It's official: Motorola Droid Razr Maxx runs forever

We clocked Motorola's new Droid Razr Maxx to serve up a fantastic 19 hours and 47 minutes of video playback.

PlayStation Vita will launch with 8GB card for limited time

Sony has announced the "Launch Bundle" version of its PlayStation Vita will include a 8GB card and free game for the same price as the 3G/Wi-Fi model.

Sony's lovely Xperia S may land on AT&T soon

Beautifully crafted and artfully sculpted, Sony's Xperia S was one of the slickest smartphones we saw at CES 2012. Now it looks like it could arrive on AT&T.

EU Commission: Go ahead, Sony, own 'Sony Ericsson'

The European Commission OKs Sony's buyout of the Sony Ericsson brand, bringing us one step closer to Sony-branded mobile phones.

Kinect coming to laptops? Why?

Microsoft's Kinect motion control technology might be on laptops sooner than you think. Whether it makes sense...well, that's another story.

Will the Nintendo Network...work? - CNET

The Guardian

Will the Nintendo Network...work? CNET by Jeff Bakalar January 27, 2012 3:15 PM PST Follow @jeffbakalar During an investor assembly this week Nintendo president Satoru Iwata announced the Nintendo Network, marking the first time the company has attempted to streamline its online gaming ... Nintendo Details Plans For Wii U's Online ServiceWired News Nintendo Chief Tips NFC, New Network for Wii UPC Magazine Nintendo Chief Promises to Do Wii U Launch RightABC News Washington Post -BusinessWeek all 1,074 news articles »

Twitter faces accusations of censorship; users plan Saturday boycot…

ABC News

Twitter faces accusations of censorship; users plan Saturday boycott Washington Post Some Twitter users say they will boycott the service on Saturday after the company announced it may begin blocking tweets in specific countries. The social network said Thursday that it had given itself the ability to block content on a ... Twitter Enacts Censorship RegimePC Magazine Twitter Censorship in Some Countries Spurs User ProtestseWeek #TwitterBlackout: Protests brew as complaints over censorship come to a boilChristian Science Monitor Mashable -The Guardian -AFP all 1,145 news articles »

Apple's New iBooks Won't School College Bookstores Any Time Soon -…

Wired News

Apple's New iBooks Won't School College Bookstores Any Time Soon Wired News By Tim Carmody On its face, matching iPad textbooks with college students seems almost perfect. But Apple's plans for its new iBookstore, from the way it has structured book purchases to its development strategy for multimedia e-books, doesn't seem ... Apple iPad: Happy 2nd BirthdayInformationWeek Apple now largest computer maker, sold more iPads alone than HP sold PCsApple Insider iPad sales beat HP, Lenovo, Dell PC numbersComputerworld eWeek -PC Magazine -Register all 233 news articles »

Lawmakers Press FTC on Whether Google Violated Privacy Accord - Blo…

National Post

Lawmakers Press FTC on Whether Google Violated Privacy Accord Bloomberg US lawmakers asked the Federal Trade Commission whether changes announced this week by Google Inc. (GOOG) to its privacy policy violate terms of a 20-year settlement the company reached with the agency last year. Congressmen Edward Markey ... Google seeks to clarify new privacy policyCNN How Google's New Privacy Policy Could Affect YouScientific American Google privacy policy: Who will be affected and how you can choose what ...Washington Post InformationWeek -Multichannel News all 500 news articles »

Bus-sized asteroid shaves by Earth - AFP

AFP

Bus-sized asteroid shaves by Earth AFP WASHINGTON ? An asteroid about the size of a bus shaved by Earth on Friday in what spacewatchers described as a "near-miss," though experts were not concerned about the possibility of an impact. The asteroid, named 2012 BX34, measured between six and ... Asteroid Threat to Earth Sparks Global 'NEOShield' ProjectSpace.com Asteroid makes near-miss fly-byBBC News Bus-sized asteroid gives Earth close shave FridayFox News msnbc.com -Outcome Magazine -SlashGear all 151 news articles »

Making memories last: Prion-like protein plays key role in storing…

Memories in our brains are maintained by connections between neurons called "synapses". But how do these synapses stay strong and keep memories alive for decades? Neuroscientists at the Stowers Institute for Medical Research have discovered a major clue from a study in fruit flies: Hardy, self-copying clusters or oligomers of a synapse protein are an essential ingredient for the formation of long-term memory.

Report: Facebook IPO filing could come next week

Facebook could file regulatory papers as early as Wednesday for its highly anticipated initial public offering of stock, according to a newspaper report.

Blind moles use beauty for function, not fancy

(PhysOrg.com) -- Scientists have long wondered why a blind mole that lives in underground darkness has beautiful iridescent hair. After all, many animals or birds with magnificent features exhibit their colorful beauty for mating purposes. Now, a new study shows that the iridescent hairs of the blind golden mole, Chrysochloridae, aren’t for attracting potential mates. Instead, the shiny coats help the rodents function efficiently underground.

Study offers new information for flu fight

Influenza virus can rapidly evolve from one form to another, complicating the effectiveness of vaccines and anti-viral drugs used to treat it. By first understanding the complex host cell pathways that the flu uses for replication, University of Georgia researchers are finding new strategies for therapies and vaccines, according to a study published in the January issue of the Journal of the Federation of American Societies for Experimental Biology.

Eureka! Kitchen gadget inspires scientist to make more effective pl…

One day in 2010, Rutgers physicist Vitaly Podzorov watched a store employee showcase a kitchen gadget that vacuum-seals food in plastic. The demo stuck with him. The simple concept – an airtight seal around pieces of food – just might apply to his research: developing flexible electronics using lightweight organic semiconductors for products such as video displays or solar cells.

Robots Podcast: Advances in Bipedal Locomotion

In the new episode of Robots Podcast we talk to Subramanian Ramamoorthy from the University of Edinburgh about the recent progress in walking robotics. We then speak with Felipe Brandão Cavalcanti, an Electrical Engineering student working on bipedal walking at the LARA lab at the University of Brasilia with Professor Geovany Borges. Ramamoorthy tells us about the recent advances in humanoid bipedal walking illustrated by Petman and the latest version of Asimo. In particular, we look at the history of the field with work from Mark Raibert, Russ Tedrake andDaniel Koditschek and how different areas, such as machine leaning and motion capture, come together to accelerate progress. Felipe Brandão Cavalcanti's project focuses on the study and implementation of gait generation and stabilization algorithms for small humanoid robots. He tells us how they hacked a humanoid toy to improve its balance and the importance of math in his work.To learn more about walking robotics read on or tune in!

"My robot is better than your robot."

Inspriational video from iamFIRST.com.
(Via Nikolaus Correll)

SVT's Akta Manniskor begins Sunday, Jan. 22

While this won't matter to most readers of Robots.Net until a version with English subtitles becomes available for download, SVT's Akta Manniskor starts tomorrow, January 22nd. A ten hour series following the stories of a handful of "hubots" - human-like robots we might prefer to call androids - and the humans into whose lives they become entwined, the release of this Swedish production has been preceded by a bit of guerrilla marketing, and there is a making-of video available, also in Swedish of course.

Random Robot Roundup

Shermine of Universal Robots, a Danish company, writes to tell us about a light-weight robot arm and matching touch-screen controller they've just completed. We also got word of a new robotics and AI blog called NooTriX, check it out. For our LEGO fans, Simon tells us about WorldBricks, a website where you can download LEGO instructions and catalogs dating back to the 1950s. Guy Cefalu sent a link to the Element microcontroller for .NET developers. No specs on memory or CPU type yet but looks like a PIC. (bonus points to the first reader who posts instructions for using an open source compiler like SDCC with this one!) The Swirling Brain spotted an instructable for a tiny robot called the Roule_Robot, just 14g and 39x22mm. Finally, Colin Adamson wrote to tell us about the Kickstarter campaign for his OCULUS Surveillance and Telepresence Netbook Robot (which looks a bit like the old Evolution ER1). Know any other robot news, gossip, or amazing facts we should report? Send 'em our way please. And don't forget to follow us on twitter.

XYBOT video, by GeekBeat.tv

It appears Justin Bieber got around at CES. So did the GeekBeat.tv crew, including to the XYBOTYX booth, where they recorded the XYBOT rolling around on a wooden platform.

SkyLight Adapter Connects Microscopes To Smartphones

SkyLight co-founders Andy Miller and Tess Bakke.

The SkyLight is really a simple device derived to solve a simple problem: how to keep your smartphone still enough to take high quality photos through a microscope. Watching other people holding their cell phones up to their microscopes, SkyLight co-founder, Andy Miller, realized that he wasn?t the only one in search of a low cost and easy way to take pictures of microscope images. I recently had the joy of chatting with Miller and fellow co-founder Tess Bakke about how the SkyLight came to be, and how they think it will impact research, medicine and education.

The SkyLight is essentially an adapter that fixes a smartphone to a microscope. Using the phone?s camera to peer through the eyepiece and snap photos, you get images that are practically indistinguishable from images taken with professional microscopy cameras. The big difference is that conventional microscope cameras can cost hundreds to thousands of dollars, while the SkyLight is just $60. Of course, you?ll need a smartphone too, but you probably already have one in your pocket.

The SkyLight adapter consists of a movable platform that the smartphone fits into, and a base that locks onto just about any microscope eyepiece. After connecting the smartphone to the eyepiece, you adjust the platform position to align the camera correctly, and adjust it up and down for focus. Lock it up, and you?re ready to take pictures.

?I was building a microscope in college,? Miller tells me casually, as if microscope-building was as normal as joining the chess club, ?and I was trying to attach a telephone to that microscope and I realized, well, it?s fine if I can attach one cell phone to one microscope but it would be pretty feasible to have a universal adapter that would allow me to attach any phone to any microscope.?

Miller likes to build microscopes, but there?s a purpose behind his geeky pursuit. While studying bioengineering and global health at Rice University, he designed and built the Global Focus microscope ? a simple, affordable microscope that can be built for areas of the world with limited resources. With off-the-shelf lenses and mirrors, an LED flashlight for a light source, and running off batteries, the microscope could take bright field and fluorescent images and cost only $240 to make. Right now there are 20 prototypes being tested in the US, Central America, and Africa.

Not too shabby: a 10X image of esophageal cells taken by an iPhone 4S.

As the Kickstarter page confesses, ?Now he?s bent on making meaningful change through design.? The SkyLight is a simple idea that could have profound results. Connecting a cell phone to a microscope not only saves money, but in a developing country, it makes the difference between quality care or not. Don?t have a pathologist in your rural Kenyan village? No problem. Just send the images to the hospitals in Nairobi. SkyLight can literally bring together innovative solutions such as the Global Focus microscope and the $80 IDEOS Android smartphone, which 350,000 Kenyans had scooped up as of this past summer, to extend the reach of much needed quality healthcare.

The idea for the SkyLight came to Miller while building the cheap microscopes in Africa. The lack of resources available there forced him to create a general design. ?How do you make it work with anything you might have?? He made a product that would work with any cell phone. Had he been in the US and had all the resources he needed, Miller expects the adapter he?d have come up with would have been specifically built for an iPhone and only an iPhone, or a specific microscope together with a specific phone. The tightened constraints in Africa forced Miller to make a more general use device, and it?s all the better for it. The SkyLight can work for different phones and different microscope with different kinds of eyepieces. And even though they?re focusing on microscopes at the moment, the team expects that SkyLight will eventually be used to mate smartphones with other types of cameras such as spotting scopes, the telephoto cameras used by birders. Check out their gallery of images here.

Think you could tell the difference between images taken with a phone and conventional camera? While they haven?t rigorously compared the images taken by their smartphone with images taken by conventional microscopy cameras, they?ve already passed the eyeball test. As Miller tells me, the Kickstarter page ?received the most attention from?doctors, pathologists who want to do doctor-to-doctor consult.? Some physicians actually contacted the group and asked that they take pictures of samples. They took the pictures with an iPhone 4S with a resolution of 8-megapixels. After posting the pictures on their website they were contacted by multiple pathologists who told them that it?s good enough for them to make diagnoses.

The SkyLight won the Proto Labs Cool Idea! Award in the program?s inaugural year. According to their website, Proto Labs is the ?world?s fastest? maker of CNC machined and injection molded parts. Their Cool Idea! Award is aimed at producing high quality prototypes for startup businesses that might not have the resources to follow through on a good idea. In a press release about the award, Proto Labs cited how SkyLight enables researchers, clinicians and educators to communicate in new ways by combining tools already available to them. Winning the award was a key achievement for SkyLight?s mission to make the adapter available to those who need it. The mold that Proto Lab has created lowers production cost and makes it more affordable. The SkyLight was listed on Kickstarter for $60, but Miller and Bakke hope to work with an NGO in the future and offer the adapter for even less.

Bakke emphasized SkyLight?s social enterprise aspect, mentioning their 5 to 1 promise: for every five SkyLights they sell they?re going to donate one to schools or other places like a local health program that could use them.

We shouldn?t forget that the camera in use is still a phone. Miller and Bakke point out that SkyLight could be used live; that is, you could connect a collaborator with a live view through your microscope all the while having a conversation.

?Can you move it a little to the left?great, now zoom in.?

As an easy and inexpensive way to generate and share images, SkyLight is an ideal telemedicine tool. Wanting to explore SkyLight?s potential, the company has sending their prototype to telemedicine researchers to tap their imaginations. At the same time they?re encouraging apps developers to come up with apps to improve image-based smartphone telemedicine and telediagnosis capabilities. Miller mentioned one app that would be universally useful would be an app that pushes images directly to a server, and labels and organizes them. That way people wouldn?t have to email or text themselves every image they want to keep.

Right now the adapter is still in its testing and production phase, but they expect SkyLight to be ready around the first of March. When that happens there will be no shortage of takers. Their first production run will be aimed at filling Kickstarter orders and getting feedback for improvement.

Kickstarter is great for turning great ideas into real tools. SkyLight’s goal was to raise $15,000. They ended up with over $22,000. I have no doubt that these two, enthusiastic young people and the SkyLight will get a lot of attention in the coming months. All they did was find a way to combine technologies that already existed, showing us once again you don’t need to reinvent the wheel to create something useful.

[image credits: SkyLight]
images: SkyLight

iRobot CEO Discusses Their New Robot AVA

iRobot CEO, Colin Angle, with AVA.

We found this video from CNNMoney, about AVA, iRobot?s latest personal assistance robot. We?ve covered AVA before, how it?s basically an iPad (or notebook) on a pretty sophisticated set of wheels. We don’t learn anything new about the robot, but watching AVA we begin to get a feel for how AVA might work in the home, particularly, as iRobot CEO Colin Angle points out, to assist the elderly. With laser range finders, acoustic sensors, accelerometers, bumpers, and two cameras for 3D vision, iRobot?s built AVA to have the tools to get around the home and be of service.

What service will AVA provide exactly? Mainly telepresence communication between the elderly and healthcare providers. Angle?s main point is that the elderly don?t want to live in assisted living homes, and their relatives don?t want to pay the cost of assisted living homes. By having doctors, nurses, or other health personnel available at the tap of a touchscreen, AVA can mediate exchange of immediate health information between patients and their doctors. AVA would be perfect for the elderly who require minimal care but regular monitoring.

And healthcare aside, AVA?s perfect for curing another major ailment of the elderly: loneliness. With AVA, friends and family members can ?drop in? from time to time. Watching the robot scoot around, it?s actually got some personality, the way it?s head swings around and tilts to look at you ? even thought it?s head is an iPad. Imagine a grandson?s face rolling into the living room, ?Hi grandma!? I think she?ll take that over a telephone call any day.

[image credits: CNNMoney via YouTube]
[video credits: CNNMoney via YouTube]
video: AVA

Embryonic Stem Cells Used To Improve Vision Of Blind Patients

The man of the hour. UCLA's Steven Schwartz and his team partially restored vision to two patients by injecting stem cells into their retinas.

Macular degeneration had left Sue Freeman, 78, legally blind. She couldn?t go for a walk by herself, she couldn?t go shopping or even cook by herself. Another woman, age 51, was suffering from Stargardt?s macular dystrophy, which causes the loss of cells located in the pigmented layer of the retina called the retinal pigment epithelium. Also legally blind, she was unable read the large letters on an eye chart used to test people with compromised vision.

In July of 2010 doctors injected retinal cells derived from human embryonic stem cells into one eye of each woman in the hopes that they would regrow the cells needed to see. A couple weeks after surgery Freeman improved her visual acuity score from correctly identifying 21 letters (20/500 vision) to 28 letters (20/320). She could once again pour a glass of water without spilling it, read her own handwriting, and ? to the chagrin of her husband ? take notice of all the improvements that needed to be done on rental properties that they own.

The other patient, who wishes to remain anonymous, could only detect hand motions prior to surgery. Two weeks following surgery she began counting fingers. She also improved from identifying zero letters on the acuity chart to correctly recognizing five. She woke up one morning and looked at the armoire in her bedroom. ?It has a lot of detailed carvings and I thought wow, I was missing those before,? she told CNN.

Both patients continued to show improvement in the treated eye four months after surgery and did not show any adverse side effects. Importantly, the eyes that did not receive stem cells did not show improvement. The patients were also given immunosuppressants to prevent their bodies from rejecting the foreign tissue.

The trial was led by Steven Schwartz, an opthalmologist and chief of the retina division at UCLA?s Jules Stein Eye Institute, and the results were published in The Lancet. Although the results are extremely promising, Dr. Schwartz is quick to temper enthusiasm over the trial. Only two patients were treated, after all. Many more will need to be successfully treated before the procedure can be accepted as a robust option. He justified publishing the study after only two patients given the amount of interest in the field. Qualifying the study further, Dr. Schwartz cautioned that the improvement in eyesight for one of the women could be a placebo effect.

Pigmented epithelial cells were grown from embryonic stem cells prior to injection.

The stem cells were treated before being injected into the patients? eyes. Researchers at the company that had provided the stem cells, Advanced Cell Technology, had induced the cells to become retinal pigment epithelial cells. The procedure, which included the injection of about 50,000 cells, took half an hour. The team received stem cells from Advanced Cell Technology, which had gotten them from an embryo stored at a fertility clinic. The couple who?d produced the embryo decided not to use it and then donated it to the company. After stem cells were derived from the embryo it was destroyed. The hope is that in the future stem cells will be taken from embryos without the need to destroy them.

The stem cell treatment gives new hope to the blind. Macular degeneration is the leading cause of vision loss among the elderly. When the light-sensitive photoreceptors of the macula degenerate people can no longer bring objects into focus. Stargart?s muscular dystrophy, or Stargart?s disease, is a common cause of vision loss among children and young people. Right now there is no treatment for Stargart?s disease, and while drug injections, laser treatment and diet alteration can slow the progression of age-related macular degeneration, it is also considered incurable.

Others are working towards a stem cell cure for macular degeneration. In 2010 researchers successfully grew a retina in the lab from human embryonic stem cells. It was the first time a 3D tissue was produced from stem cells. Curing macular degeneration is an ideal target for stem cell treatments. The number of cells needed is low compared to, say, regrowing the neurons of a damaged spinal cord. Unlike other cells in the retina, cells of the retinal pigment epithelium don?t need to form synapses to work. Lastly, the retina?s immune environment is more tolerant, thus decreasing the need for immunosuppressants.

Pharmaceutical giant Geron Corporation used to represent one of the best chances for making stem cell treatments a reality. But recently after the company had begun human trials on their promising cell line that allowed paralyzed mice to walk again, they dropped out of the stem cell game altogether. If the UCLA trial results hold, it could entice more companies like Advanced Cell Technology to invest in stem cell research. According to a commentary on the trial, when Geron ended their trial it left ACT and Dr. Schwartz and his colleagues as the sole group treating patients with embryo-derived stem cells. That?s not good enough. Let?s hope the trial not only brings the world into focus for its patients, but also brings the potential of embryo-derived stem cells back into the focus of medicine.

[image credits: UCLA Jules Stein Eye Institute, CNN and The Lancet]
image 1: Schwartz1
image 2: Schwartz2
image 3: stem cells

Rollin? Justin Robot Gets Agile, Learns How To Throw A Ball (video)

The gangly Agile Justin, ready to toss a ball to its robotic twin Rollin' Justin.

Where was Agile Justin last year when we needed him to throw out the first pitch at a Philadelphia Phillies game? The PhillieBot was booed by Phillies fans after bouncing the ball to home plate. It would have been a different story had DLR?s latest robot been there.

Last summer DLR showed us Rollin? Justin?s amazing ability to catch. Now they?ve created a robot that can toss the ball to Rollin?. Just as Rollin? Justin was a great test platform for robotics technologies behind high-speed perception, catching strategy, dexterity and body control, Justin?s Agile twin presents DLR programmers with the challenge of effective ball tossing ? something that PhillieBot failed miserably at.

As Hizook reports, DLR started with Rolling Justin and added ?1.5 faster arms through different gear ratios; completely new wheel electronics and bus architecture, which allows a 500Hz control loop over all four wheels and steering [degrees of freedom] on the mobile platform; 1kHz control loop for the arms, torso and hand [degrees of freedom].?

Watch the ball toss in the video below. Obviously Agile Justin throws like a robot, kind of sidearm/underhand, not much like a major league pitcher. The coordination between arm, torso, and wheels gives new meaning to the term ?pitching mechanics.?

[image credits: hizook via YouTube and DLR]
[video credits: hizook via YouTube]
image 1: throw
image 2: Agile Justin
video: Agile Justin