Source: http://www.rottentomatoes.com/m/771307454/
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Source: http://feeds.gawker.com/~r/gizmodo/full/~3/1oENlgiRUNo/the-new-essential-apps-february-2013
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Editor?s note:?Jeff Cavins?is the CEO of visual collaboration company?FuzeBox. Follow him on Twitter @cavwave.
I probably won?t ruffle too many feathers when I say very few people love meetings.
As much as we?d like to think otherwise, meetings just don?t elicit the same emotions as, say, space flight. Of course, that doesn?t mean they?ll stay that way forever. In fact, looking down the road just three to five years, there are some incredible technologies that will hit the mass market and change the way we communicate with coworkers, customers and colleagues. I?d wager that within that timeframe, meetings are going to become less like Office Space and more like Star Wars.
Using new technologies like 3D spatial binaural audio, gesture interfaces, and super-high-resolution video, we will be able to build incredibly immersive (and relatively inexpensive) experiences for workers to connect more effectively. Even new technology that allows visually stunning projection of holograms will begin to find application in the meetings arena. Although this sounds like sci-fi, the idea of near-real remote communication is a Holy Grail for productivity.
We are inheriting a world full of pixels. In cities such as San Francisco, New York and London, the average 14-year old is going to school with $1,500 in technology in their backpack. And the products that they carry and use throughout the day are screens and displays that enable them to communicate visually and in real time.
Studies have long shown how audio and video cues are essential aspects of human-to-human interaction. The better and more lifelike we can make our remote meetings, the better we can work together. Expressions and gestures are critical for conveying body language; in fact, 60 percent of all communication is conveyed via body language.
None of this is as far away as it seems. We?re seeing a lot of this technology in niche use cases today, and things are developing very quickly. The personal jet of corporate communication, a $100,000 telepresence system, can now be recreated using an app and a few UHD TVs over the Internet with a $100 Logitech camera. That would not have been possible two years ago.
That said, here?s a brief glimpse into the technology that will power a not-so-distant future.
Ultra HD Live Video Streaming
Pervasive screens and the theme of pixels everywhere are a major trend in our lives: smartphones, tablets, phablets, and hybrids. These form factors are heading in two different directions ? small and portable, and large and immersive.
Everyone is fixated on mobile solutions that sit in our pockets and move with us as we go about our lives, but the other side of this coin has yet to be tapped: the big-screen market of TVs and 30-plus-inch monitors and the way these larger screens and densely packed pixels arrays will enable large-dimension personal telepresence. These new UHD monitors, placed in our homes and businesses, could lead to a whole new set of more immersive, high-end applications for meetings.
Ultra HD-quality screens and streaming of 4K video-conferencing (which, by the way, is four times the resolution of your retina screen) can represent the ultimate meeting experience. When the quality is so good that you feel like you can touch the person on the screen, your eyes are tricked into thinking it?s real, especially when projected onto a life-sized screen. This incredible level of fidelity is available today on high-caliber telepresence systems. Unfortunately, they cost millions of dollars and requires camera hardware that is not available on the mass market, not to mention the prohibitively expensive bandwidth required to actually use them.
Luckily, software is ahead of the curve and can help close that hardware gap. In 12 months, we?ll see $100 cameras capable of capturing a 4K-quality video conference, the release of codecs like H.265 that process the live video to fit through public Internet pipes, and $5,000 Ultra HD screens playing it on the wall.
And this isn?t just for business. There?s a reason why companies, from Apple to Intel to Samsung, are pouring billions in R&D into this space. On the consumer side this is a Trojan horse into the living room.
3D Binaural Audio
Ever been on a conference call with multiple people where folks continually talk over each other? It?s a mess, and nearly impossible to resolve the voices, or better yet understand what is being said. The issue is that the voices are being pushed to you from a one-dimension mono speaker with super-low fidelity. Not only do bad audio calls make your brain hurt, they actually reduce cognitive function and introduce fatigue as you strain to make sense of the conversation. Thankfully, there?s a software-only solution: 3D spatial, binaural sound.
3D spatial binaural sound is where meeting attendees actually sound like they?re coming from different parts of the room (to the left, to the right, closer, or further away), which in turn allows the brain to unlock and understand simultaneous voices. 3D sound is also possible to implement regardless of the microphone or speaker setup. The result is something akin to magic.
Demos have been around for a while, but real-life use cases have been notoriously difficult to implement. Luckily, I can tell you with confidence that 3D audio is fewer than 12 months away.
Gesture Interfaces
Many of us have seen Minority Report, but most of us probably remember the gesture-based, crime-fighting computer interface more than we do the plot. Technology such as the Leap Motion sensor and Microsoft?s Kinect are making this a possibility. In the realm of meetings, this means easily creating virtual breakout rooms with a wave of your hand, gesturing documents from your work screen to your meeting screen for instant sharing, and detailed, no-touch manipulation of images and video. Or effortlessly mute participants with too much background noise and reorganize video feeds.
Combine the gestures with tactile feedback and projected interfaces and you?ve got the beginnings of a life-like holodeck.
Holograms
The video of Tupac Shakur performing at the Coachella music festival in 2012 drew millions of views on YouTube. Behind the Mars-exploring Curiosity Rover, it was the most delightful technological feat of 2012. ?Holograms ? while difficult to pull off and still prohibitively expensive (the Coachella performance reportedly cost $400,000) ? will become the new private jet of communication and threaten to unseat telepresence as a ?must have? by CEOs and leaders of industry.
Questions remain about the feasibility of creating holograms in realtime (the company who created Tupac is now bankrupt), and they?ll probably be fairly noisy without curated video content to project, but it certainly remains a possibility that holograms could crack C-level Fortune 100 suites in three to four years.
Either way, these four technologies are not as far away as they might seem. And it?s likely that in just a few short years, the way we communicate will be on par with the furthest reaches of our collective imagination just 30 years ago. So what?s left to invent once we get to holograms, pervasive life-like screens, 3D audio and next-gen interfaces? Will this be the opus of innovation in communications? Well, there?s always teleporting, but that?s just science fiction.
FuzeBox is the global leader in real time visual collaboration applications for millions of end users across various businesses. Its flagship application, Fuze HD, allows people to communicate, collaborate and share content from any device, across any network, anywhere in the world. Fuze HD is a mobile and web-based collaboration service that features integrated audio conferencing as well as high-definition, synchronized video and image sharing. The company?s technology is based on a real-time visual communications platform that converges...
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An outbreak of tuberculosis in the skid row area of downtown Los Angeles may have exposed up to 4,500 individuals to the bacterium that causes the deadly disease and has left federal officials scrambling to intervene.
The outbreak is occurring during winter, when homeless individuals are driven to crowded shelters, when influenza is peaking and when people's vitamin D levels, typically boosted by sunlight exposure, are low. A new UCLA study offers critical insight into how various bacteria may manipulate such factors to their advantage.
In a study published online Feb. 28 in the journal Science, UCLA researchers demonstrate that certain cunning bacteria ? including the type that causes tuberculosis ? can pretend to be viruses when infecting humans, allowing them to hijack the body's immune response so that they can hide out, unhindered, inside our cells. The findings may also help explain how viral infections like the flu make us more susceptible to subsequent bacterial infections such as pneumonia.
The study is particularly relevant to tuberculosis, which kills 1.4 million people worldwide each year. In the case of the recent Los Angeles outbreak, the findings could provide clues as to how the flu and a lack of vitamin D may have given the tuberculosis bacterium an edge.
"With 8.7 million in the world falling ill with tuberculosis each year, a better understanding of how these bacteria avoid our immune system could lead to new ways to fight them and to better, more targeted treatments," said senior author Dr. Robert L. Modlin, chief of dermatology at the David Geffen School of Medicine at UCLA and a professor of microbiology, immunology and molecular genetics in the UCLA Division of Life Sciences.
The protection our immune system provides against bacteria-based diseases and infections depends on the critical response of T cells ? white blood cells that play a central role in fighting infections ? and in particular on the release of a protein called interferon-gamma. Interferon-gamma utilizes the vitamin D hormone to alert and activate cells to destroy invading bacteria.
The research team found that bacteria can pretend to be viruses, triggering the immune system to launch an attack with a different protein, called interferon-beta, which is designed to fight viruses, not bacteria. Not only is interferon-beta ineffective against bacteria, but it can also block the action of interferon-gamma, to the advantage of bacteria. Further, if a real virus were to infect the body, triggering interferon-beta, it would divert the attention of the immune response, preventing an attack on the bacterial invader. The researchers say this may explain why the flu can lead to a more serious bacterial-based infection like pneumonia.
"Like a wolf in sheep's clothing, the bacteria can fool the immune system into launching an attack against the wrong type of infection, thus weakening the response against the bacteria," said first author Rosane M. B. Teles, a researcher in the dermatology division at the Geffen School of Medicine.
For the study, the team examined the mechanisms by which the virus-fighting interferon-beta protein suppresses the interferon-gamma defense response to bacterial infections, tricking the immune system into making the wrong defense choices.
The researchers studied leprosy as a model and then applied what they learned to understand tuberculosis, given that leprosy and tuberculosis are caused by related bacteria. Modlin noted that leprosy is an outstanding model for studying immune mechanisms in host defense since it presents as a clinical spectrum that correlates with the level and type of immune response of the pathogen.
The scientists first compared the genetic expression of the virus-fighting interferon-beta protein and the bacteria-fighting interferon-gamma protein in skin lesions from leprosy patients. They found that interferon-gamma was expressed in patients with the milder form of the disease and that interferon-beta was significantly increased in those with the more serious, progressive form of leprosy.
The researchers then compared the genes triggered by interferon-beta in these leprosy skin lesions with those found by two other groups of investigators in the blood of tuberculosis patients. Remarkably, there was a significant overlap. The interferon-beta genes were more frequent in both the skin lesions of leprosy patients with extensive disease and the blood of tuberculosis patients with more severe disease.
"We found this common interferon-beta gene pattern correlated with the greater extent of disease in both leprosy and tuberculosis, which are two very distinct diseases," Teles said.
Previous work by the UCLA team demonstrated that the interferon-gamma defense pathway relies on a specific mechanism involving vitamin D, a natural hormone that plays an essential role in the body's fight against infections. The current study found that interferon-beta suppressed elements involved in the interferon-gamma?triggered vitamin D pathway, preventing the immune system from killing the bacteria.
"The study raises the possibility that a decrease or increase of one of these two interferon proteins could shift the balance from mild to more serious disease," Modlin said. "We may find that therapeutic interventions to block or enhance specific interferon responses may be an effective strategy to alter the balance in favor of protection against bacterial diseases."
The new findings may indicate why, in winter, Los Angeles skid row residents are at an added disadvantage in dealing with tuberculosis ? for at least three reasons. First, because of colder weather at night, indigent homeless people tend to stay in shelters, where they live in close proximity with others, facilitating the spread of the infection. Second, due to the seasonal rise in influenza, the body's immune system could be diverted by the flu virus to produce interferon-beta, blocking an effective immune response to the tuberculosis bacteria. And finally, the drop in vitamin D levels associated with a decrease in exposure to sunlight during the winter months could diminish the ability of individuals' immune systems to kill the tuberculosis bacteria.
"With TB on the rise, this scenario could play out not only in cities in the United States but all over the world," Modlin said. "We hope that our findings may provide insight into harnessing new methods to combat TB and other bacterial infections as well."
Modlin noted that 8.7 million become ill with tuberculosis each year, and 1.4 million die from the disease. He added that an increase or decrease in one of the two interferon proteins could help explain why some people may be more resilient against or susceptible to the infection or have a more serious course of the disease.
The next step, according to Teles, is to further understand the mechanisms that bacterial pathogens use to activate interferon-beta and how bacteria can manipulate the immune system to block the potent interferon-gamma host antimicrobial responses in human infections.
###
University of California - Los Angeles Health Sciences: http://www.uclahealth.org/
Thanks to University of California - Los Angeles Health Sciences for this article.
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NASA / Kim Shiflett
This Dragon spacecraft will launch on the upcoming SpaceX CRS-2 mission. The flight will be the second commercial resupply mission to the International Space Station by SpaceX.
By Miriam Kramer
Space.com
CAPE CANAVERAL, Fla. ? The weather looks promising for the planned Friday launch of a privately built robotic space capsule to the International Space Station, NASA says.
The unmanned Dragon space capsule, built by the private spaceflight company SpaceX of Hawthorne, Calif., is slated to launch toward the space station Friday?at 10:10 a.m. EST. Weather forecasts predict a 80 percent chance of favorable conditions for launch. NASA and SpaceX officials gave the scheduled mission a final "go" for launch earlier Thursday.
"The mission is the second of 12 SpaceX flights contracted by NASA to resupply the International Space Station," NASA officials said in a mission update. "It will mark the third trip by a Dragon capsule to the orbiting laboratory, following a demonstration flight in May 2012 and the first resupply mission in October 2012."
SpaceX has a $1.6 billion contract with NASA to provide 12 unmanned cargo deliveries to the space station. Another company, Orbital Sciences Corp. based in Virginia, has a $1.9 billion contract for eight mission using its own Antares rocket and Cygnus spacecraft.
The Dragon spacecraft is expected to deliver 1,200 pounds ?(544 kilograms) worth of supplies to the six international crew members on board the station. The capsule is scheduled to return to Earth with 2,300 pounds (1,043 kg) of material from the space station when it splashes down in the Pacific Ocean off the coast of Baja California on March 25.
SpaceX
On Monday, Falcon 9 and Dragon underwent a successful static fire in preparation for launch to the International Space Station. Engineers ran through all countdown processes as if it were launch day, ending with all nine engines on the rocket firing for nearly two seconds.
SpaceX conducted a?successful rocket engine test, known as a "static test fire" on Monday. The rocket's 9 Merlin engines were fired for a few seconds while the rocket was held down on the launch pad.
NASA is relying on SpaceX, Orbital Sciences and other private companies to develop new private spacecraft to supply the International Space Station with cargo and ultimately ferry American astronauts into and from low-Earth orbit.
With the retirement of the space shuttle fleet in 2011, NASA has been dependent on Russia's Soyuz spacecraft to fly astronauts to the space station, and use unmanned cargo ships built by Russia, Japan and Europe to deliver supplies to the orbiting laboratory.
The space agency?also is developing a new rocket and spacecraft, the Orion space capsule and its Space Launch System mega-rocket, for future deep-space exploration missions to the moon, asteroids and Mars.
You can follow Space.com staff writer Miriam Kramer on Twitter?@mirikramer.?Follow Space.com on Twitter?@Spacedotcom. We're also on?Facebook?and?Google+.
Copyright 2013 Space.com, a TechMediaNetwork company. All rights reserved. This material may not be published, broadcast, rewritten or redistributed.
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NEW YORK (AP) ? Stocks are edging higher in early trading on Wall Street, held back by a weak economic growth report for the final quarter of 2012.
The Dow Jones industrial average was up 13 points at 14,088 shortly after the opening bell Thursday. It's about 73 points below the record high it reached in October 2007.
The Standard & Poor's 500 index rose three points to 1,519, and the Nasdaq composite was up nine points at 3,172.
The government reported that the U.S. economy grew at an annual rate of just 0.1 percent from October through December, the worst showing in nearly two years. That was worse than economists were expecting.
J.C. Penney plunged 18 percent in early trading after the struggling department store chain posted a $985 million loss for 2012.
Source: http://news.yahoo.com/stocks-inch-higher-early-trading-wall-street-145507707--finance.html
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Public release date: 28-Feb-2013
Share ] Contact: Sarah LOKE
scilwms@nus.edu.sg
65-660-12844
National University of Singapore
A team of researchers led by Associate Professor Yan Jie from the Department of Physics at the National University of Singapore (NUS) Faculty of Science has identified three new distinct overstretched deoxyribonucleic acid (DNA) structures caused by mechanical stretching. This discovery provides a clear answer to a long-running debate among scientists over the nature of DNA overstretching.
Debate on Possible DNA Structural Transitions
Recent single-molecule studies revealed that mechanical stretching could induce transitions to elongated DNA structures. Three possible elongated DNA structures have been proposed, namely: a single-stranded DNA under tension, DNA bubbles consisting two parallel, separated single-stranded DNA under tension, and a new form of base-paired double-stranded DNA. The existence of the three transitions has been heavily discussed among scientists for some 17 years.
To fully understand the nature of DNA overstretching, the team led by Assoc Prof Yan, which comprises members from NUS, the University of Minnesota and the Massachusetts Institute of Technology, explored the possible structural transitions.
Three Distinct Transitions Revealed
In their recent study, the researchers systematically investigated the three possible transitions induced by mechanical stretching, with methods to control DNA construct, temperature, force and salt concentration. Their data successfully identified all the three proposed structures and fully characterised their respective thermo-mechanical properties. These findings were first published on the online version of the Proceedings of the National Academy of Sciences on 19 February 2013.
These findings complete the picture about the structures of DNA under tension, providing a conclusion to the 17-year-old debate.
An illustration of three distinct elongated DNA structures produced by mechanical stretching (Image credit: NUS)
Biological Implications and Potential Applications
As forces over a wide range are present in the DNA of cells, the researchers' findings provide new perspectives of possible force-dependent regulations of critical biological processes, such as DNA damage repair and gene transcriptions.
In addition, as many recently developed DNA devices are based on thermo-mechanical properties of various DNA structural motifs, these findings may also have potential applications in designing new DNA devices for the future.
The Next Step
To further their research, Assoc Prof Yan and his team will study the physiological functions of the three overstretched DNA structures, and investigate the presence of any new DNA structures under other mechanical constraints.
###
For more information and scheduling of media interviews, please contact:
Carolyn FONG
Manager (Media relations)
Office of Corporate Relations
National University of Singapore
DID: +65 6516 5399
Email: carolyn@nus.edu.sg
Sarah LOKE
Assistant Manager, Corporate Communications
Dean's Office
Faculty of Science
National University of Singapore
DID: +65 6601 2844
Email: scilwms@nus.edu.sg
[ | E-mail | Share ] ?
AAAS and EurekAlert! are not responsible for the accuracy of news releases posted to EurekAlert! by contributing institutions or for the use of any information through the EurekAlert! system.
Public release date: 28-Feb-2013 Share ] Contact: Sarah LOKE
scilwms@nus.edu.sg
65-660-12844
National University of Singapore
A team of researchers led by Associate Professor Yan Jie from the Department of Physics at the National University of Singapore (NUS) Faculty of Science has identified three new distinct overstretched deoxyribonucleic acid (DNA) structures caused by mechanical stretching. This discovery provides a clear answer to a long-running debate among scientists over the nature of DNA overstretching.
Debate on Possible DNA Structural Transitions
Recent single-molecule studies revealed that mechanical stretching could induce transitions to elongated DNA structures. Three possible elongated DNA structures have been proposed, namely: a single-stranded DNA under tension, DNA bubbles consisting two parallel, separated single-stranded DNA under tension, and a new form of base-paired double-stranded DNA. The existence of the three transitions has been heavily discussed among scientists for some 17 years.
To fully understand the nature of DNA overstretching, the team led by Assoc Prof Yan, which comprises members from NUS, the University of Minnesota and the Massachusetts Institute of Technology, explored the possible structural transitions.
Three Distinct Transitions Revealed
In their recent study, the researchers systematically investigated the three possible transitions induced by mechanical stretching, with methods to control DNA construct, temperature, force and salt concentration. Their data successfully identified all the three proposed structures and fully characterised their respective thermo-mechanical properties. These findings were first published on the online version of the Proceedings of the National Academy of Sciences on 19 February 2013.
These findings complete the picture about the structures of DNA under tension, providing a conclusion to the 17-year-old debate.
An illustration of three distinct elongated DNA structures produced by mechanical stretching (Image credit: NUS)
Biological Implications and Potential Applications
As forces over a wide range are present in the DNA of cells, the researchers' findings provide new perspectives of possible force-dependent regulations of critical biological processes, such as DNA damage repair and gene transcriptions.
In addition, as many recently developed DNA devices are based on thermo-mechanical properties of various DNA structural motifs, these findings may also have potential applications in designing new DNA devices for the future.
The Next Step
To further their research, Assoc Prof Yan and his team will study the physiological functions of the three overstretched DNA structures, and investigate the presence of any new DNA structures under other mechanical constraints.
###
For more information and scheduling of media interviews, please contact:
Carolyn FONG
Manager (Media relations)
Office of Corporate Relations
National University of Singapore
DID: +65 6516 5399
Email: carolyn@nus.edu.sg
Sarah LOKE
Assistant Manager, Corporate Communications
Dean's Office
Faculty of Science
National University of Singapore
DID: +65 6601 2844
Email: scilwms@nus.edu.sg
[ | E-mail | Share ] ?
AAAS and EurekAlert! are not responsible for the accuracy of news releases posted to EurekAlert! by contributing institutions or for the use of any information through the EurekAlert! system.
Source: http://www.eurekalert.org/pub_releases/2013-02/nuos-slb022813.php
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