February 25, 2004
Virtual Reality Treatment Program
A new virtual reality program for anxiety and traumatic stress started at the Weill Medical College of Cornell University. The program is described as using the "employment of virtual reality exposure to treat a number of anxiety and stress-related disorders, including fear of flying, fear of storms, fear of heights, fear of bridges, fear of public speaking and World Trade Center-induced posttraumatic stress disorder.
During the VR treatment experience patients wear a virtual reality helmet that positions two goggle-sized miniature computer monitor screens close to the patient's eyes. The scenery in VR changes as the users move their head orientation (e.g. virtual objects in front of the user get closer as the user leans forward in the real world). The combination of these techniques gives patients a uniquely compelling experience of "being there" in the virtual world and contributes greatly to therapeutic success.
Cornell Virtual Reality Treatment Program
Other virtual reality treatment facilities/sites:
Center for Anxiety Research at the University of Buffalo, NY
Duke University, Department of Psychiatry Virtual Reality Program
Emory University Virtual Reality Therapy
University of Washington Medical Center
Virtual Reality Treatment Center
Resources on Virtual Environments
Example of virtual envorinment
February 20, 2004
Five Robots That Will Change Our Lives
Useful robots have been a dream of many and science has been continually trying to create machines that can tackle problems that may be too dangerous or too monotonous for humans to do. Automation has changed manufacturing over the last few decades and the science of robotics is advancing at a rapid pace.
Forbes takes a look at future technologies that will make a significant change in our lives.
First is the DaVinci Surgical System
It can be used in a variety of surgical procedures, such as gastric bypass surgery, removal of the prostate and mitral valve repair. Benefits include fewer, more precise cuts and less bleeding and it never gets fatigued.
T52 Support Dragon
Made to help firefighters and other rescue personnel. Its two hydraulically powered arms can hold about a half-ton each, strong enough to move steel girders and other debris, or hold up a collapsing wall or ceiling. It can be controlled either by a human in the cockpit or remotely via mobile phone.
Robot RX
Eliminating medical errors is the goal and this robot is less likely to make mistakes filling prescriptions than human pharmacists. Computers continue to monitor the medicines.
Experimental Bionic Arms
Implanted electrodes in the brain can help direct the movement of a robotic arm.
Big Dog
This canine robot is being built for the U.S. Department of Defense, would have four legs and would run alongside troops on their missions, carrying ammunition and performing basic reconnaissance tasks.
February 17, 2004
Self-healing Computers
IBM recently unveiled business systems (software and hardware) that can heal and run themselves. This technology is known as self-healing technology or autonomic computing.
The basic premise for this technology was modeled on Deep Blue, the supercomputer that beat world chess champion Gary Karparov. Big Blue was given a set of rules and weighed each option before making the best possible move. Self-healing machines can sense a problem or failing part in a network or system, analyze the difficulties and re-route to alternate networks, computers or even switch to a backup chip.
The ultimate goal is to have the machine think for itself without human input, to be able to boot up backup systems, and even to order spare parts to ensure sure that the people running the system never know there is a problem.
The 4 elements of self-managing autonomic systems include:
Self-configuring
The seamless integration of new hardware resources and the cooperative yielding of resources by the operating system is an important element of self-configuring systems. Hardware subsystems and resources can configure and re-configure autonomously both at boot time and during run time. This action may be initiated by the need to adjust the allocation of resources based on the current optimization criteria or in response to hardware or firmware faults. Self-configuring also includes the ability to concurrently add or remove hardware resources in response to commands from administrators, service personnel, or hardware resource management software.
Self-healing
With self-healing capabilities, platforms can detect hardware and firmware faults instantly and then contain the effects of the faults within defined boundaries. This allows platforms to recover from the negative effects of such faults with minimal or no impact on the execution of operating system and user-level workloads.
Self-optimizing
Self-optimizing capabilities allow computing systems to autonomously measure the performance or usage of resources and then tune the configuration of hardware resources to deliver improved performance.
Self-protecting
This allows computing systems to protect against internal and external threats to the integrity and privacy of applications and data.
IBM Information on Autonomic Computing