Peruvian and Belgian researchers have developed an open source mobile learning application that enables health-care workers to connect to the free learning platform Moodle with their iPhone or iPod. The application was tested by health-care workers engaged in 20 clinics throughout Peru. The three-month pilot program used multimedia, three-dimensional animations, group discussions, policy documents, and peer-reviewed literature. The researchers are now finalizing the code before making it available under a Create Commons GNU license. Once the application is completed, the researchers say that institutions, nongovernmental organizations, and companies will be able to use the code to develop their own mobile learning environments.
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Frank Moss, head of the Media Lab at the Massachusetts Institute of Technology (MIT), says there are real opportunities in developing technology for disabled or disadvantaged people, and believes they will translate into great commercial hits. For example, MIT’s Rosalind Picard is creating a system for people with autism that can tell from a person’s head movements and facial expressions if they are confused, interested, or disagreeing. The system then feeds the information to a display in the corner of a pair of glasses. “The idea is to supply autistic people with the cues they would otherwise miss,” says Moss. Meanwhile, MIT’s Hugh Herr has designed a supportive exoskeleton that enables a person to run with the same energy they would normally use to walk. And MIT research assistant John Moore has built an artificial intelligence system that collects information from a patient and creates a report for the doctor. The patient talks to an avatar, which uses natural language processing to interpret what the patient says.
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Cornell University (CU) professor Hakim Weatherspoon and IBM researchers are studying the causes of data distortions and are developing ways for cloud computing applications to deal with them. The research involves a testbed called the Cornell NLR Rings, which sends data on loops of up to 16,000 miles around the National LambdaRail high-speed fiber-optic research network. Weatherspoon and Cornell physics post-doctoral researcher Daniel Freedman developed an apparatus that uses a very precisely modulated laser to generate packets of optical signals and to analyze what comes back with sub-picosecond accuracy. Early testing found that transmission problems show up on the uncongested LambdaRail network, meaning they also may appear on private networks used by businesses and institutions. “I have discovered that contrary to the widely held supposition that such networks are largely stable, lossless, and jitter free, these networks can be rather unstable, prone to loss, and sources of significant jitter,” Weatherspoon says.
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The U.S. Election Assistance Commission (EAC) released guidelines that would allow nearly 3 million overseas and military voters to cast votes over the Internet in November. The EAC plan worries cybersecurity experts, election officials, and voting integrity advocates. They note that email messages and voting Web sites are vulnerable to interception or hacking. Congress mandated in 2009 that the EAC develop guidelines for pilot programs to aid overseas voting, including online voting. Most states seek EAC certification of voting technology, and the commission’s Jeannie Layson says “the EAC hopes that the work we do in 2010 will assist states already running pilot programs to improve services for military and overseas voters.” The majority of the 33 states that have developed pilot programs for Internet voting will let voters send completed ballots as an email attachment, while faxes, which are another approved method for sending votes, are increasingly being sent on the Web due to the growing use of voice-over-Internet phone service. Critics say the EAC is circumventing the technical board that is supposed to review new regulations and also may be violating federal law by not allowing enough time for public comment on the guidelines.
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European researchers working on the INTAMAP project have developed a statistical tool that can turn a set of point measurements into a contour map that can be published on the Web in real time. The INTAMAP project, led by University of Munster’s Edzer Pebesma, uses a process called interpolation to find the value of an environmental variable at a point on a map where there is no monitoring device. The system creates a contour map that shows what is happening between the measurement points and describes how accurate those measurements are. The open source interpolation software accepts raw data published on the Web using standards developed by the Open Geospatial Consortium (OGC). INTAMAP analyzes the data and conforms to OGC standards to create maps automatically, display them on the Web, and update them as needed. Pebesma says the INTAMAP tools could help researchers study weather patterns, groundwater pollution, agriculture, medical imaging, and other areas where a two-dimensional picture needs to be created from a series of point readings.
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IBM and Singapore’s Nanyang Technological University (NTU) announced a joint effort to research and develop a platform for the convergence of cloud computing and high performance computing (HPC). “This collaboration between IBM and NTU pushes the envelope of technology to test leading-edge applications that will benefit faculty, students, and also business and government organizations that seek to leverage the power of cloud computing and high performance computing,” says IBM Singapore chief technologist Foong Sew Bun. NTU professor Soh Yeng Chai says the joint research effort “will place NTU at the forefront of high performance computing, and hopefully encourage [small and medium-sized businesses] as well as large organizations to leverage HPC-cloud computing.” The initiative will enable NTU faculty to pursue HPC and cloud-computing projects relevant to different industries, including engineering, mathematical sciences, finance and business, and medical research. The collaboration initially will focus on interactive digital media and business analytics.
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