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Arthur T Knackerbracket has found the following story:

A 'smart glove' that translates sign language from hand gestures to visual text on a screen and audible dialogue has been developed by a Goldsmiths, University of London student. She's now working on an app to enable real-time translation of the text into other languages.

Her first experimental prototype translated sign language gestures into visual letters on a screen. The glove's circuit comprised of flex sensors, an accelerometer, a microcontroller board, and a four digit graphic numerical display.

Five flex sensors were attached to the glove corresponding to the five fingers, detecting bends and curvatures then reporting the values to a serial monitor. An accelerometer was attached to detect the orientation of the hand.

Hadeel also developed a computer programme that identifies the output values of the sensors and accelerometer and matches them with a series of statements which determine what letters to display on a screen.

Her second prototype was better, faster and more durable, with smaller hardware and more efficient software. She incorporated a smaller microcontroller and smaller flex sensors and redesigned the software to allow text to scroll on a screen, deleting the old and adding the new.

The third and latest prototype – which now incorporates a text-to-speech chip - went on display at the Goldsmiths MA/MFA Computational Arts end-of-degree show earlier this month. Much of the glove's hardware is now sewn into a lining:

"I didn't want all the wires to intimidate users, making them feel the glove will be complicated to use or really fragile," Hadeel explains. "People tend to lean to the cautious side when approached with new high-tech products which contradicts the main purpose of this glove, which is to help make lives easier."

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Original Submission

takyon writes:

Stroke victims with weakened hand function can wear an electrical stimulation glove to improve dexterity:

According to new research [open, DOI: 10.1161/STROKEAHA.116.013791] [DX] published in the American Heart Association journal Stroke, researchers at the MetroHealth System, Case Western Reserve University, and the Cleveland Functional Electrical Stimulation Center have developed a therapy whereby patients can be in control of the stimulation to their weak hand. The electrical currents are delivered using a glove with sensors. By wearing the glove on their unaffected hand and opening their fingers, the affected side receives a similar amount of stimulation to open the weakened hand. This wearable technology put the patient back in control of their hand while enabling them to participate in electrical stimulation therapy.

"Based on positive findings from our previous studies, we sought to determine if the new glove-controlled hand stimulation therapy could be more effective than the common therapy in improving hand dexterity in patients who are more than six months past their stroke," says Jayme S. Knutson, Ph.D., senior author of the study and an assistant professor of Physical Medicine and Rehabilitation at Case Western Reserve University School of Medicine in Cleveland, Ohio.

[...] Measurements of hand function were taken before and after therapy using a standard dexterity test that calculated the number of blocks participants could pick up from a table with their stroke-affected hand, lift over a barrier, and release to another area of the table within 60 seconds. The researchers found that participants from the group that used the electrical stimulation glove presented greater improvement on the dexterity test by 4.6 blocks on average, compared with the common therapy group, which improved by 1.8 blocks. Patients who displayed the most significant improvement on the dexterity test using the glove were less than 2 years post-stroke and had some finger movement at the start of the study. They improved by 9.6 blocks on the dexterity test, compared with 4.1 blocks in the common therapy group.

Patients with no finger movement at the beginning of the study also noted improvements in arm movement upon using the glove for the duration of the study. In total, 97 percent of participants agreed that their hand functioned better at the end of the study than at the beginning after using the new therapy.

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Original Submission

Phoenix666 writes:

Everyone experiences stiff muscles from time to time, whether after a rigorous workout, in cold weather, or after falling asleep in an unusual position. People with cerebral palsy, stroke and multiple sclerosis, however, live with stiff muscles every single day, making everyday tasks such as extending an arm extremely difficult and painful for them. And since there isn't a foolproof way to objectively rate muscle stiffness, these patients often receive doses of medication that are too low or too high.

Now, an interdisciplinary team of researchers at the University of California San Diego and Rady Children's Hospital has developed new wearable sensors and robotics technology that could be used to accurately measure muscle stiffness during physical exams. "Our goal is to create a system that could augment existing medical procedures by providing a consistent, objective rating," said Harinath Garudadri, a research scientist at the university's Qualcomm Institute and the project's lead investigator.

"Many clinical exams and procedures are very subjective and rely on measurements that are done with a physician's hands," said Andrew Skalsky, director of the division of Rehabilitation Medicine at Rady Children's Hospital. "We often make major medical decisions and diagnoses based on touch and feel. With this technology, we can start to develop objective measurements for subjective processes."

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Original Submission

An Anonymous Coward writes:

BrightSignGlove [Tumblr warning: script heavy and next to zero text] is a student project which recognises sign language and converts it into text. Users familiar with sign language [American Sign Language?] are able to capture large quantities of text and optionally output text to a large format display or a short message system - many of which are popular with deaf users. Custom gestures can be used to manage messages and it is conceivable that gestures could be used with home automation. This would be of particular benefit to users with mobility problems.

[Ed. Note: An older text article with a description of the glove and what it does. Seems very useful.]

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Original Submission

cafebabe writes:

Something odd is going on in finance this week. One unit of BitCoin briefly exceeded the value of a troy ounce of gold before it fell back. However, this occurred during Ethereum rallying to its current peak above US$100. Perhaps this is like comparing apples, oranges, and dog-biscuits but — as of this week — we now have a situation where Ethereum is well above the US$1 credibility threshold of most alternative digital currencies and, to a simpleton, BitCoin was more valuable than gold.

What changed? Nothing obvious. Banks have teams of shirking resume builders working on trendy projects and they've been working on digital currencies for years. Likewise, tranches of investments funds have been going into technology for decades. However, after puffing and bursting a housing bubble and educational bubble, is this the next place to jub other people's money? Is it Charles Stross' Accelerando coming to life? I don't know but I'll be very concerned if there is a financial wobble within the next month.

(External hyperlinks via Vinay Gupta, an Ethereum contributor, Ethereum evangelist and all-around great guy who helps the homeless.)

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[Ed Note: Asking what is Ethereum? Me too. Additional information on the above topic can be found at the IB Times]

Original Submission

takyon writes:

http://www.cnbc.com/2017/06/23/cramer-bitcoin-ethereum-craze-boosts-nvidia-and-amd-but-it-shouldnt-be.html

There are many reasons for investors to buy chipmakers Nvidia and Advanced Micro Devices, but the recent rush for an indirect way to play skyrocketing cryptocurrencies bitcoin and ethereum should not be one of them, CNBC's Jim Cramer said Friday. "One of the reasons why AMD and Nvidia have been going up is their chips are used for mining, for cryptocurrency mining," Cramer told "Squawk on the Street." But he warned, "Do not play it for this is what I'm saying. But it is being played for that." [...] Cramer cited a recent note from RBC Capital Markets, which said the growing cryptocurrency mining market has contributed $100 million worth of GPU sales for Nvidia in the past 11 days alone. "AMD chips are the best ones for the ethereum platform," he added.

An Anonymous Coward writes:

Although "offensive cyber" seems to have a different definition to my re-collection, Britain's Defence Secretary, Sir Michael Fallon, gave a speech at Cyber 2017 outlining how the Ministry of Defence is tackling today's cyber threats:

A stronger password here, a Windows update there, and we would have stood an even better chance of warding off the Parliamentary and Wannacry attacks. So my second point is that the MOD has a key role to play in contributing to a culture of resilience. That's why we set up the Defence Cyber Partnership Programme (DCPP) to ensure that companies with whom we have defence contracts are properly protecting themselves and meeting a host of cyber security standards.

Strengthening our deterrence

But there's a third way in which we can protect our national infrastructure, and that's by strengthening our deterrence. So we're using our rising budget to invest our £178bn in full spectrum capability, from carriers to Ajax armoured vehicles, fifth generation F35 to the latest UAVs, signalling to potential cyber strikers that the price of an online attack could invite a response from any domain, air, land, sea or cyber space. And when it comes to the latter, we're making sure that offensive cyber is now an integral part of our arsenal. We now have the skills to expose cyber criminals, to them hunt down and to prosecute them, to respond in kind to any assault at a time of our choosing.

Our National Offensive Cyber Planning allows us to integrate cyber into all our military operations. And I can confirm that we are now using offensive cyber routinely in the war against Daesh, not only in Iraq but also in the campaign to liberate Raqqa and other towns on the Euphrates. Offensive cyber there is already beginning to have a major effect on degrading Daesh's capabilities.

Unfortunately, the Vault7 leaks show that at least one nation-state believes it is able to imitate attacks from other nation-states:

What was once conspiracy is now fact, as it appears the CIA has essentially developed their own NSA without the oversight. Under the Center for Cyber Intelligence (CCI), over 5,000 hackers have produced more than a thousand hacking systems, trojans, viruses, and other "weaponized" malware targeting everything from anti-virus software to commonly used consumer devices. This includes malware which makes it look like it was planted by a foreign government or hacker. This includes Russia, essentially proving the CIA has the ability to plant evidence to make it look like Russian hackers were the culprits. This potentially disrupts and discredits the entire Russia hacking narrative being pushed by the media.

So, under Britain's official foreign policy, when a country has sustained attacks or just a flaky infrastructure, that's sufficient justification to bomb a random country rather than attack the wrong computers. After Iraq was bombed for having Weapons of Mass Distraction and bombed again due to Saudi Arabian terrorists, will North Korea get bombed due to NHS failure?

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Original Submission

takyon writes:

German retailer MindFactory has removed many AMD and Nvidia graphics cards from sale because the products have a delivery time of 3 months. According to them, the GPU shortage affects "the whole of Germany" or even the "whole Europe".

The demand for GPUs to mine cryptocurrencies, particularly Ethereum, has led to OEMs creating products specifically tailored to cryptocurrency mining. For example, new cards that are smaller, have fewer display ports, with cooling systems:

While the GPU shortage continues, there are some signs of improvement. There are now several models of Nvidia's GeForce GTX 1070 in stock from various OEMs, but prices remain high and relatively close to the price of the GTX 1080. There are also a few more GTX 1060 6GB graphics cards available, and the price on the least expensive one has dropped significantly, down from $484.80 to $259.99.

At the same time, however, the price on the least expensive GTX 1050 Ti has climbed by about $10, and several models now cost around $200. The price on the least expensive Geforce GTX 1060 3GB has also climbed by roughly $20, as well. This likely indicates that sales of these cards have increased somewhat, pushing prices up accordingly.

Meanwhile, several OEMs, including Asus, Biostar, Sapphire, and Zotac, have announced new mining graphics cards that are tailored for cryptocurrency mining. We have also seen a new motherboard from Asrock that can support up to 13 GPUs for mining. Biostar has a similar board for AM4 CPUs that can support six GPUs. Although we haven't seen them yet, EVGA and MSI also have mining GPUs coming soon, and MSI will also have a motherboard designed for mining. Although these may be attractive to cryptocurrency miners, one source told us that they use the same GPU cores as traditional graphics cards, and thus don't address the underlying supply problem.

The shortages go all the way to the source. OEMs are reportedly having trouble getting GPU cores from Nvidia, and Nvidia can't get enough from TSMC. This is presumably the same situation for AMD and GlobalFoundries.

Previously: BitCoin, Ethereum and Gold
Cryptocoin GPU Bubble?

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Original Submission