via New Scientist

A printer that spits out ultra-fine droplets of cells instead of ink has been used to print live brain cells without causing them any apparent harm. The technique could open up the possibility of building replacement tissue cell by cell, giving doctors complete control over the tissue they graft.

The device is a variant of a conventional ink-jet printer. Instead of forcing individual droplets of ink through a needle-shaped nozzle and onto the page, the cell printer uses a powerful electric field to produce droplets just a few micrometres in diameter, far smaller than is achievable by other means.

Several research groups have shown that modified ink-jet printers can spray droplets of live cells suspended in a sustaining solution. But these devices have not been able to print droplets smaller than 20 m across, because ultra-fine nozzles are prone to blocking.

via New Scientist

The world’s first walking humanoid robot is set to make its office debut in 2006 as a receptionist…

…The prototype, unveiled in Tokyo, can guide guests to a meeting room, serve coffee on a tray and push a cart with a load of up to 10 kilograms, says Honda.

…”Honda is aiming to create a humanoid robot that can help people and live together with people.”

Watch the video

(Photo credit: Honda)

The Metaverse Roadmap: Pathways to the 3D Web

ASF is embarking on a major new foresight project in 2006: the Metaverse Roadmap (MVR).

The MVR is a comprehensive 10-year technology forecast and visioning survey of 3D Web technologies, markets, and applications…

…Designed as a “living forecast,” the MVR aims to be regularly updated by an expert community of interest in a range of technology, business, policy, and social science domains.

Excerpts from Alvin Toffler’s classic book Future Shock (1970):

Future shock is a time phenomenon, a product of the greatly accelerated rate of change in society. It arises from the superimposition of a new culture on an old one. It is culture shock in one’s own society…

…To understand what is happening to us as we move into the age of super-industrialism, we must analyze the processes of acceleration and confront the concept of transience. If acceleration is a new social force, transience is its psychological counterpart, and without an understanding of the role it plays in contemporary human behavior, all our theories must remain pre-modern.

…The pattern here… is absolutely clear and unmistakable. Millennia or centuries go by, and then, in our own times, a sudden bursting of the limits, a fantastic spurt forward… The reason for this is that technology feeds on itself. Technology makes more technology possible, as we can see if we look for a moment at the process of innovation. Technological innovation consists of three stages, linked together into a self-reinforcing cycle. First, there is the creative, feasible idea. Second, its practical application. Third, its diffusion through society.

…The acceleration of change… radically alters the balance between novel and familiar situations. Rising rates of change thus compel us not merely to cope with a faster flow, but with more and more situations to which previous personal experience does not apply. And the psychological implications of this simple fact… are nothing short of explosive.

Special offer: You can purchase a used copy of Future Shock at the Accelerating Technology Bookstore for only 1 cent!   Order Now!

CBS News

How’s this for an offer you can’t refuse: how would you like to live say, 400 or 500 years, or even more and all of them in perfect health? It’s both a Utopian and a nightmare scenario but there are those who say it is well within the realm of possibility.

via useit.com

The Internet is growing at an annualized rate of 18% and now has one billion users. A second billion users will follow in the next ten years, bringing a dramatic change in worldwide usability needs.

via Future Salon and Waynerad

1. Your Body Is Younger Than You Think

2. ‘Thoughts read’ via brain scans

3. Read All About It

4. New insights into brain cell metabolism from PET and MRI scans

5. Introverts in an extrovert’s world

6. Why this brain flies on rat cunning

7. Scientists Uncover New Clues About Brain Function in Human Behavior

8. Modelling the mind

9. African-Americans and Caucasians have similar emotional brain activity when seeing African-Americans

10. Neuromarketing: Smart Marketing Or Jedi Mind Control Trick?

11. The Coming Boom

via Discovery Channel

The ability to express feelings is difficult enough for humans, but now a humanoid robot named Kansei is able to frown or smile according to a flow of artificial consciousness.

Kansei’s ability to communicate feelings makes it one step closer to recognizing when humans are happy or sad, an important characteristic for machines expected to one day help care for the elderly, clean house, or greet people at a reception desk.

“Kansei is a comprehensive concept useful for the design of human interface. It includes sensibility, sensitivity, feeling and emotion,” said Shigeki Sugano, professor of mechanical engineering at Waseda University in Tokyo and an expert in humanoid robots.

Watch video of Kansei’s range of emotions