Watching “Plant Machete” in action is a little surreal. The multi-jointed robotic arm pivots and rotates, the blade swinging to and fro in a threatening manner. The plant appears to be fighting back against humans that approach it, warning us that it’s no longer defenseless. Skeptics might immediately wonder whether this disturbing display is actually controlled by a computer program, but it’s the result of EEG sensors translating the electrical signals inside the plant into movements.

The system uses an open-source Arduino micro-controller connected to the plant to read these signals across the plant’s leaves. Bowen’s custom software maps them in real time to the movements of the joints in the arm wielding the machete. This basically makes the plant the “brain” of the installation. Bowen mounted the plant to the wall and filmed the results in all their glory.

Another recent project by Bowen called “Plant Drone” gave a plant the unlikely ability to fly. As with Plant Machete, this project translated the real-time variable resistance data collected from a live on-board plant into movements: left to right, forward to reverse, up and down. That allowed the plant to pilot the drone, with a mounted LED light creating long exposure drawings in the night sky and tracking its path.

Similarly, “Fly Revolver” tracks the movements of flies inside an acrylic sphere with a target backdrop, processing them with custom software and outputting them to a robotic device that aims a revolver. Collectively, these projects might induce a feeling of unease in the viewers. What if plants and animals really could use our own weapons against us? What would that say about our accountability to them, and the consequences of our actions?

“Using intersections between natural and mechanical systems, I produce unique relationships within my sculpture and installations,” says Bowen in his artist statement. “With robotics, custom software, sensors, tele-presence, and data, I construct devices that are set in motion to interface with the physical, virtual, and natural world. The devices I construct often play the roles of observer and creator, providing limited and mechanical perspectives of dynamic situations and living systems. These devices and situations create a dissonance that leads to an incalculable changeable situation resulting in unpredictable outcomes.”

It may seem absurd to imagine that plants have the capability to communicate with us, but scientists have found evidence that they speak to each other in languages we simply don’t register or understand. UK-based computer scientist Andrew Adamatzky recently published a study in which he compared electrical signals in mushrooms to human language, finding that their patterns can be interpreted as up to 50 different words. In another study, ecologist Suzanne Simard demonstrated how trees “talk” to each other by sending each other nutrients via a network of fungi buried in the soil.

The post Nature Strikes Back: Living Plant Swings a Machete Using a Robotic Arm first appeared on Dornob.

Since launching in 2011, NASA’s Juno spacecraft has made more than 44 orbits of our solar system’s largest planet. The attached visible-light JunoCam has been capturing the gas giant in all its glory over the past six years and sending the images back to Earth.

Not only has NASA open-sourced all the files, but it has also requested the help of volunteer “citizen scientists” around the world to help process the data. In June of this year, it began the Jovian Vortex Hunter project, “aimed at studying the different types of clouds that form on Jupiter, in order to better understand how the atmosphere of the largest planet in the solar system works,” according to Ramanakumar Sankar, the project lead and a postdoctoral researcher at the University of Minnesota.

“With your help,” Sankar added, “we could learn so much about the Jovian atmosphere and processes that form the amazing clouds that we see.”

Astronomers from all parts of the globe have since created incredible representations of Jupiter’s clouds and surfaces, ranging from the ultra-realistic to the overly artistic. Here are a few stand-outs from the almost 500 images submitted so far:

Frosting Clouds

At the Europlanet Science Congress (EPSC) 2022 in Granada, Dr. Gerald Eichstädt used the JunoCam’s data on reflected light to create a 3D model with individual “needles” corresponding to the height of Jupiter’s clouds. The resulting picture looks like it could be the whipped frosting top of a cupcake.

“The Juno mission provides us with an opportunity to observe Jupiter in a way which is essentially inaccessible by Earth-based telescopic observations. We can look at the same cloud features from very different angles within only a few minutes,” says Dr. Eichstätdt. “This has opened up a new opportunity to derive 3D elevation models of Jupiter’s cloud-tops. The images of the wonderful chaotic storms on Jupiter seem to come to life, showing clouds rising at different altitudes.”

Saturated Hues

Using images taken from only 3,300 miles above Jupiter’s cloud tops, citizen scientist Björn Jónsson made a side-by-side picture of the planet’s colors as they would be interpreted by the human eye and the colors with deeper saturation to sharpen the smaller cloud features.

Blue South Pole

While most of Jupiter’s surface appears to be a reddish-brown color, footage from the JunoCam taken 11,747 miles above the planet’s clouds revealed that its North Pole is actually covered in icy swirls of blue. Dr. Eichstädt and fellow citizen scientist Seán Doran processed that data into an image of gorgeous denim-colored whirlpools, showing how the higher altitude clouds cast shadows on their surroundings.

Candy-Colored Moon

Calling it the “Fall Colors of Europa,” citizen scientist Fernando Garcia created a kaleidoscopic image of Jupiter’s icy moon Europa. Using data captured during the JunoCam’s close fly-by on September 29th, 2022, Garcia gave the moon (which is thought to have twice as much water as Earth does) a psychedelic makeover.

South Pole Cyclones

Citizen scientist Roman Tkachenko pulled data from the JunoCam to color-enhance an image of the storms and cyclones at Jupiter’s south pole in intricate and striking detail.

Jupiter — Van Gogh Style

Turning Jupiter’s Northern Jets into artistic whirls akin to those in Vincent Van Gogh’s Starry Night, citizen scientist Brian Swift used digital paint to highlight an aerial view of Jet N5.

The Juno spacecraft is expected to continue orbiting Jupiter for another six years fir a total of 80 passes around the gas giant, collecting images the entire time. That leaves plenty of time for more scientists and artists to get in on the action to make their very own masterpieces.

The post Citizen Scientists Create Stunning Pictures of Jupiter with the Help of NASA’s JunoCam first appeared on Dornob.

“Like air taking shape uniquely within our bodies, our lives, and the world around us, this installation changes shape based on real-time, region-specific data as an abstract representation of how air quality impacts us all differently,” the creators explain.

“This interactive installation encourages its audience to reflect on their personal relationship to air quality both locally and globally. It also evokes a lasting, emotional response for those living with the greatest consequences of air pollution through the shared experience of a simple act — breathing.”

The kinetic structures change shape in response to data from local sensors and global data from an open-source API. Audiences who gather to watch the installations will be instructed to follow the breathing pattern of the structure, breathing in with every expansion and out with every contraction to see what it feels like to breathe the air in a particular location.

They’ll even be able to select a region of interest to control the installation’s movements. A QR code will lead the audience to an educational website offering more information and actions to take in their daily lives to reduce global air pollution.

Atta Society aims to deploy the first edition of the “When Air Takes Shape” installation in summer 2023 at various locations within British Columbia. In the future, they plan to take the installation around the world. Their recent Kickstarter campaign raised 214 percent of their goal with the support of 95 backers. They’ve already created their preliminary designs and prototypes, and the funds raised will be used to construct the final sculptures and deploy them in public.

“Within the current climate emergency, human livelihoods are at stake,” the creators say. “Those in less developed regions are especially vulnerable to environmental crises. As far as our world is from being a collection of isolated utopias, many privileged individuals do not understand the urgency, or possess the knowledge, to act upon climate change.”

“However, our consumption demands can increase the risks of individuals dying from air pollution in other parts of the world. As an alarming example, U.S. consumption is responsible for about 100,000 deaths occurring elsewhere in the world. Of those deaths, about 50 percent occur in China, with another 20 percent occurring elsewhere in Asia. Yet, consumerism persists, paralleled with the exploitation of individuals and the environment.”

The “When Air Takes Shape” project makes air pollution feel more personal, wherever you may live in the world. To follow this project and watch for future exhibitions, follow the Atta Society on Instagram @attasociety and on Facebook.

The post Shapeshifting Sculptures Show the Harsh Reality of Air Pollution first appeared on Dornob.

What is eSIM?

A SIM card (which stands for Subscriber Identity Module or Subscriber Identification Module) is the little polygon-shaped piece of plastic that you stick inside every new phone that carries your unique identification number, stores your data, and allows your phone to connect to your network carrier. eSIMs provide all that functionality electronically, without the need for a physical card. They have been around since 2016 but have only started getting widespread support over the past few years. The U.S. version of Apple’s iPhone 14, released in the middle of September, no longer has a slot for inserting a SIM card. Instead, the phones will run entirely off eSIMs.

eSIM Pros

Multiple Lines

While many phones already provide dual SIM trays to access more than one phone number or data line on a single phone, eSIM cards make this even easier. For iPhones, Apple supports up to two phone numbers simultaneously and up to eight data lines. This could be helpful if you don’t want to carry around both a work and a personal phone, or if you go through data quickly and want to have extra lines at the ready.

More Secure

With an eSIM, no one can remove your card to hijack your phone and intercept phone calls or text messages. If your phone gets stolen, it’s also easier to turn off the eSIM, or use it to help locate your phone.

Easier to Switch Carriers

You no longer have to go to a store to pick up a physical SIM card or wait for one in the mail. Theoretically, eSIMs make it faster to set up your new phone or switch to a different carrier. However, there is a school of thought that says carriers may erect their own barriers to make it harder to automatically switch, like charging an activation fee every time you add a line.

Easier, Cheaper Travel Coverage

Frequent travelers might benefit from having multiple eSIM numbers as one can be for their home coverage, and the other can be reserved for the places they visit. These second lines can be preloaded with data before you travel, saving you tons on in-country data charges.

More Space and Less Cost

Although a minor advantage, the lack of a SIM card slot frees up a tiny bit of extra room for Apple to pack other technology into the iPhone. And carriers will no longer need to spend $10 to $20 on the physical SIM cards, so those savings might get passed onto the customer, too.

eSIM Cons

Not Supported by All Carriers

Experts estimate that only about 60 percent of all major carriers worldwide support eSIM technology. However, this may not be super notable, as those that do offer eSIM coverage provide for 85 percent of all phone subscribers. Still, if you belong to one of the other networks, you won’t be able to buy the latest iPhone in the U.S. However, you could try shipping one from Canada, since their iPhone 14 version does include physical SIM cards.

Not as Easy to Switch Between Phones

If your phone breaks or needs to go in for repair with a traditional SIM card, you can simply take out the chip and insert it into any other phone so you never lose connection. However, if your phone malfunctions with eSIM, you cannot immediately plug it into another device, and you’ll likely have to wait until it gets fixed or you get a new one.

Harder to Operate Burner Phones

If you’re concerned about your movements being tracked via your smartphone, an eSIM might be a problem. It can’t be removed and therefore your phone can always be located.

Whether an eSIM-only phone turns out to be the way of the future or not will depend on how functional it is and if other major carriers get on board quickly. Be sure to check back with us for more updates soon.

The post Apple Looks to Ditch Physical SIM Cards with iPhone 14 first appeared on Dornob.

Toi Labs founder and CEO Vikram Kashyap became obsessed with the smart health toilet as a result of his own struggle with ulcerative colitis, an inflammatory bowel disease that causes colon sores, bloody diarrhea, rectal bleeding, and abdominal pain. As he sought to understand this uncurable condition, he worked with researchers at the University of California, San Francisco to analyze his own stool samples as part of a four-year study. After the results were published in Science magazine in 2010, Kashyap started his own company to make valuable health data more available, especially for the elderly.

Building his Toi Labs company in San Francisco, he and his team got to work on the TrueLoo, a smart toilet that uses sensor technology to evaluate human waste to identify a variety of urinary and digestive disorders. It can be installed in just a few minutes like a bidet, and its optics-based urine and stool measurements can aid in detecting dehydration, viral infections, and urinary tract infections — an especially common ailment for seniors.

The concept of testing urine and feces for disease proved very valuable during the COVID-19 pandemic. Because people could be asymptomatic while carrying COVID, many municipalities around the world began tracking COVID markers in city wastewater to get a better picture of it local prevalence.

Other studies have confirmed the efficacy of urine and stool analysis for discovering various health issues. Researchers Joshua Coon and Ian Miller at the University of Wisconsin, Madison tested over 100 of their own urine samples in 10 days and found that using advanced technology, waste monitoring could detect not only things like glucose levels, viral and bacterial infections, signs of kidney disease, and cancer, but also measures of caffeine-consumption and exercise levels. Of course, the type of machinery they used are not yet compatible with smart toilets, but Kashyap’s sensor models are a good jumping-off point.

Some senior care communities are already incorporating these smart toilets in their facilities to provide better health care for their residents. The Legacy Senior Communities in Dallas and Plano, Texas installed the TrueLoo in their private residences to more easily collect important health data. This can be especially helpful with assisted living and memory support occupants, who may not be able to describe their physical ailments as well.

“The TrueLoo smart toilet enables us, in a dignified and valuable manner, to better monitor and follow up when important changes to output are identified. This expedites our response and increases the accuracy and timeliness of important data,” said Legacy Senior Communities CEO Melissa Orth in an interview with a local news outlet.

Kashyap chimed in on the added efficiency his smart toilets provide these facilities, noting: “TrueLoo technology provides a higher level of wellness for residents while better leveraging the time of care staff.”

After the pandemic forced people around the world into lockdown, millions of people suffered from other diseases and infections because they had no access to their doctors for months. Home healthcare monitoring options like the TrueLoo make sense for avoiding similar situations in the future.

“I think at the end of the day, we’re increasingly moving towards a world where people are going to be making their own health care choices themselves and having the data that can be generated from themselves,” Kashyap said in an interview with Onezero. “I think it’s going to just completely shift the power in health care and the way consumers engage with the healthcare system.”

The post These Smart Toilets Can Tell if You’re Sick first appeared on Dornob.

Instead, it’s a new furniture collection imagined by famed artist Miguel Chevalier and the designers of A+A Cooren Studio: a daring, bold amalgamation of art and design. Recently shown at Paris Design Week, the collection, which is managed by Mobilier National, pushes the envelope with its trippy, imaginative patterns and cutting-edge design concepts, which ask users to (you guessed it) “sit down in a cloud of pixels.”

To achieve this, the creators blended highly pixelated patterns with the pieces’ stylish, detailed lines that for a beautiful contrast that’s somehow both spartan and highly immersive. Miguel Chevalier, himself known as a forward-thinking virtual/digital artist always on the cutting edge of creative design, is the driving force behind the pixellated picture painted by the collection’s bold patterns. Pixels, to him, are the “equivalent of the pictorial touch, the metaphorical image of the quantitative explosion of digital data which compels [us] to find new ways to store the data, to see and analyze the world.”

That the French artist would want to push the boundaries of furniture design to futuristic levels of data interpretation is no surprise. Part social commentary, part work of art, the furniture is meant to be immersive, challenging the users’ perceptions while simultaneously altering them. What’s more, A+A Cooren Studio’s detailed design work and clean, aesthetic lines complement the patterns perfectly, creating a masterpiece of visual trickery that’s meant to be “as elementary as a pixel for it to disappear in favor of the pattern.” In other words, the illusion of being suspended.

The manufacturer of the collection, Mobilier National, is an agency run under the supervision of the French Ministry of Culture. With a storied history all its own, the institution was once responsible for the curation of furniture in the French royal residences. However, though it still administers furniture for the state, it also strives to curate and develop modern furniture collections to adorn official buildings with an eye toward avant garde design and contemporary pieces bearing a unique and distinctive look, such as “dans un nuage de pixels,” i.e. “in a cloud of pixels.”

The collection was originally conceived in 2016 but only recently reached completion. Consisting of armchairs, a sofa, and a savonnerie rug, it has proved to be well worth the wait. Dramatically presented in the Gobelins Chapel at Paris Design Week in a psychedelic setting accentuated by a Chevalier virtual reality projection on the ceiling, the collection’s bold patterns and pixelated mien both draw and challenge the eye. Still, the collection is every bit as functional as it is fabulous, as the rounded shapes of the chairs and sofa were designed with comfort in mind, like a cloud of pixels where the user can get lost, creating a “new way to see and analyze the world” where one can almost hear Pink Floyd playing in the background.

The post Miguel Chevalier and A+A Cooren Studio’s Mind-Bending “Pixelated” Furniture Collection is Bold and Beautiful first appeared on Dornob.

All of the new software will be released to the public this fall, just in time for fresh hardware drops like the anticipated iPhone 13, but developers have access to the updates now, with public beta tests expected to go live in July.

iOS & iPadOS 15

The next iOS will come with lots of fresh features, including bigger app icons, photos of your contacts on text notifications, and new filter modes called “Focus” that let you fine-tune groups of custom settings like “Work,” “Sleep,” and “Do Not Disturb” according to how reachable or distractible you feel like being at any given moment. Photos shared in iMessage will be grouped into collages or stacks in your photo gallery or memories, and a new feature called LiveText will use AI to digitize any text in your images so you can copy and paste it.

The new iPadOS 15 will let you add widgets to the home screen and introduce a new “Shelves” feature that will show open windows within an app, making multitasking a lot easier. A new “Swift Playgrounds” app will also make it possible not just to learn how to code but build apps and submit them to the App Store.

FaceTime Upgrades

Soon, the days when you could only FaceTime with other Apple users will be a distant memory. Android users will also be able to participate in video calls via shareable links, so nobody in the family or friend group needs to be left out of the fun. Portrait mode-style blurring will eliminate distracting backdrops behind your head, voice isolation will help reduce background noise, and spatial audio will change where sound seems to come from based on the speaker’s location on your screen. Users will also be able to share music and video during FaceTime calls using SharePlay.

More Functions for macOS Monterey

Apple’s next big MacOS update will offer many of the same features debuting on the iPhone, like the enhanced FaceTime features and Focus notification filters, but we can also expect Universal Control, which will let Mac users transfer content between a Mac and iPad using a single mouse and keyboard. That means you could seamlessly drag and drop something like an image between your iMac, MacBook, and iPad in a single motion, an ability that’s been sorely missing. Look for some helpful additions to Safari, too, like tab groups to organize all your open tabs.

New Privacy and Security Features

Continuing its bid to position itself as more privacy-focused than competitors like Google, Apple will soon begin obscuring the IP addresses of its users on the Mail App and Safari, so companies won’t be able to identify and track you based on your activity. You’ll also be notified anytime an app uses features like the camera, microphone, or address book.

With the new iCloud Plus, you’ll be able to create obscured email addresses to hide your personal info with “Hide My Email,” shield your clipboard data from other apps with “Secure Paste,” log into sites across the internet using Face ID or Touch ID instead of passwords, and more easily erase all your personal data with a single click.

Health and Accessibility

Need to keep tabs on the health of your kids, elderly parents, or other family members? You’ll soon be able to share data from the Health app with chosen contacts, including heart rate and movement data. Even better, alerts for events like falls or long periods of inactivity can be sent directly to the phones of caregivers. The as-yet-unreleased Apple watchOS 8 will also have some cool new health features, like a Mindfulness app, new workout types in the Fitness app, and the ability to track your respiratory rate while sleeping.

For those with hearing difficulties, the new AirPods Pro will include a “Conversation Boost” feature that isolates the voice of the person closest to you and reduces background noise. You’ll also be able to see exactly where your AirPods are at all times with enhanced “Find My” abilities.

That’s not all — there are also new features coming to Siri, Wallet, and more. To learn about them all, check out the video recaps Apple created for days one, two, and three of WWDC21.

The post New Privacy Features, iOS 15, and More Revealed at Apple’s WWDC 2021 first appeared on Dornob.

The rapid spread of the video of George Floyd’s murder in Minneapolis helped galvanize protests around the United States and the rest of the world, inciting calls for racial justice and police accountability. Now that we all carry cameras in our pockets, it’s a lot easier to document and broadcast events that might otherwise be swept under the rug.

Posts on Facebook, Twitter, YouTube, Instagram, and other platforms have mobilized supporters, raised money, and organized impactful events. And when police responded with violent repression of peaceful protestors and journalists alike, thousands of people livetreamed the injustice as it happened, convincing many more Americans that there is in fact a real problem with the institution that needs to be addressed.

Traditional journalism is still an integral element of democracy, but it does have the effect of filtering information through the editors’ or owners’ own potential biases and agendas. When presented with video evidence posted to social media by individual citizens, people can see what happened for themselves and make up their own minds. A small-town conservative newspaper may choose not to print editorials about racism or police brutality, but posts on social media can’t be contained, and in many cases, they’ve led to protests in some of the most rural areas of the country.

At the same time, thousands of posts push wild conspiracy theories that George Floyd isn’t really dead, billionaire George Soros is bussing in “antifa” to riot and loot, “antifa” is an organized network of domestic terrorists rather than a loose coalition of people who stand against fascism, and other blatant untruths.

It certainly doesn’t help that the President himself, who benefitted from Russian agents swaying the 2016 presidential election on Facebook, contributes to the misinformation. While Twitter has begun flagging Trump’s tweets for false statements and “glorifying violence,” Facebook founder Mark Zuckerberg personally stands in the way of holding the President accountable on his own platform. Meanwhile, in many other countries, protestors are vulnerable to internet disruption as a government response to dissent, showing just how easily access to content can be shut off.

Social media can backfire in other ways, too. On June 2, about 28 million people posted black squares to their Facebook or Instagram accounts and pledged to be silent as part of #BlackOutTuesday, ostensibly in support of Black Lives Matter. Not only did the posts do nothing to advance the cause, they also drowned out important information about the movement. Even worse, some influencers are using the protests as a backdrop for their own content.

Ultimately, while social media is an important tool for modern fights against injustice (especially in the middle of a pandemic), it’s no substitute for in-person activism, and it must be used wisely. We should all be taking a moment to question the veracity of what we’re posting before we post it, and consider the potential consequences of false information.

To endure longterm, activism has to transcend social media. If you’re looking to move past “slacktivism” to ensure that movements like the George Floyd Rebellion maintain momentum after the internet shifts its attention to something else, there are lots of ways to take meaningful action. Donate money, register people to vote, show up to protests and meetings in person if you can, put pressure on your local officials, join a local organization fighting for the cause, and listen to the voices of people most affected by injustice.

Images courtesy of Geoff Livingston (1, 2), Elvert Barnes (4)

The post Social Media Mobilizes Protests, But Only Action Can Sustain Them first appeared on Dornob.

FluSense is welcomed as a useful health surveillance tool. In a UMass-Amherst press release, co-author Tauhidur Rahman explained that “this may allow us to predict flu trends in a much more accurate manner.” Rahman is a UMass-Amherst Assistant Professor of Computer and Information Sciences. He also advises Forsad Al Hossain, the PhD student and lead author of the FluSense study that has been recently published through the Association for Computing Machinery.

Why is this invention important now? In recent months, signs of coughing have taken on a new significance as the COVID-19 pandemic rages across the globe. With this UMass-Amherst detector, coughs and other symptoms associated with the flu or flu-like ailments can be monitored much more closely.

How does FluSense work? The published study describes the device as employing an analytic array that consists of a microphone, thermal camera, Raspberry Pi, and “neural computing engine.” This neural computing engine gathers information on speech and cough sounds, then analyzes the data together with “changes in crowd density” in real-time.

Most unique about FluSense is the way it takes advantage of edge computing technology, which has continued to gain popularity as millions of devices connect through the Internet of Things, or IoT. Hewlett Packard describes edge computing as “a distributed, open IT architecture that features decentralized processing power, enabling mobile computing and Internet of Things (IoT) technologies. In edge computing, data is processed by the device itself or by a local computer or server, rather than being transmitted to a data center.”

In other words, FluSense computes, analyzes, and stores its data in real-time, right where it is collected instead of thousands of miles of away at some central database. And as the Institute of Electrical and Electronics Engineers (IEEE) notes, there are a number of benefits to that. For one, edge computing minimizes the risks of latency, data loss, or redundancy, which translates to improved information security and reliability. It also helps with computational efficiency, acceleration, and optimization of data processing. Finally, with no need for costly bandwidth, decentralized tech optimizes data flow and maximizes operational costs.

When speaking on FluSense’s internal components, Al Hossain further revealed that his team was “trying to bring machine-learning systems to the edge. All of the processing happens right here. These systems are becoming cheaper and more powerful.”

According to Healthcare IT News, several FluSense detectors were tested from December 2018 to July 2019. They “were encased in a rectangular box about the size of a large dictionary,” then placed in a number of clinic waiting rooms at UMass University Health Services. From data compiled that included “more than 350,000 thermal images and 21 million non-speech audio samples,” FluSense “accurately predict[ed] daily illness rates at the university clinic.”

“I’ve been interested in non-speech body sounds for a long time,” Rahman explained. “I thought if we could capture coughing or sneezing sounds from public spaces where a lot of people naturally congregate, we could utilize this information as a new source of data for predicting epidemiologic trends.”

Because the device is portable, FluSense’s data can be collected in many different settings, not just the healthcare environments of physician offices’ waiting rooms, clinics, and hospitals, but also in large public spaces. In this way, FluSense can be leveraged to “expand the arsenal of health surveillance tools used to forecast seasonal flu” and other outbreaks or pandemics, cites Genetic Engineering & Biotechnology News.

Andrew Lover, a UMass-Amherst Infectious Disease Epidemiologist and Assistant Professor, added that the team “[has] the initial validation that the coughing indeed has a correlation with influenza-related illness. Now we want to validate it beyond this specific hospital setting and show that we can generalize across locations.”

The UMass-Amherst press release shared that future studies with FluSense will likely be seeing how it performs in other public arenas and even more challenging geographic locations.

The post New Portable AI Device Tracks Flu and Pandemic Data from Coughing Sounds first appeared on Dornob.

New data from the American Home Furnishings Alliance (AHFA) and Wakefield Research reveals that nearly three-quarters, or 74 percent, of American office professionals now work from home because of stay-at-home regulations. That number includes 80 percent of the country’s working men and 67 percent of working women.

Furniture Today likewise summarized the AHFA findings, noting that “nearly half, or 49 percent, of Americans working from home are under a workplace mandate, while 16 percent are following a company recommendation and 13 percent are following a state level mandate. Another three percent are working at home on their own accord, and three percent already worked from home before the outbreak.”

Interestingly, when asked what activities were partaken of at home, AHFA findings showed that 67 percent of respondents preferred watching TV or streaming movies, 59 percent enjoyed quality time with family, and 48 percent cooked or baked. Also, “48 percent of Americans are doing more household chores, 44 percent are working more, 38 percent are playing more games, 38 percent are reading more, 37 percent are sleeping more, and 18 percent are gardening more.”

Time spent homebound is making denizens more conscious of their decor choices, and that’s led to a huge sales surge in the home furnishings sector. Apartment Therapy’s editor-in-chief Laura Schocker explained on Fox Business News that “we’re seeing a surge in interest from our readers about how to carve out work-from-home spaces. They’re looking for advice on creating work areas that foster productivity while also feeling attractive and sustainable, especially since no one knows how long this situation will last.”

The AHFA findings also coincide with a separate survey conducted by Second Measure, which found that of those now working from home, “many have been purchasing office supplies,” to the tune of 65 percent. Consumers were also investing in electronics (phone, tablet, etc.) at a 29-percent increase, followed next by 26 percent on home office furnishings (desk, chair, other furniture), computer monitors at 22 percent, and printers at 19 percent.

Even more eye-opening is the fact that Second Measure data charts showed that both Office Depot’s and Staples’ “[g]rowth began to climb in March, rising over 10 percentage points at each company throughout the month. This shift to positive growth leaves Office Depot up 3 percent and Staples up 4 percent year-over-year as of March 29…[Plus,] at Staples, a rising share of purchases are being made online.”

AHFA findings also semi-reflected data compiled by international internet advertising company Criteo. The company’s analytics on coronavirus shopping trends, published in the second week of April 2020, revealed that the “top eight key product categories that are seeing some of the biggest jumps include webcams, sleepwear and loungewear, shaving and grooming gear, small animal supplies, baking items, gaming equipment, outdoor furniture for yards, patios, and gardens, and exercise bands.”

This was similar to another set of Criteo’s data analytics published in the first week of April, which showed webcams and gaming “take off” as homebound consumers were “combat[ting] feelings of isolation and boredom associated with social distancing…[by] spending on products that help them stay connected and entertained.”

But there’s more to this uptick in furniture sales than that. As calls to shelter-in-place spread across the country, several companies have provided their employees with stipends to assist the transition into the work-from-home environment. For instance, Shopify offered workers a “one-time remote allowance” of $1,000. Similarly, Spotify offered their telecommuting employees “$250 for a monitor and $250 for a chair or desk.”

The news is comforting for those in the furniture industry, particularly since some brands like Pier 1 and Art Van Furniture have not performed well for their stakeholders.

In mid-February, Forbes covered Pier 1 Imports’ anticipated bankruptcy filing as it put itself up for sale and sought to close out 450 of its stores. The company had “struggled for the better part of the past five years, with too many stores, a tired (and inconsistent) merchandising and marketing plan, an underdeveloped e-commerce business, and enough changes in management to make printing corporate-letterhead stationery a fruitless endeavor.”

Then, in late February 2020, Furniture Today disclosed Art Van Furniture’s impending bankruptcy filing. Art Van was a family-owned furniture enterprise that had been in business for over 60 years. It was sold to a private equity firm in 2017, but the new owners were simply not able to keep it up.

Forbes described the company as a former “powerhouse” that liquidated “in just three years.” Its undoing? Being too dependent on China, the top furniture exporter to the US. As the US-China trade war waged on, competitors eventually surpassed Art Van, especially online mainstays Amazon and Wayfair. The piece goes on to explain that “in 2017, e-commerce was a relatively small factor in the furniture business. Today, it is roughly 20 percent of the market. Art Van tried, unsuccessfully, to quickly ramp up its e-commerce business.

Wayfair, meanwhile, is flourishing. Before the pandemic forced nationwide shutdowns, “only about 14 percent of total furniture sales in the US were made online,” states CNBC. Wayfair, however, was already an e-commerce stalwart by the time COVID-19 came around. Why? It began as an online furniture store back in 2002. It’s only natural for them to know exactly how to serve consumers stuck indoors itching to beautify their homes with decor improvements for ease, comfort, and ambiance. That brick-and-mortar competitors got sidelined by the lockdowns only helped them even more.

Wayfair’s big secret? Its “e-commerce model is uniquely suited to serving customers’ very real needs at this challenging time.” Wayfair’s online platform is convenient and user-friendly for those who “have been looking online for a more comfortable chair or a standing desk…[And still] other consumers are using the extra time they are spending at home to decorate,” according to Fortune.

With Wayfair remaining open online, unlike brick-and-mortar stores, the company “has benefitted from fulfilling those needs.” The online furniture company “expects to meet or exceed its previous outlook for revenue growth during the first quarter of fiscal 2020.”

“The fact that Wayfair is seeing an increase in sales makes sense,” Emory University Assistant Professor of Marketing Dan McCarthy told CNBC. “Wayfair had no physical stores, while its competitors do, which those competitors could not sell through.”

Improvements Wayfair has made, in light of COVID-19, include introduction of “no-contact delivery, where signatures are no longer required for boxes, and [instructing drivers] to wash or sanitize their hands between deliveries. It said it has started taking daily temperature checks at some of its distribution facilities.”

It remains to be seen whether all these positive gains in the furniture sector will persist as the pandemic and the concurrent search for a vaccine continue.

The post Furniture Sales Surge as Consumers Shelter in Place in the Wake of COVID-19 first appeared on Dornob.

On Friday, Apple and Google announced a system they’ve co-created that allows users to voluntarily share data through Bluetooth Low Energy (BLE) transmissions and approved apps from health organizations. The pair of iOS and Android application programming interfaces (APIs,) set to be released in mid May, will help public health officials determine who an infected person has been in contact with in an effort to prevent them from infecting others.

Apple’s official statement on the new tracing system explains: “to further this cause, Apple and Google will be launching a comprehensive solution that includes application programming interfaces (APIs) and operating system-level technology to assist in enabling contact tracing. Given the urgent need, the plan is to implement this solution in two steps while maintaining strong protections around user privacy. First, in May, both companies will release APIs that enable interoperability between Android and iOS devices using apps from public health authorities. These official apps will be available for users to download via their respective app stores.”

“Second, in the coming months, Apple and Google will work to enable a broader Bluetooth-based contact tracing platform by building this functionality into the underlying platforms. This is a more robust solution than an API and would allow more individuals to participate, if they choose to opt in, as well as enable interaction with a broader ecosystem of apps and government health authorities. Privacy, transparency, and consent are of utmost importance in this effort, and we look forward to building this functionality in consultation with interested stakeholders. We will openly publish information about our work for others to analyze.”

Image courtesy of Elvert Barnes/Flickr Creative Commons

Unsurprisingly, this system (and others like it) is raising a lot of concerns about privacy, civil rights, and civil liberties. The American Civil Liberties Union notes that the systems could offer public health benefits, but only if widespread, free, and quick testing is available, and the tool is voluntary, protects privacy, and stores data on an individual’s device rather than in a centralized repository.

“A well-designed tool would give people actionable medical information while also protecting privacy and giving users control, but a poorly designed one could pose unnecessary and significant risks to privacy, civil rights, and civil liberties. To help distinguish between the two, the ACLU is publishing a set of technology principles against which developers, the public, and policymakers can judge any contact tracing apps and protocols.”

The policies they recommend, at minimum, also call for information to be shared only within public health efforts that are fully transparent about what data they’re acquiring, from where, and how it’s being used. They also stress that the data should be deleted when there’s no longer a need to hold it, and that policies must be in place to ensure tracking does not outlive the fight against COVID-19.

The post Apple and Google Team Up on a Coronavirus Contact Tracing System first appeared on Dornob.

Appropriately named “FocusBuds,” these earbuds actually study your brain and work with your natural biorhythms to improve your focus and productivity. This process, known as EEG Neurofeedback, isn’t new. In fact, it’s been around for decades now, helping NASA astronauts, athletes, and corporate CEOs perform their best. But FocusBuds is still the first product to bring this technology to the average consumer.

Here’s how it works. The user wears the brain-scanning product like a pair of regular earbuds. When turned on, EEG biosensors scan the activity of your brain, gathering and calculating data along the way. With this information, the program is able to evaluate your focus levels based on 400 unique metrics. In the end, this means it knows when you work best, how long you can maintain focus, and during which activities you are most distractible. FocusBuds uses this data to then provide you with audio cues that redirect you when you become distracted, keeping you on track and improving efficiency.

The inspiration for FocusBuds came when Sahin Ozsoy, co-founder of Potential X, ran across data showing that the average person reportedly takes 23 minutes to focus, but is interrupted roughly every 11 minutes. Feeling this lack of focus himself when working in public places, he decided to use his background in EEG and signal processing to come up with a solution.

Ozsoy and his team have since found that EEG Neurofeedback increases the brain’s ability to get into a flow or highly focused state quickly, even when the earbuds are removed later on. Essentially, the device teaches the brain to remain focused even when surrounded by potential distractions.

In addition to providing instant feedback regarding your level of focus, FocusBuds also monitors your activity for a bigger overall picture of your concentration prowess, and will provide reports with information showing peak focus periods and top distractions. This allows you to avoid certain environments and inefficient habits. With this information at your disposal, you can reorganize your schedule to complete difficult tasks during your most natural productive times and rest during unfocused times.

FocusBuds are much more than a mind trainer. They also offer a superior earbud product with a proprietary noise-isolation sound seal technology that blocks out highly distracting noises while providing a low-level background murmur. Think of it as white noise rather than complete silence. Of course, if you prefer to listen to music, FocusBuds not only provides premium audio, but the EEG Neurofeedback actually tracks what type of music makes you most productive. There’s also an embedded microphone for one-touch call connect, and Bluetooth 5.0 so you can wirelessly connect to all your devices.

FocusBuds are currently trending on Indiegogo, with a campaign that was fully funded within the first hour of being launched. Now nearly 1000 percent funded, the campaign ends the last week of November, with shipments of the final product set for Spring 2020.

The post Smart Earbuds Train Your Brain to Stay Focused first appeared on Dornob.

Three new computationally designed timber walls at the Basler & Hofmann cafeteria in Esslingen, Switzerland display one aspect of Gramazio & Kohler’s innovative touch to dazzling effect. The walls aren’t just decorative. They’re intended to improve the acoustics of the room while also functioning as air ducts for a ventilation system integrated into the walls.

The way in which they were made is a fascinating evolution of traditional carpentry. The 8,500 individual modules are identical angle-cut fir wood blocks, but each one is set at a slightly different angle as determined by a computer, creating a pattern of shadow and light that changes throughout the day. Carpenters are then equipped with custom-built camera controller units in order to place the blocks as directed, with an augmented reality monitor prompting them to turn the blocks until they’re in exactly the right position.

The architects explain why the digital assembly of their “Sequential Roof” project at the Arch-Tec-Lab of the Institute of Technology in Architecture (ITA) in Zurich is unusual: “The structure consists of 168 single trusses — which are woven into a 2,308-square-meter free-form roof design. As such, an integrated digital planning process connects design, structural analysis, and the generation of fabrication data.”

“Based on this data, a robot-based assembly process of 48,624 timber slats to individually formed trussed beams allows an efficient fabrication of the complex roof geometry. The project demonstrates the potential of combining digital fabrication technology with timber as a local and sustainable building material. In collaboration with experts from academia and practice, the Chair’s research results in the field of digital timber construction are being condensed and applied at full architectural scale.”

Have you ever seen bricks used quite like this? The new front facade for the headquarters of brick manufacturer is a freestanding, self-supporting structure set in front of the actual steel and glass front. All of the bricks are positioned and glued into place by a robot in a manufacturing process called ROBmade. “The slight rotation of the bricks generates a vivid image of light and shadow and enhances the volumetric reading of the diagrid,” explain the creators.

Another project, the Rock Print Pavilion, is a house made of loose aggregate and twine assembled by a robot. Of it, the lab says: “Right in the historic heart of the city, newly developed robotic processes combine these ordinary items into a highly resilient material system without the use of tools. They thus provide a first look at some of the astonishing designs that rapid developments in digitalization are making possible in architecture and the environment.”

Gramazio & Kohler also helped produce the world’s first inhabited house that was both digitally planned and built primarily using robots and 3D printers. Created in collaboration with other ETH Zurich professors and industry experts, the DFAB House aims to model how digital fabrication processes might revolutionize the way we design and build architecture in the near future.

The post An Architectural Robotic Laboratory Explores the Power of Mathematical Patterns first appeared on Dornob.

It’s always been a bit of a guessing game as to when and how to evacuate an area. Over the years, firefighters have implemented a variety of tactics to gain insight on the behavior of wildfires. For example, the Los Angeles Fire Department and other agencies send up drones to identify hot spots and use planes loaded with cameras and infrared sensors to map out the perimeters of a blaze. They also rely on supercomputers to process data that can help with the task.

“We’re always looking for innovative ways to get better intelligence, and it all comes down to enhanced situational awareness,” says LAFD Chief Ralph Terrazas. “That’s what we train our firefighters: when you’re on the fire ground, you got to be aware of what’s going on to make good decisions.”

But as of this September, Los Angeles, Orange, Riverside, Ventura, and San Diego counties have a $4.5 million tool at their disposal. A pilot program called FIRIS, or Fire Integrated Real-Time Intelligence System, is now being tested in California as a way to better coordinate firefighters’ collected data for quicker and more accurate fire forecasting. In this way, FIRIS produces nearly real-time fire perimeter maps just minutes after planes arrive on sight.

To pull information together, a supercomputer called WIFIRE, located at the University of California, taps into weather reports, wind conditions, information about vegetation that can act as fuel for the fire, census data to understand population sizes and structure layouts, and topographic maps to produce a projection of the area where the fire is most likely to burn. The resulting computation provides an estimation of where the fire will burn for the following six hours without intervention. This allows any agencies battling the blaze to deliver a swift response, and also gives them calculated information about timing and location for optimum evacuation protocols.

The output from the supercomputer is coupled with infrared scans from planes that both confirm the data and provide additional information to the Southern California Wildfire Fusion Center, which acts as a coordinating hub for intel. There, it is circulated to the fire chief, the command post, local law enforcement agencies, elected officials, and the general public. It is then uploaded to the LAFD website, where residents can find all the necessary evacuation information. Following the initial response, new tests are run every few hours to see if there have been any changes in the forecast, with planes returning to the area three to four times a day to gather real-time data.

Of course, making these types of estimates about where the fire will turn next is not a new tactic. In fact, the majority of the tools being implemented have been used for a very long time in the war against wildfires. The difference is that instead of hours wasted scouring reports as they come in from different sources and making guesses based on terrain shown on topo maps, WIFIRE and FIRIS produce more accurate results within minutes.

The company behind FIRIS, Intterra, hopes the technology will save money and resources, improve communication, and most importantly, save lives. In the future, Intterra says its system will be able to help predict fires before they even happen, using the information gathered regarding weather, wind, topography, and vegetation.

The post New Technology Improves Forecasting for Path of California Wildfires first appeared on Dornob.

If you’re not already worried about your digital privacy, you probably should be. Personal data is a big business, after all, with companies gathering every bit of information about us they can. That includes our search histories, the websites we visit, the products we purchase, the people we’re connected to, and even the kind of sensitive information that can be used to access our financial accounts or steal our identities, like date and place of birth.

Then there are hackers to contend with. It’s shockingly easy to tap into someone else’s security cameras, for instance — or their baby monitors. In the near future, almost everything in our homes will be connected to the internet, from our lights to our refrigerators, offering virtually endless opportunities for invasion of our privacy. Lucky for us all, a new product called the Winston aims to help us reclaim control.

This plug-and-play hardware privacy filter works on all devices in your home network, including your computers, tablets, smartphones, gaming systems, and smart home gadgets like security systems. Offering an alternative to Virtual Private Networks (VPNs), which only work with a single device and can be slow, the Winston catches all sorts of privacy invasions, from the smallest to the most concerning. That includes non-consensual third party collection, surveillance, ad tracking, pop-ups, and more.

The Winston also encrypts data so hackers and ISPs can’t intercept your information, monitors incoming and outgoing traffic, allows you to use streaming service sites without slow-downs, intelligently filters cookies, decreases data usage, hides your physical location, and speeds up your internet by getting rid of all the junk traffic associated with tracking your activity. The best part, according to the makers, is that it all sets up within 60 seconds with a set-and-forget operation.

Winston Privacy Founder and CEO Richard Stokes wrote an op-ed on Fast Company explaining why the “surveillance economy” spurred him to create the device.

“It was a little over two years ago that I realized the ad-tech industry had gone too far. I was an executive at a global advertising company, watching a demo from a third-party data provider on how they could help with ad targeting. Their representative brazenly demonstrated how he could pull up his own personal record and share with us his income, his mortgage details, where he worked, what kind of car he drove, which political party he was likely to vote for, and his personal interests (craft beer, of course). It was everything, all in one place.”

“When I looked around the room that day, many of my colleagues seemed alarmed. Up until that point, the advertising industry had asked people to trust us with their data. We were about to go back on that promise. I left the ad-tech industry shortly thereafter.”

Clearly, Stokes isn’t the only one who’s concerned. Thousands of backers pledged over $1 million USD to fund the project on crowdfunding websites Kickstarter and Indiegogo. The Winston is currently in production and should be available to the general public later this year. The retail price is expected to run $249.

The post Surveillance Buster: A Privacy Filter for All Your Home Devices first appeared on Dornob.

At a recent World Economic Forum conference at the 117-year-old US Army War College, the integration of artificial intelligence (AI) into the national defense system was at the center of attention. More specifically, the organization used the event to both celebrate military personnel who excelled in critical problem solving and provide a think tank for civilian leaders and military commanders to come together and   discuss national security objectives.

The consensus was that “Artificial Intelligence (AI) and its sister technologies will be the engine behind the fourth industrial revolution,” which the forum predicts will be “unlike anything humankind has experienced before.”

Indeed, the role AI will play in future warfare is much more than in-depth than ever imagined. In the national security and armed conflicts sector, it will be responsible for things like optimizing competence through computerization, manipulating human behavior, and revolutionizing the methods by which conventional data is distributed.

Robotic Soldiers

It’s easy to think this all means robotic soldiers actually aren’t that far from becoming a reality. And while machines may be adept at killing adversaries, they’re almost always less gifted in the way of walking and running, both of which are crucial skills for today’s military personnel. For that reason alone, replacing human soldiers with them doesn’t seem viable in the foreseeable future.

In the meantime, micro-drones are constantly being upgraded and fine-tuned. Experts predict that these machines will soon be the pinnacle of airborne surveillance — not to mention ultra-accurate at launching micro-missiles.

Increased Efficiency

Military spending is a thorn in the side of many Americans, with accounts of phenomenal waste in the sector proliferating for decades now. The best distribution of their resources may not be clear-cut, but if Google can lower the use of cooling energy for its data center by 40 percent with“deep mind” computer architecture like it did in 2016, the military should be able to similarly reduce spending. With AI entering the mix, they might even be able to allocate their resources more efficiently and reverse the chronic expenditure increases that have plagued them for so long. 

Information Manipulation

Knowledge is power, and that’s never truer than it is in military operations. No longer a simple matter of hand-to-hand combat and strategies developed over paper maps and charts, AI is arguably most powerful in this area of modern warfare.

Unlike past military frontiers, today’s battlefields are crowded with civilians mixed in with forces from all sides of conflicts. These characteristics pose a great challenge to advanced militaries, many of whom’s attacks usually come via air, which typically produce massive civilian casualties, or the deployment of troops on the ground, which increases the risk of serious injury or death to military personnel.

Integrating artificial intelligence into these scenarios will be a major game-changer. Combining prognostic analytics and advanced data processing with the help of AI would aid the military in discovering critical incongruities, connections, and strategic designs for all sorts of situations.

The post How Will AI Affect Modern Warfare? first appeared on Dornob.