Girls Wetsuits And Other Specialized Products In The Booming Surfing

Surfing is more than just a fringe hobby or passing fad. It?s a multibillion dollar industry practiced by people of all ages, skill levels, and genders worldwide. The global reach of surfing has driven innovations in surfing products, to make it more accessible to anyone who wants get out and catch some waves. Special cuts and sizes of girls wetsuits, multiple board and fin types, and specialized gloves are just a few examples of the development of products for surfers of all types and all styles.

Warmth, buoyancy, sun protection, and protection from abrasion and other surface injuries are the top reasons for investing in a wetsuit. Wet suits for girls are designed to meet the specifications for female stature and body type, giving women the same advantages of wetsuits as men. They come in the standard thickness range of 2mm for warmer conditions up to 6mm for cold weather and winter surfing, and in a range of cuts for different levels of body coverage. The achievements of female surfers don?t change the fact that surfing is still a male-dominated sport ? by some estimates, only 10% of the surfing population is female. But this doesn?t mean women should expect an inferior product. With a wide range of girls wetsuits on the market, female surfers, divers, bodyboarders and wakeboarders don?t have to worry about heading into the water underdressed.

While the casual observer might assume all surfing is relatively similar, and thus all kinds of boards must be the same, the seasoned surfer knows that different terrains and styles demand different types of boards. The classic distinction between agressive, agile short boards and steady, cruising long boards has expanded to include multiple fin types and interchangeable fin systems, bindings for big-wave surfing, and even finless boards with hydrodynamic designs engineered into the board?s shape and thickness. Some would even argue that wakeboards, which have food bindings, a smaller size, and a symmetrical shape are an evolutionary offshoot of surfboards. Indeed, the early idea that led to wakeboarding was to just tow a surfboard behind a motorized vehicle.

Specialized gloves are another type of product that have emerged to serve a variety of ocean sports practitioners. It is possible to find gloves tailored to diving, surfing, and wakeboarding. While the specific forms will differ by sport, the general advantages to using such gloves are that they provide warmth and protection against the stress and fatigue incurred by long sessions in the water. Pushing off a surfboard right before catching a wave, gripping a wakeboard tow cable, and adjusting diving equipment underwater are all important tasks that are aided with gloves specified to each activity.

Surfing is a rather expensive pursuit, with costs in gear and transportation quickly adding up. Yet despite the costs required to participate on a regular basis, surfing continues to attract more and more followers. Because of the evident consumer demand, one can expect more innovations and product solutions to emerge. The anatomical cut of girls wetsuit or the functional engineering of specialty gloves are the foundations of a likely expansion in technology and equipment for surfing and other ocean sports.

Girls wetsuits are an example of the expansion of consumer choice in the surfing marketplace. Other innovations are emerging too.

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South Korea, Japan want U.S. to detail Iran sanctions (Reuters)

TOKYO/SEOUL (Reuters) ? South Korea and Japan will soon meet U.S. officials in Washington to ask how much oil they can import from Iran under new sanctions that leave the Asian nations with few alternative sources for energy, government officials said Wednesday.

Japan is the world's third biggest oil consumer, and South Korea is the fifth largest.

Both nations import significant amounts of crude from Iran, which they are under pressure to cut back to secure a waiver from a U.S. law imposing sanctions on financial institutions that trade with Iran's central bank.

Japan's foreign ministry said a delegation was due to hold talks in Washington Thursday as part of ongoing consultations and would seek clarity on the law, which is part of a raft of sanctions aimed at reining in Iran's nuclear ambitions.

"We don't know what the Americans want until we hold the meeting," a government official said.

The official said Japan would explain the nature of its trade with Iran, as well as ask the United States to exempt Japanese banks from sanctions. No concrete steps are expected to be agreed upon, he added.

South Korea's foreign ministry said a technical team was planning to visit the United States to discuss the Iranian sanctions, but would not give details about the trip.

Kurt Campbell, the top U.S. diplomat for East Asian Affairs, told reporters in Seoul the United States was keen to discuss the specifics of its sanctions with Japan and Korea soon.

"We welcome a prospective South Korean team coming to Washington to discuss specific aspects of various energy related and financial interactions between South Korea and Iran," he said.

"We want to work closely with countries like South Korea and Japan who have particular vulnerabilities in this regard."

South Korea, a key U.S. ally, has warned the United States it would have difficulty replacing Iranian crude supplies.

South Korean President Lee Myung-bak will visit major oil producers Saudi Arabia, Qatar and the United Arab Emirates next week to try and secure alternative sources of energy.

(Reporting by Jeremy Laurence in Seoul and Tetsushi Kajimoto in Tokyo; Writing by Miral Fahmy; Editing by Ed Lane)

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Lilly 4Q profit falls 27 pct, hurt by patent loss (AP)

INDIANAPOLIS ? Eli Lilly and Co.'s net income tumbled 27 percent in the last quarter of 2011 as the drugmaker faced another revenue-sapping patent expiration for a key product.

The Indianapolis company lost U.S. patent protection in October for its all-time best-selling drug, the antipsychotic Zyprexa, which generated 19 percent of its third-quarter revenue. Zyprexa sales fell 44 percent in the fourth quarter to $749.6 million.

Lilly also was hurt by a 62 percent drop in revenue from the cancer treatment Gemzar, which lost patent protection in 2010. But sales for its antidepressant Cymbalta and top-selling insulin Humalog made up for some of these losses, and the drugmaker's results beat Wall Street expectations.

Lilly shares climbed nearly 3 percent, or $1.15, to $40.40 in premarket trading Tuesday, after the company released results.

Lilly earned $858.2 million, or 77 cents per share, in the three months that ended Dec. 31. That's down from $1.17 billion, or $1.05 per share, in the final quarter of 2010.

Revenue fell 2 percent to $6.05 billion.

Adjusted earnings, which exclude some one-time charges, were 87 cents per share.

Analyst surveyed by FactSet expected, on average, adjusted earnings of 81 cents per share on $5.89 billion in revenue.

The drugmaker is entering a stretch where it faces patent expirations that will expose several drugs to cheaper generic competition. It loses patent protection for Cymbalta and Humalog next year. Sales for those drugs climbed 20 percent to $1.18 billion and 21 percent to $662 million, respectively, in the fourth quarter.

Lilly still has patent protection for Zyprexa in Japan, but it expects revenue from the drug to plunge by more than $3 billion this year.

The company has spent years preparing for these patent losses. It has cut more than $1 billion in costs since 2009 and trimmed its workforce.

It will depend on its pipeline of drugs under development, its animal health business, and sales in Japan and emerging markets like China to get through the expected revenue slump caused by the patent expirations.

Lilly has a dozen potential drugs in late-stage clinical testing, the last phase before a company seeks regulatory approval. That includes potential treatments for Alzheimer's disease, cancer and the immune system disorders lupus and psoriasis.

Some analysts doubt Lilly's ability to recover from the patent expirations without the aid of a major acquisition, and they wonder about the future of Lilly's dividend, which currently stands at a quarterly rate of 49 cents per share. Company officials have said repeatedly they expect to at least maintain their dividend and they plan no major deals.

For the full year, Lilly earned $4.35 billion, or $3.90 per share, on $24.29 billion in revenue, as seven drugs topped $1 billion in sales. Adjusted earnings for 2011 were $4.41 per share.

Lilly said earlier this month it expects to earn between $3.10 and $3.20 in 2012, which would represent a drop of between 27 percent and 30 percent. Analysts expect earnings of $3.21 per share.

Lilly has said it should record annual earnings of at least $3 billion on revenue of at least $20 billion through 2014.

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Fla. highway patrol defends reopening I-75 (AP)

GAINESVILLE, Fla. ? Minutes before two pileups killed 10 people on a highway shrouded in fog and thick smoke from a brush fire, the Florida Highway Patrol had reopened the always busy six-lane interstate after an earlier serious accident. A sergeant and lieutenant determined after about three hours that conditions had cleared enough for drivers, but visibility quickly became murky again, officials said Monday.

At least a dozen cars, six tractor-trailers and a motorhome collided at about 3:45 a.m. Sunday. Some cars were crushed under the bellies of big rigs. Others burst into flames and sent metal shrapnel flying through the air, horrifying witnesses watching the violence along Interstate 75 in calls to 911. Eighteen survivors were hospitalized.

In a 911 recording released Monday, a driver and her passengers told a dispatcher that the fog and smoke from the 62-acre brush fire was so thick they couldn't see.

"I think there was another accident behind us because I heard it," a woman said. "Oh my gosh, it's so dark here."

Highway patrol spokesman Lt. Patrick Riordan confirmed on Monday evening the names of four people who died in the crash: Pastor Jose Carmo Jr., Adriana Carmo, Leticia Carmo and Edson Carmo.

Jose and Adriana Carmo were married and Leticia was their daughter, said Arao Amazonas, senior pastor at their church, the Igreja Internacional de Restauracao, or International Church of the Restoration.

The couple's younger daughter, Lidiane, was injured in the crash, Amazonas said. A hospital spokeswoman said Monday afternoon that she was listed in critical condition.

Amazonas had been at a religious conference in Florida with the family and many others since Thursday. He said he spoke with the pastor before the family left Florida on Saturday night and urged him to wait until morning, he said. But Carmo told him he wanted to be back in time for the Sunday morning service.

The Carmos were in one van and other church members were in a second van. The passengers of that van called Amazonas after the accident to tell him what happened, he said.

About 100 people gathered Monday evening at the suburban Atlanta church, which caters to the local Brazilian community, to mourn the deaths of their fellow church members. People at the gathering wailed and wept as Amazonas addressed them in Portuguese.

"We couldn't have imagined such tragedy would come to us," Amazonas said.

Riordan declined to release the names of the two troopers who made the decision or provide details on how long they had been with the patrol. He said no troopers have been disciplined but the investigation into the crash continues. National Transportation Safety Board officials said Monday they are sending investigators to the scene. Gov. Rick Scott also called for an investigation.

"We went through the area. We made an assessment. We came to the conclusion that the road was safe to travel and that is when we opened the road up," Riordan said in a news conference. "Drivers have to recognize that the environment changes. They have to be prepared to make good judgments."

In the same 911 call, another woman took the phone and screamed an expletive as she hears another crash.

"That was a truck. We cannot see. It's like impossible to see," the caller said. "The smoke is very thick you can see obviously only your hand in front. I do hear an ambulance or police officer coming down the road."

Hours later, twisted, burned-out vehicles were scattered across the pavement, with smoke still rising from the wreckage. Cars appeared to have smashed into the big rigs and, in one case, a motor home. Some cars were crushed beneath the heavier trucks.

Reporters who were allowed to view the site saw bodies still inside a burned-out Grand Prix. One tractor-trailer was burned down to its skeleton, charred pages of books and magazines in its cargo area. And the tires of every vehicle had burned away, leaving only steel belts.

The Florida Forest Service said Monday it still had not determined if the fire was intentionally set or accidental, although lightning has been ruled out. Spokeswoman Ludie Bond said the fire is contained but was still burning. Firefighters are spraying water around its perimeter attempting to reduce the smoke.

Criminal defense attorneys said that if the fire was caused by arson, authorities likely will file charges of manslaughter and possibly felony murder, which is defined as a death that happens as result of participating in a felony.

"You can bet they will be," said Brian Tannebaum, a former president of the Florida Association of Criminal Defense Lawyers.

____

Associated Press writers Mike Stewart in Marietta, Ga., and David Fischer in Miami contributed to this report.

Source: http://us.rd.yahoo.com/dailynews/rss/topstories/*http%3A//news.yahoo.com/s/ap/20120131/ap_on_re_us/us_deadly_interstate_crash

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Koss revamps Porta Pro headphones with iPhone remote, intros 'interlocking' earbuds

We're baffled that we missed this gem of news during the bustle of CES, but it turns out that Koss has recently announced a new version of its iconic Porta Pro headphones. The Porta Pro KTC (Koss Touch Control), as it's dubbed, is essentially the same piece of retro kit that's been delighting ears and keeping wallets chubby for nearly three decades. The KTC bit in its name refers to the inclusion of an iDevice-certified inline remote / mic, aimed at keeping on-the-go users in sync with their playlists and phone calls. If you prefer earbuds, but hate tangled cords, then the company's interlocking intra-aurals might be to your liking. This lineup features in-ears which snap into each other for easier storage. You'll have a choice between the IL-100 and 200, the latter of which distinguishes itself with the mere addition of an inline remote for iPhones. While there's no word on pricing just yet for any of the aforementioned units, Koss aims to begin shipping the new audio-wares once spring is in full bloom. For now, you'll find the press releases and a render of the 'buds after the break.

Continue reading Koss revamps Porta Pro headphones with iPhone remote, intros 'interlocking' earbuds

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Can one professor teach 500,000 students at once?

Former Stanford professor Sebastian Thrun has already taught a class of 160,000. Now he's aiming to teach 500,000 students. ?

That?s what former Stanford professor Sebastian Thrun aims to do.

Skip to next paragraph Donald Marron

Donald B. Marron is director of the Urban-Brookings Tax Policy Center. He previously served as a member of the President's Council of Economic Advisers and as acting director of the Congressional Budget Office.

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Sound impossible? Well, he?s already taught a class of 160,000 students. As Felix Salmon recounts:

Thrun told the story of his?Introduction to Artificial Intelligence?class, which ran from October to December last year. It started as a way of putting his Stanford course online ? he was going to teach the whole thing, for free, to anybody in the world who wanted it. With quizzes and grades and a final certificate, in parallel with the in-person course he was giving his Stanford undergrad students. He sent out one email to announce the class, and from that one email there was ultimately an enrollment of 160,000 students. Thrun scrambled to put together a website which could scale and support that enrollment, and succeeded spectacularly well.

Just a couple of datapoints from Thrun?s talk: there were more students in his course from Lithuania alone than there are students at Stanford altogether. There were students in Afghanistan, exfiltrating war zones to grab an hour of connectivity to finish the homework assignments. There were single mothers keeping the faith and staying with the course even as their families were being hit by tragedy. And when it finished, thousands of students around the world were educated and inspired. Some 248 of them, in total, got a perfect score: they never got a single question wrong, over the entire course of the class. All 248 took the course online; not one was enrolled at Stanford.

?

And I loved as well his story of the physical class at Stanford, which dwindled from 200 students to 30 students because the online course was more intimate and better at teaching than the real-world course on which it was based.

?Inspired by that experience, Thrun has now founded Udacity, a private online university. As Nick DeSantis of the Chronicle of Higher Education reports:

One of Udacity?s first offerings will be a seven-week course called ?Building a Search Engine.? It will be taught by David Evans, an associate professor of computer science at the University of Virginia and a Udacity partner. Mr. Thrun said it is designed to teach students with no prior programming experience how to build a search engine like Google. He hopes 500,000 students will enroll.

Teaching the course at Stanford, Mr. Thrun said, showed him the potential of digital education, which turned out to be a drug that he could not ignore.

?I feel like there?s a red pill and a blue pill,? he said. ?And you can take the blue pill and go back to your classroom and lecture your 20 students. But I?ve taken the red pill, and I?ve seen Wonderland.?

That Wonderland will be a serious challenge to traditional chalk-and-talk universities ? and a wonderful opportunity to democratize knowledge around the globe.

The Christian Science Monitor has assembled a diverse group of the best economy-related bloggers out there. Our guest bloggers are not employed or directed by the Monitor and the views expressed are the bloggers' own, as is responsibility for the content of their blogs. To contact us about a blogger, click here. To add or view a comment on a guest blog, please go to the blogger's own site by clicking on dmarron.com.

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Ship carrying rocket parts hits Ky. bridge (AP)

LOUISVILLE, Ky. ? The voyage of a cargo boat that carries space rocket components to Florida's coast for NASA and the Air Force has stalled in a western Kentucky river after it slammed into an aging traffic bridge.

The bow of the Delta Mariner was covered in twisted steel and chunks of asphalt from the two-lane bridge. The boat hit the bridge Thursday night on the Tennessee River on its way to Cape Canaveral, Fla.

Kentucky Gov. Steve Beshear has promised speedy work to begin replacing the structure, formerly known as Eggner's Ferry Bridge. The five-story high Delta Mariner was too tall to pass through the portion of the bridge that it struck, and the resulting collision left a 300-foot wide gap.

"We were very fortunate that no one was on the span at that time," Beshear said Friday.

No injuries were reported on the bridge or boat, which was carrying space rocket parts from Decatur, Ala., to Cape Canaveral Air Force Station in Florida. The ship was traveling on its typical route to Florida's Atlantic coast when it hit the aging steel bridge, which was built in the 1930s and handles about 2,800 vehicles a day.

U.S. Coast Guard officials investigating the collision declined to comment Friday evening on a possible cause. Lt. Ron Easley in the Louisville office said a report would be issued but the investigation was not finished.

Sam Sacco, a spokesman for the ship's owner and operator, Foss Maritime of Seattle, said the Coast Guard inspected the vessel and interviewed crew members. Sacco said the boat was not severely damaged, and some of the crew remained on board Friday to ensure the cargo is safe.

Meanwhile, officials on land will perform an immediate review of options to restore the bridge, Beshear said.

Robert Parker was on the Kentucky bridge Thursday night and said he had to slam on his brakes when he saw a section missing ahead of him.

"All of a sudden I see the road's gone and I hit the brakes," said Parker, who lives in Cadiz. "It got close."

Parker said he stopped his pickup within five feet of the missing section.

The 312-foot, 8,400-ton Delta Mariner hauls rocket parts for the Delta and Atlas systems to launch stations in Florida and California, according to a statement from United Launch Alliance, which builds the rocket parts in Alabama. The cargo was not damaged in the collision with the bridge, the company said.

The rockets are used by the Air Force, NASA and private companies to send satellites into space, said Jessica Rye, a spokeswoman with United Launch Alliance.

Sacco said the ship's typical route to Florida takes it along the Tennessee and Ohio Rivers, then onto the Mississippi River to the Gulf of Mexico and on to Florida's east coast.

Sacco said he didn't believe that the Delta Mariner has had any major incidents before the collision. The ship became stuck in a sandbar on the Tennessee River in 2001 during a trip to Decatur, but it was later freed by a river tug after about an hour.

Lt. Gov. Jerry Abramson and Transportation Cabinet Secretary Mike Hancock were visiting the crash area Friday.

Transportation Cabinet spokesman Keith Todd told The Paducah Sun he believes most of the navigational lights were functioning on the bridge at the time of the impact.

The bridge at US 68 and Kentucky 80 opened in 1932, connecting Trigg County and Marshall County at the western entrance to Land Between the Lakes National Recreation Area. The transportation cabinet said the bridge was in the process of being replaced, and preconstruction work began months ago.

Source: http://us.rd.yahoo.com/dailynews/rss/space/*http%3A//news.yahoo.com/s/ap/20120127/ap_on_re_us/us_ky_bridge_collapse

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Rashad Evans earns title shot with UFC on Fox 2 decision

CHICAGO -- In a bout to decide the next light heavyweight title contender, Rashad Evans controlled Phil Davis on his way to a unanimous decision at the United Center on Saturday night. The judges saw it 50-45 on all three cards for Evans.

Davis landed a spinning leg kick, then ducked low into a takedown. Evans pushed him into the fence and fended off the takedown attempt. Every time Davis came in to try to get the takedown, Evans made him pay with a punch or two. Evans got a takedown at the 1:30 point of the first round, then moved to side control. From there, he put Davis into a crucifix hold and landed a bevy of short punches.

In the second round, Evans was aggressive, landing several punches early in the round. They clinched, but things slowed down considerably. They had a few striking exchanges, with Evans coming out on top. In the last 30 seconds, Evans took Davis down and again landed punches from side control.

Davis shot in for a takedown to start the third round. Davis drove him against the fence until he finally got the takedown. Evans reversed position and landed several lefts to Davis' face. They returned to their feet, and Davis got another takedown, and Evans returned to his feet while Davis held on for dear life.

Early in the fourth round, Davis landed a punishing rib kick, but Evans did not slow down. He continued to move forward, stalking Davis around the cage. When Davis shot in for a takedown, Evans fended him off before getting a takedown of his own.

Evans started the fifth round with a huge strike, and then held off Davis' attack. Evans caught a kick, then as he held the single leg, punched Davis until he went down. He stretched Davis into side control, and continued to land punches even as Davis worked to his feet. Evans controlled the rest of the round the way he controlled the whole fight.

With this win, Evans should punch his ticket for a fight with Jon Jones. The UFC announced Saturday that Jones' next bout will be in April in Atlanta. As long as Evans is healthy, the bout should be his.

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Notion in Motion: Wireless Sensors Monitor Brain-Waves on the Fly

eeg, brain, interface, game"TIP OF THE ICEBERG": NeuroSky, Inc.'s brain-computer interface shown here just scratches the surface of what is possible thanks to advances in mobile electroencephalographic (EEG) brain-wave detection technology, says University of California, San Diego's Scott Makeig. Image: Courtesy of Neurosky, Inc.

A fighter pilot heads back to base after a long mission, feeling spent. A warning light flashes on the control panel. Has she noticed? If so, is she focused enough to fix the problem?

Thanks to current advances in electroencephalographic (EEG) brain-wave detection technology, military commanders may not have to guess the answers to these questions much longer. They could soon be monitoring her mental state via helmet sensors, looking for signs she is concentrating on her flying and reacting to the warning light.

This is possible because of two key advances made EEG technology wireless and mobile, says Scott Makeig, director of the University of California, San Diego's Swartz Center for Computational Neuroscience (SCCN) in La Jolla, Calif. EEG used to require users to sit motionless, weighted down by heavy wires. Movement interfered with the signals, so that even an eyebrow twitch could garble the brain impulses.

Modern technology lightened the load and wirelessly linked the sensors and the computers that collect the data. In addition, Makeig and others developed better algorithms?in particular, independent component analysis. By reading signals from several electrodes, they can infer where, within the skull, a particular impulse originated. This is akin to listening to a single speaker's voice in a crowded room. In so doing, they are also able to filter out movements?not just eyebrow twitches, but also the muscle flexing needed to walk, talk or fly a plane.

EEG's most public face may be two Star Wars?inspired toys, Mattel's Mindflex and Uncle Milton's Force Trainer. Introduced in 2009, they let wannabe Jedi knights practice telekinesis while wearing an EEG headset. But these toys are just the "tip of the iceberg," says Makeig, whose work includes mental concentration monitoring. "Did you push the red button and then say, 'Oops!' to yourself? It would be useful in many situations?including military?for the system to be aware of that."

That kind of "mental gas gauge" is just one of many projects Makeig is running at the SCCN, which is part of U.C. San Diego's Institute for Neural Computation (INC). He also combines mobile EEG with motion-capture technology, suiting volunteers in EEG caps and LED-speckled spandex suits so he can follow their movements with cameras in a converted basement classroom. For the first time, researchers like Makeig can examine the thoughts that lead to movement, in both healthy people and participants with conditions such as autism. Makeig calls the system Mobile Brain/Body Imaging, or MoBI. It allows him to study actions "at the speed of thought itself," he says.

EEG does not directly read thoughts. Instead, it picks up on the electrical fields generated by nerves, which communicate via electricity. The EEG sensors?from the one on the Star Wars games to the 256 in Makeig's MoBI?are like microphones listening to those microvolt-strength neural signals, says Tansy Brook, head of communications for NeuroSky Brain?Computer Interface Technology in San Jose, Calif., makers of the chip in the Star Wars toys and many other research, educational and entertainment products.

For one project, Makeig is collaborating with neuroscientists Marissa Westerfield and Jean Thompson, U.C. San Diego researchers studying movement behavior in teenagers with autism. They put the teens, wearing the EEG sensors and LEDs, in Makeig's special classroom. Then, they project a spaceship on the walls. The kids have to chase the spaceship as it darts from one point to another. Although the results are not yet in, Westerfield suspects that people with autism, compared with those who are non-autistic, will take longer to process where the spaceship has gone and readjust their movements toward it. "If we had a better idea of the underlying deficits?then we could possibly design better interventions," such as targeted physical therapy for the movement problems autistic people have, Westerfield says.

Neuroscientists and psychologists have been using EEG to eavesdrop on brain waves since 1926, and doctors employ it to study sleep patterns and observe epileptic seizures. During most of that time, subjects had to sit in an electrically shielded booth, "like a big refrigerator," says John Foxe, a neuroscientist at Albert Einstein College of Medicine in New York City. He calls Makeig's MoBI "technical wizardry" that will enable scientists "to watch the brain and how it works in much more realistic settings."

Wireless EEG has already had an impact on gaming. San Francisco?based Emotiv has since 2009 sold its EPOC EEG headset, which uses electrical signals to determine a player's emotional state?excitement, frustration and boredom each create a different pattern. Gamers using Emotiv's technology can also create mental "spells" to lift or push virtual objects, says Geoff Mackellar, CEO of Emotiv?s research unit based in Sydney, Australia. The EPOC is also regularly used in research labs and may have medical applications in the future, Mackellar adds.

Wireless EEG technology provides signals as clear as the wired version, Makeig says, and at about 3.5 kilograms his machinery is "luggable." (Emotiv's and NeuroSky's headsets, which use fewer electrodes, are lighter.) "Of course, we're not starting with ballet dancers doing The Rite of Spring," he admits, but the team has succeeded with joggers on a treadmill. One challenge they would still like to overcome is to remove the sticky, conductive gel that goes under each electrode. It can certainly be done?Emotiv's electrodes use only saltwater and NeuroSky's are dry.

Tzyy-Ping Jung, associate director of the SCCN, predicts the group will make a dry, 64-electrode system within a couple of years. He and Makeig envision the headset will help paralyzed people interact with the world, warn migraine sufferers of an impending headache, and adjust computerized learning to match a student's personal pace, among other potential applications.

"It's certainly something that everyone can have at home," Emotiv's Mackellar says.

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Twitter to begin 'reactively' censoring tweets in specific countries, still no love for China

It's no secret that certain countries have different views over freedom of expression on the internet, but this hasn't stopped Twitter's attempt to keep its service running in as many places as possible. In its latest blog post, the microblogging service announced that it'll begin "to reactively withhold content from users in a specific country" when required, in order to keep said content available to all users elsewhere (as opposed to blocking it globally). The withheld tweets will be marked accordingly while their authors get notified with reasons where possible, and internet legal rights monitor Chilling Effects will also post the relevant take-down notices on a dedicated page.

This may seem like some form of censorship taking over Twitter, but the company only mentioned those of "historical or cultural reasons" like the ban of pro-Nazi content in France and Germany; so it's not clear whether Twitter will also handle similarly with tweets that potentially lead to events such as the UK riots last year. Even though Twitter didn't elaborate further for Reuters, there is one reassuring line in the post:

"Some [countries] differ so much from our ideas that we will not be able to exist there."

One such country is most likely China, and back at AsiaD in October, Twitter CEO Jack Dorsey told us that there's simply no way for his company to work with the Chinese government (you can watch him answering us at 38:17 in the video -- courtesy of All Things D -- after the break):

"The unfortunate fact is we're just not allowed to compete in this market, and that's not up to us to change. The person to ask is trade experts between both governments, but at the end of the day we can't compete. They (Chinese microblogging platforms) can compete in our markets, and we're certainly interested in what that means for us... We would love to have a strong Twitter in China, but we'd need to be allowed to do that."

There are obviously many factors that add up to this sour relationship, but the contradiction between China's strict internet monitoring policy and Twitter's core values is most likely the biggest obstacle. And of course, the Chinese government would favor its home-grown tech properties, anyway. That said, several months ago, one of the country's largest microblogging services Sina Weibo was criticized by the authorities for not censoring fast enough, so it's obvious that it'd be even trickier to work with a foreign company that sees things differently. Things are unlikely to change any time soon, or ever, unless China relaxes its policy.

Continue reading Twitter to begin 'reactively' censoring tweets in specific countries, still no love for China

Twitter to begin 'reactively' censoring tweets in specific countries, still no love for China originally appeared on Engadget on Fri, 27 Jan 2012 04:20:00 EDT. Please see our terms for use of feeds.

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Source: http://www.engadget.com/2012/01/27/twitter-censors-content-in-specific-countries/

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