universityofrochester
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Computers can tell when you've been drunk tweeting
In case the rambling string of misspelled words and incoherent thoughts weren't dead giveaways, scientists have developed a method of machine learning to sniff out drunk tweets. Researchers from the University of Rochester collected 11,000 geotagged tweets over a year from two areas: New York and Monroe County, filtering the 140-character notes containing "drunk," "beer," "party" and other libation-related words. From there the school employed Amazon Mechanical Turks to decide whether the person sending the tweets was simply talking about booze or were actually drinking it while tweeting.
Shape-shifting polymer straightens out from body heat
There have been plenty of tries at shape-changing materials, but this one might be the most practical yet. The University of Rochester has created a polymer that returns to its original shape when subjected to body heat -- touch a curled mess of the stuff and it straightens out. The solution was to attach polymer strands using molecular links that inhibit crystallization, which prevents the polymer from returning back to its original shape. When you tweak the number and substances of the links, you can customize the temperature where that reversion happens (in this case, just below normal body temperature).
Google Glass app can help socially awkward penguins speak in public
Fear of public speaking is quite common, and chances are you either know someone who has it or you suffer from the phobia yourself. This smart glass app called Rhema, created by researchers from the Human-Computer Interaction Group at the University of Rochester, was designed for people who need a bit of help addressing crowds. Rhema can listen as you speak, upload your recorded voice to a server, analyze its pace and volume, and then give you feedback in real time. To test it out, the team had 30 subjects try out several different feedback systems installed on Google Glass. These include ones that shows a traffic lights-like scheme and another that uses graphs.
Scientists make an invisibility cloak using off-the-shelf optical lenses
Most invisibility cloaks require fairly exotic technology to work, such as fiber optics or light-altering metamaterials. That's not very practical, especially since the illusion still tends to break when you move. The University of Rochester may have a far more realistic solution, however -- it has developed a cloak that only needs run of the mill optical lenses to hide objects from view. The system really boils down to clever math. By positioning two pairs of lenses in the right order, researchers can bend light in a way that hides almost everything you put in the middle of this arrangement. The approach scales up with the size of the glass, and it works at angles of 15 degrees or more; you don't need to look head-on to see the effect.
nEmesis system machine reads tweets, tells you which burrito joint to avoid
We all know that customer reviews can be prone to, shall we say, a little positive engineering. What if you could gather genuine opinions about a restaurant, or product before you commit your cash? Well, a new system developed at the University of Rochester might be able to offer just that. The "nEmesis" engine uses machine learning, and starts to listen when a user tweets from a geotagged location that matches a restaurant. It then follows the user's tweets for 72 hours, and captures any information about them feeling ill. While the system isn't able to determine that any resulting affliction is directly connected to their restaurant visit, results over a four-month period (a total of 3.8-million analysed tweets) in New York City found 480 reports of food poisoning. It's claimed these data match "fairly well" with that gathered by the local health department. The system's creators admit it's not the whole picture, but could be used alongside other datasets to spot potential problems more quickly. The only question is how long before we see "sabotage" tweets?
Scientists demonstrate unjammable radar based on quantum imaging
Unfortunately for those in the enemy tracking game, sophisticated aircraft-equipped anti-detection systems can outfox radar by intercepting the signal and sending back a false image, as shown above. However, researchers from the University of Rochester have figured out a technique to defeat such a jamming system that harnesses the quantum properties of light. By polarizing photons before sending them toward objects to be scanned, any attempt at modifying the returning photons caused quantum interference that was easy to detect, in the form of the very high polarization errors shown in the second false image. According to the team, such a a system could "easily be realized and integrated into modern optical ranging and imaging systems," with a little work, making it infinitely more difficult to defeat radar systems. Check the source for more "light" reading, provided that quantum mechanics doesn't break your brain.
Neutrinos can transmit messages through walls, mountains, planets
Neutrinos may not travel as fast as we first hoped, but then they have other special abilities to make up for it. Being almost massless, they can penetrate the thickest barriers, which ought to make them ideal message carriers. To illustrate the point, scientists sent the word "Neutrino" on a beam of particles through 240 meters (800 feet) of solid stone and received it loud and clear on the other side. The same approach could potentially be used to send a message right through the center of a planet, making it possible, according to one of the researchers, to "communicate between any two points on Earth without using satellites or cables." The experiment required the latest particle accelerators at Chicago's Fermilab, which flung the neutrinos over a 2.5 mile track before firing them off at an underground receiver, but it proved the principle: Shrink the accelerator down to the size of a smartphone and neutrino messaging could be huge. Or it could die in a format war with quantum teleportation.
New high-res imaging could make biopsies obsolete, doctors still cutting up in meantime
So maybe a true-to-life Innerspace is still a few years off, but a professor at the University of Rochester has developed a way to take high-resolution 3D images under the skin's surface, potentially eliminating the need for biopsies in cancer detection. Professor Jannick Rolland created a prototype that uses a liquid lens, in which a droplet of water replaces the standard glass lens, in conjunction with near-infrared light, to take thousands of pictures at varying depths. Those images are then combined to create clear, 3D renderings of what lies up to one millimeter below your epidermis. The method has already been tested on livings beings, but is likely a long way from making it to your doctor's office, which means it's off to the guillotine for that Pangaea-shaped mole you've been picking at.
Digital camera inventor Steve Sasson collects honorary PhD, Economist award
If there's one thing we know about geeks, it's that they hate having nothing to do. Bill Gates has filled his spare time collecting knighthoods and Harvard degrees, and Steve Sasson -- inventor of the first, and assuredly biggest, digital camera -- is now following in his distinguished footsteps. Sasson perfected a microwave oven-sized 0.01 megapixel prototype while working for Kodak way back in 1975, and has now been awarded an honorary PhD for his troubles from the University of Rochester. The man, the geek, and the legend (all the same person) will be in London later today receiving further recognition, in the form of The Economist's Innovation Award, which commends the "seismic disruption" his invention caused in the field of consumer photography. Funny, nobody gives us any awards for being disruptive. Read - University of Rochester honorary doctorate Read - The Economist Innovation Award
Ultra-powerful laser could make incandescent light bulbs more efficient
Look, LED light bulbs are fanciful, great for Ma Earth and a fine addition to any home, barber shop or underground fight club. But let's be honest -- even the guy that bikes through blizzards to get to work and wears garb that he grew in his basement isn't apt to shell out $120 a pop to have what's likely the most efficient light bulb American dollars can buy. Enter Chunlei Guo from the University of Rochester, who has helped discover a process which could morph a traditional incandescent light bulb into a beacon of burning light without using nearly as much energy as before. In fact, his usage of the femtosecond laser pulse -- which creates a "unique array of nano- and micro-scale structures on the surface of a regular tungsten filament" -- could enable a bulb to increase output efficiency in order to emit 100-watts worth of light while sucking down less than 60-watts of power. Per usual, there's no telling when this new hotness is likely to hit the commercial realm, but one's thing for sure: we bet GE's paying attention.[Via Physorg]
Nanocrystal breakthrough promises more versatile lasers, world peace
For the longest while, scientists have been flummoxed by the incessant coruscating emitted by individual molecules; no matter their methods, they could never quite seem to overcome a troubling optical quirk known sensibly as "blinking." Thanks to a brilliant crew at the University of Rochester, however, we now understand the basic physics behind the phenomenon, and together with a team from Eastman Kodak, a nanocrystal has been created that can constantly emit light. In theory, the discovery could lead to "dramatically less expensive and more versatile lasers, brighter LED lighting, and biological markers that track how a drug interacts with a cell at a level never before possible." Indeed, one could envision that future displays could be crafted by painting a grid of differently sized nanocrystals onto a flat surface, making even OLED TVs look chubby in comparison. Now, if only we had a good feeling that such a device was destined for a CES in our lifetime...
Videogame training may improve eyesight, no word on the health benefits of Mind Flex
You know, the benefits of videogames just keep adding up. According to a study published in Nature Neuroscience, video game training may help people improve contrast sensitivity, or the ability to differentiate between shades of gray. Among the two groups studied, the most improvement was noted among folks who played games which required precise, visually guided aiming actions, such as Call of Duty 2 and Unreal Tournament 2004. "When people play action games," said Daphne Bavelier, a professor of brain and cognitive sciences at the University of Rochester, "they're changing the brain's pathway responsible for visual processing. These games push the human visual system to the limits and the brain adapts to it, and we've seen the positive effect remains even two years after the training was over." Now that we've established that the Xbox can be part of a healthy lifestyle, it would be irresponsible of us not to play it more often.[Via CNet]
Researchers create first true 3D processor, turns chips into cubes
While others have touted 3D processors in the past, a group of researchers from the University of Rochester are now claiming that they've developed the first true 3D processor (with a little help from MIT), and they've got it running at a decent 1.4GHz, no less. Dubbed the "Rochester Cube," the processor was apparently designed from the ground up to optimize all key processing functions vertically, unlike other 3D processors which simply stack a bunch of regular processors on top of one another. Among other things, the researchers say that allows the processors to be shrunk to as much as a tenth their size of their traditional counterparts, while also increasing their speed tenfold. Unsurprisingly, they aren't making any promises as to when such a magical processor might find its way into some actual products, but whenever it does, it'll no doubt be facing some stiff competition from some other purported processor breakthroughs.[Via DailyTech, image courtesy 3DStereo.com]
The root of gaming addiction exposed?
Researchers are just now realizing that video games may fulfill psychological needs like autonomy, competence, and relatedness. University of Rochester and Immersyve Inc. investigators have determined that it's not just a shallow sense of fun that enables the so-called gaming addiction. Where have these guys been?What seems obvious to us is still a mystery to many. As the industry grows, as gamer populations swell, we're bound to come under the microscope more and more. There is a great urge among the uninitiated to justify our passion for video games. If only they'd stop questioning and simply join the "fun" ... Conform!
