OS X Lion Flaw! (and wonderful article re: Sound Gesture Technology)

Security Alert!  Please be aware that there is a SERIOUS security flaw in the Apple OS X Lion OS that allows hackers access to your passwords, without any *** value being displayed.  ...Just something for you all to keep in mind until the hole is patched.  See article here.  Also, here's an interesting article [source: Mashable] regarding the future of #soundgestures - 

When you learned about the Doppler Effect in high school physics class—the wave frequency shift that occurs when the source of the wave is moving, easily illustrated by a passing ambulance—you probably didn’t envision it helping control your computer one day.

But that’s exactly what a group of researchers are doing at Microsoft Research, the software giant’s Redmond, Washington-based lab. Gesture control is becoming increasingly common and is even built into some TVs. While other motion-sensing technologies such as Microsoft’s own Kinect device use cameras to sense and interpret movement and gestures, SoundWave does this using only sound—thanks to the Doppler Effect, some clever software, and the built-in speakers and microphone on a laptop.

Desney Tan, a Microsoft Research principal researcher and member of the SoundWave team, says the technology can already be used to sense a number of simple gestures, and with smart phones and laptops starting to include multiple speakers and microphones, the technology could become even more sensitive. SoundWave—a collaboration between Microsoft Research and the University of Washington—will be presented this week in a paper at the 2012 ACM SIGCHI Conference on Human Factors in Computing in Austin, Texas.

The idea for SoundWave emerged last summer, when Desney and others were working on a project involving using ultrasonic transducers to create haptic effects, and one researcher noticed a sound wave changing in a surprising way as he moved his body around. The transducers were emitting an ultrasonic sound wave that was bouncing off researchers’ bodies, and their movements changed the tone of the sound that was picked up, and the sound wave they viewed on the back end.

The researchers quickly determined that this could be useful for gesture sensing. And since many devices already have microphones and speakers embedded, they experimented to see if they could use those existing sensors to detect movements. Tan says standard computer speakers and microphones can operate in the ultrasonic band—beyond what humans can hear—which means all SoundWave has to do to make its technology work on your laptop or smart phone is load it up with SoundWave software.

Chris Harrison, a graduate student at Carnegie Mellon University who studies sensing for user interfaces, calls SoundWave’s ability to operate with existing hardware and a software update “a huge win.”

“I think it has some interesting potential,” he says.

The speakers on a computer equipped with SoundWave software emit a constant ultrasonic tone of between 20 and 22 kilohertz. If nothing in the immediate environment is moving, the tone the computer’s microphone hears should also be constant. But if something is moving toward the computer, that tone will shift to a higher frequency. If it’s moving away, the tone will shift to a lower frequency.

This happens in predictable patterns, Tan says, so the frequencies can be analyzed to determine how big the moving object is, how fast it’s moving, and the direction it’s going. Based on all that, SoundWave can infer gestures.

The software’s accuracy hovers in the 90 percent range, Tan says, and there isn’t a noticeable delay between when a user makes a gesture and the computer’s response. And SoundWave can operate while you’re using the speakers for other things, too.

So far, the SoundWave team has come up with a range of movements that its software can understand, including swiping your hand up or down, moving it toward or away from your body, flexing your limbs, or moving your entire body closer to or farther away from the computer. With these gestures, researchers are able to scroll through pages on a computer screen and control simple Web navigation. Sensing when a user approaches a computer or walks away from it could be used to automatically wake it up or put it to sleep, Tan says.

Harrison thinks that having a limited number of gestures is fine, especially since users will have to memorize them. The SoundWave team has also used its technology to control a game of Tetris, which, aside from being fun, provided a good test of the system’s accuracy and speed.

Tan envisions SoundWave working alongside other gesture-sensing technologies, saying that while it doesn’t face the lighting issues that vision-based technologies do, it’s not as good at sensing small gestures like a pinch of the fingers. “Ideally there are lots of sensors around the world, and the user doesn’t know or care what the sensors are, they’re just interacting with their tasks,” he says.

Not to scare you or anything: 2012 is happening!

Baffling Illness Strikes Africa, Turns Children Into Violent "Zombies"
Jason Mick

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79 comment(s) - last by DatsWassup.. on Mar 21 at 10:17 PM

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  (Source: Capcom)

World Health Organization is on high alert about new Ugandan outbreak, cause is not fully known

It's called the "nodding disease" and it's a baffling illness that has struck thousands of children in northern Uganda.  The illness brings on seizures, violent behavior, personality changes, and a host of other unusual symptoms.

I. Violent and Mindless: Child Victims Have no Cure, no Future

Grace Lagat, a northern Uganda native, is mother of two children -- Pauline Oto and Thomas -- both of whom are victims of the disease.  For their safety, when she leaves the house, she now ties them up, using fabric like handcuffs.  She recalls, "When I am going to the garden, I tie them with cloth. If I don't tie them I come back and find that they have disappeared."

Reportedly the children gnaw at their fabric restraints, like a rabid animals -- or "zombies" of popular fiction -- in an attempt  to escape.

The effort to restrain the children is not unwarranted.  In one of the most bizarre symptoms of this tragic illness, children with the disease are reportedly setting fire to buildings in their communities.  Coupled with the aimless wandering this disease provokes in victims, this is a deadly combination.  More than 200 people have been killed in fires believed to be set by the zombified children.

_{The disease leaves child victims in an often-violent "zombiefied" state. [Image Source: CNN]}

The disease is not new.  It popped up in the 1960s in Sudan.  From there it slowly spread to Libya and Tanzania.  

The Uganda infections, though, are a new outbreak -- a troubling sign.  The jump into a new region could be pure coincidence, or it could indicate the disease has become more virulent or found a new transmissions vector.

_{Uganda is located in central Africa [Image Source: U of Tex., Modifications: Jason Mick]}

Infected children typically have regular seizures, which are proceeded by a repetitive nodding of the head.  This characteristic symptom has given rise to the unofficial title for the malady.

II. World Medical Organizations Racing for a Cure

The Center for Disease Control (CDC) and World Health Organization (WHO) have been tracking the spread of this frightening ailment.  Dr. Joaquin Saweka says the scene in Uganda is horrific, stating, "It was quite desperate, I can tell you.  Imagine being surrounded by 26 children and 12 of them showing signs of this. The attitude was to quickly find a solution to the problem."

Yet the WHO and CDC are not fully sure what is causing the illness, which cripples children and turns them into mindless, violence-prone zombies.  The best clue they have is that most of the cases occur in regions inhabited by "Black flies", which carry the parasitic worm Onchocerca Volvulus.  That worm is responsible for another dangerous disease dubbed "river blindness", the world's second leading cause of infectious blindness.

_{The illness may have something to do with Black flies (left, center) and their parasitic worm (right). [Image Source: WHO (left), Wikimedia Commons (center), Human Healths (right)]}

However 7 percent of infected children live in regions not inhabited by the Black fly, so a link is speculative at best.

Children with the disease also frequently exhibit vitamin B6 deficiency, leading medical experts to believe that the disease may be nutrition related.  However, infections by microbes, parasites, fungi, or even fungi/microbes carried by a parasitic host, can all lead to nutritional deficiencies.

Dr. Scott Dowell, director of global disease detection and emergency response at CDC, says the race is on to determine the cause and a cure.  He states, "At first we cast the net wide. We ruled out three dozen potential causes and we are working on a handful of probabilities.  We know from past experience an unknown disease could end up having more global implications."

In the current cases children as old as 19 have been found to be stricken, with the majority of the worst symptoms being spread over the 3-11 age range.

One mystery surrounding the disease is the seizures themselves.  While typically seizures are either randomly occurring or follow some singular cue/pattern, the nodding disease seems to have multiple triggers, including eating new foods, changing weather, and other changes.

Seizure often leave the children soiled with urine and drooling.  Local nurses are afraid to touch the infected.  States local nurse Elupe Petua, "I feel, because I don't know what causes it, I don't even know how it transmits, when I touch them I feel that I can also get the infection because I don't know what causes it."

III. Medication is Ineffective

Anti-epileptic medication slows the onset of symptoms, but is unable to stop the progression of the disease.  The seizures eventually leave many children unable to walk, only able to drag their bodies along the ground as flies tried to attack them.

_{The current treatment approach of anti-epileptics has done little to halt the illness.
[Image Souce: CNN]}

The government of Uganda has come under criticism for not being vocal enough in addressing the tragedy and demanding foreign aid/research expertise.  Local politicians have taken to transporting victims from affected villages by bus to city hospitals in order to force the issue into the eyes of the more affluent city-dwellers.

The issue is yet another woe for a nation in which the impoverished majority was terrorized for years by warlord Jospeph Kony's militia, dubbed the "Lord's Resistance Army."

Mr. Kony is currently wanted by the International Criminal Court on multiple counts of violent war crimes, including rape and murder.  These offenses are punishable by death, if he is ever brought to trial.

IV. What if the "Nodding Disease" Found a Way to Reach the U.S.?

Dr. Saweka says that for all the hand-waving by the government about using better anti-epileptics and offering more funding, he appreciates and shares in the villagers frustration.  He states, "People complain that it looks like the lives in developing countries have less value than the lives in the western countries. When you know the root cause, you address the cure. Now you are just relieving the symptoms. We don't expect to cure anybody."

_{Ugandans, grief stricken, feel somewhat abandoned by the government and the wealthy developed "First World". [Image Source: CNN]}

While the "First World" may not be focused on -- or even aware of -- the zombification that is leaving children in these African nations violent, crippled shells of their former selves -- tied like dogs -- it is an issue that must be addressed.  After all, viruses, bacteria, parasites thanks to the wonders of evolution can mutate and adapt to new environments and new transmission vectors.

Thus this zombie virus may seem like a foreign issue to regions like the U.S. and EU who are struggling with their own financial crisises.  But if the illness finds a way to broaden its spread, this "zombie" outbreak could cripple the globe. #CRAY @dreroc #ISM