Wed Tech News

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Five thousand vials of the 1957 strain of the "Asian flu" virus were sent out to more than 3,700 labs in 18 nations from September until early April. That particular strain killed more than one million people, including about 70,000 in the United States, in a 1957-58 pandemic. Because the virus has not been included in flu vaccines since 1968, anyone born after that would not be immune to that strain.

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Earlier this month Intermec, Metro Group and Royal Philips Electronics said they had developed an RFID chip that complies with EPCglobal's Ultra High Frequency Electronic Product Code Class 1 Generation 2 G2 standard, sometimes referred to as UHF and G2. Impinj has also unveiled an RFID reader and tag system that conforms to the next-generation standard, and Gartner said these hardware announcements will soon be followed by many more.

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While the bio-cybernic system moves individual elements of the exoskeleton, a second system provides autonomous robotic control of the motors to coordinate these movements and make a task easier overall, helping someone to walk, for instance. The system activates itself automatically once the user starts to move. The first time they walk, its sensors record posture and pattern of motion, and this information is stored in an onboard database for later use. When the user walks again, sensors alert the computer, which recognises the movement and regenerates the stored pattern to provide power-assisted movement. The actions of both systems can be calibrated according to a particular user's needs, for instance to give extra assistance to a weaker limb.