Cochlear Implants
Rush Limbaugh received cochlear implant. Invented by Professor Graeme Clark, author of Sounds From Silence
First successful implant 1978 Clark and University of Melborne developed the first multi-channel implant, Cochlear Nucleus 22 in 1984. Since then 45,000 people worldwide have received them Clark now heads the Bionic Ear Institute
How do we hear?
Sound vibrates ear drum Ear drum vibrates three bones (malleus, incus, stapes) in the inner ear These bones vibrate the cohlear spiral shell (with lower frequencies at the base) Hairs in cochlea vibrate and send signals to auditory nerve
How do implants work?
22 electrode array that is inserted into cochlear spiral shell. External processor performs signal processing function to extract 22 frequencies that make up incoming sound (i.e. perform discrete 22 term Fourier transform). These signals are passed to the appropriate sensor in the array Electrical interaction of the sensor and nerve excites the auditor nerve
For the profoundly deaf, this is a clear option For those with partial hearing, the option is not so clear Collection of case studies, Cochlear Implantation for Infants and Children
Deaf Adopt Mobile Phones
Use Vibrator for ringing Text messaging A worldwide phenom
The Ongoing Saga with ValueWeb
ValueWeb hosts Stratford.eduWe have suffered some outages due to Distributed Denial of Service Attacks, not necessarily directed at Stratford but at others on the host machine Having trouble talking to anyone there (Email referred to Help Desk referred to Customer support) Latest discovery on the site
Was not detected by ValueWeb Only operated on Windows machines so it could not work on my site since we are running VALinux.
I still don?t recommend? them at this time.
Microsoft News Tech Talk Guest: Shavonne Dunkley
Enrolled in the Enterprise Networking Program at Stratford University in 1999. While still in school, got a job with Covad as Escalations Specialist After graduation, got a job as Network Analyst with Verizon in their IP NOC Works with Cisco and Junipter equipment, as well as, Frame Relay, ATM, SMDS and also DSL.
Sun Microsystems News Cyber Security Theme
Microsoft?s Bill Gates says that security will have a higher priority than new features Oracle?s Larry Ellison pledged to make his database unbreakable Cisco?s John Chamber told clients that security enhancements were not longer options, but requirements Part of Richard A. Clarke’s aggressive public awareness campaign
Clark is the White House cyberspace security advisor
Digital ID Tags for Everything
Sun has teamed with Auto-ID Center Auto-ID is an MIT initiative with support from Procter&Gamble, Gillette, Wal-Mart, Unilever, Tesco, Target, and others. Will cost less than 5 cents Passive devices that respond to RF and emit a unique digital signal Can be used to identify anything from soup cans to underwear. Chip store Electronic Product Code (EPC) that is 96 bits Can represent 268 million manufacturers with a million products each Automatic checkout in obvious application Privacy is a problem
Olympic IT Technology without Blue
First Olympics in 40 years not use IBM Hardware
32,000 miles of Fiber Optics 225 Servers 1,50 Fax Machines 1,210 printers 4,500 Workstations
SchlumbergerSema is taking over IBM?s duties of integration
Contract for Salt Lake and the next four games Working with 14 technology providers All computers provided by Gateway 10 million lines of software code Total IT cost $300M
Expect 15 Millions visitors to website
Web Casting for most events
Many personal websites for athletes (check Google )
Space Elevator Gets a Serious Look by NASA
Covered in last week’s show (check there for more links) Briefly revisited by popular demand
LauraStar Premium Steam Iron
Favorite Low Tech Item in the Home This Week This a a man’s iron. No wrinkle too tough.
Stratford News
Next Start: March 16th for all programs Campuses at both Woodbridge and Falls Church Scholarship Days
Saturday, Feb 16th Falls Church 10 AM Saturday, March 9th Woodbridge 10 AM
Woodbridge Open House
Thursday Feb. 21st 2002 Noon to 7:30 PM