for wildlife managers to utilize tools to modify animal behavior." Programs are being developed to train wildlife professionals in the safe use of these ECDs, but like any weapon, it's open misuse by humans and controversy is most likely to arise when it falls into the hands of untrained, unprofessional users.
Of course, we can't ask even smarter than average bears what they think.

Learning to crawl before they walk makes for smarter robots

Everyone knows that, unless you’re extraordinarily gifted, you need to crawl before you can walk. Turns out the same principle could also apply to robots. In a first-of-its-kind experiment conducted by University of Vermont (UVM) roboticist Josh Bongard, both simulated and physical robots were created that, like tadpoles becoming frogs, change their body forms while learning how to walk. He found that these evolving robots were able to learn more rapidly than ones with fixed body forms and that, in their final form, the changing robots had developed a more robust gait.
So far, engineers have been largely unsuccessful at creating robots that can continually perform simple, yet adaptable, behaviors in unstructured environments. This is why Bongard and other robotics experts have turned to computer programs to design robots and develop their behaviors, instead of trying to program the robots’ behavior directly.
Using a sophisticated computer simulation, Bongard unleashed a series of synthetic beasts that move about in a 3-dimensional space. Generations of the creatures then run a software routine called a genetic algorithm that experiments with various motions until it develops a slither, shuffle, or walking gait – depending on its body plan – that allows it to reach a light source without tipping over.
“The robots have 12 moving parts,” Bongard says. “They look like the simplified skeleton of a mammal: it’s got a jointed spine and then you have four sticks – the legs – sticking out.”

Some of the creatures begin flat to the ground, like tadpoles or snakes with legs; others have splayed legs, a bit like a lizard; and others ran the full set of simulations with upright legs, like mammals. Bongard found that the generations of robots that progressed from slithering to wide legs and, finally, to upright legs, ultimately performed better and discovered the desired behavior faster than robots that started out in the upright position.

“The snake and reptilian robots are, in essence, training wheels,” says Bongard, “they allow evolution to find motion patterns quicker, because those kinds of robots can’t fall over. So evolution only has to solve the movement problem, but not the balance problem, initially. Then gradually over time it’s able to tackle the balance problem after already solving the movement problem.”
The process mimics the way a human infant first learns to roll, then crawl and, finally, walk.
“Yes,” says Bongard, “We’re copying nature, we’re copying evolution, we’re copying neural science when we’re building artificial brains into these robots.”

Smarter and more flexible

But the most surprising finding of Bongard’s experiments was that the changing robots were not only faster in getting to the final goal, but afterward they were also better able to deal with new kinds of challenges they hadn’t faced before, such as attempts to tip them over.
“Realizing adaptive behavior in machines has to date focused on dynamic controllers, but static morphologies,” Bongard writes in his paper that appears in the Proceedings of the National Academy of Sciences. “This is an inheritance from traditional artificial intelligence in which computer programs were developed that had no body with which to affect, and be affected by, the world.”
“One thing that has been left out all this time is the obvious fact that in nature it’s not that the animal’s body stays fixed and its brain gets better over time,” he says, “in natural evolution animals bodies and brains are evolving together all the time.”
Bongard says this hasn’t been done in robotics because it’s much easier to change a robot’s programming than it is to change its body.

Testing it in the real world

After running 5,000 simulations, each taking 30 hours on the parallel processors in UVM’s Vermont Advanced Computing Center, Bongard decided to try the experiment with physical robots. He built a relatively simple four-legged robot out of Lego Mindstorm kits. The physical robot was similar to those used in the computer simulation, but had a brace on its front and back legs. As the controller searches for successful movement patterns, the brace gradually tilts the legs, so they go from horizontal to vertical.

“While the brace is bending the legs, the controller is causing the robot to move around, so it’s able to move its legs, and bend its spine,” he says, “it’s squirming around like a reptile flat on the ground and then it gradually stands up until, at the end of this movement pattern, it’s walking like a coyote.”
Bongard's research at UVM, which is supported by the National Science Foundation, is part of a wider venture called evolutionary robotics that aims to produce robots as quickly and consistently as possible. He says that, while it’s a simple prototype, his robot is a proof of concept.

New Dragontrail Glass Could Strengthen Smartphone, Tablet Screens

AGC, one of Japan’s largest glass manufacturers, has created a new glass designed specifically for smartphones, tablets, and TVs. This new glass, known as Dragontrail, is said to be considerably tougher than traditional glass. According to the company, Dragontrail is about six times tougher than typical chemically-treated soda lime glass. It is also highly scratch resistant. During a recent press conference, AGC invited reporters to attempt to scratch the glass with a key. The glass didn’t appear to suffer any scratches. It was also dropped and did not break.

Tokyo, January 20, 2011 - AGC announced today it will launch worldwide sales of Dragontrail™, a glass material that is highly receptive to chemical strengthening, to respond to surging global demands for high-quality cover glass used for screens on electronic devices. By 2012, AGC expects to achieve sales of over 30 billion yen (about 360 million USD) in the global market for chemically strengthened cover glass used in smartphones, tablet PCs, TVs and similar devices.
Chemically strengthened Dragontrail is six times stronger than conventional soda-lime glass, highly resistant to scratches and features a beautiful, pristine finish compared with resin. Dragontrail, developed from market-proven raw glass for chemical strengthening, is free of environmentally harmful materials such as arsenic, lead and antimony.

AGC uses a highly efficient float process to manufacture Dragontrail by utilizing the company’s extensive technical expertise in producing specialized glass for electronics acquired through manufacturing TFT glass substrates. The superior production efficiency of this manufacturing process ensures stable supply of cover glass for the growing global mobile device market. AGC will also proactively respond to growing demand for cover glass used in televisions.
“Dragontrail is a a strategic product that will build new foundations for growth under Grow Beyond, our management policy,” said Yoshiaki Tamura, Deputy President of AGC’s Electronics Company unit. “We will continue to explore new applications for this versatile product as we expand its global market.”
The demand for cover material is growing in parallel with the rapid proliferation of smartphones, tablet PCs and other devices, many of which feature designs where touchscreen panels cover the majority of their surfaces. These mobile devices require protection against shocks and grazing resulting from touch operation, accidental drops and scraping inside a pocket or bag. AGC’s Dragontrail offers a superior substitute to conventional cover material, such as soda-lime glass, which lacks strength, and resin, which is prone to scratches and limited by poor texture quality.

Who Gave Obama the Cheapest Gift in 2010?

The State Department has released a list of gifts to federal employees, including President Obama, from foreign governments in 2009. (Diplomats have been playing with them for a full year.) So which foreign dignitary gave our president the cheapest gift?
New York's Dan Amira has already listed the most expensive gifts Obama received, the winner being some campy desert landscape decorated with garish marble and gold crap from the King of Saudi Arabia. The tasteless State Department values this at $34,000.
But what about the other end of the spectrum: Who was the cheapest gift-giver? That would be His Excellence Dr. Mahmoud Abbas, President of the Palestinian Authority, whose gift, a "bottle of olive oil," is valued at $75. Olive oil! Any schmuck can buy that stuff at the supermarket.
How will this revelation damage the American government's relationship with Palestinians? Trick question—there isn't any relationship. We do nothing for starving Palestinians. But maybe if they gave our president campy, garish desert landscapes, we would! Okay, we probably wouldn't.

Abdul Kalam's pledge at Technolon

He started to address students with one sentence “Hello India”

Dr Kalam discussed about vision 2020, and how we can make it true, he encouraged the students to try their luck in politics to make it pure and corruption free. While discussing all these things he suddenly asked a question to student do you want to be unique person or a person like ordinary people? Most of the students replied him “Yes, we want to be unique person”, Dr. Kalam said “yes, it’s the point I want to tell you..if you all want to be unique then why all of you students are studying and behaving like ordinary people. If you want to do something different then you will have to think differently,” Dr. Kalam then turned his discursion to  successful person, or how to become like him

According to Dr. Kalam..To become successful person we must follow following four points

• We must have our AIM up to age of 20 [AT least we should know filed of our carrier]
• We must acquire knowledge of our field as much as we can..
• We must do hard working
• Don’t fear to problems
• Small AIM is big offense

One point which I liked at his speech is “why students thinks that their hands are to just beg for jobs why don’t they think their hands to give jobs to others” really if student will think in this attitude they can be somewhere else..

Finally at last section of his speech he told students to speak as he is speaking… means to utter each of his sentences.. He said

“ I am the good citizen of India, I will never support corruption. “

“I will be the good member of my family”

“I will be the responsible citizen of society”

“I will be the good person of our nation”

“I will be good person of this world” 

After taking this pledge from students many students were thinking to ask few questions to Dr. kalam but before arrival of any question he said “if somebody wants to ask anything to me he/she may contact me at my email ID apj@abdulkalam.com” each question will get answered

Is thr a real Time Machine ?

Just found a photo on internet of an imaginary image of Time Machine made by someone somewhere in this world.

and i thought, i wish thr was a real Time Machine in this world, through which we could go back or forward in time ,

I wish i could find one .. and see whts in past and future … so exciting  …

I wish to sit on that red chair of this machine.. i wish to meet everyone who has been with me in my past, last birth…  those who will meet me in future, ppl whom i will meet when i will be born again … what i was in my last birth, what i will be in my next birth …

And also i want to make my life so beautiful with my lovely angel...............

one day.. i will find something new .. unusual…

I will … I will

ISTE

Check out guys of RVR&JC college of engineering 3rd year, on the behalf of ISTE we are conducting paper presentation and poster presentation
     So, participate bulk in these two events and make it a success

                       Hurry up the abstract should be submitted before 28-11-2010

                                   ALL THE BEST guys


for any information regarding this event contact me at 9014493415
                                                                                 manchinagarjuna@gmail.com