Every Ray Harryhausen stop-motion monster ever, in one video

boingboing has a link to a video by matbergman of every stop-motion creature created by the master, Ray Harryhausen. Check it out. Thanks to Xeni Jardin and Aaron-Stewart Ahn.

Acoustic cloak from metamaterials

Devin Powell, in an article in ScienceNews, describes an "acoustic cloak" that can bend sound. The cloak is made of a metamaterial, developed by researchers at Duke University as reported in the June 24 Physical Review Letters. Using metamaterials to make a cloak that can guide sound waves was first proposed by Duke team member Steven Cummer, an electrical engineer, and a colleague in 2007 in the New Journal of Physics. Powell writes:

"To manipulate sound waves in air, Cummer's team designed and built a cloak that sits atop an object like a piece of draped carpet. By layering simple metamaterial building blocks — ordinary strips of perforated plastic — the researchers hid a triangular wooden block a couple of inches high and more than a foot long at its base. Sound waves over a range of high but audible frequencies slowed and changed direction cleanly after striking the holey plastic. Most reemerged appearing to have traveled all the way down to the flat surface beneath the block. The prototype is two-dimensional — both the speaker generating the sound and the microphone recording it must be in the same plane above the object. But Cummer believes he could make a 3-D version that would cover an entire bump on a log, not just a slice."

PossessedHand turns your hand into a remote controlled cyborg

David Brin, in an article called "Milestones Leading up to the Good Singularity" in his Contrary Brin blog, mentions this "Creepy… but probably helpful… new teaching tool." Brin says, "Do you want to play the violin, but can't be bothered to learn how? Then strap on this electric finger stimulator called PossessedHand that makes your fingers move with no input from your own brain. Developed by scientists at Tokyo University in conjunction with Sony, the hand consists of a pair of wrist bands that deliver mild electrical stimuli directly to the muscles that control your fingers, something normally done by your own brain." Michael Trei, in DVICE, provides additional photos and discussion of the device.

Sloman, Fahlman, et al. on Metacognition

I was privileged to be asked to participate in this discussion of metacognition, as part of the 2011 Biologically Inspired Cognitive Architectures conference. It was a pleasure to converse with people like Scott Fahlman, Aaron Sloman, Michael Anderson, and Ashok Goel, whom I'd only known through their work (going back to Fahlman's classic 1988 study of back-propagation).

On the Origin of Stories

Christina Spiesel recommends On the Origin of Stories: Evolution, Cognition, and Fiction, by Brian Boyd. This looks like a good possibility for a future IS Group meeting.

Q&A re D-Wave's Quantum Computer

Alex Knapp interviewed Professor Scott Aaronson of MIT on May 24, 2011, in Forbes on-line, regarding the recent article in Nature on the announcement of a commercial quantum computer by D-Wave. Scott provides some very useful background information and an explanation of what D-Wave actually did. Thanks and a hat tip to RSC for passing this on.

Quantum encryption

An article describing a real world example of encrypted communication using quantum keys.

Science 10 June 2011:
Vol. 332 no. 6035 p. 1243
DOI: 10.1126/science.332.6035.1243-c

Quantum Conferencing

For certain critical transactions and communications, you want to be secure in the knowledge that your message cannot be stolen or compromised by a malicious hacker. Encrypting messages with keys distributed beforehand to all interested parties is the usual method to ensure security. For ultimate or unconditional security, however, one key per message or transaction is allowed, after which the key is discarded. This “one time pad” requirement can place a hefty overhead on distributing the keys and would not be particularly practical for everyday use. In quantum key distribution (QKD), the encryption keys are made up of a series of quantum bits, single photons of light, for instance, with the orthogonal polarization states encoding a logical 1 or 0. Because the bits are quantum mechanical in nature, any attempt by an eaves-dropper to measure them would compromise that effort by a telltale sign. Sasaki et al. have now demonstrated the feasibility of quantum key distribution over an optical network in and around the metropolitan Tokyo area. Meshing together six separate QKD systems, they achieve secure video conferencing, encrypted with quantum keys, over a distance of 45 km. Stable operation and interfacing to the mobile telephone network widens the possible applications of quantum security.