Virtual human' Milo

By Guzel Nasibulina

In July 2010 Microsoft released a video to show the virtual human Milo. It was presented in 2009 at the E3 Expo in Los Angeles for the first time and it is still in development. We don't know when it will be released, but one day it will be a commercial product. This character, built using artificial intelligence, reacts to a person's emotions, body movements and voice. Mr Molyneux wanted to create a character that seemed real and alive. It uses sensors, cameras, microphones and psychological techniques to look like a human beeing. It was designed to be used with the firm's hands-free Xbox 360 motion controller called Kinect.

Internet users are more active

Internet users are more active

By Mercè Cid

The Internet Catalunya project is a research plan concerning the use of new technologies in every field, conducted by the Internet Interdisciplinary Institute (IN3) of the Universitat Oberta de Catalunya. It began in 2001 and finished in 2007, and 40 researchers worked on it. It was supervised by Manuel Castells and Imma Tubella and enjoyed the support and financial subsidy of the Catalan government.

This project shows that 83% of young people aged between 15 and 24 are Internet users. It also proves that new technologies activate social life and personal autonomy. According to this project, people who use the Internet are more active, have more friends, are more involved in politics and suffer less from depression.

Children own a mobile phone at 10.3 years

By Marta Nicolás

The Generalitat de Catalunya made a survey of the habits of young people with respect to mobile phones with an Internet connection. The results show that the use of technology is increasing among young people.

The average age at which a child has a mobile phone is 10.3 years. As regards computers, more than half use the family computer and 45% have their own personal one. Kids between 11 and 12 say they began using it when they were on average 8.1 years old. Boys connect mostly to the Internet from their consoles, while girls have more personal websites than boys and connect to personal blogs and chats on a daily basis.

Gorillas play games of tag like humans

Gorillas play games of tag like humans

By Xènia Nogué

Scientists have discovered that gorillas can play games of tag just like us. A great ape can hit a playmate and then run away, only to be chased by the gorilla he struck. Other studies of the group behaviour of gorillas show strong similarities in the ways that gorillas and children play.

Dr Davila Ross said that his team had found 86 examples of this type of correlation.

Archaeological finding in Cuenca

By Oliver Afonso

In September 2010 Francisco Ortega and his team from the Universidad Nacional de Educación a Distancia published scientific data about a dinosaur found in Cuenca in 2003 in the magazine Nature.

The team found a nearly complete skeleton, about 6 metres long from nose to tail, in the same position as the live animal. This is a newly discovered species of carnivorous dinosaur that lived 125 millions of years ago, during the early Cretaceous Period. They named it Concavenator corcovatus, because of the hump on its back. Furthermore, it has bulges on the forearm bones, perhaps for wing feathers. These features had never been described in dinosaurs before.

It can be seen in the Science Museum of Castilla-La Mancha (Cuenca).