Author Archives: Will Shanklin

Spinal implant allows Parkinson’s patient to walk for miles

Posted on by

A Parkinson’s patient can now walk 6km (3.7 miles) thanks to an implant targeting the spinal cord. The Guardian reports that the man — 62-year-old “Marc” from Bordeaux, France — developed severe mobility impairments from the degenerative disease. “I practically could not walk anymore without falling frequently, several times a day,” he said in a press release announcing the breakthrough. “In some situations, such as entering a lift, I’d trample on the spot, as though I was frozen there, you might say.” Wearing the spinal implant allows him to walk “almost normally” as the research team eyes a full clinical trial.

Marc underwent a “precision neurosurgical procedure” two years ago at Lausanne University Hospital (CHUV), which helped facilitate the research. The surgery fitted him with an electrode field placed against his spinal cord and an electrical impulse generator under the skin of his abdomen. Although conventional Parkinson’s treatments often target brain regions affected by the loss of dopamine-producing neurons, this approach instead focuses on the spinal area associated with activating leg muscles for walking.

The procedure used a personalized map of Marc’s spinal cord, identifying the specific locations signaling leg movements. He wears a movement sensor on each leg that tells the implant he’s trying to walk; it then switches on and sends electrical impulses to the targeted spinal neurons, adapting to his movement in real-time.

Swiss neurosurgeon, professor and co-director of NeuroRestore Jocelyne Bloch (L) and Swiss professor of neuroscience at the Swiss Federal Institute of Technology in Lausanne (EPFL) Lausanne University Hospital (CHUV) and Lausanne University (UNIL) and co-director of NeuroRestore, Gregoire Courtine (R), walk with Marc (C) a French patient suffering from Parkinson's disease fitted with a new neuroprosthesis during the presentation of a new neuroprosthesis that restores fluid walking in Lausanne, on November 3, 2023. Neuroscientists from Inserm, CNRS and the University of Bordeaux in France, together with Swiss researchers and neurosurgeons (EPFL/CHUV/UNIL), have designed and tested a 'neuroprosthesis' designed to correct the walking problems associated with Parkinson's disease. (Photo by GABRIEL MONNET / AFP) /
GABRIEL MONNET via Getty Images

“In response to precise stimulation of the lumbar spinal cord, I’ve observed for the first time remarkable improvements of gait deficits due to Parkinson’s disease,” project supervisor Jocelyne Bloch, professor and neurosurgeon at CHUV Lausanne University hospital, said in a webinar discussing the patient’s success. “I really believe that these results open realistic perspectives to develop a treatment.”

The patient says he could walk practically normally with the stimulation after several weeks of rehab. He now wears it for around eight hours daily, only turning it off when sleeping or lying down for a while. “I turn on the stimulation in the morning and I turn off in the evening,” he said. “This allows me to walk better and to stabilise. Right now, I’m not even afraid of the stairs anymore. Every Sunday I go to the lake, and I walk around 6 kilometres. It’s incredible.”

The researchers caution that there’s still a vast chasm between tailoring the approach to one person vs. optimizing it for wide-scale use. Co-leads Grégoire Courtine and Bloch are working on a commercial version of the neuroprosthetic in conjunction with Onward Medical. “Our ambition is to provide general access to this innovative technology to improve the quality of life of Parkinson’s patients significantly, all over the world,” they said.

Sting (left) and Michael J. Fox jam on guitars onstage at a 2021 benefit.
Michael J. Fox (right) with Sting.
Michael J. Fox Foundation

In the meantime, research on six new patients will continue in 2024. The team says a “generous donation” of $1 million from the Michael J. Fox Foundation for Parkinson’s Research is funding the upcoming work. In 2021, the actor’s organization announced it had contributed over $1.5 billion to Parkinson’s research.

This article originally appeared on Engadget at https://www.engadget.com/spinal-implant-allows-parkinsons-patient-to-walk-for-miles-193637427.html?src=rss

Bored Ape NFT event leads to at least 15 attendees reporting severe eye burn

Posted on by

At least 15 visitors at Yuga Labs’ ApeFest, a celebration of the marvels of Bored Ape Yacht Club NFTs, may have experienced serious eye injuries. Bloomberg reports that multiple people attending the NFT event in Hong Kong last weekend say they experienced vision problems, which they suspect stem from the event’s stage lighting. Some of the attendees claim doctors subsequently diagnosed them with photokeratitis (aka “welder’s eye”), caused by exposure to ultraviolet rays.

“Woke up in the middle of the night after ApeFest with so much pain in my eyes that I had to go to the hospital,” the user Crypto June posted on X (via Coin Telegraph). “Doctor told me it was due to the UV from stage lights.” User @docwagmi suspected that the “ape friends” reporting problems appeared to have been “up close with us front stage.” 

Bathroom at a Hong Kong NFT party, featuring bright lighting and colors on toilets
The event’s elaborately stylized bathrooms.
@crypto_birb / X

Meanwhile, Adrian Zduńczyk wrote on X, “To all my friends who suffer now: go get your eyes checked. You’ve likely most literally got your eyes burnt with UV like I did, which requires medications, eye drops, eye protection, antibiotics and specialist care. Don’t ignore this health hazard. Without proper treatment, it may cause long lasting vision impairment and other serious damage.” Zduńczyk wrote that seeking medical attention quickly appears to have spared him long-term damage. “My vision was tested as close to perfect with no serious cornea damage, luckily.”

Yuga Labs briefly addressed the issue on X, saying it’s “aware of the eye-related issues that affected some of the attendees of ApeFest,” while claiming it’s “proactively reaching out to individuals since yesterday to try and find the potential root causes.” The company downplayed the number of people reporting issues, adding, “Based on our estimates, we believe that much less than 1% of those attending and working the event had these symptoms.” The NFT company advised attendees experiencing symptoms to “seek medical attention just in case.”

X users seemed none too pleased with Yuga Labs’ PR response:

The potentially dangerous incident echoes one in 2017 when attendees of a HypeBeast party reported eye damage. The event’s DJ later reported that the lighting contractor used Philips bulbs that emit UV-C, often used as a disinfectant.

This article originally appeared on Engadget at https://www.engadget.com/bored-ape-nft-event-at-least-15-attendees-reporting-severe-eye-burn-welders-eye-173746237.html?src=rss

NYU is developing 3D streaming video tech with the help of its dance department

Posted on by

NYU is launching a project to spur the development of immersive 3D video for dance education — and perhaps other areas. Boosted by a $1.2 million four-year grant from the National Science Foundation, the undertaking will try to make Point-Cloud Video (PCV) tech viable for streaming.

A point cloud is a set of data points in a 3D space representing the surface of a subject or environment. NYU says Point-Cloud Video, which strings together point-cloud frames into a moving scene, has been under development for the last decade. However, it’s typically too data-intensive for practical purposes, requiring bandwidth far beyond the capabilities of today’s connected devices.

The researchers plan to address those obstacles by “reducing bandwidth consumption and delivery latency, and increasing power consumption efficiency so that PCVs can be streamed far more easily,” according to an NYU Engineering blog post published Monday. Project leader Yong Liu, an NYU electrical and computer engineering professor, believes modern breakthroughs make that possible. “With recent advances in the key enabling technologies, we are now at the verge of completing the puzzle of teleporting holograms of real-world humans, creatures and objects through the global Internet,” Liu wrote on Monday. 

ChatGPT maker OpenAI launched a model last year that can create 3D point clouds from text prompts. Engadget reached out to the project leader to clarify whether it or other generative AI tools are part of the process, and we’ll update this article if we hear back.

The team will test the technology with the NYU Tisch School of the Arts and the Mark Morris Dance Group’s Dance Center. Dancers from both organizations will perform on a volumetric capture stage. The team will stream their movements live and on-demand, offering educational content for aspiring dancers looking to study from high-level performers — and allowing engineers to test and tweak their PCV technology.

The researchers envision the work opening doors to more advanced VR and mixed reality streaming content. “The success of the proposed research will contribute towards wide deployment of high quality and robust PCV streaming systems that facilitate immersive augmented, virtual and mixed reality experience and create new opportunities in many domains, including education, business, healthcare and entertainment,” Liu said.

“Point-Cloud Video holds tremendous potential to transform a range of industries, and I’m excited that the research team at NYU Tandon prioritized dance education to reap those benefits early,” said Jelena Kovačević, NYU Tandon Dean.

This article originally appeared on Engadget at https://www.engadget.com/nyu-is-developing-3d-streaming-video-tech-with-the-help-of-its-dance-department-211947160.html?src=rss

Bungie reportedly lays off staff, delays Marathon and Destiny 2: The Final Shape

Posted on by

Bungie has reportedly laid off an unknown number of staffers and delayed two highly anticipated games. Bloomberg’s Jason Schreier reports that the studio’s CEO, Pete Parsons, warned staffers they would hear “some news today” while announcing a team meeting later on Monday to “discuss today’s events.”

Meanwhile, the studio has reportedly delayed the Destiny 2 expansion, The Final Shape, and the studio’s next game, Marathon. Sony completed its deal last year to buy Bungie for $3.6 billion.

According to Bloomberg, Bungie delayed Destiny 2: The Final Shape to June from its original target of February 27, 2024. While not necessarily the end of Destiny 2, the expansion will serve as a resolution, wrapping up its main story’s loose ends. In addition, the studio has pushed back the release date for extraction shooter Marathon to 2025. That title, rebooting an IP from a 1990s Mac cult classic, is Bungie’s attempt to re-establish itself as a force in the modern gaming industry beyond Destiny.

Sony has joined much of the gaming industry (and the tech world at large) in laying off staff this year. Naughty Dog, Media Molecule and PlayStation’s Visual Arts support team have all faced cuts recently. In addition, Epic Games cut around 900 staff members in September, and CD Projekt Red announced in July it would lay off about 100 people. Niantic, Telltale, EA and Unity have also let go of workers in 2023.

When reached by Engadget’s Kris Holt for comment, a Bungie spokesperson pointed us to the following post on X (formerly Twitter) from Parsons:

Update, October 30, 2023, 4:43 PM ET: This story has been updated to add Bungie’s response.

This article originally appeared on Engadget at https://www.engadget.com/bungie-reportedly-lays-off-staff-delays-marathon-and-destiny-2-the-final-shape-192722536.html?src=rss

Meta’s Oversight Board: Dangerous diet videos can remain, but please demonetize them

Posted on by

Meta’s Oversight Board announced today it has upheld the company’s decision to leave up two posts detailing a Thai woman’s fruit juice-only diet. However, the board recommended the company restrict the monetization of similar “extreme and harmful diet-related content” on Facebook as researchers continue to wrestle with the concerning relationship between social media and eating disorders.

The Oversight Board’s decision describes the videos, posted in late 2022 and 2023 by the same account — and flagged by users as harmful. The clips detailed “content on life, culture and food in Thailand.” In both problematic videos, a man interviews a woman in Italian about her experience with “a diet consisting only of fruit juice.”

The decision illustrates the videos’ concerning influence. “In the first video, the woman says she has experienced increased mental focus, improved skin and bowel movement, happiness and a ‘feeling of lightness’ since starting the diet, while she also shares that she previously suffered from skin problems and swollen legs,” the board’s summary reads. “She brings up the issue of anorexia but states her weight has normalized, after she initially lost more than 10 kilograms (22 pounds) due to her dietary changes.”

The second video, posted around five months later, follows up on the woman’s story, asking how she feels nearly a year into her dangerous diet. “She responds by saying she looks young for her age, that she has not lost any more weight except for ‘four kilos of impurities,’ and she encourages him to try the diet.” Making matters worse, she told the interviewer she planned to become a “fruitarian” after wrapping up the fast, adding that she may start a “pranic journey,” which she describes as “living ‘on energy’ in place of eating or drinking regularly.”

Collage of headshots for members of Meta’s oversight board. A series of circular images shows black & white headshots for each of the 20 members.
Meta’s oversight board
Meta

The videos have been viewed over two million times and have over 15,000 comments. The posts also shared details about the woman’s Facebook page, which received a significant uptick in engagement after the second post. “Based on research commissioned by the Board, the woman’s Facebook page has 17,000 followers and features content about the lifestyle of the woman, including her diet,” the board wrote. Both the content creator and the woman’s Facebook page were part of Meta’s Partner Monetization Program, allowing them to profit from the potentially harmful advice. 

After users reported the videos, Meta’s human reviewers determined the posts didn’t violate Facebook’s Suicide and Self-Injury Community Standard. They remained visible on Facebook. Separate users for each video then appealed the decision to Meta’s Oversight Board.

The board’s decision not to remove the videos was more about the lack of specific violations of the Suicide and Self-Injury Community Standard than a belief that the content was harmless. Specifically, the videos don’t provide “instructions for drastic and unhealthy weight loss when shared together with terms associated with eating disorders,” nor do they “promote, encourage, coordinate, or provide instructions for eating disorders.” Even the woman’s mention of an energy-only “pranic journey” was determined to be “descriptive in nature” without mention of weight loss.

The board recommended Meta adjust its monetization policies to “better meet its human rights responsibilities” related to “harmful diet-related content.” Most of the board considers the current authorization of this content “a conspicuous and concerning one.”  

“With health and communications experts noting the ability of influencers to use first-hand narration styles to secure high engagement with their content — coupled with the ubiquity of wellness influencers — it is important that Meta should not provide financial benefits to create this type of content,” the board wrote.

Some board members believed demonetization of this type of content was a bridge too far. “For a minority of the Board, since demonetization may negatively impact expression on these issues, Meta should explore whether demonetization is the least intrusive means of respecting the rights of vulnerable users,” the board wrote. Meanwhile, another minority believed demonetization doesn’t go far enough. “For a separate minority of Board Members, demonetization is necessary but not sufficient; they find that Meta should additionally restrict extreme and harmful diet-related content to adults over the age of 18, and explore other measures such as putting a label on the content, to include reliable information on the health risks of eating disorders.”

Meta says that because the board upheld Meta’s decision to leave up both posts, it “will take no further action related to this bundle or the content.” The company adds that it will review the demonetization recommendation. A Meta spokesperson told Engadget it will respond to “their full recommendations in our Transparency Center” within 60 days.

This article originally appeared on Engadget at https://www.engadget.com/metas-oversight-board-dangerous-diet-videos-can-remain-but-please-demonetize-them-175404574.html?src=rss