Engineers of the Future Design Star Trek-Inspired Tricorder Device

A group of college and high school students has designed a Star Trek-inspired sensing device that can beam environmental data to a smart phone. The team developed their project during a summer internship program run by the Wright Brothers Institute and the Air Force Research Laboratory. and shared their results at this fall’s World Maker Faire in New York City–a showcase of DIY ingenuity. The Summer at the Edge program gives student teams ten weeks to work on science and engineering projects. The tricorder device is the team’s response to a challenge from the U.S. Environmental Protection Agency: “Is there an effective way to integrate external sensors with smart phones and can we globalize this information?” Applications could range from data collection for research to educational hands-on activities to disaster-zone assessment. The description reminded the students of a Star Trek gadget. In the sci-fi television series, the tricorder is a hand-held device used to diagnose illness, scout alien planets and more. Several real-life tricorders have been developed or proposed and the 15-member student team decided to take a crack at designing their own. The device itself looks like a clear brick filled with computer parts and batteries. It is built around an open-source computing platform called an Arduino microcontroller and transmits data via Bluetooth. An environmental sensing pod connects to the controller and collects measurements on variables like temperature, wind speed and radiation levels. Users can view data collection in real time via Google maps or an interactive graph and monitor changes and search for patterns. The tricorder’s modular design lets the team swap functionalities while still using the same Arduino controller and software. To demonstrate, the team built an additional pod equipped with an infrared beam and motion detector–a security sensor. Along the way, the team faced some challenges. Getting the sensors and the tablet to talk to each other involved a lot of troubleshooting. “We were having a lot of trouble with the Bluetooth communications,” says Lujack Prater, a junior studying electrical engineering at Ohio State University, who worked on the software design. “It was a few days that we didn’t get it. We were working on it and working on it.” Then a breakthrough: “It was really exciting–I remember the first time we started getting data streaming to the tablet,” says Grace Crumrine, part of the hardware sub-team and a sophomore in electrical engineering at Ohio State University. “But it was completely corrupt and didn’t mean anything.” The team needed to iron out software glitches and calibrate their sensors. Crumrine explains that the wind sensor was just “spitting out analogue values and we didn’t know what they meant.” So they took the sensor for a ride. While her teammate drove, Crumrine stuck the sensor out the car window. They were able to determine which values corresponded to specific speeds by rolling down the road at five, then 10 miles per hour and so on. The EPA was impressed, says Rob Williams, head of the internship program and research director of the Air Force Research Laboratory‘s Discovery Lab. “The tricorder was one of the more ambitious research projects,” he adds. “I think it validated the model that we’ve been an advocate of–bringing together motivated students and giving them the opportunity to have fun learning while doing projects that have potential.” Other notable projects include a tablet-based virtual walkthrough of medical techniques to train physicians and a device that can detect the brain’s electrical signals to give quadriplegics control over robots. What’s the next step for Project Tricorder? Williams would like to find teachers and students around the country who want to use the team’s design. He says middle school students could use the device to see how technology can help protect the environment. The military could use it to download information to virtual command centers and guide decision-making during a search and rescue based on current conditions. The device’s multi-functionality and connection to a smart phone would be key advantage. Sensor pods could even be installed in remote or dangerous locations and still report via Bluetooth.

Lujack Prater and Grace Crumrine with their team's device at the World Maker Faire. Credit: Grace Crumrine

Both Prater and Crumrine say the program is hard work. Prater spent the first two weeks learning how to code and program Android devices. “You get so involved in the project that you forget what you are doing,” says Crumrine. “Then when you present it to people you see their face with all the excitement and astonishment. It is worth it.”

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U2′s Bono to urge U.S. politicians not to cut aid programs

WASHINGTON (Reuters) – Irish rocker and anti-poverty campaigner Bono will appeal to Democrats and Republicans during a visit to Washington this week to spare U.S. development assistance programs from cuts as Congress tries to avert the looming “fiscal cliff” of tax hikes and spending reductions early next year.

The U2 lead singer’s visit comes as the Obama administration and congressional leaders try to forge a deal in coming weeks to avoid the economy hitting the “fiscal cliff” – tax increases and spending cuts worth $ 600 billion starting in January if Congress does not act.

Analysts say the absence of a deal could shock the United States, the world’s biggest economy, back into recession.

Kathy McKiernan, spokeswoman for the ONE Campaign, said Bono will hold talks with congressional lawmakers and senior Obama administration officials during the November 12-14 visit.

During meetings he will stress the effectiveness of U.S. foreign assistance programs and the need to preserve them to avoid putting at risk progress made in fighting HIV/AIDS, tuberculosis and malaria, she said.

Bono, a long-time advocate for the poor, will argue that U.S. government-funded schemes that support life-saving treatments for HIV/AIDS sufferers, nutrition programs for malnourished children, and emergency food aid make up just 1 percent of the U.S. government budget but are helping to save tens of millions of lives in impoverished nations.

The One Campaign would not elaborate which lawmakers and senior Obama administration officials Bono will meet.

On Monday, Bono will discuss the power of social movements with students at Georgetown University. He will also meet new World Bank President Jim Yong Kim for a web cast discussion on Wednesday on the challenges of eradicating poverty.

(Editing by W Simon)

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Life is beautiful, pope tells fellow elderly

ROME (Reuters) – Pope Benedict visited a home for the elderly on Monday and told its residents that life can be beautiful at every age.

“I feel younger after being here,” the pope, 85, said as he was leaving a home run by the Roman Catholic Sant’ Egidio Community in a Rome neighborhood near the Vatican.

“In every age we have to know how to discover the presence of the blessings of the Lord and the riches that they contain,” he told the residents.

“You must never lock yourselves in sadness. Living is beautiful even at our age, even though we have some ailments and limitations,” he said.

His audience broke into applause when he told them that the quality of a society and a civilization can be judged by how they treat their elderly.

The Sant’ Egidio community, which has been nominated for the Nobel Peace Prize several times, runs homeless shelters, AIDS clinics and homes for the elderly on several continents.

In 1992 it brokered an end to the 15-year civil war in Mozambique, where it now runs programs to stop the passage of HIV/AIDS from mothers to their children.

(Reporting By Philip Pullella)

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BBC must reform or die, says Trust chairman

LONDON (Reuters) – The BBC could be doomed unless it makes radical changes, the head of its governing trust said on Sunday, after its director general quit to take the blame for the airing of false child sex abuse allegations against a former politician.

Chris Patten, chairman of the BBC Trust, said confidence had to be restored if the publicly funded corporation was to withstand pressure from rivals, especially Rupert Murdoch‘s media empire, which would try to take advantage of the turmoil.

“If you’re saying, ‘Does the BBC need a thorough structural radical overhaul?’, then absolutely it does, and that is what we will have to do,” Patten, a one-time senior figure in Prime Minister David Cameron‘s Conservative Party and the last British governor of Hong Kong, told BBC television.

“The basis for the BBC’s position in this country is the trust that people have in it,” Patten said. “If the BBC loses that, it’s over.”

George Entwistle resigned as director general on Saturday, just two months into the job, to take responsibility for the child sex allegation on the flagship news programme Newsnight.

The witness in the report, who says he suffered sexual abuse at a care home in the late 1970s, said on Friday he had misidentified the politician, Alistair McAlpine. Newsnight admitted it had not shown the witness a picture of McAlpine, or approached McAlpine for comment before going to air.

Already under pressure after revelations that a long-time star presenter, the late Jimmy Savile, was a paedophile, Entwistle conceded on the BBC morning news that he had not known – or asked – who the alleged abuser was until the name appeared in social media.

The BBC, celebrating its 90th anniversary, is affectionately known in Britain as “Auntie”, and respected around much of the world.

But with 22,000 staff working at eight national TV channels, 50 radio stations and an extensive Internet operation, critics say it is hampered by a complex and overly bureaucratic and hierarchical management structure.

THOMPSON’S LEGACY

Journalists said this had become worse under Entwistle’s predecessor Mark Thompson, who took over in the wake of the last major crisis to hit the corporation and is set to become chief executive of the New York Times Co on Monday.

In that instance, both director general and chairman were forced out after the BBC was castigated by a public inquiry over a report alleging government impropriety in the fevered build up to war in Iraq, leading to major organisational changes.

One of the BBC’s most prominent figures, Newsnight presenter Jeremy Paxman, said since the Iraq report furore, management had become bloated while cash had been cut from programme budgets.

“He (Entwistle) has been brought low by cowards and incompetents,” Paxman said in a statement, echoing a widely-held view that Entwistle was a good man who had been let down by his senior staff.

Prime Minister Cameron appeared ready to give the BBC the benefit of the doubt, believing that “one of the great institutions of this country” could reform and deal with its failings, according to sources in his office.

Patten, who must find a new director general to sort out the mess, agreed that management structures had proved inadequate.

“Apparently decisions about the programme went up through every damned layer of BBC management, bureaucracy, legal checks – and still emerged,” he said.

“One of the jokes I made, and actually it wasn’t all that funny, when I came to the BBC … was that there were more senior leaders in the BBC then there were in the Chinese Communist Party.”

Patten ruled out resigning himself but other senior jobs are expected to be on the line, while BBC supporters fear investigative journalism will be scaled back. He said he expected to name Entwistle’s successor in weeks, not months.

Among the immediate challenges are threats of litigation.

McAlpine, a close ally of former prime minister Margaret Thatcher, has indicated he will sue for damages.

Claims for compensation are also likely from victims who say Savile, one of the most recognisable personalities on British television in the 1960s, 70s and 80s, sexually abused them as children, sometimes on BBC premises.

INQUIRIES

Two inquiries are already under way, looking at failures at Newsnight and allegations relating to Savile, both of which could make uncomfortable reading for senior figures.

Police have also launched a major inquiry into Savile’s crimes and victims’ allegations of a high-profile paedophile ring. Detectives said they had arrested their third suspect on Sunday, a man in his 70s from Cambridgeshire in central England.

Funded by an annual licence fee levied on all TV viewers, the BBC has long been resented by its commercial rivals, who argue it has an unfair advantage and distorts the market.

Murdoch’s Sun tabloid gleefully reported Entwistle’s departure with the headline “Bye Bye Chump” and Patten said News Corp and others would put the boot in, happy to deflect attention after a phone-hacking scandal put the newspaper industry under intense and painful scrutiny.

He said that “one or two newspapers, Mr. Murdoch’s papers” would love to see the BBC lose its national status, “but I think the great British public doesn’t want to see that happen”.

Murdoch himself was watching from afar.

“BBC getting into deeper mess. After Savile scandal, now prominent news program falsely names senior pol as paedophile,” he wrote on his Twitter website on Saturday.

It is not just the BBC and the likes of Entwistle and Patten who are in the spotlight.

Thompson, whom Entwistle succeeded in mid-September, has also faced questions from staff at the New York Times over whether he is still the right person to take one of the biggest jobs in American newspaper publishing.

Britain’s Murdoch-owned Sunday Times queried how Thompson could have been unaware of claims about Savile during his tenure at the BBC as he had told British lawmakers, saying his lawyers had written to the paper addressing the allegations in early September, while he was still director general.

(Editing by Kevin Liffey and Sophie Hares)

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Malaysian charged with Facebook insult of sultan; sister says he’ll file police complaint

KUALA LUMPUR, Malaysia – The sister of a Malaysian man who has been charged with insulting a state sultan on Facebook says he is innocent and plans to lodge a complaint over his detention.

Anisa Abdul Jalil, sister of Ahmad Abdul Jalil, says her brother was charged Thursday with making offensive postings on Facebook last month.

She says the charges are ridiculous because there is no evidence linking Ahmad to the posts in question, which were made by someone using the name “Zul Yahaya.”

Ahmad was freed on bail Thursday after six days of detention. Anisa says he will file a complaint with police for unlawful detention and intimidation.

Nine Malaysian states have sultans and other royal figures. Though their roles are largely ceremonial, acts provoking hatred against them are considered seditious.

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Judy’s Garland’s Oz dress fetches $480K in auction

BEVERLY HILLS, Calif. (AP) — The now-faded blue gingham dress Judy Garland wore in “The Wizard of Oz” has sold for $ 480,000.

Auction house Julien’s Auctions says the pinafore fetched the highest price of any item during a two-day auction of Hollywood memorabilia that attracted bids from around the world. The auction ended Saturday in Beverly Hills, Calif.

Steve McQueen‘s racing jacket sold for $ 50,000, as did a purple skirt worn by Marilyn Monroe while filming “River of No Return” in Canada. Julie Andrews‘ “Sound of Music dress” brought $ 38,400.

Sunglasses worn by Jean Reno in “Leon” went for $ 8,320, while Johnny Depp‘s shades fetched $ 3,250.

Bidders also snapped up pieces of royal wedding cakes. Prince William and Kate Middleton’s cake sold for $ 7,500 while Prince Charles and Princess Diana’s cake sold for $ 1,375.

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Next-day discharge after C-section may be okay: study

(Reuters) – Some women who deliver their babies by cesarean section may be able to check out of the hospital the next day without raising their risk of problems, according to a Malaysian study.

The study, which appeared in the journal Obstetrics & Gynecology, looked at 360 women in Malaysia, who were randomly assigned to go home either one or two days after having a C-section.

Both groups were equally satisfied with their care, and the women who were discharged sooner seemed to have no more problems with breastfeeding or mental well-being.

“Day 1 discharge compared with day 2 discharge after a planned cesarean delivery resulted in equivalent outcomes,” wrote lead author Peng Chiong Tan, at the University of Malaya in Kuala Lumpur.

Those results don’t mean that hospitals should start discharging women the day after a C-section, but they do suggest that a next-day discharge is something women can talk about with their doctors, researchers said.

In the United States, where C-sections are done in about one-third of births, women typically stay in the hospital for three to four days after the procedure. That compares with about two days for women who deliver vaginally.

In the past, there were concerns about insurers pushing mothers to leave the hospital before they’re ready. That led to a 1996 law requiring insurers to pay for a 48-hour hospital stay after a vaginal delivery and a 96-hour stay after a C-section.

Still, the American College of Obstetricians and Gynecologists (ACOG) says a shorter stay after a C-section is an option if the baby is ready to go home, though the mother should meet certain requirements first such as normal blood pressure, no signs of infection and adequate pain control.

At Tan’s hospital in Malaysia, women who have a C-section are routinely told to expect just a two-day stay, and some providers there have discharged new mothers the day after.

Tan’s team randomly assigned the 360 women having a planned C-section to go home either one or two days after delivering. In the end, 16 percent of the women in the day-after group were not discharged that early, because either they or their babies were having problems.

But when they did go home the day after, there didn’t seem to be a greater risk of difficulties. When the women were interviewed two weeks later, 87 percent were happy with their discharge timing.

The same was true for almost 86 percent of women who went home two days after their C-section.

While the findings would likely extend to women in other countries too, these Malaysian women typically went home to a lot of support – often, an extended family network, Tan said.

“Where this support is not available, next-day hospital discharge may not be associated with the same degree of satisfaction, acceptability and good outcome as we have found,” she added.

SOURCE:http://bit.ly/TzbGoz

(Reporting from New York by Amy Norton at Reuters Health; editing by Elaine Lies)

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Obama hails veterans, pledges continued support

ARLINGTON, Virginia (Reuters) - President Barack Obama laid a wreath at the Tomb of the Unknown Soldier to mark the Veterans Day holiday on Sunday, declaring that soldiers' needs would be met even as the country winds down wars in the Middle East and Asia.

In the ceremony at Arlington National Cemetery, Obama pledged continuing support for veterans as they make the transition to civilian life.

"This is the first Veterans Day in a decade in which there are no American troops fighting and dying in Iraq," the president said at the cemetery across the Potomac River from Washington, where soldiers' graves are marked with row upon row of simple white stones.

"After a decade of war, our heroes are coming home," he said. "Over the next few years more than a million service members will transition back to civilian life."

The president touted the work of first lady Michelle Obama and Jill Biden, wife of Vice President Joe Biden, for their work in the Joining Forces campaign, which urges businesses to hire veterans. He also reaffirmed his commitment to continuing the post-9/11 GI Bill program, which provides college education funding for those who have served, and said soldiers suffering war-related health problems will get the care they need.

"No one who fights for this country overseas should ever have to fight for a job, or a roof over their head, or the care that they have earned when they come home," he said.

After the ceremony, Obama visited with people in an area of the cemetery known as Section 60, where many of the solders who died in the Iraq and Afghanistan wars are buried.

The Democratic president won re-election to a second four-year term on Tuesday and now faces tough negotiations with Republican congressional leaders to avoid sharp spending cuts that loom at the end of the year. A big chunk of those reductions would come through a decline in defense spending.

During the campaign, Obama and Biden regularly pledged their commitment to bringing troops home from Afghanistan and taking care of American veterans. Obama criticized his opponent, Republican Mitt Romney, for failing to mention the war in Afghanistan during his speech to the Republican National Convention.

(Reporting by Samson Reiny, writing by Mark Felsenthal; Editing by Doina Chiacu)

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Twin explosions strike southern Syrian city

BEIRUT (AP) — Syria‘s state-run news agency says two large explosions have struck the southern city of Daraa, causing multiple casualties and heavy material damage.

SANA did not immediately give further information or say what the target of Saturday’s explosions was.

The Britain-based Syrian Observatory for Human Rights says the blasts went off near a branch of the country’s Military Intelligence in Daraa.

The Observatory, which relies on a network of activists on the ground, says the explosions were followed by clashes between regime forces and rebels fighting to topple President Bashar Assad.

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SEC staffers used government computers for personal use: report

WASHINGTON (Reuters) – Several U.S. Securities and Exchange Commission staffers responsible for monitoring the markets and exchanges broadly misused computer equipment to download music and failed to properly safeguard sensitive information, a report has found.

In a 43-page investigative report that probed the misuse of government resources, SEC Interim Inspector General Jon Rymer discovered that an office within the SEC‘s Trading and Markets division spent over $ 1 million on unnecessary technology.

The report also found that the staffers failed to protect their computers and devices from hackers, even as they were urging exchanges and clearing agencies to do just that.

Although no breaches occurred, the staffers left sensitive stock exchange data exposed to potential cyber attacks because they failed to encrypt the devices or even install basic virus protection programs.

Reuters first reported on the unencrypted computers on Thursday, citing people familiar with the matter.

On Friday, however, Reuters reviewed a copy of the full report, which details an even broader array of problems, from misleading the SEC about the office’s need to buy Apple Inc products, to cases in which staffers took iPads and laptops home and used them primarily for pursuits such as personal banking, surfing the Web and downloading music and movies.

The report says the staff may have brought the unprotected laptops to a Black Hat convention where hacking experts discuss the latest trends. They also used them to tap into public wireless networks and brought the devices along with them during exchange inspections.

In at least one case, a staffer admitted to using his personal e-mail to send his work e-mail sensitive data about the Depository Trust & Clearing Corp, the U.S. equities market’s clearing agency. When asked about this, he called it “a mistake” and “bad judgment” on his part.

“While they were using unencrypted laptops themselves, they were recommending to the (exchanges and clearing agencies) that they encrypt their laptops,” Rymer wrote in his report, which is dated August 30.

“The inspector general found that four staff members had used unencrypted laptop computers in violation of SEC policy,” SEC spokesman John Nester said.

“Although we found no evidence that data was compromised, the problem was fixed and the two staffers responsible for maintaining and configuring the equipment are no longer with the agency.”

Rymer’s report comes as the SEC is encouraging companies to get more serious about cyber attacks. Last year, the agency issued guidance that public companies should follow in determining when to report breaches to investors.

The office that was the subject of Rymer’s investigation is responsible for ensuring exchanges are following a series of voluntary guidelines known as “Automation Review Policies,” or ARPs.

These policies call for exchanges to establish programs concerning computer audits, security and capacity. They are, in essence, a road map of the capital markets’ infrastructure.

Rymer found that the office did not have any planning or oversight into its purchases of computer equipment. From 2006 through 2010, the office got permission to spend $ 1.8 million on technology devices.

The report also found that some people who worked in the office had little or no experience with exchange technical matters.

(Reporting By Sarah N. Lynch; Editing by Matthew Goldstein and Andre Grenon)

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