Follow The Author

Friday 29 August 2014

It is Possible to Convert,Remove and Alternate Your Bad Memories

1 comment
Neuroscientists of Japan and America says that  Emotions connected to memories can be rewritten, making bad events in the past seem better and good things appear worse



The discovery of the mechanism behind the process helps to explain the power of current psychotherapeutic treatments for mental illnesses such as depression or Post Traumatic Stress Disorder (PTSD), they said, and could offer new avenues for psychiatric help.
"These findings validate the success of current psychotherapy, by revealing its underlying mechanism," research leader Susumu Tonegawa told AFP in Tokyo.
The team, formed from a collaboration between Japan's RIKEN institute and the Massachusetts Institute of Technology in the US, used optogenetics -- a new brain-control technology which utilises light -- to better understand what happens when we reminisce.
They found that warm feelings or intense fear triggered by the interaction between the hippocampus -- the brain's diary room -- and the amygdala -- the place believed to encode positivity or negativity -- are more flexible than previously thought.
"It depends on how strongly the (good or bad aspect) dominates... there is competition between the two circuits' connection strengths," Tonegawa said.
The researchers injected two groups of male mice with light-sensitive algae protein.
This allowed them to identify the formation of a new memory as it was happening and then use pulses of light to reactivate it when they wanted to.
One group of rodents were allowed to play with female mice, creating a positive memory. The other group were given a small but unpleasant electric shock through the floor.


PAINFUL MEMORY:

      Researchers then artificially reactivated the memory using the light pulses -- effectively making the mice remember what had happened to them.
supposed memory track
While the mice were "remembering" their event, they were given the opposite experience -- the mice with the nice memory got a shock, while those with the painful memory were introduced to females.
Tonegawa said his team had discovered that the emotion of the new experience overpowered the original emotion, rewriting how the mice felt about it.
"We did a test in the original chamber and the original fear memory was gone," he said.
However, the over-writing of a memory was only possible by manipulating the hippocampus, which is sensitive to context. The same result could not be achieved by manipulating the amygdala.
Tonegawa said the connection between the contextual memory in the hippocampus and the "good" or "bad" emotions in the amygdala became stronger or weaker depending on what was experienced.
The researchers hope their findings might open up new possibilities for treatment of mood-affecting disorders such as depression, or PTSD, a condition found in people such as soldiers who have undergone life-threatening or particularly horrific events.
"In the future, I would like to think that with new technology we will be able to wirelessly control neurons in the brain, without intrusive tools like electrodes," said Tonegawa, who won the Nobel Prize for Physiology and Medicine in 1987.
"We could possibly augment good memories over bad ones," he said.
The research paper is published in Nature.
In a commentary, also carried by Nature, cognitive researchers Tomonori Takeuchi and Richard Morris at the University of Edinburgh in Scotland said the study broke new ground in exploring the mechanisms of memory, although optogenetics had limitations as a tool for doing this.
"Molecular engineering is nonetheless shedding light on our understanding of the underlying physiological networks of memory," they wrote.

Discovery is helpful in the regard that:
      "The discovery could offer new avenues for psychiatric help."
HZY

Run Android apps on your Windows PC

No comments

 
 The Android emulator
The most “basic” way to get Android apps running on a PC is to go through the Android emulator released by Google as part of the official SDK. The emulator can be used to create virtual devices running any version of Android you want with different resolutions and hardware configurations. The first downside of this process is the somewhat complicated setup process.
You’ll need to grab the SDK package from Google’s site and use the included SDK Manager program to download the platforms you want — probably whatever the most recent version of Android happens to be at the time (4.4 at the time of publishing). The AVD manager is where you can create and manage your virtual devices. Google makes some pre-configured options available in the menu for Nexus devices, but you can set the parameters manually too. Once you’ve booted your virtual device, you’ll need to get apps installed, but the emulator is the bone stock open source version of Android — no Google apps included.

  After a bit of a slow start, Android’s application ecosystem has proven to be versatile and very developer-friendly. You are free to develop an app for Android and publish it to the Play Store with minimal restrictions. This has led to a plethora of really cool Android apps, some of which aren’t available on iOS or other platforms. Running Android apps usually requires an Android smartphone or tablet — obviously! — but what if you currently use iOS or another mobile OS, and want to try out Android without actually getting an Android device?
Well, fortunately, with a little leg work, you can run Android apps on a regular old Windows PC. There are a few different ways to go about it, each with their own strengths and weaknesses.
Since there’s no Play Store, you’ll need to do some file management. Take the APK you want to install (be it Google’s app package or something else) and drop the file into thetools folder in your SDK directory. Then use the command prompt while your AVD is running to enter (in that directory) adb install filename.apk. The app should be added to the app list of your virtual device.

The big upside here is that the emulator is unmodified Android right from the source. The way apps render in the emulator will be the same as they render on devices. It’s great for testing app builds before loading them onto test devices. The biggest problem is that the emulator is sluggish and lacks the hardware access to make games run acceptably.



Android PC ports

If you don’t mind a little extra work, you can have a more fluid Android app experience by installing a modified version of the OS on your PC. There are a few ports of Android that will run on desktop PCs, but support is somewhat limited because of the extensive hardware configuration options for PCs. The two leading choices for a full Android installation on PC are Android on Intel Architecture (UEFI-equipped devices) and the Android-x86 Project (pictured above).
Neither one is in a perfect state, and you’ll need a supported piece of hardware, like the Dell XPS 12 for Intel’s version or the Lenovo ThinkPad x61 Tablet for Android-x86. You could install them over top of Windows, but that’s not the best idea. The smarter way would be to create a separate hard drive partition and install Android there.
If your hardware isn’t supported by either of these projects, you can also try installing them in VirtualBox, which should be a little faster than the official Android emulator. It probably still won’t be good enough for games, but most apps should install and run correctly. Also note, you’ll have to install the apps you want manually as there’s no Google Play integration here either.
HZY

Thursday 28 August 2014

Apple’s iWatch is finally coming in September:

No comments

       After years of rumors, leaks, and false starts, it seems the stars will finally swing into alignment this fall: Apple is will unveil an iWatch smartwatch alongside a new large-screen iPhone 6 at an event on September 9, according to the latest reports. 
Presumably the iWatch will also be released to the public alongside the iPhone 6 a week or two later. Previous rumors had pointed to an October unveil for the iWatch, but it seems Apple has moved it forward — possibly in response to the Samsung Gear S, LG G Watch R, and the Moto 360, all of which will be released over the next month or two. Just as the iPhone and iPad popularized the smartphone and tablet, will the arrival of the iWatch signal the beginning of the wearable computing revolution?
Over the last couple of months, Apple’s (AAPL) stock price has been buoyed by Wall Street’s belief that, at long last, a new segment-defining device was on its way. Last week Apple’s stock price finally rose back above its September 2012 peak. It would seem that, after a couple of years of uncertainty — the echo of Steve Jobs’ death, essentially — the stock market finally thinks that Apple is ready to do more than just squeeze its iPhone cash cow for billions of dollars in profits every quarter.
Enter the iWatch, which has been rumored (or perhaps wishfully speculated is a better term) since 2010. The funny thing is, despite Recode’s confirmation that the iWatch is coming in September (and Recode is pretty good with Apple leaks), we know virtually nothing about what Apple’s smartwatch will actually do or look like. We don’t even know if it’ll be an iWatch — something akin to an iPod Nano with a wrist strap — or if it’ll be more of a health-and-fitness iBand. It’s pretty safe to assume that the iWatch/iBand will tie into iOS 8 features such as Health and HealthKit.
Ultimately, the big question is whether the iWatch will be a full-fat device that runs iOS  8 — or a companion device that perhaps runs a cut-down OS for improved battery life, and requires a nearby iPhone/iPad for connectivity and other heavy lifting. In either case, even in the wake of the 3G Samsung Gear S, I don’t think we’ll see a truly standalone iWatch with 3G/4G connectivity. If Apple does release an iWatch in September, I’m pretty certain that extended battery life will be one of the key differentiators that Apple offers over the Android competition — and it just isn’t possible to offer 3G/4G and long battery life in a smartwatch form factor (yet).

Will the iWatch kickstart the wearable computing revolution? After Google Glass and Samsung’s early smartwatches have established a beachhead, will Apple swoop in and mop up the glory show everyone else how it’s done? I think it’s unlikely — I just don’t think battery, processor, and radio technologies are there yet – but I’m happy to be proved wrong. I think it’s much more likely that Apple is reacting to the competition, rather than tapping the same well of innovation that resulted in the iPhone and iPad. (The large-screen iPhones are reactionary rather than revolutionary, too.)
In my eyes, it is surprising that we know so little about the iWatch this close to its (apparent) release date. Bear in mind that the iWatch will reportedly appear alongside the iPhone 6 on September 9 — and while we know almost everything about the iPhone 6, we know nothing about the iWatch. If Apple really is gearing up to release the iWatch, there will be production lines in China producing millions of units right now. It’spossible that Apple and its manufacturing partners have somehow kept the iWatch production line completely locked down, but it seems unlikely.
In any case, I guess we’ll find out on September 9. The iWatch is expected to be unveiled alongside the iPhone 6, which will come in 4.7-inch and 5.5-inch flavors. Pricing is anybody’s guess right now, depending on whether it’s a full-fat iWatch or cut-down iBand — but somewhere between $200 and $400 sounds about right. Official invites to Apple’s September 9 event should be sent out in the next few days.

Wednesday 27 August 2014

Windows 9 may remove the Metro interface for desktop PC users, feature one-click upgrade process

No comments

    According to new Windows 9 leaks and rumors, it seems we could be in for some dramatic changes by the time the first public preview of Windows 9 rolls around (probably on September 30). The most recent leaked builds of Windows 9 (codename Threshold) indicate that Microsoft will finally fix the awful upgrade process that has plagued Windows for almost two decades, replacing it with a one-click upgrade system. Perhaps more excitingly, another source says that Windows 9 will formally split the Metro and Desktop interfaces: Tablets will be restricted to Metro, while laptops and desktops will be locked to the standard Desktop interface. No longer will tablet users be forced to fumble around the legacy Desktop — and no longer will mouse-and-keyboard users be thrust unwittingly into various Metrotastic applets.
First up, the improved upgrade process, as reported by Neowin. The most recent builds of Windows 9 (which are labeled “Technical Preview”) include a one-click upgrade process for moving from one build to the next. The update is performed in much the same way as current patches: You open up Windows Update and then click a single button to upgrade your build of Windows. This is obviously a huge improvement over previous and current incarnations of the Windows update process, which have invariably had shockingly high failure rates. Sadly, I think almost everyone reading this story will have, at some point in their lives, spent hours or days trying to upgrade Windows. Hopefully, with Windows 9, those days are behind us.
What isn’t clear, however, is whether this will affect the upgrade process from Windows 8 to Windows 9 — or whether this is purely for upgrades after Windows 9 (9.1, 9.2, 10, etc.) I have a nagging feeling that the upgrade process to Windows 9 will still be pretty horrible — but hopefully it’ll be relatively painless forever after. This new upgrade process is a sure sign that Microsoft is serious about its move to a rapid-release cycle (which in turn is vital if it wants to compete against the Apple and Google competition).
With Windows 9, the bifurcated Desktop/Metro interface of Windows 8 should be going away

Next, we have WinBeta saying that Windows 9 will formally split the Desktop and Metro interfaces: Your Windows 9 device will have either the original Desktop or the newer Metro interface — not both. This is a big change for both tablet users and conventional mouse-and-keyboard users. As far as tablet users are concerned, all of the legacy ties to the Desktop will be gone: Metro will be front and center, and you won’t ever have to visit the Desktop interface to run Microsoft Office or view the Control Panel. For conventional PC users, you won’t ever see the Metro interface if you don’t want to — though apparently there will be an option to use the Metro Start Screen instead of the resurrected Start menu if you wish (presumably this is how touchscreen hybrids, like the Surface Pro, will operate). Mouse-and-keyboard users should still have access to Metro apps by running them in a window on the Desktop.
Rounding up other rumors and leaks, Windows 9 will probably also include smarter, more lively live tiles — and there could be a notification tray, too. The removal of the Metro interface for mouse-and-keyboard users links in nicely with the previous rumor that the Charms bar is also being removed. As far as we’re aware, virtual desktops are still coming, as is the Cortana digital assistant (though I have no idea if she’ll be in both versions of Windows 9, or just the tablet/Metro version).
Windows 9 will allow Metro apps to run on the Desktop

So far, then, Windows 9 is shaping up to be very interesting indeed — though it’s hard to ignore the fact that this is essentially everything that Windows 7 and disgruntled Windows 8 mouse-and-keyboard users have been asking for all along. The mind still boggles at how Microsoft managed to get Windows 8 so wrong for conventional PC users — but hey, better late than never.
To be brutally honest, though, it’s not like Microsoft’s share of the PC market was ever at risk. It sounds like Windows 9 will fix a lot of what was wrong with Windows 8 for mouse-and-keyboard users, but an even more pertinent question still remains: How does Windows 9 help Microsoft get more than a few percentage points of the mobile market?
HZY

Tuesday 26 August 2014

A fully transparent solar cell that could make every window and screen a power source

No comments
Researchers at Michigan State University have created a fully transparent solar concentrator, which could turn any window or sheet of glass (like your smartphone’s screen) into a photovoltaic solar cell. Unlike other “transparent” solar cells that we’ve reported on in the past, this one really is transparent, as you can see in the photos throughout this story. According to Richard Lunt, who led the research, the team are confident that the transparent solar panels can be efficiently deployed in a wide range of settings, from “tall buildings with lots of windows or any kind of mobile device that demands high aesthetic quality like a phone or e-reader.”
Scientifically, a transparent solar panel is something of an oxymoron. Solar cells, specifically the photovoltaic kind, make energy by absorbing photons (sunlight) and converting them into electrons (electricity). If a material is transparent, however, by definition it means that all of the light passes through the medium to strike the back of your eye. This is whyprevious transparent solar cells have actually only been partially transparent — and, to add insult to injury, they usually they cast a colorful shadow too.
To get around this limitation, the Michigan State researchers use a slightly different technique for gathering sunlight. Instead of trying to create a transparent photovoltaic cell (which is nigh impossible), they use a transparent luminescent solar concentrator (TLSC). The TLSC consists of organic salts that absorb specific non-visible wavelengths of ultraviolet and infrared light, which they then luminesce (glow) as another wavelength of infrared light (also non-visible). This emitted infrared light is guided to the edge of plastic, where thin strips of conventional photovoltaic solar cell convert it into electricity. [Research paper: DOI: 10.1002/adom.201400103- "Near-Infrared Harvesting Transparent Luminescent Solar Concentrators"]
If you look closely, you can see a couple of black strips along the edges of plastic block. Otherwise, though, the active organic material — and thus the bulk of the solar panel — is highly transparent. (Read: Solar singlet fission bends the laws of physics to boost solar power efficiency by 30%.)
Michigan’s TLSC currently has an efficiency of around 1%, but they think 5% should be possible. Non-transparent luminescent concentrators (which bathe the room in colorful light) max out at around 7%. On their own these aren’t huge figures, but on a larger scale — every window in a house or office block — the numbers quickly add up. Likewise, while we’re probably not talking about a technology that can keep your smartphone or tablet running indefinitely, replacing your device’s display with a TLSC could net you a few more minutes or hours of usage on a single battery charge.
The researchers are confident that the technology can be scaled all the way from large industrial and commercial applications, down to consumer devices, while remaining “affordable.” So far, one of the larger barriers to large-scale adoption of solar power is the intrusive and ugly nature of solar panels — obviously, if we can produce large amounts of solar power from sheets of glass and plastic that look like normal sheets of glass and plastic, then that would be big.
HZY

Monday 25 August 2014

LG bets on pricey OLED technology as future of TVs

No comments
LG said it will ship 65-inch OLED TVs starting September in South Korea.

 South Korea (AP) - LG Electronics Inc. announced two new giant OLED TVs with ultra-high definition screens Monday, sticking with its strategy of using the exceptionally expensive OLED display technology.
The South Korean company said it will ship 65-inch OLED TVs starting September in South Korea, Europe and North America. A 77-inch model will hit shelves later this year.
While major TV makers are pushing to make ultra HD TVs mainstream, they use LCD screens. The super-high resolution picture, also known as 4K, packs four times more pixels than regular HD televisions.
Making ultra HD quality TVs with OLED screens remain costly. LG's 65-inch model will cost 12 million won ($11,765). Other types of ultra HD televisions sell for less than $3,000.
OLED features deeper color saturation and a sharper image quality than LCD. But for years, its cost and high production error rate prevented the technology from catching on among mainstream consumers.
LG said it is committed to OLED because the cost will come down and its advanced screen will eventually replace LCD screens. It forecasts that OLED TV sales will overtake LCD TV sales "within a few years."
"OLED is where we must head next after PDP and LCD. It is a matter of time," Ha Hyun-hwoi, head of LG's TV business, told reporters.
LG's aggressive bet on OLED TVs is in contrast with its rival Samsung Electronics Co. After rolling out a 55-inch curved TV that uses an OLED display last year, Samsung has not announced an upgrade to its OLED TV for this year. Samsung uses OLED technology mostly for small devices, such as smartphones and tablet computers. 
HZY

Saturday 23 August 2014

Dead floppy drive: Kenya recycles global e-waste

No comments

Amount of electronic waste generated globally last year is enough to fill 100 Empire State Buildings
In an industrial area outside Kenya's capital city, workers in hard hats and white masks take shiny new power drills to computer parts. This assembly line is not assembling, though. It is dismantling some of the estimated 50 million metric tons of hazardous electronic-waste the world generated last year.
The clanking is rhythmic as the workers unscrew, detach and toss motherboards onto piles of gleaming circuitry at the East African Compliant Recycling facility. Workers wipe hard drives with magnets, shred small appliances, and bundle old cables like bales of multi-colored hay.
Stacks of dingy gray computer towers some with now-ancient floppy disk drives cover much of one wall. The cornerstone is a cardboard box labeled "PCs for Africa."
The amount of electronic waste generated globally last year is enough to fill 100 Empire State Buildings and represents more than 15 pounds (6.8 kilograms) for every living person, according to the U.N. Environmental Program. Much of that e-waste is exported to developing countries like India and Kenya in the form of used goods, where it ends up in landfills or is burned, putting lead, arsenic and mercury into the environment.
Kenyan leaders are working on new laws and regulations requiring proper disposal of e-waste, defined as anything with a battery or a cord.
"A lot of e-waste is shipped to these countries in order to get rid of it," said Ruediger Kuehr, the executive secretary of Solving the E-Waste Problem, a Germany-based organization coordinated by the U.N.
Impoverished Nairobi residents collect end-of-life electronics for processing. In Nairobi's Mukuru slum, women pick through dumpsites or purchase discarded material from electronics repair shops. They earn about $2 for a CRT tube-style television. If dumped, that television would have released 6.5 pounds (3 kilograms) of lead into the environment.
"I can say we have already done something good," waste collector Joyce Nyawira said, referring to cleaning the environment.
Some of this e-waste stems from private Western charities donating products near the end of their life cycles, like the box of "PCs for Africa" sitting in the warehouse. Public initiatives like school computer programs also contribute.
"You can imagine if you are giving one kid a laptop, it's very easy for this laptop to die anytime," said Joshua Patroba, operations manager at East African Compliant Recycling, a company in Machakos, about an hour east of Nairobi, that began business in December and has already collected and sold more than 130,000 pounds of e-waste.
East African Compliant Recycling funds its operations by selling high-tech waste to countries like the U.K., China and Hong Kong with the machinery to isolate the precious metals and rare minerals from the scrap. High-grade motherboards can contain platinum, gold and silver. New products also pose a growing problem, as cheap gadgets become more widespread. Kuehr said more e-waste is generated in developing and transitioning countries than in the developed world. The U.N. says that while the world's 7 billion people have 4.5 billion toilets, they also have 6 billion phones.
"Most people, when their phones are dead, they give them to their children as toys, and then the children break them," said Margaret Kamar, Kenya's Minister of Higher Education, Science & Technology. "People get exposed to a lot of dangerous materials that are used when electronic materials are being manufactured."
President Uhuru Kenyatta in June signed regulations requiring e-waste be disposed of at government-licensed facilities meeting international standards. More detailed regulations written into an environmental act are pending. 
HZY

Friday 22 August 2014

Diabetes could be cured

No comments

That disease is caused when chunks of the hormone amylin clump together.

 Scientists say diabetes could be cured after compelling evidence revealed that juvenile-onset or type-1 diabetes and type-2 diabetes are both caused by the formation of toxic clumps of a hormone called amylin, stopping the cells producing insulin.
Professor Garth Cooper, from The University of Manchester with his University of Auckland-based research team, led the study.
The discovery could change the lives of millions of people who are suffering from the disease.

"As well as producing insulin, cells in the pancreas also produce another hormone called amylin. Insulin and amylin normally work together to regulate the body’s response to food intake. If they are no longer produced, then levels of sugar in the blood rise resulting in diabetes and causing damage to organs such as the heart, kidneys, eyes and nerves if blood sugar levels aren’t properly controlled," the reasearchers highlighted.

It was further reproted that some of the amylin that is produced can get deposited around cells in the pancreas as toxic clumps, which then, in turn, destroy those cells that produce insulin and amylin. The consequence of this cell death is diabetes.
This new research provides strong evidence hat both Type 1 and Type 2 diabetes are driven by the same underlying mechanism.
The Manchester University team hopes to have potential medicines ready to go into clinical trials in the next two years and it is anticipated that these will be tested in both type-1 and type-2 diabetic patients. These clinical trials are being planned with research groups in England and Scotland.
HZY