cranium
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Cranial Drilling Device puts a hole in skulls, not brains
If you told us on Monday that we'd be capping our week off by checking out an innovative cranial drill, we likely would have just stared at you funny. But here were are and here it is, a device referred to, quite straightforwardly, as the Cranial Drilling Device with Retracting Drill Bit After Skull Penetration. The drill was designed by a team of researchers at Harvard in order to address a major shortcoming with manual drills. Such devices require neurosurgical training in order to know precisely when to stop so as to not damage underlying brain tissue. In certain instances, such as emergency rooms and the backs of ambulances, medical practitioners may require a cranial drill in order to perform procedures such as the insertion of pressure monitors, with nary a neurosurgeon to be found. The Harvard team has concocted a drill that automatically retracts back into its protective casing, as soon as it's finished drilling through the skull, using a bi-stable mechanism that is active as the drill spins. After the break, team member Conor Walsh explains the technology is a manner that, thankfully, is not quite brain surgery.
Ubisoft bringing Cranium board game to Wii
Between Wii Sports, Raving Rabbids and Wario Ware, the Wii is the perfect system for making a fool of yourself at parties. With challenges that involve impersonating celebrities, sculpting modeling clay and manipulating friends like puppets, Cranium is the perfect board game for making a fool of yourself at parties. Put them together and you have a perfect storm of embarrassment that will set your party ablaze with sudden attacks of modesty.UbiSoft's Cranium Kabookii, revealed at this week's Leipzig Games Convention, will feature Wii-controlled twists on Cranium's usual mix of word puzzles, trivia, performance and artist challenges. Special decoder glasses will allow one player to see super-secret on-screen hints, and the game will come in custom international editions so the pop culture questions will be intelligible to players in France, Canada, Spain, the UK and the US. The game is due out in December.%Gallery-6349%
EEG signatures are the new fingerprint scans
If you think (er, know) that fingerprint scanners just aren't up to snuff with your strict demands, a team of European scientists are developing a novel replacement for biometric security. Dimitrios Tzovaras and his colleagues at the Center for Research and Technology Hellas in Greece have established a system which relies on measured activity in the brain to form a security protocol that's "difficult to forge." Since electroencephalography (EEG) measurements are unique for every person, users begin by having their brain activity recorded and analyzed, producing an "EEG signature" which can then be used to allow or deny entry into buildings, data centers, or other top secret locales. The catch is that employees would be forced to walk around with a wired helmet on their noggin, which could "potentially chang the ambiance of the workplace" according to a researcher at the University of Cambridge. Notably, the method is just one of the security layers that are being scrutinized as a part of the Human Monitoring and Authentication using Biodynamic Indicators and Behavioral Analysis (HUMABIO) project going on in Europe, which aims to "combine several different biometrics to create a more efficient and secure overall system." Of course, there's still some kinks to be worked out, especially considering that brain patterns are extremely dependent on "alertness," and we seriously hope they develop a less invasive (and gaudy) alternative to forcing blokes to rock oddly-shaped headgear as a part of their job.
