http://www.auto-assembly.com/blog emerging components Fri, 10 Sep 2010 17:47:08 +0000 http://backend.userland.com/rss092 en The BBC recently reported on developments in prosthetic hand technology which include the addition of sensory feedback via a direct nerve interface. The research was part of the SMARTHAND project and was led by a team at Lund University, Sweden. According to CORDIS: What is unique about the sophisticated prototype artificial ... http://www.auto-assembly.com/blog/?p=218 Clay Shirky expresses some very powerful ideas about the demise of newspapers and traditional publishing [Newspapers and Thinking the Unthinkable at Clay Shirky]: Print media does much of society’s heavy journalistic lifting, from flooding the zone — covering every angle of a huge story — to the daily grind of attending ... http://www.auto-assembly.com/blog/?p=213 The conflict between secrecy and marketing within defense/security contractors has led to some entertaining gaffs in the U.S. The Spy Who Billed Me has followed up on some of the organisations openly monitoring the blog and made some interesting findings. Security contractors have to advertise their wares whilst attempting not ... http://www.auto-assembly.com/blog/?p=212 Graphical score for Gyorgy Ligeti's electronic composition, 'Artikulation'. The score was composed in 1958. The graphical score was produced by Rainer Wehinger twelve years after the original music was recorded. A video of the score accompanying the music is available on dailymotion. [Radassemmbly via information aesthetics] order cialis professionalbuy viagra without prescriptionorder ... http://www.auto-assembly.com/blog/?p=211 MIT's Technology Review reports on the development of a technique designed to prevent the damage caused by the metals in current neural interfaces, where 'insertion of the rigid metal electrode into soft tissue triggers a cascade of inflammatory signals, damaging or killing neurons and triggering a scar to form around ... http://www.auto-assembly.com/blog/?p=209 The momentum of ostalgie grows. I particularly enjoyed k-punk's comparison between Mark E. Smith's autobiography, Renegade, and David Peace's The Damned Utd - a novel concerned, in particular, with the character of the football manager, Brian Clough. k-punk concludes his article attacking the short-termism of neo-liberalism and re-enchanting the era ... http://www.auto-assembly.com/blog/?p=199 BBC News have reported on the imminent commercial release of Emotiv's neural interface. According to the article, The Epoc technology can be used to give authentic facial expressions to avatars of gamers in virtual worlds. For example, if the player smiles, winks, grimaces the headset can detect the expression and translate ... http://www.auto-assembly.com/blog/?p=197 Putin's Russia is continuing to breath life into old Cold War figures. In the space of a few weeks Russian submarines have planted flags under the north pole, claiming the territory as their own; soviet bombers have resumed Cold War face-offs with their old adversaries; the leader's image has become ... http://www.auto-assembly.com/blog/?p=193 A ghost from the cold war, in the form of a fighter-bomber dance just beyond the edge of the state, briefly appeared over the North Sea on Tuesday: It was confirmed by the Ministry of Defence today that RAF jets were scrambled on Tuesday after two Russian aircraft were spotted heading ... http://www.auto-assembly.com/blog/?p=191 The BBC have reported that the director of rehabilitation engineering services at NHS Lothian, David Gow , has developed a new prosthetic hand. The design and construction of the artificial hand was undertaken by Touch Bionics, Livingston. The hand has fully articulated finger joints and motors for each digit, allowing ... http://www.auto-assembly.com/blog/?p=190