HELLO SUNSHINE

ITEM: On more than 200 days so far this year, no sunspots have been seen on the Sun, making it blanker this year than in any year since 1954.

What does that mean? I have no idea, and neither do scientists, who have any number of theories as to why it’s so quiet on the Sun. Whatever – it’s a great excuse to post a bunch of Mega Awesome™ photos of the Sun.



Click here for the full set, with explanations. What a beautiful universe we live in, eh?

Virtually spotless,

This is dF

YOU’VE GOT TELEPATHIC MAIL

ITEM: The US Army has awarded a grant to researchers at University of California, Irvine, Carnegie Mellon University and the University of Maryland to send emails and voice messages using only the power of the mind.

Yes. Telepathic email. EPIC WIN!

Interestingly, this isn’t as wacky as it sounds. The basic technology – “synthetic telepathy”, in which one uses an electroencephalograph (EEG) to read electrical activity in the brain and translate it into a command that computers can understand – has been in development since the 1960s. EEG headsets are already commercially available for things like specialized video games.

Naturally, the Army is thinking Covert Ops, but then lots of Army tech ends up being used in the civilian world (CDMA, for example – i.e. the digital cellular technology that’s most likely running your mobile phone network). Games are one possibility. Interfaces for people with Lou Gehrig’s Disease is another.

Still, EEG is a tinker toy – to get to where you can type out an email in yr head, you need really advanced brain-mapping technology like functional magnetic resonance imaging (fMRI) and magnetoencephalography (MEG) – which is 15 to 20 years away from being available in the form of a comfortable, affordable headset.

Still, that adds up to telepathic email in my lifetime. Assuming I live long enough to see retirement age.

GOD, I love the 21st century.

Brain drain,

This is dF

GIANT JAMES BOND IS WATCHING YOU. BEHAVE.

Times Square, Causeway Bay, right now.




Thu 16.10.2008 19.39 161020082304