Brain scans reveal our mind movies?

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Brain scans reveal our mind movies?

UC Berkeley researchers used brain scans of the visual cortex and computational models to reconstruct what the individual is seeing. From UC Berkeley:

As yet, the technology can only reconstruct movie clips people have already viewed. However, the breakthrough paves the way for reproducing the movies inside our heads that no one else sees, such as dreams and memories, according to researchers.

“This is a major leap toward reconstructing internal imagery,” said Professor Jack Gallant, a UC Berkeley neuroscientist and coauthor of the study published online today (Sept. 22) in the journal Current Biology. “We are opening a window into the movies in our minds.”

Scientists use brain imaging to reveal the movies in our mind

BB pal Jim Leftwich points out that the reconstructed video looks strikingly similar to how images from a science fiction “dream recorder” were represented in Wim Wenders’ captivating 1991 film Until The End Of the World. Here’s a frame grab Jim made from his VHS tape of the movie.

Uteotw Clip 4 970X548


3D printed nylon bicycle that’s “as strong as steel”

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3D printed nylon bicycle that’s “as strong as steel”

This 3D printed bicycle, exhibited at this week’s London Design Festival, is claimed to be as strong as steel. It was printed from layers of fused nylon, using a technique more commonly deployed in satellite manufacture.


Launched this year by a team of development engineers, the bike is made up of successive layers of fused nylon powder that are each just one-tenth of a millimeter thick. Designed by Andy Hawkins and Chris Turner at the Aerospace Innovation Centre in Bristol, UK, the bike is constructed from a manufacturing process known as additive layer manufacturing (ALM), which is also used in the manufacturing of satellites.

Nylon Bike Made Using Satellite Technology is as Strong as Steel!

(Thanks,Terry!)


Nested knife-set

Nested knife-set:

The Deglon Meeting Knife, designed by Mia Schmallenbach, is a set of sculptural, nested knives (priced, alas, as sculptures, at $600 for the set). The proportions of the four nested knives — paring knife, carving knife, chef’s knife and filleting knife — are “determined by the Fibonacci sequence with as its base the average width of a hand.”

Admire The Deglon Meeting Knife Set

Deglon Meeting Knife (Amazon)


Origo aims to be the EZ-Bake oven of 3D printing

[Note: currently vaporware. -egg]

Origo aims to be the EZ-Bake oven of 3D printing:

Joris Peels sez, “The Origo aims to be an affordable, easy to use 3D printer for ten year olds. It will be more robust than current 3D printers and work straight out of the box. By reapplying existing technology in novel ways the Origo will let kids make whatever they want, whenever they want at home.”


There are other 3D printers. But none will be as easy to use as I will. None will be as reliable or work as hard for you. I’m not a kit or an industrial machine. I’m not complicated. I’m an appliance, like a toaster or a microwave. Only I’m purple and make your stuff.

You don’t have to be ten to use me, but it helps. Sure adults are older and can do lots of different things such as drive a car and use a drill. But, adults aren’t really good at imagining things. They’re afraid. Afraid of failing, afraid of not making the perfect thing. They see the world as it is, not as it could be. They see what can’t be done, not what could become. Kids are not afraid. They’ll draw anything and everything. They’ll make whatever it is they feel like. They’ll imagine, dream and create. And that’s what I’ll help you do. You could share me with your brothers, sisters and parents and make together. You could teach them how to make the world as they want it to be. Most of all though, I’m a tool for you.

Origo a 3D printer for everyone | What is Origo?


One-of-a-kind desk hides a pipe organ and fluidic computer

One-of-a-kind desk hides a pipe organ and fluidic computer:

Housefish has a writeup on Kagen Schaefer’s pipe-organ desk, which hides in its drawers a pipe organ that doubles as a fluidic computer, and which has stolen my heart:



At first glance, it’s a relatively ordinary desk, albeit very finely made out of exceptional wood, and with an unusual number of small drawers. Open a drawer though, and there’s a surprise- each drawer operates a wooden pipe organ tube on the back. Opening different drawers plays different notes and lets you play songs. If I stopped right there, a wooden pipe organ desk would already rank among the most novel and impressive pieces of wooden furniture either of us has seen.

But there’s another secret. Inside the desk is a fluidic computer, operated entirely by the air pressure pulses created by opening and closing the drawers. This has been programmed so that playing a predetermined sequence of notes opens a secret compartment somewhere on the desk. It’s also reprogrammable, so you can set it to open when you play the theme to Star Wars, or whatever you want. And in case it wasn’t clear, this is made entirely of wood; there are no electronics of any kind. It is literally something that could have been built using technology available 500 years ago.

Kagen Schaefer Pipe Organ Desk | Housefish

(via Crib Candy)


Why does information security policy suck, and how do we make it better?

[Truly thoughtful and fascinating. -egg]

Why does information security policy suck, and how do we make it better?: Ben Hammersley’s after-dinner speech to the UK’s Information Assurance Advisory Council (a “talking shop for government, law enforcement, security services, and private companies”) about the contemporary reality of policymaking in an era of rapid technological change, and the way that the cynical post-9/11 freedom/privacy-grabbing security measures have undermined the real safety of society.


Fundamental Truth Number two is that the internet is the dominant platform for life in the 21st century.

We can bitch about it, but Facebook, Twitter, Google and all the rest are, in many ways the very definition of modern life in the democratic west. For many, a functioning internet with freedom of speech, and a good connection to the social networks of our choice is a sign not just of modernity, but of civilisation itself.

This is not because people are “addicted to the video screen”, or have some other patronising psychological diagnosis. But because the internet is where we live. It’s where we do business, where we meet, where we fall in love. It is the central platform for business, culture, and personal relationships. There’s not much else left.

To misunderstand the centrality of these services to today’s society is to make a fundamental error. The internet isn’t a luxury addition to life; for most people, knowingly or not, it is life.

I also really liked this: “[A] two term Prime Minister today would end his term of office with an iPhone 64 times as powerful as the one he won the election with. (Or the same thing, but 1/64th of the price.) His policies, therefore, need to written with that future in mind, not the present. Good luck with that.”

Check Against Delivery. My speech to the IAAC.

(via O’Reilly Radar)