Emerging tech

Google edges toward Rosetta Stone status

Google is making a new move to lower language barriers, offering the ability to translate search results from one language to another.

The search giant is in the process of adding the feature to the "show options" button that shows at the top of search results page. "We've offered this feature in Google Translate for a while, but now we're integrating it fully into Google search, making it easier for you to find and read results from pages across the web, even if they weren't written in a language you speak," said Maureen Heymans, the project's technical leader, and Jeff Chin, its product manager, in a blog post.

Clicking the option can dramatically change the results you see. For example, my ordinary search for "Taipei Museum of Fine Art" produced mostly English-language results. The translated results, though, featured Chinese Web sites with a different perspective (see the result below). Among other things, there was a Chinese Wikipedia entry--also conveniently translated by Google when I clicked the link--where there is none written in English. … Read more

Teen scientists vie for $100,000 prize in N.Y.

First, 2,151 high school students registered to compete. Then 414 regional and semifinalists were chosen. Today, an elite group of just 20 finalists is gathering in New York for the highly prestigious--not to mention high stakes--Siemens Competition in Math, Science, & Technology.

The grand prize, at $100,000, could actually put one of these kids through about half of college, if they don't already have other scholarship offers flooding their mailboxes.

The 20 student presentations are scheduled for live broadcast on Sunday, December 6, at 1 p.m. EST, while the press conference announcing the winners will … Read more

Disease-detecting device vibrates with potential

For centuries, humans have looked for signs of diseased tissue and organs by tapping the outside of the body to measure stiffness. Obviously such a method is only so effective, especially when trying to evaluate someone's liver, say, or heart. And more modern biopsies, while highly effective, are invasive procedures that involve removing tissue for examination.

Since 2007, researchers at the Mayo Clinic in Rochester, Minn., have been working with magnetic resonance elastography (MRE), a medical imaging technique developed to non-invasively diagnose and monitor disease.

The device they use, MR-Touch, uses low-frequency sound waves for just 15 seconds at … Read more

Intel hopes 48-core chip will solve new challenges

SAN FRANCISCO--Pushing several steps farther in the multicore direction, Intel on Wednesday demonstrated a fully programmable 48-core processor it thinks will pave the way for massive data computers powerful enough to do more of what humans can.

The 1.3-billion transistor processor, called Single-chip Cloud Computer (SCC) is successor generation to the 80-core "Polaris" processor that Intel's Tera-scale research project produced in 2007. Unlike that precursor, though, the second-generation model is able to run the standard software of Intel's x86 chips such as its Pentium and Core models.

The cores themselves aren't terribly powerful--more like lower-end Atom processors than Intel's flagship Nehalem models, Intel Chief Technology Officer Justin Rattner said at a press event here. But collectively they pack a lot of power, he said, and Intel has ambitious goals in mind for the overall project.

"The machine will be capable of understanding the world around them much as humans do," Rattner said. "They will see and hear and probably speak and do a number of other things that resemble human-like capabilities, and will demand as a result very (powerful) computing capability." … Read more

Note to hospitals: The pen is mightier than the data entry worker

It all started when anesthesiologist Vernon Huang wanted to figure out a better way to streamline his billing. How could he bridge the gap between what's written on paper and what must be entered into an electronic database?

Huang, who's clocked in time as a senior manager for health care markets at Apple, designed the application for a digital pen whose tiny camera embedded right next to the ink cartridge captures every stroke of the written word on film and whose images are uploaded wirelessly and automatically to a remote database.

He knew such an invention has a range of applications well beyond billing, and founded Shareable Ink (headquartered in Newton, Mass., with a branch in San Mateo, Calif.). Medgadget caught up with Huang at TedMed and posted a shaky but informative demonstration:

There is, of course, competition.… Read more

A stethoscope app? Be still my beating heart

If you're the kind of person who likes to take scissors to old gadgets, this one's for you. Start-up RidRx is now selling an adapter to connect old stethoscopes to an iPhone or iPod Touch, along with a phone dock/holder and an app that translates the audio your stethoscope captures into such delightful digital accoutrements as sound spectrograms.

And yes, the firm's easy-to-follow instructions include taking trauma shears to your old 'scope to fit it to the patent-pending iStetho Adapter. So the whole process, from tinkering with hardware to taking current heart-rate readings with the iStethoscope … Read more

Cough into your cell phone, not your sleeve

We've already written this week about using cell phone imaging to analyze a blood sample and diagnose disease. Because viruses such as influenza are smaller than light waves, diagnosing something like H1N1 is not yet possible.

Thankfully, the sounds of our coughs might be all we need to diagnose whether we have a cough, flu, or respiratory disease. It all boils down to the quality of a cough, such as whether it is dry or wet (aka "productive" or "unproductive"), where the presence or absence of mucus on the lungs helps to determine the cause … Read more

Google hopes Go will give a browser boost

Google, ever eager to renovate the computing industry for the benefit of the Web and its own business, is working to link two nascent but potentially significant projects, its experimental Go programming language and its Chrome Web browser.

Specifically, the company is building a foundation to let programs written in Go run directly within a Web browser endowed with Google's Native Client software. Native Client is designed to let browser-based programs run faster than is possible with today's widely used JavaScript; though it's still in its early stages, it's built into Chrome and available as a … Read more

Google hopes to remake programming with Go

Google software luminaries such as Unix co-creator Ken Thompson believe that they can help boost both computing power and programmers' abilities with an experimental programming language project called Go.

And on Tuesday, they're taking the veil of secrecy off Go, releasing what they've built so far and inviting others to join the newly open-source project.

The computing industry is in constant tension between making a fresh start and evolving the current technology. The limits of today's hardware designs and programming technology led the Go team to take the former approach.

"We found some of those problems … Read more

Intel debuts text reader for the blind

Intel is doing its part to help people with sight or reading disabilities enjoy the written word.

The company announced on Tuesday the debut of the Intel Reader, a handheld text-to-speech device that can read any printed text aloud to those who are blind or have difficulties seeing or reading.

The Atom-powered device uses a high-resolution camera to capture images of any printed text, which it then converts into digital format to read out loud. The Reader can be used as a standalone device to snap pictures of text. But paired with Intel's Portable Capture Station, which can hold the Reader in place, the device can grab huge amounts of text, such as an entire book, according to Intel.

"We are proud to offer the Intel Reader as a tool for people who have trouble reading standard print so they can more easily access the information many of us take for granted every day, such as reading a job offer letter or even the menu at a restaurant," said Louis Burns, vice president and general manager of Intel's Digital Health Group, in a statement.

A check at some of the retailers selling the Intel Reader revealed its base price to be $1,499, with the Portable Capture Station an additional $399.

Weighing one pound, the Reader is the size of a paperback book. The tactile buttons and voice-operated menus that control the device have been designed so sightless people can use it, Intel said. Individuals with poor vision can also zoom in or out of the display and increase the font size of its text.… Read more