News

• Automation will allow less skilled surgeons to perform complicated procedures

  By Liat Clark

  12 November 2012
  
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  By 2030 a dearth of skilled workers will mean a bigger reliance on automation in medicine, and inexperienced surgeons using technology to breach the knowledge gap.

  Speaking at Cambridge Consultants' Innovation Day, associate director of the company's surgical division Simon Karger painted a not altogether optimistic outlook of the future surgical landscape, which will be driven by an ageing population and an "expectation of care for all conditions". His conclusions were the fruits of a panel discussion on the subject attended by 20 companies and educational institutions including Philips, Boston Scientific, Harvard Medical School, John Hopkins University, Vitalitec and Bard. Continue reading

• Mikko Hypponen: Full talk from Wired 2012

  By Liat Clark

  12 November 2012
  Mikko Hypponen: Full talk from Wired 2012
  Comments 1

  According to cyber security expert Mikko Hyppönen, we might not be in a cyber war but we are in a cyber arms race, and the governments involved are the James Bond of the cyberhacking world -- seemingly unstoppable.
  
  Speaking at Wired 2012, the chief research officer for Finnish-based F-secure said we are ill-equipped to battle the growing threats coming out of government cyber hacking divisions.
  
  "We can protect against the everyday criminal threats," he explained, citing banking trojans. These, he says, are the equivalent to petty criminals stopping cars at gunpoint to steal passengers' wallets. "They don't care whose card they steal, as long as they get it."
  
  In comparison Stuxnet (one of the viruses Hyppönen and F-secure took down) did not look like that gun-touting street criminal -- Stuxnet looked like James Bond. Continue reading

• Now I know how Bieber feels

  By Guest Author

  12 November 2012
  
  Comments 2

  I am not Eleanor's dad. I'd like to make that perfectly clear before we begin. Just to make sure there is no possible misunderstanding, I repeat, I am NOT Eleanor's dad. I am a father but my daughter is only two years old and it's a bit early to be having the "inappropriate boyfriend" chat. Still with me? Just in case you are still in any way confused -- I am not Eleanor's dad.

  What I am is a 40-something media executive. I help brands understand their target audiences, work out how to target them and help them get great rates on the right media platforms. I work for MediaCom, part of WPP -- trust me, this is not a plug, it will become relevant later on -- and I'm also chairman of the Institute of Practitioners in Advertising in Scotland.

  If you want to know why I am so keen to deny all involvement in Eleanor's paternity, then you'll need to delve into the tweenage poposphere. Eleanor Calder -- who shares my surname but none of my genes -- is, apparently, the girlfriend of One Direction's Louis Tomlinson. Who knew? Not me. Continue reading

• 3D printing photobooth makes you into an action figure

  By Philippa Warr

  12 November 2012
  
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  A Japanese pop-up photobooth will use 3D printing technology to create action figure-sized replicas of its subjects.

  The Omote 3D photobooth, which opens in the Eye of Gyre exhibition space in the Harujuku district of Tokyo on November 24, features a 3D scanner and 3D printer setup which takes the likeness of its visitors and convert them into miniature figurines. Continue reading

• Improved invisibility cloak tames light

  By Philippa Warr

  12 November 2012
  
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  A group of engineers has developed a functional invisibility cloak by manipulating the way it interacts with light.

  The team from Duke University have refined previous invisibility cloaking technology created at the university to eliminate reflections at the edges of the devices -- one of the biggest issues preventing a complete illusion of invisibility. Continue reading

• The irrationality of cheating at gamified learning

  By Robert Barry

  12 November 2012
  
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  As I came to the end to the end of my daily vocabulary exercises, I clicked on the little icon that said 'Ranking' on the side of the screen. It had become a sort of habit -- you might say a guilty pleasure -- to check my progress against others learning languages on the same website. There had been a certain satisfaction when I first spotted my name amongst the top ten of users who had started at the same time as me, or the moment when my overall ranking passed from the ten thousands to a mere four figures. It was meaningless, of course. There was no prize for winning and no-one would be impressed by my progress up the charts. It was just one of the little rituals that somehow made the process of improving my French more compelling.

  On this occasion, however, upon clicking and redirecting, I was greeted by something quite different to what I had expected. No charts, no leaderboard, but a polite notice in an unassuming sans-serif. "Regrettably," it began, "we have had to temporarily disable leaderboards on Memrise after extensive cheating has been brought to our attention, some of which has been slowing down the site for the whole community." Continue reading

• ESA's new spacecraft reaches advanced testing stage

  By Paul Sutherland, Sen.com

  12 November 2012
  
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  A series of descent and landing tests are nearing completion for Europe's latest spacecraft designed for low-Earth orbit, the IXV Intermediate eXperimental Vehicle.

  Early next year they will culminate in a full-scale splashdown test that will pave the way for a launch by the European Space Agency's new small Vega rocket in 2014. Continue reading

• Instagram project gives drone's-eye-view of strike targets

  By Philippa Warr

  12 November 2012
  
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  An Instagram project aims to raise awareness of military drone strikes by posting a drone's-eye-view of stroke locations on the photo-sharing service.

  Despite drones -- also known as unmanned aerial vehicles -- becoming an increasingly common feature of contemporary combat, the UK and US military have been unwilling to discuss strikes in public. Continue reading

• Bond-inspired watch sets time with light sensor

  By Joseph Flaherty

  12 November 2012
  Bond-inspired watch sets time with light sensor
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  Being a fictional British secret agent has its perks -- an Aston Martin, unlimited martinis, a license to pun, and of course, an endless array of gadgets from Q. If you want to get geared up like a make-believe spy but are operating on a real-life budget, Division Furtive is the quartermaster for the creative class.

  Division Furtive is a one-man gizmo operation created by Gabriel Ménard, a hardware engineer from Montreal. He started his career developing PCBs and other hardware for clients like Best Buy, but dreamed of creating products that demonstrate his eye for design. Continue reading

• Give patients social and financial benefits, and they'll give up data

  By Liat Clark

  12 November 2012
  
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  If businesses and healthcare providers work together to offer customers real benefits they can understand, those customers will more readily embrace a future of connected healthcare and share their data, says Duncan Smith, Cambridge Consultant's commercial director.

  "You need to make them feel like an individual, despite being part of a network," explained Smith, speaking at Cambridge Consultants' biennial Innovation Day in November. "The term connected health is actually quite unhelpful -- it's about the system, not the connections. It's about people's lives, not just the benefit of the connection that what will somehow magically transform those lives". Continue reading

• MirrorLink solves the smartphone to dashboard disconnect

  By Doug Newcomb

  12 November 2012
  
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  Carmakers are racing to get apps onto their dashboards, with varying degrees of success. And for better or worse, every car manufacturers is intent on using its own proprietary interface. But instead of paying extra for a manufacturer's limited and sometimes kludgy app interface, most drivers find it easier -- and dangerously tempting -- to just to pick up their mobile device to access their apps.

  That's the issue the Car Connectivity Consortium (CCC) is trying to solve with a fledgling industry standard called MirrorLink, and it's hoping make the path to the dash for apps much smoother by inviting third-party developers into the organisation. "Opening the standard to developers has always been a central feature of the MirrorLink roadmap," Nokia's Mika Rytkonen, chairman and president of CCC, told Wired.com. "From the beginning, our members have agreed that choice is paramount." CCC announced this week at its second-annual Summit in Tokyo that it will invite app developers to join the organisation beginning in early 2013. And unlike carmakers and suppliers, developers won't have to join CCC to submit apps for certification. Continue reading