Optical scientists set to teach camera new tricks

September 4th, 2009 WASHINGTON - Stanford scientists may revolutionize digital photography with the aid of an open-source digital camera, which will give programmers around the world the chance to create software that will teach cameras new tricks. Marc Levoy, professor of Computer Science and of Electrical Engineering, says if the technology catches on, camera performance will be no longer be limited by the software that comes pre-installed by the manufacturer.

November 4th, 2005 IBM claims a major breakthrough in the quest developing photon based computers instead of todays electron based silicon chips. In its Silicon Wave Guide chip it claims to have managed to slow down light to 1/300 of its normal speed of 186, 000 miles per second.

June 24th, 2006 K-NFB - a portable scanning device, invented by Raymond Kurzweil, that reads text to visually impaired people will go on sale in the UK next month. The K-NFB, which combines a PDA and a digital camera, means that people will be able to read menus, train timetables and product labels in shops.

February 2nd, 2009 WASHINGTON - Every second, millions of phone calls and cable TV shows are dispatched through fibres as digital zeros and ones formed by chopping laser pulses into bits. This slicing and dicing is generally done with an electro-optic modulator, a device for allowing an electric signal to switch a laser beam on and off at high speeds.

July 9th, 2009 LONDON - British scientists have developed a software program that can enable computers to learn sign language by watching TV. It learns sign language by absorbing TV shows that are both subtitled and signed.

May 29th, 2009 WASHINGTON - Arizona State University (ASU) researchers and scientists have created a new feature for Google Earth 5.0, which would enable anyone, anywhere, to recommend places on Mars to photograph. Google Earth 5.0 is the popular online application that lets users tour Earth, the starry sky, and the Red Planet Mars.

May 24th, 2006 Honda scientists have created Brain Machine Interface that translate thoughts into electrical signals which can be used to control machinery. It doesn't require the user to undergo surgery or even extensive training - a major advance over past thought-controlled technologies.

July 31st, 2009 'Last Lecture' prof's program to be updatedPITTSBURGH — Carnegie Mellon University will release an updated version of the animation-based software developed by late "last lecture" professor Randy Pausch to teach computer programming. Pausch, a Carnegie Mellon computer science professor and pioneer of virtual reality research, was involved with the Alice software project.

June 26th, 2006 An "emotionally aware" computer is being developed by British and American scientists which will be able to read an individual's thoughts by analyzing a combination of facial movements, like a raised eyebrow, quizzical look or a nod of the head, that represents underlying feelings. The system allows a wide range of mental states to be identified just by pointing a video camera at someone claimed Professor Peter Robinson of the University of Cambridge in England.

November 25th, 2008 The Canon EOS 5D Mark II is one hell of a gadget While it begins U.S. shipments to dealers today (Tuesday, Nov.

February 16th, 2009 BANGALORE - Infosys Technologies Tuesday said it has instituted a Rs.5-million (Rs.50 lakh) award each for five top Indian scientists in recognition of their outstanding research contributions and achievements. The five awards will be given annually under the aegis of Infosys Science Foundation, a non-profit trust set up with a corpus of Rs.210.5 million (Rs.21.5 crore), the software major said in a statement here.

April 23rd, 2009 LONDON - Commentators, who examine disputed line calls and coaches studying how well golfers and table-tennis players control balls, often face confusion when they see pictures and video stills of fast moving balls that appear as blurry streaks. But, now a software, developed by scientists in Italy, could rid them of such confusion by determining a ball's path and spin from a single blurry image.

March 6th, 2006 I am really missing the kitchen sink from this one. This beast of a phone can store about 2,000 songs.

May 24th, 2009 LONDON - The ultimate computer game that banishes handheld controls and allows players' gestures to dictate the action on screen is to be launched by Microsoft. The Microsoft Xbox 360 uses 3-D camera technology, and is aimed at challenging the dominance of the Nintendo Wii, reports The Times.

May 1st, 2009 WASHINGTON - Researchers at Sandia National Laboratories, US, have constructed a carbon nanotube device that can detect the colours of the rainbow, by identifying the entire visible spectrum of light, a feat that could soon allow scientists to probe single molecule transformations. Carbon nanotubes are long thin cylinders composed entirely of carbon atoms.