Unlimited computing power, computers mimicking the brain, mind-controlled wheelchairs and friendly robotic companions are part of a new European plan to boost visionary research, unveiled by the European Commission. With more investment and cooperation in high-risk research on future information technologies, Europe can lead the way in turning bright research ideas into future technologies.

In a video posted on her website, Viviane Reding, the European Union's Commissioner for Information Society and Media, said that Europeans must have the right to control how their personal information is used, and said that the Commission would take action wherever EU Member States failed to ensure that new technologies such as behavioural advertising, RFID 'smart chips' or online social networking respected this right.

The international consortium of the EU project has developed and launched a Virtual Academy for Health: a unique virtual space created for exchanging and gaining knowledge on European healthcare issues that fosters the use of ICT for learning, exchange, and collaboration in the healthcare sector, multiplies and furthermore consolidates dialogue arenas among policy makers, students, researchers, healthcare professionals and citizens.

Dilated cardiomyopathy, a heart muscle disease leading to dilation and impaired contraction of the left ventricle, is a severe and often familial disease. It is difficult to diagnose the disease with cardiac ultrasound, particularly at an early stage when there are only minimal, early changes of the heart. VTT Technical Research Centre of Finland has developed a method based on cardiac MRI, currently in research use, to help the physician to identify disease-related changes of the heart at an early stage.

Today, citizens aged 65+ make up 16 percent of the total population in all EU countries; this is projected to rise to 18 percent by 2010 and will continue to rise. The most dramatic increase is expected in the 80+ age range with a corresponding increase in co-morbidities that will place additional strains on existing health systems.

Transinsight announced today that the consortium formed with RESprotect, Antikörper-Online, and the Bioinformatics group of Prof. Dr. Michael Schroeder at TU Dresden, has won the Theseus-Mittelstand for R&D project GoOn. Over the next two years, the project - based on the results of Theseus One - will develop praxis-relevant semantic technologies for information handling in the biomedical domain.

The European Commission will present the 4th edition of the prestigious European eGovernment Awards at the 5th EU eGovernment Conference in November 2009. Since their launch in 2003, outstanding practices on the use of Information and Communication Technologies (ICT) in various European public sector organisations have been awarded.