• Invisible thin-air monitors have
  not disappeared from view.
• A cheap laser sorts
  microscopic particlesfor microscopic drug capsules.
• Arrays of hundreds of micro-syringes could be
  delivering insulin and other drugs to patients within five years.
• Yet another new and cheap way has been devised to grow nanostructures for
  drug delivery (and other uses).
• The microscopic ears of a fly have been mimicked in hardware for human hearing aids.

Carnegie Mellon University and a private consortium, perhaps with US military
backing, have developed a two-way Arabic – English medical interpreter that runs
on a palmtop computer. The Speechalator prototype is limited to a medical
vocabulary and is “about 80 percent accurate in the lab.” The system extracts
the key meaning from spoken input, translates it, then uses a speech synthesis
engine to produce spoken output.

NEC’s PaPeRo robot has a similar speaker-independent (it does not have
to be trained to recognize a particular speaker) interpreter built-in. Unlike
Speechalator, PaPeRo is a general-purpose interpreter intended for
shopping or dining out, for example. It has a vocabulary of some 25,000 English
and 50,000 Japanese words, and interprets “within a few seconds.”

Acceleration in computing power is continuing unabated and the language
barrier is coming down fast. We would be very surprised if the accuracy rate,
vocabulary, and number of languages recognized does not improve to the point
where the barrier is all but demolished within the next five years for all major
or strategically important languages.

Reference: Unknown (2003). “PDA Translates
Speech.” Technology Research News, December 19.

Reference: Unknown (2003). “NEC boasts 1st
interactive robot able to translate Japanese, English.” Yomiuri Shimbun,
December 30.

Natural Language Searching on Health
Sites

A study conducted jointly by the US National Cancer Institute and the
AskJeeves Internet search engine company has found that people who use search
engines to find cancer information primarily seek information on specific types
of cancer, not on cancer in general. “Allowing users to employ less technical
language on cancer Web sites would significantly help them find the information
they seek,” the study suggests.

Reference: Unknown (2003). “Study:
Natural Language Searches Could Improve Health Sites.” iHealthBeat, December
15. The original paper (J Med Internet Res 2003;5(4):e31) is available at
http://www.jmir.org/2003/4/e31/index.htm.

Heliodisplay Thin-air Screen

The Heliodisplay projects still or moving images into the air, and the
images can be manipulated with a fingertip. In a public demonstration in
December, illustrations of a strand of DNA and a human skeleton were moved
around the 15-inch-diagonal display area by fingertip. Its inventor will not
give details of how it works, merely saying that it “converts the imaging
properties of the air so that the air is taken in, converted instantaneously,
and then re-ejected out. Then we’re projecting onto that converted air.” At the
demonstration, there was no odor and the image area was dry to the touch.

The Heliodisplay uses optical laser-tracking to follow the user’s
fingertip or other pointing device. Envisioned applications include displays for
museums and trade shows, advertisements, and for collaboration. A Finnish
company makes a similar device called the FogScreen, which projects
images onto a cloud of water vapor but does not yet have touch-screen
capability. We first reported on these thin-air
displays in October last year. The current report adds no new information;
we report it only to show that the devices remain in play.

Reference: Bernstein, David (2003). “Thin-Air
Display Is Promising, but Thin on Details, Too.” New York Times, December
18.

Microsorter

Scottish researchers have developed a simple and inexpensive laser device to
sort microscopic particles including protein microcapsules (which can be used to
deliver drugs.) The laser manipulates the kinetic motion of particles, using
different intensities and patterns to move specific particles. The system can be
adjusted in real-time and is 96 to nearly 100 percent accurate, the researchers
claim.

Reference: Unknown (2003). “Light Spots Sort
Particles.” Technology Research News, December 10.

Nanosyringe

Solid and hollow microneedles made of metal, silicon, plastic, or glass could
be on the market within five years. Georgia Tech researchers have demonstrated
an array of 400 microneedles that can pierce human skin and has successfully
delivered insulin to diabetic rats. Solid microneedles could be used with drug
patches to increase diffusion rates, while hollow needles could be used with
drug patches and pumps.

Reference: Unknown (2003). “Microneedles Give
Painless Shots.” Technology Research News, November 25.

See also Universal
Assembler in last month’s issue, and “Self-Assembling Chips” in the
Computing section of this issue.

Nanocomponents

Sandia National Laboratories researchers have developed an inexpensive and
simple method to grow arrays of rods, disks, and other structures at nanoscale
by seeding a solution with zinc oxide nanoparticles. Zinc oxide has valuable
catalytic, optical, and semiconductor properties and is already used in solar
cells, microsensors, and decontamination systems. The nanostructures could be
used in microelectronics, chemical and biological sensing, energy conversion and
storage, light-emitting displays and drug delivery, as catalysts, and for more
efficient photovoltaics in the next two to five years.

Reference: Unknown (2003). “Chemists Grow
Nano Menagerie.” Technology Research News, December 24.

Hearing Aid Advance

Anne Eisenberg reports in the New York Times that of 28 million
Americans with hearing loss, only 20 percent use hearing aids and only half of
those are satisfied with current devices, in part because of the problem of
ambient noise.

MEMS (micro-electronic mechanical system) devices are under development to
eliminate the problem. One is modeled on the ears of a parasitic fly which can
hone in on its cricket host’s chirp while ignoring the rest of Nature’s
cacophony. Tiny optical lasers in an interferometer can detect changes smaller
in magnitude than an atom in the device’s sound pick-up membrane.

Reference: Eisenberg, Anne (2003). “For
Hearing Aids, a Lesson From a Fly on the Wall.” New York Times, December 11.