Thanks to all you who have been patient and thanks for all of your correspondence. To that end, many of you have asked that I expand the topics to gadgets and other ephemera I collect and obtain. So, I will be doing that. Look for more posts about devices, technology enabled clothing, art, and as those of you who know me know - my profound passion for watches. Look for these new topics and usual fare in the upcoming days and weeks.

The lightweight US$300 EPOC is, worn on the head but does not restrict movement in any way as it is wireless. The set detects conscious thoughts, expressions and non-conscious emotions based on electrical signals around the brain. It opens up a plethora of new applications which can be controlled with our thoughts, expressions and emotions.

The Emotiv EPOC will be the first high-fidelity brain computer interface (BCI) device for the video gaming market when it becomes available to consumers via Emotiv’s Web site and through selected retailers in late 2008 for a recommended retail price of $299.

The company is also opening its application API to developers and providing a range of tools to enable developers to integrate neurotechnology into their applications. The initiative will spur the adoption of brain computer interface technology in video gaming and other industries, enabling consumers to experience an entirely new form of human-machine interaction.

The Emotiv EPOC detects and processes human conscious thoughts and expressions and non-conscious emotions. By integrating the Emotiv EPOC into their games or other applications, developers can dramatically enhance interactivity, gameplay and player enjoyment by, for example, enabling characters to respond to a player’s smile, laugh or frown; by adjusting the game dynamically in response to player emotions such as frustration or excitement; and enabling players to manipulate objects in a game or even make them disappear using the power of their thoughts.

Yet another direction enabled by the EPOC is that of live animation using the unit’s facial recognition sensors to mimic the wearer’s facial expressions in an animated avatar.

Exciting possibilities abound.

A new study by ABI Research predicts that the personal robotics market will be worth $15 billion by 2015. The report examines the consumer market for toy robots like Sony's Aibo and the recently released iSobot, as well as increasingly sophisticated single-function “task” robots such as the Roomba vacuum cleaner and Looj gutter cleaning robot from iRobot.

The ABI “Personal Robotics” study also looks at developments in commercial robotics and software development platforms that will play an important role in the future of the market as operating systems become standardized and advances in commercial robotics flow through to consumer products.

ABI says that the forecast growth in the personal robotics market will see major advances at affordable consumer prices and provide revenue opportunities for a wide variety companies, from small robotics-focused software companies and microcontroller vendors to larger semiconductor vendors and giants like Intel, Microsoft and the major automotive manufacturers.

Commenting on the industry's future, ABI Research principal analyst Philip Solis says: "Some people may spend as much on a multi-task humanoid robot as they do on a car, buying fewer, but more expensive, robots. This scenario will occur well in the future, but as we reach 2015, we can expect to see an increasing use of complex manipulators."

Toyota, which already uses industrial robots extensively in its car plants, said it aims to put robots capable of assisting humans into use by the early 2010s.

The new robots come three years after Toyota unveiled a trumpet-playing robot -- its first humanoid machine -- in a bid to catch up with robot technology frontrunners such as Honda Motor Co. and Sony Corp. Makers of robots see big potential for their use in Japan, where the number of elderly people is rapidly growing, causing labour shortages in a country that strictly controls immigration. Japanese are famed for their longevity of life, with more than 30,000 people aged at least 100 years old, a trend attributed to a healthy cuisine and active lifestyle. But the ability to live longer is also presenting a headache as the country has one of the lowest birthrates. Japan's most famous robot is arguably Asimo, an astronaut-looking humanoid developed by Honda which has been hired out as an office servant and has even popped up to offer toasts at Japanese diplomatic functions.

It aims to start trials putting some, including the mobility robot, into practical use in the second half of next year. Further work is also planned to improve the hand and arm flexibility of the violin-playing robot so it can use general purpose tools. Carmakers are also looking to use robot technology to develop more sophisticated cars. "Technologies used to enrich the abilities of robots can also be used to improve the functionality of automobiles," said Watanabe.

Well, no kidding Nokia...

The research from Gartner indicated that key regions driving mobile sales are Asia/Pacific, Eastern Europe, the Middle East and Africa. Asia/Pacific had a 26% sales increase from the third quarter in 2006 while sales in Eastern Europe, the Middle East and Africa reached 49.6 million units, a rise of 3.5 %. Sales in Japan were up 21.8% to 13.1 million and Latin America reached 32.2 million units, an increase of 8 percent from the same period last year. The North American handset market continued to show strong signs of growth with sales to end users reaching 45 million units in the third quarter of 2007, a 10.3 percent increase from the same period in 2006. Western Europe was also up with a 14.9% increase.

Sales of the Samsung Ultra Edition II series continued to gain momentum in key markets such as Western Europe, where Samsung reached 21 percent market share, its strongest performance in the region. LG on the other hand faced strong competition in India, where the CDMA market has become challenging as operators closed deals with new entrants such as ZTE. With no signs of slowing, the mobile phone market will continue to be a competitive field. Only time will tell if anyone is able to knock Nokia off its number one spot. 

"What we're doing is reverse-engineering the brain," says Henry Markram, codirector of the Brain Mind Institute at the Ecole Polytechnique Fédérale de Lausanne, in Switzerland, who led the work, called the Blue Brain project, which began in 2005. By mimicking the behavior of the brain down to the individual neuron, the researchers aim to create a modeling tool that can be used by neuroscientists to run experiments, test hypotheses, and analyze the effects of drugs more efficiently than they could using real brain tissue.

The model of part of the brain was completed last year, says Markram. But now, after extensive testing comparing its behavior with results from biological experiments, he is satisfied that the simulation is accurate enough that the researchers can proceed with the rest of the brain.

"It's amazing work," says Thomas Serre, a computational-neuroscience researcher at MIT. "This is likely to have a tremendous impact on neuroscience."

The project began with the initial goal of modeling the 10,000 neurons and 30 million synaptic connections that make up a rat's neocortical column, the main building block of a mammal's cortex. The neocortical column was chosen as a starting point because it is widely recognized as being particularly complex, with a heterogeneous structure consisting of many different types of synapse and ion channels. "There's no point in dreaming about modeling the brain if you can't model a small part of it," says Markram.

The model itself is based on 15 years' worth of experimental data on neuronal morphology, gene expression, ion channels, synaptic connectivity, and electrophysiological recordings of the neocortical columns of rats. Software tools were then developed to process this information and automatically reconstruct physiologically accurate 3-D models of neurons and their interconnections.

The neuronal circuits were tested by simulating specific input stimuli and seeing how the circuits behaved, compared with those in biological experiments. Where gaps in knowledge appeared about how certain parts of the model were supposed to behave, the scientists went back to the lab and performed experiments to identify the kinds of behavior that needed to be reproduced. In fact, about a third of the team of 35 researchers was devoted to carrying out such experiments, says Markram.

Through an iterative process of testing, the simulation has gradually been refined to the point where Markram is confident that it behaves like a real neocortical column.

However, none of these results have so far been published in the peer-reviewed literature, says Christof Koch, a professor of biology and engineering at Caltech. And this is by no means the first computer model of the brain, he points out. "This is an evolutionary process rather than a revolutionary one," he says. As long ago as 1989, Koch created a 10,000-neuron simulation, albeit in a far simpler model.

Furthermore, Koch is skeptical about how quickly the brain model can progress. Any claims that the human brain can be modeled within 10 years are so "ridiculous" that they are not worth discussing, he says.

Rat brains have about 200 million neurons, while human brains have in the region of 50 to 100 billion neurons. "That is a big scale-up," admits Markram.

But he is confident that his model is robust enough to be expanded indefinitely. What's more, he believes that the level of detail of the model can also be taken further. "It's at quite a high resolution," he says. "It's still at a cellular level, but we want to look at the molecular level." Doing so would enable simulation-based drug testing to be carried out by showing how specific molecules affect proteins, receptors, and enzymes.

"I wouldn't be surprised if they could do it," says Serre. "However, it's not clear what they could get out of it," he says. If you want this model to be useful, you have to be able to understand how the behavior relates to specific brain functions. So far, it is not clear that the Blue Brain project has done this, he says.

My interest then grew significantly when I had the opportunity to produce the interactive and motion graphics components of the 2000 Paralympic Games is Sydney, Australia. Since then, I have tried to keep current with the latest advances in technologies for the disabled. To that end, I stumbled across an exciting licensing agreement for two new technologies that will help bring affordable graphic reading systems to the blind and visually impaired. The systems give physical dimension to electronic images in the same way that Braille makes words readable.

The Braille system, which incidentally, was based on a method of communication originally developed by Charles Barbier for Napoleon's soldiers, was devised by Frenchman Louis Braille in 1821. As we know, braille allows vision impaired people to read and write using characters made up of raised dots. Braille has been used the same way as a system for almost two centuries.  But, these new technologies could mark a significant change in the way the blind are able to “see” in that they incorporate images, rather than words and numbers.

One of the new systems, a tactile graphic display device and fingertip graphic reader, were developed by researchers at the National Institute for Standards and Technology (NIST). The tactile graphic display for localized sensory stimulation, was created using an array of about 100 small, very closely spaced (1/10 of a millimeter apart), actuator points set against a user’s fingertip. To “see” a computer graphic with this technology, a blind or visually impaired person moves the device-tipped finger across a surface like a computer mouse to scan an image in computer memory. The computer sends a signal to the display device and moves the actuators against the skin to “translate” the pattern, replicating the sensation of the finger moving over the pattern being displayed. With additional development, the technology could possibly be used to make fingertip tactile graphics practical for virtual reality systems or give a detailed sense of touch to robotic control (teleoperation), and space suit gloves.

The second technology, introduced as a prototype in 2002, conveys scanned illustrations, map outlines or other graphical images to the fingertips, and can translate images displayed on Internet Web pages or in electronic books. It uses refreshable tactile graphic display technology, allowing a person to feel a succession of images on a reusable surface. The machine uses about 3,600 small pins that can be raised in any pattern, and then locked into place to hold the pattern for reading. The actuator points then can be withdrawn and reset in a new pattern, allowing the tactile reading to continue through a variety of images.

If the devices look familiar to you, it’s because inspiration came from a “bed of nails” toy found in many novelty stores. If you haven't seen it, the toy allows you to press your hand or face or an object onto the back of the nails and they raise up to create an "image" of that object. Watching the pins in the toy depress under fingers and then return to their original state started the researchers thinking about how the principle could be applied to electronic signals. NIST recently signed a non-exclusive license for commercialization of its two tactile graphic display technologies with ELIA Life Technology which may soon see the two products become commercially available.

“This explosive growth shows that the mobile communications revolution is in full swing,” said CTIA – The Wireless Association President and CEO, Steve Largent. “Wireless has become a way of life for more than 250 million Americans, and each year more and more consumers are experiencing the incredible benefits that only wireless can offer. Whether you work on Wall Street or at home, live in a small town or a big city, wireless reaches people exactly where they’re at and gives folks the ability to communicate and connect with friends and family while on the move,” continued Largent.

 This follows recent reports from Merrill Lynch and the Federal Communications Commission (FCC), that further illustrate a thriving wireless marketplace in the U.S. that is working hard to meet the needs of consumers. According to Merrill Lynch’s Global Wireless Matrix 2Q07, Americans use more minutes for less cost than any other consumers in the developed world. Earlier this year Merrill Lynch reported that Europeans still pay an average of 19¢ per minute for an average of 153 minutes a month, compared to 5¢ per minute for 834 minutes a month for customers in the U.S. The FCC reports 98% of Americans can choose from at least four service providers. The FCC also says mobile high speed subscribers increased by about 600% in 2006, to nearly 22 million, and that mobile wireless subscribers made up 60% of all new high speed lines.

“The statistics speak for themselves,” continued Largent. “The bottom line is that wireless companies are listening to their customers and in doing so are providing Americans of all walks of life with the mobile products and services that they want and need. Competition, innovation, and consumer value are driving the dynamic U.S. wireless marketplace, giving people access to amazing technology with plans almost anyone can afford and more choices than anywhere else in the world.”

CTIA is an international association for the wireless telecommunications industry which represents carriers, manufacturers and wireless Internet providers.