Talk Tech — Top Three Technologies

Elizabeth Suggs | Staff Writer | [email protected]

 

Technology is everywhere, from corresponding with the internet to helping our computer, there’s always something new cropping up. But alas, I can’t list them all. Instead, I’ll just list three.

 

NUMBER 3 -Skype’s live translator service

You might have already heard about this feature, but if you haven’t it’s as simple as it sounds.

 

Skype is an instant message and video platform for two individuals (or more) to get together and speak over the web. Recently, Skype unveiled its new live translation service. The individuals involved can each speak a different language while speaking over a webcam. A voice then comes onto the screen and interprets each spoken word.

 

Let me be clear: in my opinion, Skype’s translator service should be an interpreter service. What I mean by this is simple: interpreters interpret the text via voice to voice communication, (i.e. I speak to someone in Spanish and have a Spanish interpreter interpret everything that person is speaking to me). A translator TRANSLATES text. I send you something written in German, but I need it written in English. If you know German, you’ll translate that German to English via written platform.

 

I sort of understand where Skype was going with the “translator” service, as the words spoken are translated on the lower part of the skype screen, but that shouldn’t be enough to justify the name when a computerized interpreter is heard on screen.

 

NUMBER 2 – Home Brewed Beer

Homebrewed beer can be difficult to make, but it isn’t impossible.

 

If you’re one of the many who wishes to brew your own beer, but can’t try PicoBrew. Picobrew uses a machine called Zymatic which automates homebrewing.

 

The process takes around three hours, including mashing, and then a few days to a few weeks of fermentation, depending on the recipe.

 

Recipes for different beers are made available by the Picobrew company in their libraries online.

 

 

NUMBER 1 Spinal Implant For Rats

Need a new spine? According to the Center for Neuroprosthetics annual 2013 report, professors Stéphanie Lacour and Grégoire Courtine, from Switzerland’s École polytechnique fédérale de Lausanne research institution, might know how to get that for you.

 

The spinal implant, e-Dura, has been implanted into paralyzed rats. Lacour and Courtine hoped e-Dura would enable the small critters to regain motion once more.

 

Successfully, the rats were able to regain motion.

 

Previous attempts to fix the spine has been unsuccessful. Foreign bodies can cause inflammation and rejection in the spine. Why should e-Dura be so different? The difference is not what we put on, but how we incorporate it into the spine. E-Dura works by being stretchy; being stretchy will make it conform to the surrounding tissue. Instead of having the foreign body sitting on top, it sits and moves with the spine.