Blogs / Discoblog

Internet speed is awful in South Africa—so awful, in fact, that Unlimited Group, an insurance and financial company in Durban, has decided to use pigeons rather than e-mail.

Unlimited Group sent Winston, an 11-month-old pigeon, on a 50-mile trip with an encrypted data card attached to his leg. It only took the bird one hour and eight minutes to deliver the info to the main call center. That beats the six hours it would have taken to send four gigabytes of information over the Internet. And if the weather is bad, it can take as long as two days.

The Daily Mail reports:

Kevin Rolfe added: ‘For security reasons the information on the memory card attached to Winston has to be very thoroughly encrypted, as it contains personal details of people who call our centre.

‘With modern computer hacking, we’re confident well-encrypted data attached to a pigeon is as secure as information sent down a phone line anyway.

‘There are other problems, of course. Winston is vulnerable to the weather and predators such as hawks. Obviously he will have to take his chances, but we’re confident this system can work for us.’

Internet is so unbelievably slow in South Africa because of the shortage of bandwidth, but it should pick up soon after the 10,500-mile fiber optic cable system is set up next year. The idea of using pigeons in the meantime isn’t all that crazy, given that the birds were used in World War I to send messages—still, in our tech-crazed era, it’s nothing short of shocking.

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Image: flickr/ El Gavacho

There’s no question technology is changing religious practices: You can Twitter prayers from home now, and even have them printed out and posted on Jerusalem’s Western Wall. And in the pre-computer era, it took years to decipher many ancient prayer texts. Leave it to Israeli researchers to create a computer algorithm that can read texts that were once illegible since the words have faded or been written over.

Just as forensic software deciphers fingerprints, this new algorithm pieces together written words—work usually reserved for historians and liturgists. The computer can read individual letters and identify handwriting styles in documents that have faded. Reuters reports:

The computer works with digital copies of the texts, assigning number values to each pixel of writing depending on how dark it is. It separates the writing from the background and then identifies individual lines, letters and words.

It also analyzes the handwriting and writing style, so it can “fill in the blanks” of smeared or faded characters that are otherwise indiscernible, Ben-Gurion of the University of the Negev said.

And the program only gets smarter as it begins to recognize the patterns in the writing and learns to guess what the missing words are.

Although ancient Hebrew texts are the only subjects tested so far, the researchers claim that the software is indeed multilingual.

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Image: flickr/ ramikey

Who hasn’t left the house in the morning, only to wonder if the stove is still turned on? Thanks to a new “smart home” that’s in development, you may be able to kiss those fears goodbye.

Sensors in the home monitor an inhabitant’s daily habits, such as when he or she turns on the oven or the lights. That way, if an appliance is accidentally left on, the house’s “brain” can recognize the mistake and turn it off.

New Scientist reports:

To maintain a resident’s sense of privacy Casas [the computer system that analyzes the sensors' output] works without cameras, RFID chips or microphones. Instead less “invasive” sensors that detect motion, temperature, light, humidity, water, door contact and the use of key items, such as opening a bottle of medication or switching on the toaster. “We don’t want to give residents the feeling that Big Brother is watching them,” says [researcher Parisa] Rashidi.

Rashidi came up with three algorithms to put the information collected by the sensors to use. One detects patterns of events, such as switching on the light before or after turning the microwave on. Another maps where the inhabitant usually walks throughout the house, and the third correlates certain events with the time of day these tasks generally are performed.

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Can your iPhone make you happier? But of course, according to a new application called “Live Happy.” The app is meant to boost contentedness by helping users practice “positive psychology.” It’s a technique that creates spurts of happiness that research suggests may boost overall well-being over time.

The app is based on research by psychologist Sonja Lyubomirsky, who has found that, for example, savoring common, yet pleasurable, experiences such as a hot shower can boost happiness. According to U.S. News & World Report:

The $6.99 Live Happy app allows users to track their happiness levels and practice some of her strategies—gratitude, for example, can be practiced by texting, emailing, or calling someone from your contact list. While Lyubomirsky is not profiting financially off the new app, she will be using it to study how her recommendations work in the real world.

So are iPhone users jumping to nab this joy-bringing app? Not all of them. When we offered one iPhone devotee a free trial of the app, he responded: “You know what would make me happy? Not spending so much time staring into an iPhone screen.”

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Image: flickr / William Hook

Trying to pack everything into a European vacation can leave you with little time to do activities you actually enjoy. European researchers involved in the iTacitus project are working to solve this problem by tapping into augmented reality, a technology that blends real world information with stored digital data.

The researchers want to create a virtual time machine for tourists who like to snap pictures. The program would use these photos to search for historical information based on the location, and create a “smart itinerary” so travelers could navigate from place to place.

First, you’d have to snap a photo with a smart phone or camera. Then the image would be downloaded to software stored on a central server, and you’d instantly have access to cultural and historical information about the place you’re visiting. Science Daily reports:

“[Tourists] can look at a historic site and, by taking a photo or viewing it through the camera on their mobile device, be able to access much more information about it,” explains Luke Speller, a senior researcher at BMT in the United Kingdom who oversaw development of the technology.

“They are even able to visualize, in real time, how it looked at different stages in history,” he adds.

Along with museums and tourist boards, the researchers hope that tourists will also contribute their travel experiences so they can build up a database of user-generated content.

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Image: flickr/ Ben

When dead bodies decompose, they release 30 compounds—two of which are appropriately named putrescine and cadaverine. While trained sniffing dogs do a decent job recovering bodies after natural disasters or in crime scenes, scientists are looking into a more automated process—one that would use an electronic device to sniff out any dead bodies in the vicinity.

To build up a database of dead body smells, Penn State University’s Dan Sykes and graduate student Sarah Jones euthanized pigs and created a profile of the odors their corpses produced. The deceased swine were put into a chamber with sensors that contain special fibers to measure the chemicals in the air every six to 12 hours, for one week.

Science Daily reports:

“In days one through three, we found precursors to indole, which is a really good sign. On day three, we found indole and putrescine, the main compounds that we were trying to detect,” Jones says. They now are capturing gases released in a variety of other scenarios to re-construct the different ways human bodies could decompose, creating a more complete picture of decomposition.

Pigs and humans decompose in similar “stages,” and thus have similar signatures of death. The predictable release of the odors also allows researchers to determine a body’s exact time of death. Though, of course, the smell of the cadaver also depends on the environment in which it is discovered. So the researchers will have to test many more environments before this electric nose device can fully take over a dog’s job.

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We’re not so sure that, when it comes time for your Discoblog editors to give birth, we’ll be punching the gory details into our Blackberries and sending them across the Internets. But hey, that doesn’t mean other women aren’t doing it! CNN reports on the “trend” of mothers-to-be-any-minute-now tweeting the ins and, er, outs of their labor. From the article:

[A]s Sara Williams showed on Tuesday when she posted Twitter updates about giving birth to her child, online social networking has pushed its way into the delivery room.

It’s now a trend for expectant moms to post to sites such as Twitter from the time they conceive to the moment they deliver a baby into the world.

Williams, wife of Twitter CEO Evan Williams, posted to her 14,000-plus Twitter followers when her water broke, when she arrived at the hospital, during contractions and when she decided to get an epidural. Her husband broke the news on his Twitter feed that their “perfect baby boy” was delivered on Tuesday afternoon.

And when the baby arrives, you can be sure to set your wee one up with his/her own post-utero feed—which some tech-loving parents have already done.

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Image: flickr / Mykl Roventine

In the recent Pixar movie Up, a group of dogs wear collars that translates their barks into humans words. Such a device is no longer just the stuff of animation: One is about to be, er, unleashed by a Japanese company that claims its collar can give humans a glimpse into Fido’s emotions.

But although the device would certainly be useful—wouldn’t it be helpful to know how your pup is feeling?—most experts are skeptical about whether the collar, called Bowlingual Voice, actually works. ABC reports:

The device includes a microphone worn around a dog’s neck and a separate digital reader that — the company says — translates barks into one of six emotional states: happy, sad, frustrated, threatening, needy or assertive…. [The developers] provided “research and development and consulting as well as aiding speech, acoustics and radio waves” for the Bowlingual Voice’s creation….

“It’s a cute idea,” said [organismic and evolutionary biologist] Kathryn Lord… “But it’s hard to see the world or feel the world like [dogs] do. When we say a dog feels something, it’s probably not exactly that.”

A consensus of experts agrees that while many humans have long yearned for the ability to communicate with animals, the concept is a myth that is both “crude” and “simplistic.” Still, that likely won’t keep pet-lovers from trying…

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For many people, texting serves as a useful tool. But for British student Caroline Tagg, a study of text-messaging earned her a PhD.

That’s right, Dr. Tagg now has a doctorate of philosophy in texting—the first of its kind.

To earn the degree, Tagg spent nearly four years studying a total of 11,000 text messages containing 190,000 words and sent by 235 people, all of which she compiled and analyzed in a database. The Telegraph reports:

[Tagg] discovered that people text in the same way as if they were talking, using unnecessary words such as ‘oh’, ‘erm’ and often use grammatical abbreviations like ‘dunno’….

And she discovered from her 80,000 word thesis that there is more to texting that just abbreviations—something most people associate with texting.

“Actually, not many people use abbreviations,” she said. “People use playful manipulation and metaphors. It is a playful language. Not only are they quite creative, it is also quite expressive.”

She found that the average text message contains 17.5 words and that (shocker) some texts can be about incredibly mundane matters—”Hi. I know you are at work but I just wanted you to know I found my pen lid” being a prime example. She also called the experience “enlightening.”

So what do you think: Was the research a waste of time, or is Tagg a pioneer in exploring the linguistics of our newest communication method?

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For hundreds of years, people have flocked to Jerusalem’s Western Wall to stuff prayer-laden slips of paper into cracks in the ancient structure. But let’s face it–for most of us, it’s quite a trek to Israel. Luckily, it’s now possible to submit your prayers via Twitter, from the comfort of your own desk chair.

AP reports:

The service’s founder, Alon Nil, says petitioners can tweet their prayers, and they will be printed out and taken to the wall, where they will join the thousands of handwritten notes placed by visitors who believe their requests will find a shortcut to God by being deposited there.

The 25-year-old economist started the Twitter page three weeks ago and has already received hundreds of prayers.

Even before the Western Wall got Twitterific, religious folk could submit prayers via fax or e-mail. But maybe there’s something special about boiling down your heart’s deepest wishes into 140 characters or less.

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Image: flickr / Mockstar