Every evening, before I switch off the bedside light, I take my right leg off and plug it into the mains. I am a below-knee amputee. I lost my leg in 2003 after stepping on a landmine while covering the war in Iraq for BBC News.

Unfortunately, my prosthesis doesn't enable me to leap over a wall with a single bound or run faster than a speeding bullet Stuart Hughes

The word "bionic" inevitably conjures up memories of the 1970s TV series, the Six Million Dollar Man. Unfortunately, my prosthesis doesn't enable me to leap over a wall with a single bound or run faster than a speeding bullet.

Rather, it uses sensors and a built-in microprocessor to mimic some of the actions of a human foot. The Proprio Foot is one of a new range of bionic artificial limbs designed by Ossur, a prosthetics company based in Iceland.

"The sensors detect whether the user is walking on level ground, going uphill or downhill or climbing steps," says Ossur's Richard Hirons.

"Every type of terrain has a distinct 'signature' which the software controlling the foot is able to interpret. When the microprocessor recognises a change in terrain, it instructs a very accurate motor to automatically adjust the angle of the foot in preparation for the next step."

Motor control

Researchers have been connecting man and machine since the 60s when they first began using electrodes attached to the body to direct motorised arms to move and bend.

1. Prosthetic socket 2. Battery 3. Battery cable 4. Keypad and circuit board 5. accelerometers - sensors - to track movement and pick up slopes, stairs etc 6. motor drive to pivot heel 7. actuator brings down toe during each step How amputees learn to walk

"The technology is a lot cheaper now," Professor Zahedi says. "Electronic components that would have cost hundreds of pounds 10 years ago now cost just a few pounds.

"Computer-controlled devices can be programmed and are much more flexible, which is why designers are choosing them instead of complicated and expensive mechanical devices."

One market keeping a close eye on developments is the military, which has seen a rise in the number of amputees among its ranks. Advances in battlefield medicine and better protective equipment mean that many soldiers who would once have died are now surviving, but are returning from war zones with horrific injuries.

Hundreds of soldiers serving in Iraq and Afghanistan have lost limbs, many due to roadside bombs and improvised explosive devices.

If an amputee soldier wants to remain on active duty, we are going to find a job for him Colonel Daniel Garvey

"The mindset, even as early as five years ago, was if a soldier had impairments such as an amputation, they are unfit and they may be at risk to others around them if put in a combat situation. That has changed," says Colonel Daniel Garvey, Deputy Commander of the US Army Physical Disability Agency.

"If a soldier wants to remain on active duty, we are going to find a job for him. That is a cultural change for us."

Count the cost

But Grania Hyde-Smith, from the Limbless Association, a charity which provides advice and support to amputees, urges caution.

She says the cost of the current generation of bionic limbs - up to £60,000 for some powered knee systems - puts them beyond the reach of many users. Ms Hyde-Smith wants more research to be carried out into whether the benefits justify the hefty price tag.

There's bound to come a time where the concept of the bionic man stops being just science fiction Saeed Zahedi

"People are reading about the new technology and are getting very excited about it -- and rightly so.

"But if you speak to health care professionals and prosthetists they say it's still very early days. They're not sure the new systems have been tried and tested sufficiently."

Some researchers believe the current generation of bionic limbs is just the beginning. They are working towards the day when man and machine are seamlessly integrated.

"There's bound to come a time where the concept of the bionic man stops being just science fiction," says Professor Zahedi.

"Promising work is taking place with limb transplants. One day it may be possible to create hybrid limbs which combine human tissue with electromechanical devices. Experiments with neural implants are also progressing quite rapidly, connecting the nervous system to external devices. What we're seeing at the moment is just the tip of the iceberg."

Perhaps one day an electronically-enhanced human being - "better, stronger, faster" as the opening titles of the Six Million Dollar Man put it - will be a reality.

But bionic technology is already bringing benefits for amputees like me - just so long as we don't forget to recharge our batteries.

I disagree with Grania Hyde-Smith, from the Limbless Association. I've been an above-knee amputee for five years now. I have a C Leg, by Ottobock. It contains a microprocessor as described in the article. The difference in my quality of life from using this leg versus a traditional mechanical leg is worth way more than 60K pounds. The amount of energy I use to walk is greatly reduced. I fall less often than I would, since the knee detects stumbles and changes in walking speed and adjusts for them. This all means I can work fulltime, care for my two year old son, and have as independent a life as possible.
Juliet, USA

I think the trauma of losing a part of your leg would prevent 99% of soldiers returning to the battlefield. To lose a limb like this must affect the way you were before
Robin Yates, Swindon, Dudley

I retired from the US Army after 30 years of serving our great country. During my duty at Fort Stewart, I visited our soldiers at Walter Reed Medical Center, MD, every month. I strongly agree with Col Garvey - keep amputee soldiers in our army. This was my number one request when I visited our soldiers. Wounded in action soldiers want to serve.
CSM (R) US Army, Sam Perrotta, Richmond Hill, Georgia

There is one very famous military amputee that went back to the front line 60 years ago - Group Captain Douglas Bader. Injured in a crash in the 20s, fought everyone to get back in to the air force, there was no reason why he shouldn't have been he could fly better than anyone else. It was just not accepted by anyone, but Douglas fought all the way and one, he was one of the reasons why we won the Battle of Britain.
Richard, West Wickham

For 25 years I've had a lower leg that, while still there, has been seriously compromised (war injury). This is the first thing I've seen that makes me feel that it might be better if my leg did drop off one day.
Charles Haley, Harare, Zimbabwe

Bravo bionic technology, I have always long to see the end to the sufferings of the limbless. Disability is not inability and so incorporating them back in to society bridges the gap. The cost is the only drawback, I hope it will be cheap and affordable one day.
Aaron Tellve Pabai, Freetown, Sierra Leone

I can't wait to get a bionic foot so that I can go walking on all sorts of terrain not just flat surfaces. It will make amputees much fitter because as you get older it is more difficult to take exercise which involves walking or running.
Wendy Gething, East Bridgford, Nottingham

Might the day come when prosthetic limbs are better than their organic equivalent? - then everyone might want upgraded body parts. In time I'm sure we could come up with some 'alternative' designs that improve on the original and allow movement not currently envisaged. Exciting stuff!
Anthony, Bristol

I remember reading concepts about heel-powered systems to provide electrical energy through walking; the focus market was laptop users. Could lower body limbs use the compression of impact whilst walking to recharge their power levels. If it worked, then the limb could even use a smaller battery.
Simon Mehlman, Manchester

By Rory Cellan-Jones Business correspondent, BBC News

Consumers have generally been underwhelmed by 3G phones

Third generation (3G) mobiles have proved a financial disaster as companies have struggled to interest consumers in using the new technology.

Firms spent billions on technology making it possible to surf the web or watch television through handsets.

But they found customers were only using them for simple phone calls.

Service promise

3, the company which launched Britain's first 3G network, now says it is going to make the mobile internet more interesting.

It is launching a partnership with internet firms including Skype, Google and eBay.

The promise is that users will be able to make free internet phone calls, watch their home television on their phone and tap into their home computers on the move.

The price for all these services will be a flat-rate monthly fee.

Mobile phone companies often make big claims when launching new products - but analysts say 3's move could change the industry.

MySpace has plans to scan music files on its site

Universal Music Group is suing MySpace - claiming the online social network site is encouraging its users to illegally share music and music videos.

It accuses MySpace of allowing people to illegally upload videos and of providing the technology for users to share the content with others.

Links to work by its artists including The Killers, Jay-Z and Gwen Stefani are available, Universal alleges.

But MySpace said it acted legally and dismissed the "meritless litigation".

It added that its procedures for removing illegal downloads were good, and that it fully complied with copyright laws.

'Key role'

"We have been keeping Universal closely appraised of our industry-leading efforts to protect creators' rights," MySpace said.

Our goal is not to inhibit the creation of these communities, but to ensure that our rights and those of our artists are recognised Universal Music Group

"We provide users with tools to share their own work - we do not induce, encourage, or condone copyright violation in any way."

But Universal's lawsuit, lodged in a US district court, claims that MySpace "encourages, facilitates and participates in the unauthorised reproduction, adaptation, distribution and public performance".

In a statement it added: "Our music and videos play a key role in building the communities that have created hundreds of millions of dollars of value for the owners of MySpace.

"Our goal is not to inhibit the creation of these communities, but to ensure that our rights and those of our artists are recognised."

Technology plans

Universal alleges that MySpace tries to avoid liability for copyright breaches by making its users give the website the right to publish the content.

However the users do not have the right to give that permission, the music firm argues.

MySpace last month unveiled technology to block users from uploading copyrighted music to its pages.

It will use a file-filtering application to scan old and new content to weed out any unauthorised material.

Illegal files, the company said, would be removed and persistent offenders would be banned from the site.

The issue of copyright on sites such as MySpace is a hot topic.

Many music companies have blamed falling CD sales on piracy

Baidu.com faced a lawsuit from music companies after posting links to sites offering illegal music downloads.

But the ruling said the service did not constitute an infringement as the music was downloaded from webservers of third parties, state press reported.

This overturns an earlier ruling, which had ordered Baidu to pay a distributor of EMI 68,000 yuan (£8,400).

Companies including EMI, Sony BMG, Warner Music and Universal Music had had demanded a public apology from Baidu, the suspension of its download service and 1.73m yuan ($216,250) compensation.

Baidu argued the MP3 search engine it provided was the same as other search engines providing links to web pages, news and pictures.

"If the music companies had won, the whole search engine sector would have ground to a halt," Xinhua news agency quoted a Baidu spokesman as saying.

The report said the music companies would appeal against the ruling.

Thousands of fans, some of whom had camped for several days, queued outside shops in New York and Hollywood.

The Japanese firm dominates the handheld gaming space, selling more than 200m DS and Gameboys globally.

But its last home console, the GameCube, faltered as titles for the machine from third-party developers dried up.

The first buyer, Isaiah "Triforce" Johnson, had been queuing outside the New York shop for more than a week.

"I had to get it first," said the 29-year-old, who shook hands with Nintendo of America president Reggie Fils-Aime after buying the console.

'Brave' design

Nintendo hopes the Wii, designed to be more accessible than rival machines, will boost its fortunes.

Nintendo has decided to opt-out of the "arms race" of the current round of consoles, that has seen Microsoft and Sony play a game of brinkmanship with their Xbox 360 and PlayStation 3 machines.

Both firms have positioned their consoles as home entertainment hubs, offering high definition gaming and film playback, along with digital downloads and high-specification graphics and central processor chips.

Instead, Nintendo has attempted to re-design the gaming experience, opting for a controller which looks like a remote control but is motion sensitive, offering gamers a potentially simpler but at the same time more immersive experience.

The games for the machine have also been designed to be more accessible, with a focus on casual and family gaming.

Analysts and experts are divided over whether Nintendo will be able to break down the barriers between gamers and non-gamers but the firm has a track record of innovation.

Third-party developers are embracing Nintendo machines, with Ubisoft, for example, offering seven titles at launch including Red Steel, Far Cry Vengence and Splinter Cell: Double Agent.

Electronic Arts, the world's biggest games publisher, has also backed the Wii, admitting that the success Nintendo had made of its DS handheld console had forced them to re-think their plans.

Hiroshi Kamide, director of research at KBC Securities Japan, believes Wii will not only convert new gamers but also win over PlayStation and Microsoft Xbox fans, who may buy Wii in addition to PlayStation 3.

"The Wii will expand the market pie and grow in that sense, but also actually be the second console of choice for all the core gamers," he said, adding that Wii's success will depend on how well it does on both counts.

"It will be very interesting to see how much the market pie grows because of the Wii. But it is still a game console at the end of the day."

Wii has a pricing advantage at $250 (£132), half the price of the PlayStation 3 cheapest model.

The Xbox 360, which launched last year, sells for $300 (£158) to $400 (£212).

Nintendo spokesman Yasuhiro Minagawa has said nearly 400,000 Wiis will be available for the Japan launch date on 2 December, and likely more for the US launch on Sunday.

The UK gets hold of the Wii console on 8 December for £179.

"Using technology to make yourself happy."

Being in a relationship is about lot of things. It’s about love, respect, sharing and understanding. For me, it’s the same bedroom scenario every night, and it’s not what you think it might be. I am a big fan of science fiction and have a nice little collection of Isaac Asimov. The problem is, I can never read them before sleep as our viciously bright night lamp light and 100 decibels of book page turning, irritates my girlfriend. Nagging and futurism don’t go well together.

So this is what I’m going to do I’ll utilise technology to improve my nerdy lifestyle. Running several popular websites such as Analogik generates lot of traffic. Traffic equals backlinks, backlinks equal PageRank – a virtual good and a commodity in demand these days. On the other side there are companies with products – they try to sell products and services. Higher the PageRank, higher you are in the search engine results. We have the PageRank – they need the PageRank. Do you see some spiral tungsten firing up already?

No problems so we got the money, now so we have to choose our gadget wisely. After a bit of research and friendly persuasion, a nice chap from FedEx arrives with a brand new NOKIA N91, Made in Finland, shipped from Hong Kong (?). Pretty nice – stainless steal body, slightly bulky but elegantly robust look enwrapping a jolly nice combo of a phone and an mp3 player with 4Gb of HDD space and high speed connectivity. A bit of an overkill, yet very satisfying knowing that PayPal money paid for it instead of my credit card.

The foundation brick of Analogik, Brad Schwede has always had passion for futurism and today he revealed to me that he is so lazy to read books that he gets his text-to-speech program do it for him. So that’s exactly what I’m going to do.

I’ve already got most of Asimov’s books in electronic format thanks to a very dedicated group of fans who OCR-ed and organised the lot. So by using NaturalSoft’s Natural Reader loaded with AT&T’s smooth speech engine I shall convert the text into one large audio file, load it onto the phone and listen to the narration until the little robots take me to the Metropolis land.

Come on, it’s 2006 and there are no robots walking around and there are no flying cars. For that we shall wait, unil then - use your technology to make yourself happy.

Be a techno superstar - Share your story with us!

by Brad Schwede

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The idea for this design came out of a late night coffee with Dejan whilst listening to jazz.

The concept of a little seed coming up out of ground was agreed upon and I went straight home to start designing the seedling. It is obviously influence by Autechre’s Gantz Graf and clean modern vector styles but visually I wanted to push the contrast of heavy ‘harmonic distortion’ on a tiny little organic plant. Almost as if the plants DNA was being modified by sonic pulses.

Process.

soundtrack (Reason File)

The audio sphere (or bass ball) is created out of the same audio map but traced around a 3d sphere (‘alpha infection’) and then treated in after effects to produce a glowing, pulsating ball which is wrapped around the plant.

Sound (by Dejan Petrovic)

Doing a soundtrack for this piece was a bit of a challenge. The coffee-table idea bounced off our heads and we both had the same, yet different mental picture of how this animation should look like.

So it started with sound. Knowing Brad's recent influences in music I've decided to go with the most unpleasant and distorted option I had up my sleave Malstrom synthesizer served me well in this case. And so I started.

The idea in a form of a track bounced off couple of more times until we've polished it to our liking. At the same time Brad was constructing his little 3D world, and at some point it all seem to have merged into one. In our case it was very hard to tell which one should have been done first - sound or the animation so they were done simultaneously.

Enough talk.

Article by: Dejan Petrovic

(SONY™ PlayStation® 2)

"The commercial will engage you with captivating visuals of intense communal excitement.."

Ref: Sony PlayStation® Australia

From a perspective of a typical multimedia person, The "Mountain", Sony PlayStation® ad has got to be one of the best ads of the decade. What a brilliant combination of video, special effects and vintage Shirley Temple track - Get on Board Lil' Children.

EFFECTIVE

The "Mountain" is a part of PlayStation® new "fun, anyone?" brand campaign. As always PlayStation® manages to stay in touch with their audience and customers in a way that Coca-Cola, Pepsi, McDonalds and other giants could only imagine. While everyone else is trying to be cool and hip, PlayStation® actively seeks and attempts to tap into all the possible wavelengths of the youth today. Needles to say - their success in this field is immense.

FRESH

PlayStation® commercials are always fresh, quirky, weird and different. It seems that by bombarding the audience with the unknown and strange we can actually wake the sleepy minds that have been trained to filter out all forms of advertisement. Shock techniques are not a new thing but there is something different with the ad serial coming from PlayStation®.

ARTISTIC

Every PlayStation® ad that we see on TV seems to be a carefully crafted short film with a true artistic value behind the commercial facade. They are not necessarily dark and mean - often they are vibrant, innovative and uplifting.

REALISTIC

The mountain ad simply makes you feel happy after you see it. And what's beautiful about it is that there is no transparency in their visual effects technology. Everyone today knows that almost anything is achievable by video effects and 3D animation but this ad simply leaves one in doubt - is it for real?

PRODUCTION

The producer of this commercial, Frank Bugden has used over 500 extras, and a production team of 300 people. Frank was assisted by some of the leading producers, directors and crew members with experience in gigantic cinema projects (e.g. Lord of the Rings). We won't be giving any jewels away - you will have to visit Australian Playstation site for the Fun Anyone? 60 second video clip.

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Once again a 3d object with 2d animations tracked. The concept for this work was trying to tune a television and not being able to find clear reception. The 3d object is an animated displacement map on a sphere. Camera moves are a lot freeer and cleaner than the other works as I wanted to give the effect of exploring rather than being told what to look at. The tiny + symbols were originally apart of a guide track for the motion but I changed there look and left them as they look like the HP symbols.

The sound track (if you can call it that) was a recording from a digital set top box through a computer of 6 hours of TV in MPEG1 format – I decided to ‘scrub’ through the audio and let it stop for a second then continue on (as if scanning for something). Then realizing that this was not distorted enough added a tone generator in AE and parented its pitch and frequency values to the camera – so if the camera went one way the tone would go up etc. Giving a feeling of tuning analog equipment.

The final treating of this file was to add a channel delay so the edges had a colored blur. An effect used a lot to simulated busted tubes. Then at certain points a camera roll and malfunction effect was applied to give the feeling on the object being tuned.