TEXT-MATCHING COPYCATS virtual display that only they would be able to see.
A new computerized look at the biomedical research lit- While the prototype contact lens does not correct erature has turned up tens of thousands of articles in the wearer’s vision, the technique could also be which entire passages appear to have been lifted from used on corrective lenes. Ideally, installing or other papers. In fact, researchers estimate there may be removing the bionic eyes would be as easy as pop-as many as 200,000 duplicates among some 17 million ping in a contact lens. papers in the leading life sciences and biomedical research database Medline ( medline.cos.com). Scientific
In 79 cases (and counting), duplicates with different authors had no obvious legitimate explanation. The group set up a public Web site, Déjà vu
American reports researchers from the University of Texas Southwestern Medical Center in Dallas used a text-matching algorithm to compare seven million Medline abstracts against matching entries flagged by the database’s software as being closely related. The researchers set their own software tool, called e TBLAST, to identify pairs that were more than 45% identical. The search turned up more than 70,000 hits, which the researchers and three assistants then checked manually.
(http://discovery. swmed.edu/dejavu/), to document the
findings. The researchers estimate that about 50,000 of SWIPE-AND-RIDE
the e TBLAST hits will turn out to be either plagiarized San Francisco’s transit system is the first in the
or multiple listings. The next step, they say, is for jour- U.S. to test a systemwide cell phone payment pro-
nals to investigate. gram that allows riders to pass through the turn-
stiles with a wave of a phone. The $200,000 pilot
BIONIC EYES project, which ends its testing phase this month,
Engineers at the University of Washington have for the uses a wireless chip that lets people pay by passing first time used manufacturing techniques at microscopic their phone over a wireless reader. The Bay Area scales to combine a flexible, biologically safe contact Rapid Transit (BART) has been using the contact-lens with an imprinted electronic circuit and lights. free technology in its EZ Rider pilot program,
There are many possible uses allowing riders to pay at the turnstiles by waving
UNIVERSITY OF WASHINGTON
for virtual displays, reports a plastic card with a wireless chip. The latest test UWeek.org. Drivers or pilots puts a similar chip inside a phone, eliminating the could see a vehicle’s speed pro- need for additional cards. BART is also working jected onto a windshield. with fast-food franchise Jack in the Box to allow Videogame companies could trial participants to pay for food with their cell use the contact lenses to com- phones. Users load up to $48 on the chip from a pletely immerse players in a credit or debit card account via BART’s Web site virtual world without restrict- ( www.bart.gov). This “near-field communication” ing their range of motion. And technology, in wide use throughout Asia, will for communications, people likely continue to proliferate in the U.S., based on could surf the Net on a midair preliminary results of the BART test.
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