Claire O'Connell, contributor
(Image: Andrei Spirache/Getty)
What difference does it make to your lifestyle if you've got a camera hanging around your neck that is recording every move? A clutch of papers in a special issue of the American Journal of Preventive Medicine aims to answer that question by looking at how so-called lifelogging can influence behaviour.
Lisa Grossman, physical sciences reporter
(Image: KeystoneUSA-ZUMA/Rex Features )
With the US east coast inching towards recovery following hurricane Sandy, Barack Obama and Mitt Romney are back on the campaign trail for the final days before the US presidential election.
National polls show the race is essentially deadlocked - but typical polling can be fickle. So last week we asked readers to take part in an online project designed to give a more fine-grained view of the public's reactions to politics.
About 80 readers watched clips from the third and final presidential debate while face-reading software recorded subtle emotional cues via webcams. Developed by Affectiva of Waltham, Massachusetts, the software tracked six categories of expression: smiles, surprise, confusion or dislike, disgust, attention, and valence, a general measure of how positively or negatively the viewer reacted to the clips.
Paul Marks, chief technology correspondent
Power loss? A123 powers Drayson's EV racer (Pic: Drayson Racing Technologies)
One of the pioneers of high power, long range electric vehicle batteries, A123 Systems, went bankrupt last week, sending shockwaves through the nascent electric vehicle industry. "This is a setback for the emerging EV industry, certainly," admits Paul Drayson, a technology entrepreneur and Le Mans racing driver who served as science and innovation minister in Tony Blair's administration.
His company, Drayson Racing Technologies, is developing an electric racing car
that had A123's technology at its heart. And major league motor makers GM and BMW number amongst 123's customers. "A123 was regarded very highly for its excellent cells," says Drayson. "That is why we use their state of the art cells in our EV racing car."
"It shows how tough it is to survive and prosper in the cleantech industry right now and that's a major worry," Drayson told New Scientist. "We need companies like these to succeed if we are going to reduce our reliance on fossil fuels."
Niall Firth, technology editor
A cold one (Image: Getty Images/Visuals Unlimited/Scientifica)
We all know the telltale signs of someone whose had a little too much to drink - slurred speech, swaying walk and a red flush in the face.
But what you might not realise is that as the alcohol causes dilation of blood vessels in the surface of the skin, certain parts of your face warm up disproportionately. Now a team at the University of Patras in Greece has come up with two different ways of measuring these temperature changes to automatically detect when someone has been drinking.
Georgia Koukiou and colleagues trained thermal cameras on volunteers who were drinking beers. Software picked out 20 points on each volunteer's face and the temperature was logged. The more the volunteers drank, the warmer these regions in their face became. Matched against a thermal database of sober faces, the simple approach could give an indication that someone has been drinking. Similar thermal-imaging technology was used during the SARS crisis in China in 2003 to screen people as they boarded planes. Fever is a symptom of SARS infection.
In the second approach, an algorithm was used to compare the temperature differences in different regions of someone's face. The team saw that a drinker's nose becomes relatively hotter than their forehead the more alcohol they drink.
A system running similar facial recognition software could be used alongside a thermal camera outside nightclubs or at airport security. Simply put, if your nose is hotter than your forehead, it's probably time to go home and sleep it off.
Journal reference: International Journal of Electronic Security and Digital Forensics, vol 4, p 229