Brain Age games don't necessarily make you smarter, and it is "charlatanism" to make such a claim. Those are the conclusions drawn by one Alain Liqueur, professor of cognitive psychology at the University of Rennie. The professor's findings were picked up by The Times, which loves itself a good story ( june 2006)
The Times covers the precise results of the study in its article, but the long and short of it is: Brain Age won't help you raise an army of miniature geniuses and take over the free world. Boo. "The Nintendo D S is a technological jewel. As a game it's fine," writes Liqueur in his new book, Stimulate Your Neuron's. "But it is charlatanism to claim that it is a scientific test."
The rest of this week's update is fairly humdrum, consisting of a Crosswords D S wordsmiths, a Pictorial demo, and a chance to try out Carnival Games, which has stuck around like a bad smell. The full list of both old and new demos is past the break!
Wednesday, October 21, 2009
super technology in play station games
sony setellite reciever
Introduction
it is fair to say the Sony HD100 is the most anticipated product in the short history of consumer HDTV. While RCA was the first to market with their $699 DTC 100 DSS and terrestrial receiver, this wasn’t exactly embraced as the most friendly AV component. Sony continually promised that the HD100 was just around the corner, with all of the convenience and performance we expect from the Japanese giant. It was significantly more than a year after we first saw the RCA box in stores that the Sony HD100 was available to the buying public. I purchased one of the first units and held onto it until my HDTV system was completed six months later.
The Sony HD100 is both a DSS receiver and a terrestrial TV tuner. Of course, it receives HDTV signals from DirecTV, as well as many over-the-air channels. As you may have heard, digital TV reception is hit and miss even in cities with digital service. Much like a digital cell phone (as opposed to the good old analog phone), there is very little margin for error with an HDTV signal. You either get it or you don’t. In my case, I lucked out. I live atop the West Hollywood Hills in a corner unit condo that has an eastern exposure. My installation technicians, with very useful help from the Terk.com website to determine potential signal strength based on zip code, were able to install a Terk TV55 powered antenna, which I used expressly for terrestrial HDTV signals. I was able to pull down CBS, NBC, KTLA, ABC, FOX, PBS and others from transponders on Mt. Wilson. As we set up the unit, the Sony HD100 quickly was able to show us the signal strength out of the unit. We were pulling numbers in the high 80’s (on a scale of 1 to 100), which was as high as the Simply Home Entertainment crew had seen in L.A. to date.
For DirecTV HDTV and NTSC feeds, you need to connect to a dual LNB satellite dish. This is an elliptical dish with two coax connectors on it, as opposed to the round dishes that have only one. You need two runs of coax wire from the dish to your receiver, but connection is pretty easy. The hardest part of making the system work was cleverly and safely installing the Terk TV55 antenna and getting power to it. Another trick is programming an input on your video system to take an HDTV signal. This can be a whole new ballgame if you have a traditional CRT projector, which will likely require a visit from your video guru. For rear projection big screen, tube and plasma HDTV sets, it’s easiest to get your HDTV to look right on your screen. Select the correct input (component video), assign that one the HDTV feed, and you are in the game.
In my case, I had much more work to do during setup of my HD100, considering that I was an early convert to the D-ILA fixed pixel digital projection trend. I needed to assign an input and then try to adjust the screen geometry so that the picture fit properly. Using the Faroudja NR Series Scaler, made specifically for D-ILA projectors, I was able to get the HDTV picture to look correct on the screen. In theory, you can try the menus on your projector for this purpose, but they were awkward to use for me out of the gate. The screen geometry problem isn’t the fault of the HD100. You can blame the local channels, which consistently screw up the terrestrial feeds dependent on the source. HBO, channel 509 on DirecTV, is guilty of similar sins, with HDTV up-conversions that range from washed-out to spectacular. At this point, you have to accept a little of this annoyance when getting into HDTV. Remember, it is really early, but it is worth the work.
The next big issue to consider when setting up a Sony HD100 receiver is how you can switch from traditional NTSC video inputs (line doubled or not) and HDTV. The problem is, most AV preamps, including my Proceed AVP, don’t have HD-quality video inputs or switching. This is a gigantic problem, especially because modern systems are getting more and more component (that’s very high-quality red, green and blue, which are separated but packaged in one video cable) video sources. Here’s a quick list of potential component video sources: your HD receiver, the component video out of your progressive or non-progressive DVD player, your Dish Network HDTV DSS receiver, Playstation 2, Microsoft X-Box and/or an Escient DVD Jukebox. This comes to six component inputs if you go crazy on sources and insist on using component video. The maximum amount of component video switching capability you can currently find in a preamp is three or maybe four inputs. Many have no component inputs at all. One option is using an Extron switching box, which is the choice of most custom installers. Personally, I used the HDTV passthrough in my Faroudja scaler. Beware: not all component video inputs can pass an HDTV signal. Do your research when making an upgrade to your system. Another solution that is a little more cost effective than the $1,000 Extron switcher is a Key Digital switcher, which is priced closer to $500 but only switches two inputs into one output.
NANOTECHNOLOGY
Nanotechnology is considered by many to be one of the key technologies of this century, with an expected market volume of EUR 1 trillion in 2015. In 2004, about EUR 8 billion was invested in nanotechnology research and development worldwide. The European Commission, realising the future importance of this new field, funds nanotechnology projects with roughly EUR 500 million a year, an amount that is likely to double over the next decade or two, according to an EC source.
The emergence of nanotechnology (“nano” is derived from the Greek word for dwarf) has been followed closely by the European Patent Office (EPO).
“The term nanotechnology covers entities with a controlled geometrical size of at least one functional component below 100 nanometres in one or more dimensions susceptible of making physical, chemical or biological effects available which are intrinsic to that size. It covers equipment and methods for controlled analysis, manipulation, processing, fabrication or measurement with a precision below 100 nanometres.” (EPO definition)
Although the number of nanotechnology patent applications filed with the EPO is still relatively small – in the lower single-digit percentages of all European patent applications – filing figures have been slowly rising, and many experts are now predicting that nanotechnology will become the next big growth field after biotechnology.
Pasieka / Science Photo Library
Graphite
Patents and nanotechnology in Europe
As with any new technology, there is some anxiety over how the patenting process will adapt. Nanotechnology is a special case because it can occur in almost any area of science and engineering: it is just as relevant to biotechnologists and physicists as it is to electrical and mechanical engineers or materials scientists.
To ensure that it was well-prepared for the impact of nanotechnology, in 2003 the EPO set up a Nanotechnology Working Group. The working group has called on internal and external expertise to develop a strategy for facing the patent challenges ahead.
| Code | Nanotechnology field |
|---|---|
| Y01N2 | Nanobiotechnology |
| Y01N4 | Nanotechnology for information processing, storage and transmission |
| Y01N6 | Nanotechnology for materials and surface science |
| Y01N8 | Nanotechnology for interacting, sensing or actuating |
| Y01N10 | Nano optics |
| Y01N12 | Nanomagnetics |
According to the latest in-house research, about 86 000 patent documents from around the world, as well as about 20 000 non-patent literature files, have been tagged as nanotechnology in one or more of the Y01N main groups. Since 1999, most nanotechnology patents have been published in the Y01N4 group, followed by Y01N6 and Y01N12.
Treating patent applications for nanotechnology
Experts have observed that there is a growing trend to file for patents earlier, and file more of them. That could potentially hamper innovation by acting as a disincentive for other institutions to embark on similar research. Although this is a general trend in patenting, nanotechnology-related inventions could be especially affected since it is a young and growing field.
To avoid an inflation of low-quality patent applications that could clog up the EPO and create a backlog, the EPO has introduced a quality policy to bring certainty to the market, for both the applicant and the public. The EPO’s approach is one of “quality rather than quantity.”
The Y01N tags are one element in this approach, since they enable EPO examiners to monitor emerging nanotechnology inventions and to perform better patentability searches. The EPO has also put measures in place to ensure that nanotechnology applications are treated by examiners with the right experience in the specific field.
Phantatomix / Science Photo Library
Molecular bearing
