The newborn was diagnosed with tracheobronchomalacia, a condition in which the airways collapse, not allowing oxygen to enter the lungs. That, tragically, caused repeated heart attacks. As the doctors said when writing up the case study for the New England Journal of Medicine, “ventilation that was sufficient to prevent recurring cardiopulmonary arrests could not be maintained.”

Doctors then printed a splint that is completely customized to the baby’s tracheal tubes, based on a “computed tomographic image of the patient’s airway.” It’s bioresorbable, made out of a material called polycaprolactone, so it will never need to be withdrawn, and the baby’s body will just naturally absorb and discard the splint within three years.

By that time, doctors say, the baby’s lungs and airways will have developed enough strength to stay open by themselves.

Source: New England Journal of Medicine

The 3-D printed tracheal insert being placed

According to LiveScience, prior to 3-D printing, lung splints were carved by hand. 3-D printed splints can be fabricated in a single day, however, and cost about a third as much.

After inserting the device, doctors kept the baby on a ventilator for 21 days, until the child was discharged from hospital. One year after the surgery, no “unforeseen problems related to the splint have arisen.”

Doctors’ conclusions?

“This case shows that high-resolution imaging, computer-aided design, and biomaterial three-dimensional printing together can facilitate the creation of implantable devices for conditions that are anatomically specific for a given patient.”

Swivl makes personal robots with a video twist, and the company has just raised a $500,000 round from Grishin Robotics.

Grishin is a global investment company (founded by one of the Mail.ru co-founders) that specifically supports personal robotics.

And Swivl — well, think of it as a Roomba for Facetime or YouTube. It swivels (hence the name) to track a speaker and capture video without the need for a dedicated cameraman. It’s designed with iOS devices in mind, but it works with any smartphone or video camera.

Here’s a demo clip showing the Swivl mount unit and tracker in action:

Swivl and its new investors see particular opportunity in the education market. “The global educational industry is undergoing huge transforming changes, and robotics plays an increasingly significant role in that process,” said Grishin founder Dmitry Grishin.

“Swivl represents a rare combination of strong technologies, beautiful design, and affordable price-point — exactly the type of product we are looking for. Swivl is very well positioned for disruptive penetration of mass-market educational technologies, taking online education to a new level by dramatically increasing the amount of published, high-quality video content.”

Swivl is located in San Carlos, Calif., and was founded in 2010.

Image credit: Swivl

NASA has thrown a $125,000 grant at a research project to bring 3D-printed pizza into our reality.

Check it out:

That’s a prototype printing chocolate. I know it sort of looks like a fraught-with-science version of a Willy Wonka movie prop, but that machine is actually synthesizing chocolate from cartridges containing sugars, complex carbohydrates, protein, and so on.

The NASA-funded project comes from mechanical engineer Anjan Contractor of Systems & Materials Research Corporation. Coincidentally, Contractor was also a speaker at the recent Humans to Mars conference.

Related: A 3D printer you can order today prints both solids and liquids, so you can “print” food and drinks.

Naturally, this kind of food replication would be a great way to survive in space or on other planets, where plant-growing natural resources are scarce. But it’s also a great idea for feeding hungry people around the world when economics, famine, or war come between people and sustenance.

“I think, and many economists think, that current food systems can’t supply 12 billion people sufficiently,” the engineer told Quartz. “So we eventually have to change our perception of what we see as food.”

Here’s a diagram of how the contraption works, courtesy of Systems & Materials Research Corporation:

The brain is a fascinating thing. It morphs over time, forming new connections, assimilating new information, and forging new pathways.

According to this video we stumbled across, our brains are also evolving in a new way thanks to technology.

If you’ve ever spent more than 30 seconds thinking about it, you probably already assume, as the clip notes, that Google sort of acts as an external hard drive for your own gray matter.

But does that mean we’re getting dumber? Or just that we’re thinking smarter, not harder?

Want more tech-brain mashup science? Check out our posts on how brain waves could replace passwords, why the Obama administration is spending $100 million to map the human brain, and how this group of scientists captured a video of a thought being formed in the brain.

Source: AcademicEarth
Image credit: Liz Henry/Flickr

Intel has just awarded $75,000 to a Romanian teenager who created a model for a low-cost, self-driving car.

For his entry in the Intel International Science and Engineering Fair (a huge international science competition for high school students), the 19-year-old Ionut Budisteanu created a realistic design for a car like Google’s self-driving cars. The big difference is that his version would be viable around the world, not just in super-rich enclaves like Silicon Valley.

His work earned him the Gordon E. Moore Award, which is named after another scientist: Intel’s cofounder. Here’s a demo and first-person video simulation, starting at 3:40:

His innovation is incremental, but decreasing costs is always part of bringing technology to the mainstream. And in this case, as the young scientist points out, it’s technology that has the potential to save millions of lives.

On accepting the award, Budisteanu said he hoped to become a researcher and professor someday. He also said he believe’s humankind’s purpose is to create projects that benefit the world, not just our own communities. What a great guy! We couldn’t agree more, Mr. Budisteanu.

So, you want to know why the International Space Station dumped Windows in favor of Linux? Ask NASA chief technologist Mason Peck. He’s doing an “Ask Me Anything” thread on Reddit today, and he’s down to party.

Peck’s been in charge of NASA’s tech decisions since January 2012. He oversees the agency’s tech investments and also guides how future astronauts will use new innovations in missions to come. This means he has to work not only within the confines of government space programs, but he’s also working with commercial space companies and academic institutions.

Before you go asking him your questions, though, check out dude’s impressive background:

His research was sponsored by NASA’s Institute for Advanced Concepts, and one of his experiments currently lives aboard the International Space Station. He worked at Boeing, Honeywell, Northrop Grumman, Goodrich, Lockheed Martin, and Bell Helicopter, where he worked on the V-22 Osprey and a smaller tilt-rotor aircraft that later would become the BA609. He wrote 90 academic articles and holds 17 patents about space tech. And then he was a professor at Cornell. You know, like you do. No big.

So far on the thread, he says:

We need to create ways to help astronauts survive exposure to galactic cosmic rays and other hazards on the trip there and back. Getting there quicker would help. So that inspires the creation of advanced propulsion capabilities, but right now there’s nothing on the horizon to shorten the trip time enough so that we don’t have to worry about radiation.

I’m very excited by the prospect of citizen space, that is, individuals building their own space technology and launching it. Some incredible innovations come from the do-it-yourself or maker community, and I expect the renaissance in technology that makers represent will have a big impact on NASA’s future.

Right now, we’re working on the technologies that will get humans to an asteroid by 2025 and on to Mars in the 2030s. Some of those technologies include propulsion and navigation, but also technologies to protect astronauts from radiation on the trip there and back. Some day, the earliest explorers of the outer solar system and beyond will be robotic spacecraft, some may be as small as smart phones.

Image credit: NASA/Flickr

NanoString is a genomics company with special technology for helping cancer researchers that has just filed an S-1, declaring to the SEC (and the reading world) its intention to go public.

The company’s technology uses small amounts of tissue to find and use genetic information. Not content with the research side, NanoString places a lot of emphasis on its technology’s usefulness in clinical settings for present-day patient care.

Unfortunately, one of the biggest risk factors for this IPO is the company’s consistent losses. From the filing:

We have incurred losses since we were formed and expect to incur losses in the future. We incurred net losses of $12.8 million, $10.9 million, $17.7 million, $3.6 million, and $7.3 million in 2010, 2011 and 2012 and the three months ended March 31, 2012 and 2013, respectively. As of March 31, 2013, we had an accumulated deficit of $102.8 million. We expect that our losses will continue for at least the next several years as we will be required to invest significant additional funds toward development and commercialization of our technology. We also expect that our selling, general and administrative expenses will continue to increase due to the additional costs associated with establishing a dedicated oncology diagnostics sales force and the increased administrative costs associated with being a public company.

That alone makes this initial public offering a not-so-sure bet for Day One investors. Also, NanoString is playing in a field ridden with bureaucratic potholes, from government regulations to Big Pharma politicking.

The deal, which currently has no set range for stock price, has JP Morgan and Morgan Stanlet as its underwriters. The proposed maximum aggregate offering price is around $86 million.

Formed in 2003, NanoString is a spinout from the Institute of Systems Biology.

Image credit: Shutterstock

I’m in the Institute for Quantum Computing in Waterloo, Ontario, which just added a new 283,000-square foot, $160 million research facility to its existing two buildings.

“We work on the science of the small,” executive-in-residence Rob Crow says. “We sit at the junction of pure research and technological innovation.”

The new facility, which will accommodate some of the Institute’s current 200 researchers as well as provide space for an additional 200 over the next year or so, took seven years to build, mostly because it needs to be completely insulated from outside radiation, vibration, and contamination.

As Martin LaForest, a senior manager at IQC explained, vibration — and sound — is the movement of molecules. And molecular-level nanotechnological assembly is tough to do when things are moving.

That is why the Institute has 3 feet-thick concrete floors and a completely isolated foundation that goes down 30 feet underground to bedrock. And why the building took seven years to complete.

Source: John Koetsier

Martin LaForest

“This is the second-biggest quantum computing center in the world,” Crow says. “We’ll double in a few years and are recruiting experimentalists right now from all around the world.”

The world’s biggest quantum computing lab is in Singapore. China is building two facilities. Pittsburgh is just starting its own, and Russia has invested $100 million in building yet another quantum computing institute.

Why all the fuss and bother?

“The holy grail is a general purpose quantum computer,” Crow explains. “That will be many many orders of magnitude more powerful than all the computers in the world today.” (Maybe even powerful enough to serve as the brain for a Cylon, as a recent Forbes profile suggested.)

A quantum computer calculates using quantum mechanical phenomena, essentially using what Einstein called the “spooky” nature of tiny particles, such as photons, to exist in multiple contradictory states at the same time. Critically, that enables quantum computers to calculate certain problems much more quickly than classical computers like the one you’re using right now. For instance, while standard computers represent data via bits that can be either on or off, or a 1 or a 0, a 10-quantum bit computer or 10-qubit computer, could simultaneously represent data in 1,024 states.

Source: John Koetsier

T

“Small quantum computers already exist,” LaForest says, but adds that ”we will be many years to a useful quantum computer.”

That’s what the Institute is all about, and that’s the “holy grail” the researchers are seeking. It’s also why Mike Lazaridis of BlackBerry fame (and fortune) funded the development of the institute, and set up a $100 million venture capital fund to commercialize products and technologies discovered at the facility.

There have already been multiple spin-off product and companies, including one called  Universal Quantum Devices that makes a time tagger for photos, which can accurately count and tag the arrival of individual photons, and another device, the world’s smallest chip for making entangled photos, which are critical for quantum communication studies.

In other words, LaForest says, we’re in the pick ax-and-shovel phase of the quantum era:

“Some of the most important tools are the ones you have to build yourself, and then you sell them to labs around the world working on the problem.”

Once the mission bears fruit, however, as Crowe is confident it will, the results will be immense. Much better simulation capabilities, new technologies for biological studies, better weather and climate modeling computers, amazing cryptography capabilities, and quantum sensors that could map the interior of the earth for geological exploration are just some of the possibilities.

And, even cooler perhaps, a Star Trek-like medical tricorder.

“We actually think we can build one of these things now,” says LaForrest. “Now we’re almost to the point where we can do MRI on the molecular level.”

And maybe, that’s even thinking small. Because the quantum computer, in spite of its potentially sub-atomic size, is a big, big deal.

“We are trying to be the first to build the quantum computer,” says Crow. “When we do it, and we will do it eventually, it’s going to be bigger than the moon landing.”

Canadian astronaut Chris Hadfield has charmed us from the International Space Station with music before. But his latest (and last) song from the ISS is a rousing cover of David Bowie’s classic “Space Oddity,” and the visuals alongside it match the tune perfectly.

Hadfield has been commanding the ISS during the past five months, and he’s taken some stunning photos, participated in fun science experiments, and shown how you sleep in space. Sadly, he handed over control of the ISS to Russian cosmonaut Pavel Vinogradov on Sunday eventing and will be returning to Earth shortly.

On top of the music video, Hadfield also recorded some final thoughts before he departs the station.

Dorrian Porter is founder of Northern Imagination.

On January 1, 1999, I immigrated to Silicon Valley from Canada to work as a corporate attorney for Wilson Sonsini Goodrich & Rosati. I watched in amazement as 400 companies went public that year (about a quarter of them through my law firm), and in March 2000 I felt compelled to leave the firm and start a company called HigherMarkets. It was around the same day that the Nasdaq peaked at 5132.52.

The experience and timing of my departure — and the name of my first company — sadly signified a tight connection for me between money and entrepreneurship.

Money has a nasty habit of invading the definition of entrepreneurship in Silicon Valley, where we tend to measure success by funding rounds, valuations, and liquidity events. I often run with a definition of an entrepreneur defined by money: People who don’t know your financial situation think you’re rich, and people who do think you’re crazy. An entrepreneur can be a person spending $10,000 to open a shop or $100 million to build a new kind of car.

Long before the car company, there was an inventor named Nikola Tesla who navigated choices of money and entrepreneurship as we all do in the Silicon Valley. Tesla immigrated to the east coast of the United States in 1884, initially to work alongside Thomas Edison. That relationship didn’t last, but Tesla is credited with the inventions that fueled the rise of electric company Westinghouse and made alternating current the standard of electricity we rely on today.

Larry Page of Google, who mentioned Nikola Tesla on a recent earnings call and describes him as one of the greatest inventors ever, has said you might want to be more like Edison than Tesla. In fact that comparison may only be true in textbooks.

A closer study of the events of the 1890s, for example, reveals that Edison faced similar entrepreneurial challenges to Tesla: Edison was kicked aside from General Electric, the successor company to his own, leading him to swear off the same financial backers for the next 30 years. Tesla, on the other hand, generously allowed Westinghouse to renegotiate a patent deal that enabled the financially strapped company to establish the electricity standard we rely on today.

Tesla made it clear that being a great entrepreneur — one who commercialized a critical standard that powers innovation 125 years later — isn’t necessarily about the money.

Despite the fact that I couldn’t live without two famous early inventions of Edison’s — photography and film — Tesla’s contributions are the ones that can spark Silicon Valley’s imagination on an even bigger scale now. Tesla made a commitment to the study of wireless energy and wireless information transmission beginning in the 1880s that led him to explore communication with other planets, to evaluate ways to transmit energy wirelessly around earth, and to care about taking advantage of the sun’s radiation and earth’s vibrations to prevent the squandering of natural resources that was occurring rapidly around him.

Sound useful today?

I love Instagram as much as anyone, but my nine-year-old daughter points out that less time on my iPhone can equal more time on things that really matter. Tesla focused on discovery in areas that really mattered, and he faced a great deal of ridicule — and no doubt financial impact — for it.

As the need to invite more immigrants to the Silicon Valley only increases, we need to send the message more than ever that our love for creative invention and a focus on the biggest challenges are more valued than money. There are some outstanding financial backers in the Silicon Valley, but the majority of venture capitalists face their own short-term problems that don’t always allow them to live up to the long-term horizons mentioned on their websites.

Whether you’ve just helped fund a startup or raised money for one, or whether you’re running a big company or working at one, we all need to be looking for ways to hail the inventors around us regardless of financial outcome. We don’t necessarily need to shift our models of capital allocation or stock grants to do it, but we do need to change where we spend our time celebrating. I’ve heard a lot of lip service paid to words like innovation and creativity in the Silicon Valley. It’s up to each of us to defend those words in a way that means something more than the next acquisition.

The free exchange of information and affordable access to sustainable energy — both issues worked on by Nikola Tesla in his time — have the potential to solve critical issues of poverty and education, and inspire peace, around the world. Wireless information transmission and energy remain two of the Silicon Valley’s biggest opportunities.

Hail to the inventors who are working on those challenges today without regard to financial outcomes. Hail to Nikola Tesla.

Dorrian Porter organized Northern Imagination in 2013, a company that seeks to positively impact the wellbeing and happiness of people via creative projects, ideas, and inventions.  He just launched a Kickstarter campaign to build a statue of Nikola Tesla in the Silicon Valley to fuel creativity on the big issues of energy and wireless. You can watch a short video and participate in the campaign here:  http://kck.st/ZWLzgG.

photo credit: Recuerdos de Pandora via photopin cc

EarthRisk Technologies has developed a new model for predicting extreme weather events. The model identifies weather patterns based on over 82 billion calculations and 60 years of data. It then compares those patterns to current conditions and uses predictive analytics to predict the weather up to 40 days in advance.

The technology is derived from research at the University of California at San Diego’s Scripps Institution of Oceanography. Cofounder and CEO John Plavan said the old standard for weather prediction is built on subjective forecast models that are not accurate beyond a week.

“Hundreds of thousands of atmospheric variables are changing constantly around the globe and the old models aren’t robust enough to take these into account,” Plavan said in an exclusive interview with VentureBeat. “If there is a change to the initial conditions, the whole thing breaks down. We use statistical relationships to predict eventual outcomes and this technique is not subject to the same chaos. We are applying analytics to an industry that is begging for reinvention.”

EarthRisk has collected data from the U.S. and U.K. governments as well as observational data from thousands of scientists and researchers working in the field and the database is updated every day. EarthRisk’s engine searches for correlations and patterns of “statistical significance” and generates forecast probabilities based on this information. The approach uses the past to predict the future.

“Utilities corporations, energy traders, and energy producers are majorly impacted by big temperature changes and spend hundreds of millions of dollars trying to predict them,” Plavan said. “If they know there will be an extreme cold event a month from now, they can use that data to make an actionable decision, and these guys will do anything to gain a small edge.”

EarthRisk’s flagship product TempRisk is the first commercial application of this technology and is geared towards the research and energy trading communities. The company has been developing, refining, and testing the technology for a few years and now plans to expand the business dramatically and explore more commercialization opportunities. There could be more consumer-focused applications down the road, like the ability to check weather in a tropical location before booking a vacation.

Lockheed Martin published a video today of its new Area Defense Anti-Munitions system, codenamed ADAM. ADAM is a bad-boy 10-kilowatt laser that is trailer-mounted, tracks targets up to 5 kilometers (about 3 miles) away, and destroys targets up to 2 kilometers (1.2 miles) away with its HEL beam.

Yes, that’s the actual name, short for “high-energy laser.” Here’s the demonstration video on a Iranian-style Quassam rocket:

Lockheed Martin says ADAM is designed to provide short-range defense of high-value targets from improvised rocket and “unmanned aerial system” threats. It’s self-contained, towed into place by a tractor-trailer, and can destroy missiles in seconds.

“High-energy lasers complement kinetic energy systems and have unique attributes, including very low cost per engagement, a virtually unlimited ‘magazine,’ and minimal collateral damage,”  Doug Graham, Lockheed Martin’s VP of advanced programs, said in a statement.

Source: Lockheed Martin

ADAM with its trailer and tractor.

In other words, it’s cheaper than antimissile missile systems like the Patriot, which can cost tens of thousands of dollars, and has more capacity for protection than something like the Navy’s high-speed Phalanx guns, which can fire depleted uranium or tungsten rounds at incredible speeds to down enemy rockets or other threats.

One downside of a laser-based system, however, as you can see in the video: They’re seldom as instant as Star Wars would make you think.

To deliver adequate heat to a target missile to make it explode, ADAM needs to lock on to the missile for a second or more. Which means that ADAM needs sophisticated guidance hardware and software to stay on-target while the missile continues accelerating.

All of which seems to work, at least on test flights. ADAM destroyed eight small-caliber rocket targets in testing so far this year and another 11 in tests last year.

photo credits: colorblindPICASO via photopin cc, Lockheed Martin; Hat tip: Engadget

All week, we’ve been hearing fascinating tales from the Humans to Mars Conference, and we’re pretty much kicking ourselves for not having booked out own tickets months ago.

One big reason for that is conference attendees are getting to hear firsthand about NASA’s big plans for Mars, including its ideas for long-term manned missions in the 2030s.

For example, NASA researchers revealed that one of the agency’s bigger concerns is how it plans to feed the first astronauts who call Mars their home.

To grow plants on Mars, you have to first think about light, air pressure, carbon dioxide, water, and a host of other environmental factors.

“In terms of the systems engineering required, it’s not an insignificant challenge,” said NASA life sciences director D. Marshall Porterfield at the conference.

Other researchers noted the need for pressure-inflated greenhouses, but since any such structures will block out sunlight — an already scarce resource on Mars — other lighting sources will have to take the sun’s place. Porterfield noted that NASA is considering using LED light sources for growing food on Mars.

As NASA plans for its first manned missions to Mars, its scientists are realizing that to make it worth the substantial cost of shipping greenhouses, lighting, and other necessary equipment to the red planet, the missions need to be very long in duration — as long as 15 or even 20 years.

A duration of that nature makes the Mars One-style one-way-trip option seem even less crazy.

Image credit: NASA

Hat tip: Space.com

Mars One, one of our favorite commercial space projects, has just released an interesting figure: More than 78,000 people have signed up for the mission’s one-way trip to Mars.

The Mars One mission aims to send a group of humans to Mars for permanent colonization. To fund the expedition, the Mars One founders plan to treat the whole thing as an extraterrestrial version of The Real World, selling $6 billion in sponsorships against one what is potentially of the most enthralling programs the world has ever seen.

For its astronaut selection process, Mars One founder Bas Lansdorp told VentureBeat in a recent interview, the mission is going to be difficult and dangerous, but for different reasons than you might think.

“We are finding the right people for the job,” he said. “Our medical director ensured me that the difficult part is living on a new planet with a small group of people in a dangerous environment and staying friends. It’s the most dangerous part. … So we’re not looking for engineers and pilots. We’re looking for people who have this inherent quality, being the kind of person you want to be stranded with. We can teach them any skill they need to have. Basically, what they need to do is survive. Anything that breaks, a machine or a person, it needs to be fixed. That’s the most important thing they need to learn.”

So far, just two weeks have passed since the mission opened its application process, which involves sending in YouTube clips as well as filling out an online application form.

To date, Mars One has received applications from more than 120 countries. The majority of applications come from the United States (17,324) and China (10,241), with 3,581 from the United Kingdom and fewer applicants from nations like Russia, Mexico, Brazil, Canada, Colombia, Argentina, and India.

“With 78,000 applications in two weeks, this is turning out to be the most desired job in history,” said Lansdorp in a statement. “These numbers put us right on track for our goal of half a million applicants.

“Mars One is a mission representing all humanity and its true spirit will be justified only if people from the entire world are represented. I’m proud that this is exactly what we see happening.”

Which, of course, has nothing to do with years.

The moon will block out the sun this Thursday and Friday, May 9 and May 10, in what promises to be a spectacular ring of fire effect as the moon will appear to slip “inside” the sun and a bright circle of solar light — in geek-speak, annulus — shines all around it.

Those who wish to see the annular eclipse might want to pray for clear weather, but they’ll also have to be geographically blessed. The ring of fire effect will only be visible from parts down under, as NASA explains:

An annular eclipse will be visible from a 171 to 225 kilometer-wide track that traverses Australia, eastern Papua New Guinea, the Solomon Islands, and the Gilbert Islands. A partial eclipse is seen within the much broader path of the Moon’s penumbral shadow, which includes Australia, Indonesia, Oceania and much of the central the Pacific Ocean.

Here’s the path in visual form:

Source: NASA

The path of the solar eclipse May 9 and 10

photo credit: matthileo via photopin cc; Hat tip: Space.com

In “What Games Are: The Scientism Delusion,” writer Tadhg Kelly argues that there is currently a fashion for “scientism” in today’s gaming industry. He states that developers and companies try to use “mystical formulas” to achieve success but that this approach rarely proves fruitful. He rails against those who espouse the use of analytics and mourns the death of gamemaking from a place of pure creativity rather than market-driven research.

I disagree. Instead of writing research off, we should take advantage of the way science and creativity work together to make games that players love. Use analysis to verify that what is fun for you is also fun for the player. This is the only way you will be successful in making a living doing what you are most passionate about.

A breakout hit such as Angry Birds stands out in our minds, but this is an exception, not the rule. In order to have any level of success, you must acknowledge trends and try to tap into areas with potential for growth rather than come up with an idea and hope for the best. My wife wants me to make a game that is set in a nursery where the goal is to keep eight babies clean, quiet, and happy at once. It would be called, creatively, The Baby Game.

You could be, as she is, very enthusiastic about this game, but to really evaluate it, you need to look beyond the idea and verify that there is a market of players for it. You need an audience and an income stream for it to be a real business. Kelly makes those of us who focus on the business side of gaming out to be cynics, but this is just real life.

So what should you be doing instead?

The best social-mobile studios use science to their advantage, analyze markets to find the new opportunities, and use playbooks as a foundation to make success repeatable.

Use scientific thinking as a competitive advantage

Passion is important. However, today studios must find out the features their players are most passionate about, not just their game designers. Social-mobile gaming companies have become successful because they use science to make fun games faster than their competitors.

Studios test hypotheses and adapt their products to provide the best player experience, eventually becoming masters of live operations. The reward is double-digit increases in engagement and monetization postlaunch. You see this in the evolution of games such as Tap Pet Hotel and Crime City. “Me too” competitors find it hard to keep up with a well-executing team.

So how do companies build on the success of an initial title to expand their business?

Analyze markets to find the next big thing

Developers should use category analysis to determine the ripest new markets. Kelly mentions Supercell as having luck and passion, but it was no coincidence they chose to make a game in the farming genre and saw great success with Hay Day.

Early on, we saw a lot of gaming outsiders get traction because they quickly took existing themes and mechanics and adapted them for mobile. What followed was a mapping of hits from other platforms to iOS and Android. For example: iMobsters is very similar to Mafia Wars, and Words With Friends is a new twist on the classic game of Scrabble.

As the mobile market becomes more competitive, ports of games will be less successful than games that take advantage of the unique characteristics of the new platform. CSR Racing is a fantastic example of success from taking the racing genre and adapting it to be simpler and “mobile first.”

Create playbooks to provide a foundation for innovation

Over time, studios develop a body of knowledge that serves as a boilerplate they innovate on top of. This way, they are not always spending time building the fundamentals of a game from scratch and can focus their creativity on a smaller subset of new tests within the game.

New massively multiplayer online games and role-playing games are built on systems that are similar to many games that came before them. Designers have playbooks of game mechanics in their head based on years of experience.

Companies should also create playbooks for important mobile systems such as virtual-goods stores and engagement techniques to save time and effort. Creativity works best when you give it constraints. Studio should spend time working on what makes their gameplay unique.

The reality is gaming is a difficult and competitive business. However, it is also an amazing blend of design, psychology, art, marketing, engineering, and operations. Top companies measure results and iterate on this body of knowledge to build better games. That is no scientism delusion. It’s the very definition of science.

[Image credit: Ashley Hay]

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GamesBeat 2013 is our fifth annual conference on disruption in the video game market. You'll get 360-degree perspectives from top gaming executives, developers, and analysts on what’s to come in the industry. Our theme this year is “The Battle Royal.” Check out full event details here, and grab your early-bird tickets here!

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IBM is working on a robotics system to drastically reduce the need for physically present engineers in industries like oil, shipping, and even aerospace.

The maintenance, repair, and operations (MRO) system is designed to let engineers to work “mobilely” on all kinds of machinery. It uses a combination of virtual reality software and sophisticated robotics hardware.

Here’s a handy video showing how it all comes together:

Basically, the Smart Mobility MRO system enables lesser skilled engineers to roam the land maintaining and repairing equipment. They’re monitored by an offsite, more expert engineer supervisor, who tracks them via GPS.

Then, the onsite engineer uses a smartphone and QR codes to find the right equipment in need of fixin’ as well as instructions on how to fix it. Using virtual reality, the phone can also overlay on a given site the location of another engineer or a first-aid station. It sounds like simple stuff, but when you’re in a huge manufacturing facility for the first (or second, or third) time in your life, simple stuff like this can help the job get done much more efficiently.

The robotics part comes in when the onsite engineer gets stuck and needs help from his more expert offsite supervisor. A robotic arm, equipped with audio and video hardware, provides a direct link from the supervisor to the situation and machinery. The arm also contains a projector, so the supervisor can literally draw out a plan of attack and overlay it on the onsite engineer’s view.

In short, the technology enables companies to have fewer high-skilled engineers out on the road at any given time. They can save costs by hiring junior engineers with the confidence that those folks have constant access to backup when it’s needed.

The Smart Mobility MRO project is the result of a collaboration between IBM and the University of Sheffield Advanced Manufacturing Research Centre (AMRC), which delves into the many issues and problems in advanced manufacturing.

NASA wants you to be part of a DVD it’s sending to Mars. To that end, it’s holding a haiku contest.

The best three entries will be sent, along with the authors’ names, to Mars aboard MAVEN, the Mars Atmosphere and Volatile EvolutioN mission. The winners will also get a certificate of their involvement in the project.

The contest runs until May 20; MAVEN is expected to launch late this fall.

“The Going to Mars campaign offers people worldwide a way to make a personal connection to space, space exploration, and science in general, and share in our excitement about the MAVEN mission,” said MAVEN education lead Stephanie Renfrow in a statement on the news.

The campaign, which also involves a student art contest, will end with all winning projects written on a DVD contained inside the MAVEN spacecraft.

“This new campaign is a great opportunity to reach the next generation of explorers and excite them about science, technology, engineering and math,” said MAVEN principal investgator Bruce Jakosky in a release.

“I look forward to sharing our science with the worldwide community as MAVEN begins to piece together what happened to the Red Planet’s atmosphere.”

MAVEN’s mission, as Jakosky’s statement would indicate, is to hang out over and around Mars and find out where the planet’s atmosphere went. Because Mars is full of features like riverbeds and contains minerals that indicate the previous presence of water, scientists don’t think it’s a wild guess to speculate that Mars once had a thick atmosphere capable of containing water on the planet’s surface. Clearly, this is not the case today.

So MAVEN is going to dabble in atmospheric forensics, looking at today’s Martian solar winds and ionic activity and gathering data to figure out a bit more about how the planet’s atmosphere decayed.

You can use that as inspiration for your haiku.

Hear that buzzing next to your ear? Don’t be so quick to flick next time, as it might not be a bug — it may be a bug-sized robot.

The RoboBee, which is known as the world’s small flying robot, flew for the first time in a recently released video.

A group at Harvard built the robot. Graduate student Kevin Ma studied insect wings in order to build those that keep the RoboBee afloat, according to Science. The whole robot is the size of a quarter with wings made of carbon-fiber material and polymer film that are cut using a laser.

Ma explained that the wings have a specific “pop-up” pattern that resembles those in a children’s book. They help the wings stay as symmetrical as possible for flight. These pop-ups require a human using tweezers to raise, but eventually they will automatically open.

Tiny insect robots have the opportunity to play a big role in search and rescue or disaster situations. They can squeeze through tight spaces, say in the case of fallen rubble, or discretely collect information in hostage situations. With the right kind of sensors or cameras onboard, they could possibly detect gas leaks or find people in places that current cameras (or even eyes) can’t see.

The Harvard group is trying to go beyond just flight as well. They hope to build thousands of these bug-bots, according to Scientific American. It’d be a hive of robot bees that are spatially aware and can divvy up tasks and work as a group. This breakthrough is really just the beginning of a long journey toward an army capable of executing missions.

For now, however, the robot is tethered to a power supply and flight sensors by a small wire, greatly reducing its usability. Ma hopes to install the technological components on RoboBee before he graduates.

Image and video credit: Harvard

I spent the morning at the Waterloo, Ontario Institute for Quantum Computing, one of the world’s top quantum computing and nanotechnology labs. In a brand-new 235,000 square foot, $160 million dollar facility that, inside, looks like the starship Enterprise, I met Alice and Bob.

They weren’t very talkative, of course — they’re computers.

“In quantum cryptography, you’re sending information from A to B … we call A ‘Alice’ and B ‘Bob,’” says Martin LaForest, PhD and a senior manager at IQC. “The eavesdropper, naturally, is Eve.”

Source: John Koetsier

“Bob” receives quantum communications

One part of the vast facility is given over to Vadim — last name not given — who hacks commercially-available quantum communications devices like these two from ID Quantique for fun and profit. The fun is the success, and the profit is that ID Quantique lets him keep Alice and Bob, and even sends him more machines — as do other quantum cryptography companies.

“He’s sort of offering a service to the community,” LaForest says. “If you think you have a good quantum key distribution system, give it to me … and I’ll give it my best shot. And so far, he’s very good.”

Modern cryptography is based on our inability to quickly solve challenging mathematical problems, such as the factoring of very large primes. Theoretically almost any security solution available is hackable over time, but realistically you might need months, years, or even decades to crack some of the top 128-bit and 256-bit encryption algorithms available today.

That’s not possible with quantum cryptography.

“If you want to crack quantum communication, you have to do it in real time,” says LaForest. “When you try to observe it, you perturb it … and you can’t copy it because copying is the same thing, give or take, as looking and copying.”

LaForest is referencing the physicist Schrodinger’s cat example. As Schrodinger famously said, you cannot definitely know much about a quantum state, because the act of observing the state changes it. He illustrated that point with a cat in a box which has a 50/50 chance of dying based on the decay of one radioactive particle: a quantum phenomenon. You cannot check whether the cat is alive or dead, because checking changes reality, and so the cat exists in an indeterminate state, neither alive nor dead.

Source: John Koetsier

Alice is the starting point for quantum communication

And yet, it is still possible to hack quantum cryptography, as Vadim demonstrates every month or so.

Alice and Bob communicate via connected photons — particles of light that have been “entangled” in a process even Einstein called spooky — and that communication can’t be intercepted without the intended recipient knowing about it.

But once the message has been received, it’s another matter.

“Vadim is trying to find the implementation flaws,” LaForest told me. “This is one of the challenges right now — the protocol is secure … but its physical implementation might not be. You can have faulty detectors, or you can play tricks with the electronics.”

Which makes the work of Eve — or Vadim — very challenging indeed.

But that work, LaForest says, does not go unrewarded by commercial users of quantum encryption systems:

“It’s important to note: The commercially available boxes are secure. Most of the time, Vadim finds the problems in what they call the research system, and in the commercial system, those bugs are already fixed.”

Researchers at IBM say they have made the world’s smallest movie. They used a tiny microscope to move individual atoms around in the film, A Boy and His Atom, to create a stop-motion animated film that is going down in the Guinness World Records as the smallest film.

The project was the work of researchers at IBM’s Almaden Research Center in San Jose, Calif., and it is aimed at educating children about the wonders of science and technology. The researchers used a scanning tunneling microscope, a device that won IBM researchers a Nobel Prize when it was invented in the 1980s. It can be used to manipulate individual atoms, and, for fun, the researchers also used it to create Star Trek images in recognition of the upcoming Star Trek Into Darkness movie.

Andreas Heinrich (pictured below), principal investigator at IBM Reseach, said in an interview with VentureBeat that his team used the tool to move thousands of atoms into precise spots, creating 242 frames of stop-motion scenes. The goal, he said, is to convey science to the outside world in order to get kids interested in science education.

“We figured that by making a movie, we would not just create a science story,” Heinrich said. “We wanted to create an emotional story. It is part of our educational outreach, to get people talking about atoms and why they are important.”

In the film, a boy named Atom (consisting of about 130 atoms) befriends a single atom. He plays catch with the atom, dances, and bounces on a trampoline. The film is set to a playful musical track.

“At IBM, researchers don’t just read about science, we do it,” Heinrich said. “This movie is a fun way to share the atomic-scale world and show everyday people the challenges and fun science can create.”

Christopher Lutz, research scientist at IBM Research, said the scanning tunneling microscope weighs two tons and operates at a temperature of negative 268 degrees Celsius and magnifies the atomic surface more than 100 million times. The device was able to move around carbon monoxide molecules, or carbon and oxygen atoms combined together. In the images, you only see one atom, or dot, because you are looking at it from above. It took about 10 days of 18-hour shifts to get the animations right.

The device can be remotely operated on a PC. The researchers control a super-sharp needle along a copper surface to “feel” atoms. The needle is just 1 nanometer, or a billionth of a meter, away from the copper surface. It can physically attract atoms and molecules on the surface and pull them to a precise location on the surface. The moving atom makes a unique sound that is critical feedback in determining how may positions it has actually moved.

IBM researchers have studied nanoscale materials for decades to explore the limits of data storage. The same team that made the movie also recently created the world’s smallest magnetic bit. They were able to create a single bit of information using just 12 atoms. By comparison, it takes 1 million atoms to store a bit of data on a modern computer.

Heinrich said the IBM scientists also used the tiny microscope to create the tiniest Star Trek logo (pictured above) and the “live long and prosper” sign made popular by the Star Trek character Spock. Heinrich said he has been working on nanotechnology for more than 15 years, with a focus on building better magnetic materials for data storage.

IBM researchers are on a roll. They made working chips modeled on the human brain. They also have created nanomedicine that can kill bacteria where antibiotics fail. And they recently created liquid-based transistors that might process data like the human brain.

If you were in the Mojave Desert today and heard something loud, it could have been the inaugural test flight of Virgin Galactic’s full spaceship today. The rocket blew past the sound barrier in the first flight-test of its rocket engine today, paving yet another road (if the road was made out of air) to commercial space travel.

Girls, pack your bags, we’re going to space!

The company announced the successful test flight today, saying this was the first time the rocket engine and the spacecraft had ever flown together. Both have been tested separately for a number of years. Sir Richard Branson, who owns Virgin Group (which Virgin Galactic is a part of) said in a statement that this was, “without any doubt, our single most important flight test to date.” Branson was in Mojave to see Virgin Galactic’s SpaceShipTwo fly.

He went on to say that this gets the company a step closer the goal of commercial space travel “by the year’s end.”

Before reaching an altitude of 47,000 feet, the spacecraft was attached to what Virgin Galactic calls the “WhiteKnightTwo” or WK2, an airplane specially designed to carry SS2. Once SpaceShipTwo let go of WhiteKnight, the rocket motor was ignited and off it went, reaching an altitude of 55,000. During the flight, it hit Mach 1.2 — otherwise known as going really freaking fast.

The SS2 landed safely after 10 minutes of solo airtime.

Photo by MarsScientific.com and Clay Center Observatory

This amazing video shows images from Cassini, a spacecraft that’s orbited Saturn for nine years. A huge hurricane is the star of the show.

With 300 mile per hour winds, the storm is the size of two Earths. Its eye alone is a massive 1,250 miles wide. Strangely, the storm has gravitated toward the planet’s north pole. But the biggest mystery, NASA reps say, is how the hurricane came to be in the absence of oceans and in a mostly hydrogen atmosphere that contains very little water vapor.

This specific storm is something NASA has been interested in for ages, and these are the first close-up, visible-light pictures of the hurricane.

Here’s a quick look at some of Cassini’s pictures of the storm:

Cassini made headlines a few months ago with more gorgeous images of Saturn, this time showing the planet backlit by the sun and glowing in green and yellow hues.

Cassini arrived in Saturn’s system in 2004. Since then, Cassini has provided new information on Saturn’s rings and moons. It’s scheduled to be crashed into the planet in 2017.

Media credit: NASA/JPL

One of the more bitter historical ironies is that no one knows what Alexander Graham Bell, the inventor of the telephone, sounded like.

At least until now. Thanks to a 128-year-old recording and the scientific wizardry of Lawrence Berkeley National Laboratory researchers Carl Haber and Earl Cornell, the world  finally has an idea — albeit a somewhat garbled one — of how Bell spoke. And it’s an amazing thing to hear.

The recording, which you can hear below, starts with Bell running off some numbers and ends with his stately, glorious declaration: “In witness whereof—hear my voice, Alexander Graham Bell.”

Bell made the recording on April 15, 1885 in his Washington, D.C., lab. Researchers were able to recover the audio by using noninvasive sound recovery technology to create high-resolution digital maps of the disc’s surface. As a result, the researchers were able to hear the recording without destroying the wax-on-binder-board that housed it.

But that’s enough out of me. Just listen to the recording. (The neatest bit? Bell pronounced Graham as “gray-ham.”)

The Atom is a bicycle accessory that charges USB-powered devices using energy generated by the cyclist. This little 300 gram gadget mounts onto your bike and captures your kinetic energy while you cruise around.

“The only limit to how much electricity you create is how often you ride,” said founder and CEO Dave Delcourt in an interview with VentureBeat. “We are transforming the daily ride by turning the energy, desire, and passion of riding into something with everyday use. The bicycle becomes infrastructure for distributed energy. As long as you have calories to burn and power in your legs, you have power for your phone.”

The energy is also made available to the rider through a portable 1300 mAh battery pack (about the same as the battery in the iPhone5), which you can unclip and take with you on-the-go. When riding at 10 mph, the Atom outputs 3 watts. Any USB chargeable device can be plugged in and powered up, and the device will only provide “juice” when the device needs it. The Atom consists of three removable parts and is “super intuitive” to install, the company says.

Delcourt and cofounder Aaron Latzke first began developing the technology in 2011. Latzke is a mechanical engineer and avid biker and wanted to feel more connected to the people he was designing for. The two realized that this basic principle of converting kinetic motion into electricity, which was developed in the 1940s, had not been updated for the 21st Century.

“The bike market is $6 billion a year, and $2.5 million is from parts and accessories,” Delcourt said. You have 39 million adult cyclists in the US, and 23 million that cycle on a frequent basis. And for some reason, the energy they create does not exist in a way that is palpable and out of the box.”

Now, after years of research and development, the duo are launching a Kickstarter campaign to bring the Atom to market. The goal is $85,000 to help with manufacturing, tooling, molding, and materials and to cover the first production run. Their goal, Delcourt said, is to ship 10,000 units in the first months of operation.

Siva Cycle’s vision for the Atom extends beyond American commuters. The company will donate 1 generator for every 10 purchases to someone who needs it in the developing world. Power is often unreliable in developing countries, and 1.5 billion people do not have electricity access. However, people in these regions are rapidly adopting mobile technology, and Delcourt said there is a big opportunity to “put power in the spokes of people who need it most.”

The first 200 people to sign up pay $85; after that, Kickstarter backers are charged $95. Post-Kickstarter, the price will be around $105 per unit. Siva Cycle is based in San Francisco, Calif.

Would you call yourself curious, creative, adaptable, resourceful, and resilient?

Mars One could be looking for you if you just answered “yes” to the question above.

Dutch space travel company presents an out-of-the-world opportunity to all adventure seekers – make the red planet your home, forever. Mars One officially launched its astronaut selection program today.

The non-profit has embarked on a bold mission to establish a human settlement on the planet Mars in 2023.

The selection process of this mission will involve a total of four rounds. The first round that constitutes of an online application will run until August 31, 2013. While Mars One officials would have the final say on who makes it to the next round, applicants are free to share and promote their applications.

The company is looking for “mature and interesting” folks. Basically what that means is that there are no professional or academic prerequisites, and anyone can apply.

“Gone are the days when bravery and the number of hours flying a supersonic jet were the top criteria,” said Norbert Kraft, Mars One’s chief medical director, and former NASA senior researcher, in a statement on the news. “For this mission of permanent settlement we are more concerned with how well each astronaut lives and works with others and their ability to deal with a lifetime of challenges.”

All the potential settlers will be given the necessary training and skills. The final decision of choosing the first settlers will be decided by an audience vote.

The whole program is projected to cost $6 billion. To subsidize that cost and to weed out any individuals who aren’t serious about the mission, Mars One will require an entry fee of up to $25, depending on your location, along with the one-minute video application. Additional funds from broadcasting deals of a reality show are also on the cards.

“In a 1,000 years, everyone on Earth will still remember who the first humans on Mars were, just like Neil Armstrong has been etched in our memories forever,” said Bas Lansdorp, co-founder of Mars One, in a statement.

When asked in an interview whether he plans on going to Mars himself, Lansdorp told VentureBeat, “This has been a dream of mine my whole life. I came up with this idea because I want to go to Mars, but in discussions with our medical director, and because I’m 15 years older and wiser than when I first had the idea, I might not be the perfect candidate.”

“I might try to get this mission going — I’m an entrepreneur, I get things done. But I’m also impatient, not good for a small team of people who need to get along for the rest of their lives. When the first team leaves, I will be extremely jealous,” he added.

Remember that classic volcano you build out of papier mache or the plants you grew in light and dark spaces to prove sunshine really is a necessity? Well, the White House is having its own science fair today — with kids who are smarter than you.

This is the third year in President Obama’s administration that the White House has thrown a science fair, and this year it’s promising a display of impressive projects ranging from an “economically-viable algae biofuel” to a cancer-finding computer program.

The science fair is being hosted by two gentlemen you might recognize from the science (and science fiction) arenas: Levar Burton and Bill Nye. We were lucky enough to sit down with Burton last year to talk about his own creation: the Reading Rainbow app. He was passionate about reaching children through technology.

The two spoke with a student named Sylvia who had created a robot that can paint with watercolors. She was asked to explain a “maker,” something she considers herself.

“Well makers are people who like tinkering, they have their own hobbies,” she said. “To be a maker, you just get out there and do something, actually put something together and have fun.”

At the fair, the White House announced a new project called U.S. 2020 that involves a number of tech companies who have asked 20 percent of their workforce to commit 20 hours toward getting youth interested in STEM, or, science technology, engineering, and math. The companies involved include Cisco, Sandis, and Cognizant.

In addition, the White House is also supporting a number of other initiatives this summer.

Mozilla has also partered with the National Writing Project for a similar cause. It is launching its own STEM campaign to get “teachers, technologists, and families” involved in STEM over the summer.

Obama Science Fair image via White House Facebook

I’m still pretty amazed that, as I go about my mundane daily routine, there will be two men performing a spacewalk from a football field-sized space station.

What’s even cooler is that NASA has decided to livestream the whole six-hour experience, which you can check out on the Ustream feed we’ve embedded below.

The spacewalk will be performed by Russian flight engineers Pavel Vinogradov and Roman Romanenko, who are with installing components for a project that will allow us to study plasma waves and the effect of space weather on Earth’s ionosphere. The project itself is called Obstanovka, which is Russian for environment. The cosmonauts will also be retrieving data from an earlier experiment that studied the effects of microbes living on a space station structure.

NASA said this is the first of six tentative spacewalks planned by Russia this year, while the U.S. is scheduled for two additional spacewalks in July.

Image via NASA

3D-printed space technology is no longer science fiction, as NASA and other space companies are making it a reality.

Engineers and researchers at the Ames Research Center are already working with 3D printing technology to make it applicable for use in both space travel and the study of our universe, according to a recent CNET report.

The potential for 3D printing on space travel is endless. The technology itself can theoretically allow structures like satellites and spacecraft to be built in space, and it’s being developed here on earth.

One private company, Made in Space, is already piloting zero gravity 3D printing. It started testing in early 2011, and has made great strides in the future of out of this world 3D printing and design.

The company is working under a contract with NASA’s Marshall Space Flight Center (MSFC), and they are building the first zero gravity 3D printer for space. The project, The 3D Printing in Zero-G Experiment, will launch into the atmosphere in 2014 headed to the International Space Station (ISS).

Earlier this year, MakerBot, one of the foremost producers of 3D printers, confirmed that NASA engineers were using the technology to build parts for models, including the Mars Rover Curiosity. NASA is now the company’s biggest customer, the company told Forbes.

However, 3D technology isn’t limited to science and technology exploration. From helping blind people ‘see’ paintings to creating weapons and firearms, 3D printing technology seems to make to anything your imagination can create.

Thingiverse, an online platform for 3D printing fans, has a variety of unique items available for printing ranging from gadgets and models to art and fashion accessories.

As the conversation and disruption around 3D printing technologies continues to evolve and becomes more than simple models, NASA and other companies are proving it can revolutionize design and manufacturing – taking it all the way out of this world.

Photo credit: NASA

“This is like the sci-fi dreams people wrote about decades ago,” Demo executive producer Erick Schonfeld said in an interview. “They are finally coming true. The most interesting thins happening in computing today are happening on mobile. These companies are pushing well beyond mobile phones and the internet of things, they are giving a sense of the possibilities and opportunities available.”

Maya Design is a technology research and design lab that seeks to “tame complexity.” On stage, President and CEO Mickey McManus presented flying drones that are activated by a watch.  Once the drones touched down again, they introduced the audience to MakerSwarm, or an “authoring tool for the Internet of Everything.”

“We live in a world of unbounded, malignant technological complexity,” he said on stage. “Rather than making humans more computer literate, we want the world to become more human literate, otherwise we will all become servants to our machines. Rather than coding, we want to build apps across atoms and bits, to create a social network of products and services.

MakerSwarm gives people visual tools so they can see the capabilities in every device (like sensors, a compass, or cameras) and drag-and-drop it into a new app, which can also connect to your social network. The goal is to enable anyone with technical expertise to build Internet of Things experiences, and turn anyone into a maker.

Following Maya Design was a company called Sherpa, which claims to be the “number one virtual personal assistant for the Spanish speaking world.” After ten years of research and development on natural language processing, Sherpa entered the US market today. The easy comparison is a Spanish-speaking Siri, but founder Xabier Uribe said on stage that Sherpa has greater capabilities because it is multi-lingual and based on multiple databases. Users can conduct complicated flight searches, ask “Who is President Obama” or request a Queen song to play. Sherpa also learns from user habits and provides guidance “not based on what we want the system to do, but based on what we actually do.” Sherpa is free and available through Google Play.

Following Sherpa was company that lets you control mobile devices with your eyes. That is the stuff of science fiction right there. The Eye Tribe makes software that enables eye control on mobile devices using sub millimeter eyeball tracking that CEO Sune Alstrup Johansen said can tell where someone is looking at a screen with accuracy compared to the size of a fingertip. It makes interaction with a mobile device as effortless as possible, so you can play a game or progress in an e-book without lifting a finger. On the business side, designers, researchers, and marketers can use the collected data to gain greater insight into user engagement and behavior.

While The Eye Tribe lets you feel telekinetic, Volio provides you with a simulated, virtual, video friend. Volio’s technology simulates conversation using artificial intelligence to give real people the characteristics of virtual assistants. On stage, founder Ron Croen had a conversation with his own Volio about what he ate for breakfast.

Volio has already partnered with Esquire magazine, where people can “chat” with Esquire columnists. For example, the Volio of a drinks expert named David Wondrich could ask a user questions about their favorite type of liquor, narrow down drink choices, and then guide them through the process of making a cocktail. The technology creates major opportunities for brands to connect with their consumers (and vice versa) and for customer support in a way that melds the comfort of real human contact with the convenience of technology.

The final company to present in mobile frontiers was Nanosatisfi which is taking mobile technology to space. The company has built a space and data imaging platform that offers affordable and convenient access to space. Founder Peter Platzer is a high-energy physicist who spent most of his career on Wall Street, but is now folioing his passion. His goal is to explore space without all the time, money, and bureaucracy that it involves to launch satellites. Nanosatisfi makes nano satellites that are equipped with cameras and various sensors. The collected data has possible applications in science education, weather analysis, and for governmental or military purposes.

Photo credit: The DEMO Conference