Forget seeing how fast their fingers move across the keys, now you can see how fast their neurons fire — at least, that’s the premise behind GE’s Neuro VR experience, which allows you to explore the “complex universe inside [a musician’s] head.” Getting into someone’s brain has never been as exciting or looked as beautiful as it does through the futuristic lens of the Oculus, in which data from an MRI scan is translated into bursts of color representing complicated visual, auditory, and motor functions. And while current technology only allows us to see brain activity in a two-dimensional manner, this new technology may literally add another dimension.
Speaking with Engadget, Sandeep Gupta from GE Global Research noted, “[GE’s Neuro VR is] a very interactive and intuitive way of visualizing complex, multidimensional neuroimaging data. A neurosurgeon could use tools like these to get a complete view of lesions and possible impact of surgery on brain networks and function. The most immediate benefit of the Neuro VR system is perhaps in training for neuroscientists.”
Today, says Cory Strassburger, co-founder of Kite & Lightning, the VR content studio behind the immersive imagery, “… physicians will view MRI brain scan data one layer at a time on a traditional 2D computer monitor.” But with this technological breakthrough, technology may have opened up “… the possibility of seeing into this dimensional data in 3D space,” allowing doctors to “literally move [his or her] head forward and see into [the] brain.”
“If you wanted to,” Strassburger said, “You could scale [the] brain up to the size of a car and walk around inside.” Considering that scientists’ knowledge of perhaps the most powerful organ in our bodies is still relatively limited, the implications of the VR experience could be huge.
“The beauty is this big mystery inside our brain is just beginning to unfold,” said Strassburger, “I think VR will play an important roll on both the scientific and educational sides.”
San Francisco startup Dimensional advertised for people to walk robot dogs through city streets. The New York Times reported that the job could include carrying a roughly 33-pound robot back to the office if it overheated. A lift home is an awkward requirement for a labor-saving machine.
Keeping the hardware running is only one challenge. Anthropic's robotics tests found that language models mostly failed when controlling joints directly, but did better when directing trained controllers. Giving an AI agent a body doesn't teach it to handle ordinary household objects.
Soon, a mattress protector may be more than a bed cover. Australian medtech company Sleeptite and researchers at RMIT University have received a US patent for FlexiSense, a smart bedding technology that tracks body position and posture to help caregivers identify when older residents may be at risk of falling.
The technology is being developed for Sleeptite’s in-bed monitoring system, REMi, and was recently on display at The MedTech Conference in Boston. A peer-reviewed study in Flexible and Printed Electronics says the sensors can also be made at scale without sacrificing performance or durability.
AI companies spend enormous amounts of time convincing us their technology is safe and secure. But what happens when those same companies become targets of increasingly sophisticated AI-powered attacks? Anthropic, the company behind Claude, is now facing that question. According to a Washington Post report, cybersecurity startup Cathedral discovered vulnerabilities that let its researchers access sensitive information in Anthropic's internal systems.
The researchers used AI agents to identify potential entry points in less than 12 hours. Interestingly, they didn't need to crack Claude itself. Instead, they exploited weaknesses in third-party business applications that Anthropic uses for everyday operations. Anthropic's security testing program disclosed the findings, which allows outside researchers to identify and report vulnerabilities.