Amazon appears to have quietly acquired Yap Inc., a speech recognition start-up company, fueling speculation that the online giant is getting ready to produce a voice command service such as Apple's Siri or Google's Voice Actions for Android.
It's pretty well known at this point that computers are quickly catching up with humanity as far as brain power is concerned. Storage-wise, we've been long surpassed by machines, and powerfully fast computers can run circles around the human brain in solving complex equations. On the other hand, humanity wins in the brain's sheer computational power and energy efficiency.
Researchers have found plenty of uses for carbon nanotubes, but a team at Stanford's of the Bao Research Group found a new use for them: artificial skin. The researchers created a stretchable, transparent skin-like sensor that not only is elastic like skin, but can also sense touch and pressure like the real thing.
If you ever wanted to see what your brain sees when you're watching Nyan Cat or a YouTube video, this is it. University of California, Berkeley researchers have recreated videos by scanning a person's brain.
Have you ever been geocaching? While it may seem a little lame to those who haven't, there is a slight thrill to being able to track down a hidden item using only clues and a set of co-ordinates from the person who put it there. Still sounds a little uninteresting? How about geocaching in space?