Livescribe's Pulse™ Smartpen - Software Updates

If you have a Livescribe Pulse™ Smartpen, upon my recommendation, then you may want to know that there has been some significant updates to its software.

Livescribe Desktop for Mac Public Beta:  The Pulse smartpen is now compatible with all Intel-based Mac computers with Leopard OS 10.5.  The software makes it possible for Mac users to upload their notes and audio recordings, play them back, search for words, and easily browse through digital copies of their notes.

Handwriting to Text Transcription: Responding to the number one requested feature among Pulse smartpen owners, Livescribe's partner Vision Objects is offering “MyScript for Livescribe” text transcription software, which allows note takers to seamlessly transcribe their handwritten notes into text.

With MyScript for Livescribe, consumers can make edits to their converted text and even create a personal dictionary of frequently used words to ensure a more accurate conversion.  The text can be copied and pasted into a variety of applications, including Microsoft Word and Outlook  MyScript for Livescribe transcription software can be downloaded as a free 30-day trial or purchased for $29.95 at www.visionobjects.com/store.  The software works best with neat and legible handwriting.

Print Your Own Paper: With the release of Livescribe Desktop for Windows 1.4, consumers have the ability to print dot paper notepads for free.  Dot paper notepads can be printed directly from the Livescribe Desktop toolbar on most color laser jet printers that are Adobe Post Script compatible and print at 600dpi or higher.  In addition, Livescribe provides a variety of dot paper notebooks, including lined and unlined journals and college-ruled notebooks for purchase at prices comparable to other college-ruled notebooks.

For more information regarding Livescribe Pulse™ Smartpen click here.

Scientist turns to inkjet printer for a new heart

ONE day we may be able to "print out" new human hearts using simple inkjet technology, according to a scientist who has already started printing cells.

Professor Makoto Nakamura has begun working on a printer that could jet out thousands of cells per second — rather than ink droplets — and to build them up into a three-dimensional organ.
"It would be like building a huge skyscraper on a micro level using different kinds of cells and other materials instead of steel beams, concrete and glass," he said. "Ultimately I hope to make a heart," said Prof Nakamura, from the graduate school of science and technology for
research at the state-run University of Toyama.

While he says it would take him some 20 years to develop a heart, the feat could pave the way to mass produce "good hearts" for patients waiting for transplants. A heart made of cells originating from the patient could eliminate fears that the body would reject it.
In the emerging field of organ printing, Prof Nakamura bills his work as the world's finest printed 3D structure with living cells. The technology works a bit like dealing with sliced fruit: an organ is cut horizontally, allowing researchers to see an array of cells on the surface. If a printer drops cells one by one into the right spots and repeats the process for
many layers, it creates a 3D organ. Much like a printer chooses different colours, the machine can position different types of cells to drop.

Prof Nakamura has already succeeded in building a tube with living cells as narrow as narrow as human hair. The tubes are made by a 3D inkjet bioprinter that Prof Nakamura's team developed over the past three years. The printer can adjust where to drop cells in the order of one-thousandth of a millimetre and produce a tube at a speed of three centimetres per two minutes.

Future planes, cars may be made of "buckypaper"

It's called "buckypaper" and looks a lot like ordinary carbon paper, but don't be fooled by the cute name or flimsy appearance. It could revolutionize the way everything from airplanes to TVs are made.

Buckypaper is 10 times lighter but potentially 500 times stronger than steel when sheets of it are stacked and pressed together to form a composite. Unlike conventional composite materials, though, it conducts electricity like copper or silicon and disperses heat like steel or brass.

"All those things are what a lot of people in nanotechnology have been working toward as sort of Holy Grails," said Wade Adams, a scientist at Rice University.

That idea — that there is great future promise for buckypaper and other derivatives of the ultra-tiny cylinders known as carbon nanotubes — has been floated for years now. However, researchers at Florida State University say they have made important progress that may soon turn hype into reality.

Buckypaper is made from tube-shaped carbon molecules 50,000 times thinner than a human hair. Due to its unique properties, it is envisioned as a wondrous new material for light, energy-efficient aircraft and automobiles, more powerful computers, improved TV screens and many other products.

So far, buckypaper can be made at only a fraction of its potential strength, in small quantities and at a high price. The Florida State researchers are developing manufacturing techniques that soon may make it competitive with the best composite materials now available.

"If this thing goes into production, this very well could be a very, very game-changing or revolutionary technology to the aerospace business," said Les Kramer, chief technologist for Lockheed Martin Missiles and Fire Control, which is helping fund the Florida State research.

The scientific discovery that led to buckypaper virtually came from outer space.

In 1985, British scientist Harry Kroto joined researchers at Rice for an experiment to create the same conditions that exist in a star. They wanted to find out how stars, the source of all carbon in the universe, make the element that is a main building block of life.

Everything went as planned with one exception.

"There was an extra character that turned up totally unexpected," recalled Kroto, now at Florida State heading a program that encourages the study of math, science and technology in public schools. "It was a discovery out of left field."

The surprise guest was a molecule with 60 carbon atoms shaped like a soccer ball. To Kroto, it also looked like the geodesic domes promoted by Buckminster Fuller, an architect, inventor and futurist. That inspired Kroto to name the new molecule buckminsterfullerene, or "buckyballs" for short.

For their discovery of the buckyball — the third form of pure carbon to be discovered after graphite and diamonds — Kroto and his Rice colleagues, Robert Curl Jr. and Richard E. Smalley, were awarded the Nobel Prize for chemistry in 1996.

Separately, Japanese physicist Sumio Iijima developed a tube-shaped variation while doing research at Arizona State University.

Researchers at Smalley's laboratory then inadvertently found that the tubes would stick together when disbursed in a liquid suspension and filtered through a fine mesh, producing a thin film — buckypaper.

The secret of its strength is the huge surface area of each nanotube, said Ben Wang, director of Florida State's High-Performance Materials Institute.

"If you take a gram of nanotubes, just one gram, and if you unfold every tube into a graphite sheet, you can cover about two-thirds of a football field," Wang said.

Carbon nanotubes are already beginning to be used to strengthen tennis rackets and bicycles, but in small amounts. The epoxy resins used in those applications are 1 to 5 percent carbon nanotubes, which are added in the form of a fine powder. Buckypaper, which is a thin film rather than a powder, has a much higher nanotube content — about 50 percent.

One challenge is that the tubes clump together at odd angles, limiting their strength in buckypaper. Wang and his fellow researchers found a solution: Exposing the tubes to high magnetism causes most of them to line up in the same direction, increasing their collective strength.

Another problem is the tubes are so perfectly smooth it's hard to hold them together with epoxy. Researchers are looking for ways to create some surface defects — but not too many — to improve bonding.

So far, the Florida State institute has been able to produce buckypaper with half the strength of the best existing composite material, known as IM7. Wang expects to close the gap quickly.

"By the end of next year we should have a buckypaper composite as strong as IM7, and it's 35 percent lighter," Wang said.

Buckypaper now is being made only in the laboratory, but Florida State is in the early stages of spinning out a company to make commercial buckypaper.

"These guys have actually demonstrated materials that are capable of being used on flying systems," said Adams, director of Rice's Richard E. Smalley Institute for Nanoscale Science and Technology. "Having something that you can hold in your hand is an accomplishment in nanotechnology."

It takes upward of five years to get a new structural material certified for aviation use, so Wang said he expects buckypaper's first uses will be for electromagnetic interference shielding and lightning-strike protection on aircraft.

Electrical circuits and even natural causes such as the sun or Northern Lights can interfere with radios and other electronic gear. Buckypaper provides up to four times the shielding specified in a recent Air Force contract proposal, Wang said.

Typically, conventional composite materials have a copper mesh added for lightning protection. Replacing copper with buckypaper would save weight and fuel.

Wang demonstrated this with a composite model plane and a stun gun. Zapping an unprotected part of the model caused sparks to fly. The electric jolt, though, passed harmlessly across another section shielded by a strip of buckypaper.

Other near-term uses would be as electrodes for fuel cells, super capacitors and batteries, Wang said. Next in line, buckypaper could be a more efficient and lighter replacement for graphite sheets used in laptop computers to dissipate heat, which is harmful to electronics.

The long-range goal is to build planes, automobiles and other things with buckypaper composites. The military also is looking at it for use in armor plating and stealth technology.

"Our plan is perhaps in the next 12 months we'll begin maybe to have some commercial products," Wang said. "Nanotubes obviously are no longer just lab wonders. They have real world potential. It's real."

Computers begin to 'understand' the meanings of words

The technology now exists to teach computers the meanings of words so that they can "understand" the English language in much the same way as a human.

Cognition Technologies has released a "semantic map" that can give machines a vocabulary that is 10 times larger than that of a typical American college graduate.

The firm has begun licensing the map to software creators interested in developing programs that "understand" words based on their tenses and context in a sentence - in a similar way to the human brain.

"We have taught the computer virtually all the meanings of words and phrases in the English language," Cognition chief executive Scott Jarus told AFP. "This is clearly a building block for Web 3.0, or what is known as the Semantic Web. It has taken 30 years; it is a labour of love," Jarus said.

When applied to Internet searches, semantic technology delivers results directed at what users actually seem to be looking for instead of simply matching words used to online content. For example, a semantic online search for "melancholy songs with birds" would know to link sadness in lyrics with various species of birds.

Cognition's semantic map is already used in a LexisNexis Concordance "e-discovery" software to sift through documents amassed during evidence phases of trials.

"We help them find the needle in a haystack," Jarus said.

Cognition's Caselaw program uses the technology to look through more than a half-century of US federal court decisions for legal precedents, according to the company. The semantic map is also used in a widely-used medical database.

Cognition has a handful of rivals, with each firm taking its own approach to semantic technology. In July US software giant Microsoft bought San Francisco-based Powerset, a three-year-old start-up which specialises in interpreting the intent of people's Internet searches instead of matching specific words they use. Microsoft said it planned to use Powerset technology to enhance its free Live Search service.

China Milk Scandal Shows Ties Between Companies, City Officials

Sept. 19 (Bloomberg) -- A week before the Beijing Olympics began on Aug. 8, officials in Shijiazhuang, China, learned that baby formula made by one of the city's biggest companies was tainted with a toxic chemical. They said nothing.

It wasn't until five weeks later that they notified the provincial government, spurring the recall of Sanlu Group Co. milk, says Andrew Ferrier, chief executive officer of Auckland- based Fonterra Cooperative Group, which owns 43 percent of Sanlu.

The scandal, now involving 22 dairies and at least four deaths, shows the extent to which local officials protect large employers to create jobs, tax revenue and momentum for their political careers, says Peter Cheung, a professor at the University of Hong Kong who studies policy making in China.

``Local governments are always watching out for their local companies, and the bigger the company, the bigger the sway they'll have,'' says Bruce McLaughlin, a Shanghai-based consultant who investigates patent infringement in China. ``We never go to the local government when we investigate a company. They're no help or they'll leak information to the company.''

Authorities have arrested 18 people in connection with the milk scandal. Sanlu Chairwoman Tian Wenhua was detained by police, fired and removed from her Communist Party post, the official Xinhua News Agency reported this week. Five Shijiazhuang city officials, including the mayor, have been fired.

Calls to Sanlu weren't returned over the past two days. Sanlu apologized to consumers and promised to recall all milk powder produced before Aug. 6, Xinhua reported Sept. 15.

1,300 Hospitalized

More than 1,300 children have been hospitalized after drinking milk formula contaminated with melamine, a toxic chemical normally used in making plastics and tanning leather.

``These companies are too disgusting,'' Li Chunling, 60, said at a Shanghai market while returning milk powder she bought for her 9-month-old grandson. ``I don't have any sense of direction anymore about what to buy. I don't trust any of these products.''

The Communist Party in June announced plans to fight corruption with increased scrutiny of state-owned companies and local officials.

``Firmly punishing and effectively preventing corruption relates to the popularity and survival of the party, and is a political task the party must fully grasp,'' the party's Central Committee said June 22.

Corruptions Costs

Corruption costs the Chinese economy as much as $86 billion a year, or 3 percent of gross domestic product, the Washington- based Carnegie Endowment for International Peace said in a report released last October.

In the run-up to the Aug. 8-24 Beijing Olympics, international media featured reports about fish spiked with antibiotics and cancer-causing chemicals; chicken and duck eggs laced with a carcinogenic red dye; and frozen dumplings injected with pesticide. Melamine-laced pet food from China was blamed for killing as many as 4,000 dogs and cats in the U.S. last year.

This is the second time in four years that unsafe infant formula has killed children in China. Thirteen babies died of malnutrition in 2004 and almost 200 were hospitalized in Anhui province after drinking milk powder with no nutritional content.

Two Fuyang city officials received two-year and six-month jail terms for dereliction of duty in that case.

``I don't doubt there is corruption and collusion at the local level between governments and companies,'' says Cheung, director of the Master of Public Administration program at the University of Hong Kong. ``China needs to give more resources to regulators, and it needs more transparency.''

March Complaints

The milk scandal began in March, when Sanlu received complaints about its products, Ferrier said Sept. 17 in Auckland. At the time, tests by outside firms didn't find any melamine. Melamine can be used to disguise diluted milk because it makes protein levels appear higher than they really are.

On Aug. 2, Sanlu's board was informed that its formula was contaminated, Ferrier said. Sanlu's board includes three members from Fonterra.

Fonterra urged Sanlu to go public ``from day one,'' Ferrier said. The New Zealand company didn't speak out earlier because it wanted ``to work within the Chinese system.''

The New Zealand government was told about the contamination Sept. 5 and three days later ordered its own officials to inform authorities in Beijing, Prime Minister Helen Clark said, according to the New Zealand Press Association.

Officials in Shijiazhuang, 120 miles south of Beijing, didn't notify the Hebei provincial government until Sept. 9, provincial vice governor Yang Chongyong said this week at a briefing in Beijing. Yang's administration informed the central government a day later.

Deng Credo

Chinese government policy is driven by the 1992 credo of former leader Deng Xiaoping: ``To get rich is glorious.'' Local officials are considered for promotions based mainly on how they manage economic growth and maintain order, Cheung said.

In a nation where the World Bank says 207 million people live on about $1.25 a day, bribery is rampant. Last year, the former head of the nation's food and drug regulator was executed for accepting 6.5 million yuan ($950,000) in bribes and gifts. Six types of fake medicines were approved during his tenure, according to Xinhua.

``It's an impossible mission to keep away from poisoned food in China,'' says Lu Erjia, 31, who uses imported milk powder for her 7-month-old son. ``It is just another attack on our confidence in China's food safety.''

Craig Rispin Business Futurist Speaks About Trends & Tech Impacting Marketing

Business Futurist & Innovation Expert, Craig Rispin, spoke at the George P. Johnson customer event "Face to Face with the Future" on 24th June 2008. His topic was on trends and technologies impacting marketing. The audience included marketing executives leading corporations including: Virgin Airways, Salesforce.com, Toyota, AMP Investments, VMWare, and many others.

Craig Rispin is a Business Futurist and Innovation Expert. His expertise is in emerging business, people and technology trends - and how companies can profit from them. Craig has over 20 years experience working where the future has been created - with some of the most innovative companies in the world in the IT, consumer electronics, internet and broadcasting industries. Craig has addressed audiences from 15 to 3,000 on 5 continents and has consulted with CEOs of leading companies worldwide.

Some of his clients include: Apple, Philips, IBM, GE, Canon, Coca-Cola, Mercedes-Benz, Symantec, and Disney. Now a keynote speaker and innovation consultant Craig Rispin shows his clients how to: Know First, Be First, and Profit First.

You can contact Craig Rispin here: www.FutureTrendsGroup.com

View the presentation on Google Video here: http://video.google.com/videoplay?docid=-3787484523790292651&hl=en

Quantum Leap - Researchers have controlled the position of a single electron in a silicon circuit.

An international team of researchers has shown that it can control the quantum state of a single electron in a silicon transistor--even putting the electron in two places at once. Their discovery could help pave the way toward a practical quantum computer.

Quantum computers take advantage of the strange properties of subatomic particles to perform certain types of calculations much faster than classical computers can. Researchers are exploring a host of different approaches to quantum computing, and some have even built primitive quantum circuits that can perform calculations. But practical quantum computing would require the ability to manufacture devices with millions of quantum circuits--rather than the 12 or 16 achievable now--that can be integrated with more-conventional electronics.

One theoretical approach to practical quantum electronics is to use conventional electronics--tiny semiconductor transistors--to control the state of a quantum system. Researchers led by Sven Rogge, a researcher at Delft University of Technology, in the Netherlands, performed the first practical experiments to verify the approach's theoretical predictions. The team--which also included researchers from Purdue University; the University of Melbourne, in Australia; and IMEC, in Belgium--found that it could control the quantum state of a single electron simply by altering the voltage applied to a transistor. "This represents a nice step towards future devices where performance is determined by manipulation of quantum states of single atoms," says Thomas Schenkel, a scientist at Lawrence Berkeley National Laboratory.

The researchers used prefabricated transistors built for nanotech research, each of which consisted of two crossed silicon nanowires. One of the nanowires--the bottom one--was connected to electrodes that contained arsenic. When that wire was charged, it would sometimes draw arsenic atoms into the transistor. After applying a voltage across about 100 transistors, the team found six that appeared to have individual arsenic atoms embedded in the nanowire. They then found that varying the voltage across the top wire would control the quantum state of one of the atom's electrons. Using an imaging technique called scanning tunneling spectroscopy, they were able to distinguish three states of the atoms in all six devices. One of those states corresponded with the electron's being in two places at the same time--a property necessary for quantum computing.

"But to understand the behavior of one atom, you have to model millions," says Rogge. So he and his colleagues used an off-the-shelf program called NEMO 3D to characterize a large-scale system containing 1.4 million atoms. They found that the measurements of their model system were in good agreement with the spectroscopy results. "It is really cool to see how well their simulations can describe randomly doped transistors, which are all different in detail," Schenkel says.

Depending on the strength of the electric field created by the top nanowire, an electron could be found in one of three states. At low electric fields, the electron remained bound to the arsenic atom. At high electric fields, the electron was pulled away from the atom. But when the electric field was at just the right level, the electron would be in both places at once.

In order for a quantum computer to work, its qubits--the quantum equivalent of a classical computer's bits--need to be "entangled": their quantum states have to be coupled with each other. Pulling an electron away from its atom "might be an interesting way to couple" adjacent qubits, says Schenkel.

"While this result is an important one, the real challenge to making future single-dopant devices is in figuring out how to position the [arsenic atoms] into the silicon host with the required precision," says Bruce Kane, a research scientist at the University of Maryland. The researchers found their six devices by chance; to produce working circuits, they would need to be able to position atoms of arsenic--or some other material--in the transistors more reliably.

While the researchers eventually hope to be able to control the position of the atoms in the transistor, "our next step is to add a second electron and see what happens to the configuration of the electron state," says Gabri Lansbergen, another Delft researcher. "In the far future," Rogge adds, "we would like to experiment with several [materials] and see how they interact."

The latest trend: 'microgreens'

By Jessica Vander Velde, Times Staff Writer

Published Monday, June 23, 2008 4:00 PM

---

ODESSA

Everything about Marvin Wilhite's farm is small — except the demand for his crop. His hydroponic operation uses less land and water than a traditional farm, but he pulls in $30 a pound for the microgreens he grows. You could imagine that as about 48 bags from the produce section of your supermarket.

The tiny, leafy vegetables, harvested before they reach an inch in height, are popular at high-end restaurants, including Cafe Ponte in Clearwater and Mise en Place in Tampa. They're tender and flavorful, and orders are on the rise as more chefs discover them and holistic doctors promote their nutritional value.

A delicate carpet of purple and green microgreens grows in a raised, shallow bed of sterilized white pebbles at Cahaba Club Herbal Outpost. The tables sit in a cooled greenhouse that protects fragile greens from rain and sun. A week after the seeds are sowed, the thin, tender stems measure about three-quarters of an inch: ready to harvest.

Wilhite grows 14 types of microgreens at his farm, including mustard, beets, broccoli and cabbage. Sampled fresh from the greenhouse, the micro mustard has a bit of a spicy kick like horseradish; the micro basil tastes more potent than its big brother. Chefs like the deep purples and greens — the "bling bling" on the plate, Wilhite said.

"It looks a lot prettier than parsley, and it tastes a lot better," he said.

But he didn't start growing microgreens for their look.

Researchers at Johns Hopkins University have found that broccoli shoots contain the cancer-fighting agent sulforaphane, more even than fully grown broccoli. So when his mother was diagnosed with ovarian cancer in 1999, he began to cultivate the greens. Her cancer went into remission for five years, and though it's impossible to directly link the greens to her improved health, he noted that she ate them every day.

Many of Wilhite's microgreens are sold to restaurants in the bay area and beyond — even Philadelphia and New York, he said. Of course, chefs are more concerned with how it looks on the plate than the phytochemicals.

But some doctors are becoming distributors, selling Wilhite's microgreens to patients. Bill Huggins, a researcher at the Nutritional Health Institute Laboratories in Clearwater, suggests that people battling chronic illnesses try microgreens.

"It's basically the best kind of nutrition you can get from the plant kingdom," he said.

As the vegetables grow in popularity, farmers are taking notice. Each year, small-farm operators gather in North Florida to learn new techniques. This year extension agent Robert Hochmuth of Live Oak gave tips on how to start growing microgreens, another option for small farmers looking to diversify their crop.

"The diversity is important so they don't have all their eggs in one basket," he said.

Of course, now that everyone's using microgreens, top chefs are looking for the next trend: a slightly larger version. These "tiny exotic vegetables" — about 1.5 inches tall — taste a lot like microgreens but they look different because they've reached the second leaf stage. The micro mustard's tiny leaves begin to look like gloves, Wilhite said.

Chris Ponte, chef-owner of Cafe Ponte, said he's interested in these tiny vegetables, which are smaller than the types of baby vegetables often found in salads.

"Once the mainstream gets the product, it takes away from the wow factor for the guests," he said.

Wilhite keeps in touch with chefs, and he recently started a greenhouse devoted to tiny vegetables.

"It's something people haven't seen before," he said.

Jessica Vander Velde can be reached at jvandervelde@sptimes.com or (813) 661-2443.

>>fast facts

Shopping for microgreens?

To buy Cahaba Club's:

Cahaba Club Herbal Outpost in Odessa sells a set of six 1.5-ounce packs to the public for $25. It includes two packages of micro red cabbage, two of micro red kale and two of micro broccoli. Shipping and handling is extra, or buyers can pick them up at Cahaba Club Herbal Outpost at 18625 Rustic Woods Trail, Odessa. To place an order, call Pat Whitehead at (727) 937-8076 or fax him at (727) 937-8408.

To grow your own
microgreens

A husband-wife team in California sells microgreen kits and seeds online at sproutpeople.com.

Optus Installs Ciscos Conferencing Suite

Optus Installs Ciscos Conferencing Suite

By Branko Miletic | Friday | 2008-06-20

Optus has deployed Australia's first multipoint Cisco TelePresence solution, with systems in two locations in Sydney and a third in Melbourne. Cisco TelePresence is an "in-person" meeting experience over a converged network. It delivers real-time face-to-face interactions between people and places, using advanced visual, audio and collaboration technologies.

Click to enlarge

These technologies transmit life-size, high-definition images and spatial discrete audio, which gives users the ability to discern facial expressions for business discussions and negotiations across the "virtual table."

John Simon, Managing Director, Optus Business said; "The Cisco TelePresence implementation provides Optus with a multitude of benefits for our business, our staff, and our customers. Already, we have experienced a significant reduction in travel for the Optus senior leadership team since deploying the solution. Not only will the technology help us to reduce travel and its associated costs but it will also provide us with a proven solution to demonstrate to customers and prospects."

The multipoint TelePresence System 3000 gives Optus employees the ability to employ up to 48 systems in different locations. A three-screen Cisco TelePresence System 3000 unit for six participants on one side of the virtual table has been implemented at the Optus Macquarie Park campus in Sydney and in Optus' Melbourne office.

Optus is also deploying Cisco's TelePresence System 500 at its Macquarie Park campus. This personal Cisco TelePresence system retains the same qualities of the ‘in-person', lifelike, interaction while giving organizations the flexibility to support intimate, one-on-one meetings and enable employees to join larger group meetings from personal workspaces. The deployment of all four Cisco TelePresence systems at Optus will allow up to 15 users to collaborate between Sydney and Melbourne.

Les Williamson, vice president of Cisco Australia and New Zealand, said: "Networking technologies, particularly those that use video such as Cisco TelePresence, are playing a critical role in the evolution of business as it becomes more collaborative and productive. Optus will benefit from its deployment of Cisco TelePresence in terms of encouraging collaboration and reducing the impact and cost of its travel."