Xiaomi 80W wireless charging technology goes official

Chinese technology company Xiaomi has announced its next salvo in the fast charging wars, a new 80W wireless method that the company claims beats out any other competitor. The 80W solution is said to be able to charge a 4,000mAh battery up to 50 percent full in eight minutes and 100 percent full in 19 minutes. The video above shows it in action on a modified Mi 10 Pro.

Xiaomi already has the fastest wireless charging on a shipping phone; the Mi 10 Ultra has 50W wireless technology that can fully charge its 4,500mAh battery in 40 minutes. Oppo recently announced a 65W solution that is said to be able to charge a 4,000mAh battery in 30 minutes, but the tech is yet to ship in a commercial device.

Fast wireless charging is much less common outside China, where companies like Huawei and Xiaomi have been working to outdo each other for a while. The fastest option that’s widely available in the West is the OnePlus 8 Pro, which has an optional 30W wireless charger. Apple’s new MagSafe chargers for the iPhone 12 line charge at up to 15W.Xiaomi hasn’t announced when a phone with 80W wireless charging will actually ship, but it shouldn’t be too far off. The company has consistently released phones with ever-higher wireless power specs over the past couple of years, with the Mi 10 Ultra only coming out a couple of months ago. Source: https://www.daily-bangladesh.com

Read More........→December 29, 2020

Indian origin engineer develops technology for simultaneous Wifi transmission and reception

Harish Krishnaswamy, associate professor of electrical engineering, Columbia University 

A team of Columbia University researchers believes that enabling reliable and efficient full duplex wireless communication is a task best addressed at the chip level. The researchers, led by Harish Krishnaswamy, an associate professor of electrical engineering, have developed full-duplex radio integrated circuits that can be implemented in nanoscale CMOS to enable simultaneous transmission and reception on the same frequency. "Having a transmitter and receiver use the same frequency offers the potential to immediately double network data capacity," Krishnaswamy says. "Our work is the first to demonstrate an IC that can receive and transmit simultaneously," he says. CMOS is the dominant technology used for radio ICs inside phones and other radio-equipped mobile devices. The biggest challenge the team faced during its research was canceling transmitter echo, a phenomenon that makes usable full duplex impossible. "What you really need to do is to cancel-out that echo to the point where it's eliminated almost perfectly and the residual echo is extremely small - smaller than the received signal, the desired signal - that you're trying to receive from the distant cell tower," he says. Since the echo is over a billion times more powerful than the received signal, echo cancellation circuits must operate highly precisely. "We need echo cancellation circuits that are something like one-part-per-billion-level accurate," Krishnaswamy explains. Such precision is difficult to achieve in software alone without killing overall device performance. "This really is something that needs to be done in hardware," Krishnaswamy says. "That level of precision in the echo cancellation, and the need to handle such a loud echo, cannot be done purely in signal processing." To achieve optimal quality, the researchers applied multiple layers of echo cancellation to their software. "The echo is at least a billion to 10 billion times more powerful than the signal that we're trying Columbia to receive, so basically you want to cancel that factor, and that's hard to do with one signal echo canceller," Krishnaswamy says. "So the way these full duplex systems are likely to be successful is to have multiple layers of echo cancellation, just hitting that echo canceling again, and again, and again. Krishnaswamy and doctoral student Jin Zhou are now testing the full-duplex technology on various nodes to understand exactly what gains might be possible at the network level. "We are looking forward to being able to deliver the promised performance improvements," Krishnaswamy says. Source domain-b.com

Read More........→August 13, 2019

High-Efficiency Power Amplifier Could Bring 5G Cell Phones around 2019

Credit: Purdue University

A new highly efficient power amplifier for electronics could help make possible next-generation cell phones, low-cost collision-avoidance radar for cars and lightweight microsatellites for communications. Fifth-generation, or 5G, mobile devices expected around 2019 will require improved power amplifiers operating at very high frequencies. The new phones will be designed to download and transmit data and videos faster than today's phones, provide better coverage, consume less power and meet the needs of an emerging "Internet of things" in which everyday objects have network connectivity, allowing them to send and receive data. This diagram shows the standard layout of transistors in cell phone power amplifiers, at left, and a new highly efficient amplifier design, at right. The new design could help make possible next-generation cell phones, low-cost collision-avoidance radar for cars and lightweight microsatellites for communications. Power amplifiers are needed to transmit signals. Because today's cell phone amplifiers are made of gallium arsenide, they cannot be integrated into the phone's silicon-based technology, called complementary metal-oxide-semiconductor (CMOS). The new amplifier design is CMOS-based, meaning it could allow researchers to integrate the power amplifier with the phone's electronic chip, reducing manufacturing costs and power consumption while boosting performance. "Silicon is much less expensive than gallium arsenide, more reliable and has a longer lifespan, and if you have everything on one chip it's also easier to test and maintain," said Saeed Mohammadi, an associate professor of electrical and computer engineering at Purdue University. "We have developed the highest efficiency CMOS power amplifier in the frequency range needed for 5G cell phones and next-generation radars." Findings are detailed in two papers, one to be presented during the IEEE International Microwave Symposium on May 24 in San Francisco, authored by former doctoral student Sultan R. Helmi, who has graduated, and Mohammadi. They authored another paper with former doctoral student Jing-Hwa Chen to appear in a future issue of the journal IEEE Transactions on Microwave Theory and Techniques. The amplifier achieves an efficiency of 40 percent, which is comparable to amplifiers made of gallium arsenide. The researchers created the new type of amplifier using a high-performance type of CMOS technology called silicon on insulator (SOI). The new amplifier design has several silicon transistors stacked together and reduces the number of metal interconnections normally needed between transistors, reducing "parasitic capacitance," which hinders performance and can lead to damage to electronic circuits. "We have merged transistors so we are using less metallization around the device, and that way we have reduced the capacitance and can achieve higher efficiencies," Mohammadi said. "We are trying to eliminate metallization between transistors." The new amplifiers could bring low-cost collision-avoidance radars for cars and electronics for lightweight communications microsatellites. The CMOS amplifiers could allow researchers to design microsatellites that are one-hundredth the weight of today's technology. Three U.S. patents related to the amplifier have been issued. The research was funded partially by the U.S. Defense Advanced Research Projects Agency. The researchers are working on a new version of the amplifier that is twice as powerful. Further work will be needed to integrate the amplifier into a cell phone chip. 

• Contacts and sources:
• Writer: Emil Venere
• Purdue University

Source: http://www.ineffableisland.com/

Read More........→September 23, 2016

Indian-origin engineer develops technology to double Wi-Fi speed

@ https://pixabay.com/ under Creative Commons CC0.

New York: An Indian-origin engineer has developed a novel technology that doubles Wi-Fi speeds with a single antenna -- an achievement with potential to transform the telecommunications field in future. Columbia University's Harish Krishnaswamy, an electrical engineering graduate from the Indian Institute of Technology -Madras, has for the first time integrated a non-reciprocal circulator and a full-duplex radio on a nanoscale silicon chip to create the breakthrough system. "This technology could revolutionise the field of telecommunications," said Krishnaswamy, director of the Columbia High-Speed and Mm-wave IC (CoSMIC) Lab. "Our circulator is the first to be put on a silicon chip, and we get literally orders of magnitude better performance than prior work," he noted. Last year, Columbia researchers invented a technology -- full-duplex radio integrated circuits (ICs) -- that can be implemented in nanoscale CMOS to enable simultaneous transmission and reception at the same frequency in a wireless radio. That system
required two antennas. "Full-duplex  communications, where the transmitter and the receiver operate at the same time and at the same frequency, has become a critical research area and now we've shown that WiFi capacity can be doubled on a nanoscale silicon chip with a single antenna. This has enormous implications for devices like smartphones and tablets," Krishnaswamy explained. "Being able to put the circulator on the same chip as the rest of the radio has the potential to significantly reduce the size of the system, enhance its performance, and introduce new functionalities critical to full duplex," added co-researcher Jin Zhou. Krishnaswamy's team had to "break" Lorentz Reciprocity - a fundamental physical characteristic of most electronic structures that requires electromagnetic waves travel in the same manner in forward and reverse directions - to develop the technology. "It is rare for a single piece of research, or even a research group, to bridge fundamental theoretical contributions with implementations of practical relevance. It is extremely rewarding to supervise graduate students who were able to do that," said the Indian-origin engineer who has earlier won many accolades for his research efforts. The research was published in the journal Nature Communications and the paper was presented at the "2016 IEEE International Solid-State Circuits Conference" in San Francisco, California, recently. Source:  ummid.com

Read More........→May 27, 2016

Researcher Gains Control Of Another Man's Brain Over The Internet

Human To Human Brain Interface Allows Researcher To Control Another Person Hand Motions Over The Internet, Credit: University of Washington

University of Washington researchers have performed what they believe is the first noninvasive human-to-human brain interface, with one researcher able to send a brain signal via the Internet to control the hand motions of a fellow researcher. University of Washington researcher Rajesh Rao, left, plays a computer game with his mind. Across campus, researcher Andrea Stocco, right, wears a magnetic stimulation coil over the left motor cortex region of his brain. Stocco’s right index finger moved involuntarily to hit the “fire” button as part of the first human brain-to-brain interface demonstration. Using electrical brain recordings and a form of magnetic stimulation, Rajesh Rao sent a brain signal to Andrea Stocco on the other side of the UW campus, causing Stocco’s finger to move on a keyboard. While researchers at Duke University have demonstrated brain-to-brain communication between two rats, and Harvard researchers have demonstrated it between a human and a rat, Rao and Stocco believe this is the first demonstration of human-to-human brain interfacing. “The Internet was a way to connect computers, and now it can be a way to connect brains,” Stocco said. “We want to take the knowledge of a brain and transmit it directly from brain to brain.” The researchers captured the full demonstration on video recorded in both labs. The following version has been edited for length. Rao, a UW
professor of computer science and engineering, has been working on brain-computer interfacing in his lab for more than 10 years and just published a textbook on the subject. In 2011, spurred by the rapid advances in technology, he believed he could demonstrate the concept of human brain-to-brain interfacing. So he partnered with Stocco, a UW research assistant professor in psychology at the UW’s Institute for Learning & Brain Sciences. On Aug. 12, Rao sat in his lab wearing a cap with electrodes hooked up to anelectroencephalographymachine, which reads electrical activity in the brain. Stocco was in his lab across campus wearing a purple swim cap marked with the stimulation site for the transcranial magnetic stimulation coil that was placed directly over his left motor cortex, which controls hand movement. The team had a Skype connection set up so the two labs could coordinate, though neither Rao nor Stocco could see the Skype screens. Rao looked at a computer screen and played a simple video game with his mind. When he was supposed to fire a cannon at a target, he imagined moving his right hand (being careful not to actually move his hand), causing a cursor to hit the “fire” button. Almost instantaneously, Stocco, who wore noise-canceling earbuds and wasn’t looking at a computer screen, involuntarily moved his right index finger to push the space bar on the keyboard in front of him, as if firing the cannon. Stocco compared the feeling of his hand moving involuntarily to that of a nervous tic. “It was both exciting and eerie to watch an imagined action from my brain get translated into actual action by another brain,” Rao said. “This was basically a one-way flow of information from my brain to his. The next step is having a more equitable two-way conversation directly between the two brains.” The cycle of the experiment. Brain signals from the “Sender” are recorded. When the computer detects imagined hand movements, a “fire” command is transmitted over the Internet to the TMS machine, which causes an upward movement of the right hand of the “Receiver.” This usually results in the “fire” key being hit.

Credit: University of Washington

The technologies used by the researchers for recording and stimulating the brain are both well-known. Electroencephalography, or EEG, is routinely used by clinicians and researchers to record brain activity noninvasively from the scalp. Transcranial magnetic stimulation is a noninvasive way of delivering stimulation to the brain to elicit a response. Its effect depends on where the coil is placed; in this case, it was placed directly over the brain region that controls a person’s right hand. By activating these neurons, the stimulation convinced the brain that it needed to move the right hand. Computer science and engineering undergraduates Matthew Bryan, Bryan Djunaedi, Joseph Wu and Alex Dadgar, along with bioengineering graduate student Dev Sarma, wrote the computer code for the project, translating Rao’s brain signals into a command for Stocco’s brain. “Brain-computer interface is something people have been talking about for a long, long time,” saidChantel Prat, assistant professor in psychology at the UW’s Institute for Learning & Brain Sciences, and Stocco’s wife and research partner who helped conduct the experiment. “We plugged a brain into the most complex computer anyone has ever studied, and that is another brain.” At first blush, this breakthrough brings to mind all kinds of science fiction scenarios. Stocco jokingly referred to it as a “Vulcan mind meld.” But Rao cautioned this technology only reads certain kinds of simple brain signals, not a person’s thoughts. And it doesn’t give anyone the ability to control your actions against your will. Both researchers were in the lab wearing highly specialized equipment and under ideal conditions. They also had to obtain and follow a stringent set of international human-subject testing rules to conduct the demonstration. “I think some people will be unnerved by this because they will overestimate the technology,” Prat said. “There’s no possible way the technology that we have could be used on a person unknowingly or without their willing participation.” Stocco said years from now the technology could be used, for example, by someone on the ground to help a flight attendant or passenger land an airplane if the pilot becomes incapacitated. Or a person with disabilities could communicate his or her wish, say, for food or water. The brain signals from one person to another would work even if they didn’t speak the same language. Rao and Stocco next plan to conduct an experiment that would transmit more complex information from one brain to the other. If that works, they then will conduct the experiment on a larger pool of subjects. Their research was funded in part by the National Science Foundation’s Engineering Research Center for Sensorimotor Neural Engineering at the UW, the U.S. Army Research Office and the National Institutes ofHealth. Contacts and sources:Doree Armstrong, Source: Article

Read More........→November 26, 2015

Powering the next billion devices with Wi-Fi

University of Washington engineers have developed a novel technology that uses a Wi-Fi router -- a source of ubiquitous but untapped energy in indoor environments -- to power devices. The Power Over Wi-Fi (PoWiFi) system is one of the most innovative and game-changing technologies of the year, according to Popular Science, which included it in the magazine's annual "Best of What's New" awards announced Wednesday. The technology attracted attention earlier this year when researchers published an online paper showing how they harvested energy from Wi-Fi signals to power a simple temperature sensor, a low-resolution grayscale camera and a charger for a Jawbone activity tracking bracelet. The final paper will be presented next month at the Association for Computing Machinery's CoNEXT 2015 conference in Heidelberg, Germany, on emerging networking experiments and technologies. "For the first time we've shown that you can use Wi-Fi devices to power the sensors in cameras and other devices," said lead author Vamsi Talla, a UW electrical engineering doctoral student. "We also made a system that can co-exist as a Wi-Fi router and a power source -- it doesn't degrade the quality of your Wi-Fi signals while it's powering devices." PoWiFi could help enable development of the Internet of Things, where small computing sensors are embedded in everyday objects like cell phones, coffee makers, washing machines, air conditioners, mobile devices, allowing those devices to "talk" to each other. But one major challenge is how to energize those low-power sensors and actuators without needing to plug them into a power source as they become smaller and more numerous. The team of UW computer science and electrical engineers found that the peak energy contained in untapped, ambient Wi-Fi signals often came close to meeting the operating requirements for some low-power devices. But because the signals are sent intermittently, energy "leaked" out of the system during silent periods. The team fixed that problem by optimizing a router to send out superfluous "power packets" on Wi-Fi channels not currently in use -- essentially beefing up the Wi-Fi signal for power delivery -- without affecting the quality and speed of data transmission. The team also developed sensors that can be integrated in devices to harvest the power. In their proof-of-concept experiments, the team demonstrated that the PoWiFi system could wire-lessly power a gray-scale, low-power Omnivision VGA camera from 17 feet away, allowing it to store enough energy to capture an image every 35 minutes. It also re-charged the battery of a Jawbone Up24 wearable fitness tracker from zero to 41 per cent in 2.5 hours. The researchers also tested the PoWiFi system in six homes. Users typically didn't notice deterioration in web page loading or video streaming experiences, showing the technology could successfully deliver power via Wi-Fi in real-world conditions without degrading network performance. Although initial experiments harvested relatively small amounts of power, the UW team believes there's opportunity for make the PoWiFi system more efficient and robust. "In the future, PoWi-Fi could leverage technology power scaling to further improve the efficiency of the system to enable operation at larger distances and power numerous more sensors and applications," said co-author Shyam Gollakota, assistant professor of computer science and engineering. Source: Article, Source: flickr.com

Read More........→November 20, 2015

Neuroscientists establish brain-to-brain networks in primates, rodents

Neuroscientists at Duke University have introduced a new paradigm for brain-machine interfaces that investigates the physiological properties and adaptability of brain circuits, and how the brains of two or more animals can work together to complete simple tasks. These brain networks, or Brainets, are described in two articles to be published in the 9 July 2015, issue of Scientific Reports. In separate experiments reported in the journal, the brains of monkeys and the brains of rats are linked, allowing the animals to exchange sensory and motor information in real time to control movement or complete computations. In one example, scientists linked the brains of rhesus macaque monkeys, who worked together to control the movements of the arm of a virtual avatar on a digital display in front of them. Each animal controlled two of three dimensions of movement for the same arm as they guided it together to touch a moving target. In the rodent experiment, scientists networked the brains of four rats complete simple computational tasks involving pattern recognition, storage and retrieval of sensory information, and even weather forecasting. Brain-machine interfaces (BMIs) are computational systems that allow subjects to use their brain signals to directly control the movements of artificial devices, such as robotic arms, exoskeletons or virtual avatars. The Duke researchers, working at the Center for Neuroengineering, have previously built BMIs to capture and transmit the brain signals of individual rats, monkeys, and even human subjects to artificial devices. "This is the first demonstration of a shared brain-machine interface, a paradigm that has been translated successfully over the past decades from studies in animals all the way to clinical applications," said Miguel Nicolelis, M.D., Ph. D., co-director of the Center for Neuroengineering at the Duke University School of Medicine and principal investigator for the study. "We foresee that shared BMIs will follow the same track, and could soon be translated to clinical practice." To complete the experiments, Nicolelis and his team outfitted the animals with arrays implanted in their motor and somatosensory cortices to capture and transmit their brain activity. For one experiment highlighted in the primate article, researchers recorded the electrical activity of more than 700 neurons from the brains of three monkeys as they moved a virtual arm toward a target. In this experiment, each monkey mentally controlled two out of three dimensions (i.e., x-axis and y-axis) of the virtual arm. The monkeys could be successful only when at least two of them synchronized their brains to produce continuous 3-D signals that moved the virtual arm. As the animals gained more experience and training in the motor task, researchers found that they adapted to the challenge. The study described in the second paper used groups of three or four rats whose brains were interconnected via microwire arrays in the somatosensory cortex of the brain and received and transmitted information via those wires. In one experiment, rats received temperature and barometric pressure information and were able to combine information with the other rats to predict an increased or decreased chance of rain. Under some conditions, the authors observed that the rat Brainet could perform at the same level or better than one rat on its own. These results support the original claim of the same group that Brainets may serve as test beds for the development of organic computers created by the interfacing of multiple animal brains with computers. Nicolelis and colleagues of the Walk Again Project, based in the project's laboratory in Brazil, are currently working on a non-invasive human Brainet to be used for neuro-rehabilitation training in paralyzed patients. Source: Article, Image: flickr.com

Read More........→July 19, 2015

Wireless Online Electric Vehicle Charges On The Move, No Need To Stop To Recharge Batteries

OLEV tram, Credit: KAIST

The Online Electric Vehicle (OLEV), developed by the Korea Advanced Institute of Science and Technology (KAIST), is an electric vehicle that can be charged while stationary or driving, thus removing the need to stop at a charging station. Likewise, an OLEV tram does not require pantographs to feed power from electric wires strung above the tram route. Following the development and operation of commercialized OLEV trams (at an amusement park in Seoul) and shuttle buses (at KAIST campus), respectively, the City of Gumi in South Korea, beginning on August 6th, is providing its citizens with OLEV public transportation services. Two OLEV buses will run an inner city route between Gumi Train Station and In-dong district, for a total of 24 km roundtrip. The bus will receive 20 kHz and 100 kW (136 horsepower) electricity at an 85% maximum power transmission efficiency rate while maintaining a 17cm

OLEV tram, Credit: KAIST

air gap between the underbody of the vehicle and the road surface.  OLEV is a groundbreaking technology that accelerates the development of purely electric vehicles as a viable option for future transportation systems, be they personal vehicles or public transit. This is accomplished by solving technological issues that limit the commercialization of electric vehicles such as price, weight, volume, driving distance, and lack of charging infrastructure. OLEV receives power wirelessly through the application of the “Shaped Magnetic Field in Resonance (SMFIR)” technology. SMFIR is a new technology introduced by KAIST that enables electric vehicles to transfer electricity wirelessly from the road surface while moving. Power comes from the electrical cables buried under the surface of the road, creating magnetic fields. There is a receiving device installed on the underbody of the OLEV that converts these fields into electricity. The length of power strips installed under the road is generally 5%-15% of the entire road, requiring only a few sections of the road to be rebuilt with the embedded cables. OLEV has a small battery (one-third of the size of the battery equipped with a regular electric car). The vehicle complies with the international electromagnetic fields (EMF) standards of 62.5 mG, within the margin of safety level necessary for human health. The road has a smart function as well, to distinguish OLEV buses from regular cars—the segment technology is employed to control the power supply by switching on the power strip when OLEV buses pass along, but switching it off for other vehicles, thereby preventing EMF exposure and standby power consumption. As of today, the SMFIR technology supplies 60 kHz and 180 kW of power remotely to transport vehicles at a stable, constant rate. Dong-Ho Cho, a professor of the electrical engineering and the director of the Center for Wireless Power Transfer Technology Business Development at KAIST, said: “It’s quite remarkable that we succeeded with the OLEV project so that buses are offering public transportation services to passengers. This is certainly a turning point for OLEV to become more commercialized and widely accepted for mass transportation in our daily living.” After the successful operation of the two OLEV buses by the end of this year, Gumi City plans to provide ten more such buses by 2015. Contacts and sources: Dong-Ho Cho, Professor of Electrical Engineering Department, KAIST, Director of Center for Wireless Power Transfer Technology Business Development, KAIST (http://smfir.co.kr/) Source: ineffableisland.com

Read More........→March 14, 2015

Now, an 'Energy EGG' that turns off unused electrical items

An American software engineer has developed an 'Energy EGG' which is smart enough to sense when a room is empty and saves power by turning off electrical devices not in use. 37-year-old Brian O'Reilly hatched an idea for the 'Energy EGG' in his workshop in order to curb his family's extravagant electricity usage, the Daily Mail reported. The 'Energy EGG' uses motion sensors to detect whether someone is in the room, similar to the functioning of household alarm systems. The egg-shaped device is linked wirelessly to a control adaptor, similar to a multi-plug, into which multiple electrical goods are connected. "I've always been quite concerned about energy efficiency and recycling, which is our main focus, and I found it quite difficult with my wife and kids to get everything switched off," Brian was quoted as saying by the paper. Brian who worked as a software engineer, left his job to market his winning innovative product. He has signed a deal to distribute an initial 1,00,000 Energy EGGS to hundreds of stores in the US. The technology, which was developed along with the University of Strathclyde where Brian's company 'TreeGreen' is based, also gives a one minute warning before cutting power. The inventor is also in the process of launching the 'Smart Phone Charger' and the 'Smart Light Switch', which automatically turns off lights when a room is empty but unlike other systems, which only come on in the dark, is not confused by sunlight. "For me it's just great to know we're not wasting energy needlessly. My mum and dad's generation grew up switching stuff off and I think that's starting to come back now people are more aware of the need to save energy," Brian said, Source: Deccan Chronicle

Read More........→May 04, 2014

Could Pirates Spoof A Super Yacht At Sea And Lead It Off Course? In A Word Yes, Say Texas Researchers

Is it possible to coerce a 213-foot yacht off its course — without touching the boat’s steering wheel — using a custom-made GPS device? That’s what Todd Humphreys wanted to find out. Humphreys, a researcher in the Department of Aerospace Engineering and Engineering Mechanics at the Cockrell School of Engineering, and his team successfully “spoofed” an $80 million private yacht using the world’s first openly acknowledged GPS spoofing device. Spoofing is a technique that creates false civil GPS signals to gain control of a vessel’s GPS receivers. The purpose of the experiment was to measure the difficulty of carrying out a spoofing attack at sea and to determine how easily sensors in the ship’s command room could identify the threat. The animation in the video explains how the research team

performed the GPS spoofing experiment on the yacht. The researchers hope their demonstration will shed light on the perils of navigation attacks, serving asevidence that spoofing is a serious threat to marine vessels and other forms of transportation. Last year, Humphreys and a group of students led thefirst public capture of a GPS-guided unmanned aerial vehicle (UAV), or drone, using a GPS device created by Humphreys and his students.“With 90 percent of the world’s freight moving across the seas and a great deal of the world’s human transportation going across the skies, we have to gain a better understanding of the broader implications of GPS spoofing,” Humphreys said. “I didn’t know, until we performed this experiment, just how possible it is to spoof a marine vessel and how difficult it is to detect this attack.” In June, the team was invited aboard the yacht, called the White Rose of Drachs, while it traveled from Monaco to Rhodes, Greece, on the Mediterranean Sea. The experiment took place about 30 miles off the

GPS Spoofing of Superyacht

coast of Italy as the yacht sailed in international waters. This summer, assistant professor Todd Humphreys, in the Department of Aerospace Engineering andEngineering Mechanics, and his research team, graduate students Jahshan Bhatti and Ken Pesyna, spent time aboard the White Rose of Drachs, successfully performing GPS spoofing attacks on the 213-foot superyacht while it traveled on the Mediterranean Sea. From the White Rose’s upper deck, graduate students Jahshan Bhatti and Ken Pesyna broadcasted a faint ensemble of civil GPS signals from their spoofing device — a blue box about the size of a briefcase — toward the ship’s two GPS antennas. The team’s counterfeit signals slowly

overpowered the authentic GPS signals until they ultimately obtained control of the ship’s navigation system. Unlike GPS signal blocking or jamming, spoofing triggers no alarms on the ship’s navigation equipment. To the ship’s GPS devices, the team’s false signals were indistinguishable from authentic signals, allowing the spoofing attack to happen covertly. Once control of the ship’s navigation system was gained, the team’s strategy was to coerce the ship onto a new course using subtle maneuvers that positioned the yacht a few degrees off its original course. Once a location discrepancy was reported by the ship’s navigation system, the crew initiated a course correction. In reality, each course correction was setting the ship slightly off its course line. Inside the yacht’s command room, an electronic chart showed its progress along a fixed line, but in its wake there was a pronounced curve showing that the ship had

turned. “The ship actually turned and we could all feel it, but the chart display and the crew saw only a straight line,” Humphreys said. After several such maneuvers, the yacht had been tricked onto a parallel track hundreds of meters from its intended one — the team had successfully spoofed the ship. The experiment helps illustrate the wide gap between the capabilities of spoofing devices and what the transportation industry’s technology can detect, Humphreys said. Chandra Bhat, director of the Center for Transportation Research at UT Austin, believes that the experiment highlights the vulnerability of the transportation sector to such attacks. “The surprising ease with which Todd and his team were able to

control a (multimillion) dollar yacht is evidence that we must invest much more in securing our transportation systems against potential spoofing,” Bhat said. It’s important for the public and policymakers to understand that spoofing poses a threat that has far-reaching implications for transportation, Humphreys said. “This experiment is applicable to other semi-autonomous vehicles, such as aircraft, which are now operated, in part, by autopilot systems,” Humphreys said. “We’ve got to put on our thinking caps and see what we can do to solve this threat quickly.” As part of an ongoing research project, funding and travel expenses for this experiment were supported by UT Austin’s Wireless Networking and Communications Group through the WNCG’s Industrial Affiliates program. Contacts and sources: By Sandra Zaragoza, Cockrell School of Engineering, Animation by Erik Zumalt, Cockrell School of Engineering. University of Texas at Austin. Source: Article

Read More........→January 02, 2014

Camera Powered by Android

Recently Samsung has unveiled its brand new Android-powered GALAXY Camera that allows the user to only to take quality images, but also surf the Web wirelessly overWi-Fi, 3G or 4G networks and share the shots in an instant. The device boasts a 23 mm, 21x optical zoom lens (F2.8), along with a 16.3-megapixel CMOS sensor, optical image stabilization technology, GPS and a 4.8-inch (121.2mm), HD "Super Clear" LCD display. Of course the most impressive thing about the camera is the fact that it features a 1.4 GHz quad-core processor that helps run Android 4.1 (Jelly Bean). The device can also be connected to Samsung Galaxy smartphone and tablet. Another impressive feature is voice control of zooming and shooting features. The use will also be able to edit photos and videos onboard. Currently no information has been given on pricing and release date. Below you can find additional specs for the GALAXY Camera. -> 4.77-inch, 308 ppi HD Super Clear Touch Display -> ISO100 - 3200 -> 8 GB on board memory plus micro SDHC/SDSC/SDXC memory slot -> Full HD video 1920 x 1080 at 30 fps -> Slow motion movie capture (720 x 480 at 120 fps) -> HDMI video output -> Dimensions: 128.7 x 70.8 x 19.1 mm -> Weight: 305 g Source: Tech Guide

Read More........→January 02, 2014

100 Gigabits A Second: World Record Wireless Data Transmission Set

Photo: KIT

Extension of cable-based telecommunication networks requires high investments in both conurbations and rural areas. Broadband data transmission via radio relay links might help to cross rivers, motorways or nature protection areas at strategic node points, and to make network extension economically feasible. In the current issue of the nature photonics magazine, researchers present a method for wireless data transmission at a world-record rate of 100 gigabits per second. (doi: 10.1038/nphoton.2013.275) In their record experiment, 100 gigabits of data per second were transmitted at a frequency of 237.5 GHz over a distance of 20 m in the laboratory. In previous field experiments under the “Millilink” project funded by the BMBF, rates of 40 gigabits per second and transmission distances of more than 1 km were reached. For their latest world record, the scientists applied a photonic method to generate the radio signals at the transmitter. After radio transmission, fully integrated electronic circuits were used in the receiver. Setup for the world record of wireless data transmission at 100 gigabits per second: The receiver unit (left)

Photo: KI

receives the radio signal that is recorded by the oscilloscope (right).  “Our project focused on integration of a broadband radio relay link into fiber-optical systems,” Professor Ingmar Kallfass says. He coordinated the “Millilink” project under a shared professorship funded by the Fraunhofer Institute for Applied Solid State Physics (IAF) and the Karlsruhe Institute of Technology (KIT). Since early 2013, he has been conducting research at Stuttgart University. “For rural areas in particular, this technology represents an inexpensive and flexible alternative to optical fiber networks, whose extension can often not be justified from an economic point of view.” Kallfass also sees applications for private homes: “At a data rate of 100 gigabits per second, it would be possible to transmit the contents of a blue-ray disk or of five DVDs between two devices by radio within two seconds only.” In the laboratory experiment, radio relay transmission has covered a distance of up to 20 m already. In the experiments, latest photonic and electronic technologies were combined: First, the radio signals are generated by means of an optical method. Several bits are combined by so-called data symbols and transmitted at the same time. Upon transmission, the radio signals are received by active integrated electronic circuits. The transmitter generates the radio signals by means of an ultra-broadband so-called photon mixer made by the Japanese company NTT-NEL. For this, two optical laser signals of different frequencies are superimposed on a photodiode. An electrical signal results, the frequency of which equals the frequency difference of both optical signals, here, 237.5 GHz. The millimeter-wave electrical signal is then radiated via an antenna. “It is a major advantage of the photonic method that data streams from fiber-optical systems can directly be converted into high-frequency radio signals,” Professor Jürg Leuthold says. He proposed the photonic extension that was realized in this project. The former head of the KIT Institute of Photonics and Quantum Electronics (IPQ) is now affiliated with ETH Zurich. “This advantage makes the integration of radio relay links of high bit rates into optical fiber networks easier and more flexible.“ In contrast to a purely electronic transmitter, no intermediate electronic circuit is needed. “Due to the large bandwidth and the good linearity of the photon mixer, the method is excellently suited for transmission of advanced modulation formats with multiple amplitude and phase states. This will be a necessity in future fiber-optical systems,” Leuthold adds. Reception of radio signals is based on electronic circuits. In the experiment, a semiconductor chip was employed that was produced by the Fraunhofer Institute of Applied Solid State Physics (IAF) within the framework of the “Millilink” project. The semiconductor technology is based on high-electron-mobility transistors (HEMT) enabling the fabrication of active, broadband receivers for the frequency range between 200 and 280 GHz. The integrated circuits have a chip size of a few square millimeters only. The receiver chip can also cope with advanced modulation formats. As a result, the radio link can be integrated into modern optical fiber networks in a bit-transparent way. Already in May this year the team succeeded in transmitting a data rate of 40 gigabits per second over a long distance in the laboratory using a purely electronic system. In addition, data were transmitted successfully over a distance of one kilometer from one high-riser to another in the Karlsruhe City center. “The long transmission distances in “Millilink” were reached with conventional antennas that may be replaced by fully integrated miniaturized antenna designs in future compact systems for indoor use,” says Professor Thomas Zwick, Head of the KIT Institut für Hochfrequenztechnik und Elektronik (Institute of High-Frequency Technology and Electronics). The present data rate can be still increased. “By employing optical and electrical multiplexing techniques, i.e., by simultaneously transmitting multiple data streams, and by using multiple transmitting and receiving antennas, the data rate could be multiplied,” says Swen König from the KIT Institute of Photonics and Quantum Electronics (IPQ), who conceived and conducted the recent world-record experiment. “Hence, radio systems having a data rate of 1 terabit per second appear to be feasible.” The “Millilink” project (March 2010 to May 2013) was funded with a total budget of EUR 2 million by the Federal Ministry of Education and Research (BMBF) under the program “Broadband Access Networks of the Next Generation”. Apart from the research institutions of Fraunhofer IAF and KIT, the industry partners Siemens AG, Kathrein KG, and Radiometer Physics GmbH participated in the project.  The project focused on integrating wireless or radio links into broadband optical communication networks for rapid internet access in rural areas in particular. Other possible applications are indoor wireless local area networks (WLAN), wireless personal area networks (WPAN), and intra-machine and board-to-board communication. In the recent experiment, the originally purely electronic “Millilink” concept was extended by a photonic transmitter. At KIT, work is now continued under the Helmholtz International Research School of Teratronics (HIRST), a graduate school focusing on the combination of photonic and electronic methods for signal processing at highest frequencies. Contacts and sources: Monika Landgraf. Helmholtz Association Reference: Wireless sub-THz communication system with high data rate. S. Koenig, D. Lopez-Diaz, J. Antes, F. Boes, R. Henneberger, A. Leuther, A. Tessmann, R. Schmogrow, D. Hillerkuss, R. Palmer, T. Zwick, C. Koos, W. Freude, O. Ambacher, J. Leuthold, and I. Kallfass. nature photonics. doi: 10.1038/nphoton.2013.275, http://www.nature.com/nphoton/index.html. Karlsruhe Institute of Technology (KIT) is a public corporation according to the legislation of the state of Baden-Württemberg. It fulfills the mission of a university and the mission of a national research center of the Helmholtz Association. Research activities focus on energy, the natural and built environment as well as on society and technology and cover the whole range extending from fundamental aspects to application. With about 9000 employees, including nearly 6000 staff members in the science and education sector, and 24000 students, KIT is one of the biggest research and education institutions in Europe. Work of KIT is based on the knowledge triangle of research, teaching, and innovation. Source: Nano Patents And Innovation

Read More........→October 16, 2013

Hidden Camera Detectors

Full introduction to the Hidden Camera Detector App for iPhone including instructions for use. the HCD App to find spy cameras that may be spying on you! The first and only Hidden Camera Detector for iPhone helps you make sure there are no spy cameras invading your privacy. To learn more click the

video, Hidden camera and bug detector:  Click here to know, How Does a Hidden Voice Recorder

Work?, 3 Ways to Detect Hidden Cameras and Microphones - wikiHow, Do you feel like you're being watched? Maybe you just want to make sure your privacy is protected. Here are some different ways to locate hidden cameras and microphones. (1) Initial Sweep: Do a physical search of the premises.

This involves a slow, meticulous sweep of the room or building you suspect is wired. (A) Look around for anything that seems different or out of place, such as flower arrangements, pictures on the wall out of level or in unusual areas, or lampshades that don't look normal. Check for smoke detectors you didn't add, look for a speaker that might have a camera in it. (B) Look inside flower pots, light fixtures, and other places where a microphone transmitter can easily be hidden. (C) Look under couch cushions, table tops, and shelves. Underneath shelves and table tops are excellent places for miniature cameras. (D) Look for wires that do not seem to go anywhere, such as an appliance or other familiar device. "Hardwired" (that is, not wireless) spy equipment is less common with modern technology, but is still used for permanent surveillance in commercial businesses for loss prevention. (2) Listen as you walk the entire room

quietly. Many small, motion-sensitive cameras make an almost inaudible click or buzz when they operate. (2) Use Darkness: (A) Turn off the lights and look around for tiny red or green LED lights. Some microphones have "power on" indicator lights, and if the person who sets it up is careless they may

fail to cover or deactivate this feature. (B) While the lights are off, grab a flashlight and carefully examine all mirrors. These can be made transparent from one side so that a camera can see through, but they rely on the observer's side being darker than the area observed in order to keep the other side of

the mirror reflective. (C) Search for pinhole cameras in the dark. A pinhole camera might have a charge-coupled device (CCD) sitting behind a tiny opening in a wall or object. Get an empty toilet paper tube and a flashlight. Put the tube over one eye like a telescope and close your other eye. As you sweep the flashlight over the room, pay attention to any small glimmers that reflect back at you.

(3) Use a Signal Detector: (A) Buy an RF signal detector or other bug detector. If you seriously believe you are being spied on, buy an RF (radio frequency) detector and do a sweep of your room, building, or home. These portable devices are small, simple to use, and fairly inexpensive. However, there are bugs that use multiple frequencies in rapid sequence called "spread spectrum" that an RF detector will not pick up. These bugs are used by professionals and require a spectrum analyzer and an experienced

technician to find. (B) Use your cell phone to pick up an electromagnetic field. Place a call on your cell phone, then wave the device around where you think there might be a camera or microphone. If you can hear a clicking noise on the call, it means your phone might be interfering with an electromagnetic field.

Tips: (A) Check hotel rooms. (B) Wireless surveillance devices will be a bit larger, because they contain wireless transmission equipment. These devices can send information in about a 200-foot (61-meter) radius. (C) Make sure that your computer's microphone and webcam (if you have one) are off or covered when not in use. (D) If you find something, alert the authorities. Don't move or disable the camera or microphone. Act as if you hadn't noticed it, go just outside the bugged area and call your local law enforcement agency. They'll want to see evidence that the bugs were installed, and not just lying around the room. Source: Article, sophisticated Hidden Camera Detectors which works in seconds: Use The Camera Finder Hidden Camera Detector to quickly scan a room and locate all hidden cameras no 
matter how covert they are. The Hidden Camera Finder locates all cameras, wired or wireless, to help you protect your privacy. Perfect for dressing rooms. Whether it's through a camera hidden in a dressing room, public bathroom or rental apartment, being watched by a stranger strikes fear in any woman. And it's not just paranoia. Stories like the one reported last month by the St. Petersburg Times about 

roommates Vanya Samokovareva and Ralitsa Dzhambazova finding spycams hidden throughout their rental apartment in Tampa remind us that the potential danger is real. So I consulted Todd Morris, CEO and Founder of Brickhouse Security, a surveillance and security company, to find out what you can do to detect hidden spycams.

Read More........→June 17, 2013

Clothes of the future: where hi-tech meets high fashion

Photo: EPA

It seems impossible to survive in the modern world without going either “smart” or digital, and clothes are no exception. The fashion industry is now working on technology to bring dressing habits to a completely new level. We're still in the stone age of nano-fibres and networked apparel but, in the not too distant future, you can count on having a coat which tells your mom where you are and having the Encyclopaedia Britannica embedded in your underwear! According to IMS Research, about 14m wearable tech devices were produced in 2011; by 2016, the global market could reach $6bn. Nancy Tilbury, designer to the stars and one of the creators of the futuristic Studio XO, predicts, “Generation Digital are constantly connected and live their lives digitally. Clothes are the next logical step”. Though thought of now as innovation, tampering with textiles and technology has been going on for over a thousand years. Artisans have been wrapping fine golden and silver foil around fabric threads since as early as the reign of Queen Elizabeth I. At the end of the 19th century, with the advent of electric appliances, designers and engineers sought to combine electricity with clothing and jewellery; the so-called Electric Girl Lighting Company hired out young ladies wearing light-adorned evening gowns to brighten up cocktail parties. In 1968, the Body Covering exhibition in New York City presented new fruits of the tech-fashion relationship, that is, clothing that could inflate and deflate, light up, heat and cool itself. In the mid-1990s, a team of MIT researchers led by Steve Mann developed the so-called wearable computers, traditional computer hardware attached to and carried on the body. The baton was later handed over to another MIT group, including Maggie Orth and Rehmi Post, who explored the plausible integration of such devices into clothing. Modern e-textiles are distinguished by either classical electronic devices such as conductors, integrated circuits, LEDs, and conventional batteries embedded in garments or fabrics, or by Internet connectivity. Smart clothes have many virtues: they are universal, customised, and eco-friendly. More than that, designers promise to make their dresses change colour by the mere touch and never wear out; I can see the last quality being debated by fashionistas though. Nanotech fabric will repel stains that normal cloth would absorb, thanks to molecular nano shields against stains, without changing the texture of the fabric. Digitalised and web-enabled apparel in health care, sports, and military service will, and already do, facilitate collecting physiological data and diagnostics. By now, smart textiles and Web-enabled clothing have passed the R&D stage and are on the verge of throwing themselves into mass production. However, many of the finest examples of this symbiosis already wow audiences with their alien hi-tech looks or versatility. Wanda Nylon makes transparent raincoats which can change colour like a bug's wing and are also 90% recyclable and totally nature-friendly. Another eco-friendly project is Orange Power Wellies, created in collaboration with renewable energy experts GotWind. The unique sole of these wellies converts heat from the feet into an electrical current, which can be used to re-charge a mobile phone. The more their owner moves, the more energy they generate. CuteCircuit a couture recruited by stars, specialises on dresses with hundreds of LED lights embedded in the fabric and USB rechargeable. The company made a statement by creating a powered dress which could receive and display tweets in real time. This Twitter Dress contained 2000 LED lights and 3,000 Swarovski crystals. It was introduced at the launch party of EE, the U.K. first 4G mobile network, the commissioner of this wonder-garment. Among wearable tech garments that do serve a purpose is the Hovding bicycle helmet created by Swedish industrial designers. It only inflates at the moment of danger, otherwise stowed around a person's neck in the form of a stylish shawl. The sensors gather data from around the cyclist and should danger present, a futuristic helmet of tough nylon covers the rider's head. Some designers are more hung up on devising ways of incorporating social networking in a dress in the discreetest way possible. Seattle-based Electricfoxy came up with a Ping garment, which can connect to Facebook wirelessly and from anywhere. Functions are performed by lifting a hood, tying a bow, zipping or buttoning. If a friend sends a comment or a message back, the garment will notify its owner with a tap on the shoulder. To surprise and stand out, any technology goes, based on the classic lie detector test, SENSOREE has crafted the so-called "mood sweater" which changes colour depending on mood through a number of sensors on the person's hands. When the sweater's owner is nervous, it lights up red and when calm in blue. The smart use of body heat was discovered by the Netherlands-based company Studio Roosegaarde, its high-tech garments entitled 'Intimacy White' and 'Intimacy Black' are made out of opaque smart e-foils which turn from black or white to transparent when exposed to body heat. Smart garments are not solely designed to turn heads, though, the armed services are one area in need of innovation. Smart uniforms will instantly detect gunshot wounds or even traces of nuclear, biological or chemical attacks in blood and sweat; they can report a fallen soldier's location with GPS coordinates and pass along other critical information for battlefield medics. Sensatex Inc. is already working with the military, emergency workers, and doctors to design what it calls a “smart shirt”; clothing featuring tiny microscopic wires interwoven with the fabric itself. This garment, turned into a communication device, could one day perform remote physiological monitoring or even heat up or cool down depending on the weather. "Throughout society, the ability to unplug from wires and utilise smart textiles to gather information through wireless communication will really be the textile of the future," said Sensatex CEO, Robert Kalik. The use of web-enabled clothing is vastly explored and introduced in areas like medicine and sport where continuity and precision of data are vital. Smart fibres are used to monitor systems in maternal and paediatric units where precise observation is constantly needed. Several companies, like Intelligent Clothing, are already engaging in these activities and create the first tele-monitoring systems, with Internet connectivity, for infants. A group of Ukrainian developers at the Microsoft Imagine Cup competition in 2012 made another smart use of smart fabrics. Their Enable Talk gloves help translate the sign language used by deaf-mute people. The glove sensors read gestures and translate them into words transmitted through bluetooth to a smartphone screen. Electricfoxy has developed the special MOVE technology for sports apparel which focuses on measuring precision in exercises such as yoga or pilates. The sensors transmit information to a mobile app which analyses the position and helps eliminate future errors. Besides, it stores all the information from previous training sessions to keep track of progress. It's clear that one day, while getting dressed in front of the mirror we might catch ourselves thinking how right the Star Wars author was. E-foils, nano cells, glowing LEDs and going online just by, quite literally, lifting your finger. People are however willing to go a long way in revealing their own physiological data; the fact that marketeers may be taking personal data and using it to support their advertising efforts might seem disturbing. When advertisers, and anyone else for that matter, have records of the customers' sleeping and eating habits, daily routine and physical activity and even certain medical conditions they acquire a certain power. Giving away information to strangers through social networks is already an issue, though seemingly inevitable in the modern world of computerised records, it still needs to be treated with caution. Source: Voice Of Russia

Read More........→May 21, 2013

Robotic Insects Make First Controlled Flight

Last summer, in a Harvard robotics laboratory, an insect took flight. Half the size of a paper clip, weighing less than a tenth of a gram, it leapt a few inches, hovered for a moment on fragile, flapping wings, and then sped along a preset route through the air. Like a proud parent watching a child take its first steps, graduate student Pakpong Chirarattananon immediately captured a video of the fledgling and emailed it to

his adviser and colleagues at 3 a.m. — subject line: “Flight of the RoboBee.” “I was so excited, I couldn’t sleep,” recalls Chirarattananon, co-lead author of a paper published this week in Science. The demonstration of the first controlled flight of an insect-sized robot is the culmination of more than a decade’s work, led by researchers at the Harvard School of Engineering and Applied Sciences (SEAS) and the Wyss Institute for Biologically Inspired Engineering at Harvard. “This is what I have been trying to do for literally the last 12 years,” saysRobert J. Wood, Charles River Professor of Engineering and Applied Sciences at SEAS, Wyss core faculty member, and principal investigator of the National Science Foundation-supported RoboBee project. “It’s really only because of this lab’s recent breakthroughs in manufacturing, materials, and design that we have even been able to try this. And it just wonderful." Inspired by the biology of a fly, with submillimeter-scale anatomy and two wafer-thin wings that flap almost invisibly, 120 times per second, the tiny device not only represents the absolute cutting edge of micromanufacturing and control systems, but is an aspiration that has impelled innovation in these fields by dozens of researchers across Harvard for years. “We had to develop solutions from scratch, for everything,” explains Wood. “We would get one component working, but when we moved onto the next, five new problems would arise. It was a moving target.” Flight muscles, for instance, don’t come prepackaged for robots the size of a fingertip. “Large robots can run on electromagnetic motors, but at this small scale you have to come up with an alternative, and there wasn’t one,” says co-lead author
Kevin Y. Ma, a graduate student at SEAS. The tiny robot flaps its wings with piezoelectric actuators — strips of  ceramic that expand and contract when an electric field is applied. Thin hinges of plastic embedded within the carbon fiber body frame serve as joints, and a delicately balanced control system commands the rotational motions in the flapping-wing robot, with each wing controlled independently in real time. At tiny scales, small changes in airflow can have an outsized effect on flight dynamics, and the control system has to react that much faster to remain stable. The robotic insects also take advantage of an ingenious pop-up manufacturing technique that was developed by Wood’s team in 2011. Sheets of various laser-cut materials are layered and sandwiched together into a thin, flat plate that folds up like a child’s pop-up book into the complete electromechanical structure. The quick, step-by-step process replaces what used to be a painstaking manual art and allows Wood’s team to use more robust materials in new combinations, while improving the overall precision of each device. “We can now very rapidly build reliable prototypes, which allows us to be more aggressive in how we test them,” says Ma, adding that the team has gone through 20 prototypes in just the past six months. Applications of the RoboBee project could include distributed environmental monitoring, search-and-rescue operations, or assistance with crop pollination, but the materials, fabrication techniques, and components that emerge along the way might prove to be even more significant. For example, the pop-up manufacturing process could enable a new class of complex medical devices. Harvard’s Office of Technology Development, in collaboration with Harvard SEAS and the Wyss Institute, is already in the process of commercializing some of the underlying technologies. “Harnessing biology to solve real-world problems is what the Wyss Institute is all about,” says Wyss Founding Director Don Ingber. “This work is a beautiful example of how bringing together scientists and engineers from multiple disciplines to carry out research inspired by nature and focused on translation can lead to major technical breakthroughs.” And the project continues. “Now that we’ve got this unique platform, there are dozens of tests that we’re starting to do, including more aggressive control maneuvers and landing,” says Wood. After that, the next steps will involve integrating the parallel work of many different research teams that are working on the brain, the colony coordination behavior, the power source, and so on, until the robotic insects are fully autonomous and wireless. The prototypes are still tethered by a very thin power cable because there are no off-the-shelf solutions for energy storage that are small enough to be mounted on the robot’s body. High-energy-density fuel cells must be developed before the RoboBees will be able to fly with much independence. Control, too, is still wired in from a separate computer, though a team led by SEAS faculty Gu-Yeon Weiand David Brooks is working on a computationally efficient brain that can be mounted on the robot’s frame. “Flies perform some of the most amazing aerobatics in nature using only tiny brains,” notes co-authorSawyer B. Fuller, a postdoctoral researcher on Wood’s team who essentially studies how fruit flies cope with windy days. “Their capabilities exceed what we can do with our robot, so we would like to understand their biology better and apply it to our own work.” The milestone of this first controlled flight represents a validation of the power of ambitious dreams — especially for Wood, who was in graduate school when he set this goal. “This project provides a common motivation for scientists and engineers across the University to build smaller batteries, to design more efficient control systems, and to create stronger, more lightweight materials,” says Wood. “You might not expect all of these people to work together: vision experts, biologists, materials scientists, electrical engineers. What do they have in common? Well, they all enjoy solving really hard problems.” “I want to create something the world has never seen before,” adds Ma. “It’s about the excitement of pushing the limits of what we think we can do, the limits of human ingenuity.” Contacts and sources:Caroline Perry, Image: Screen Shot On Youtube Video, Image Credit: Harvard University, Harvard University Robotic, Source: Nano Patents And Innovations

Read More........→May 04, 2013

Bionic eye good to go:artificial retina receives FDA approval

Screen Shot On Youtube Video

The U.S. Food and Drug Administration (FDA) granted market approval to an artificial retina technology today, the first bionic eye to be approved for patients in the United States. The prosthetic technology was developed in part with support from the National Science Foundation (NSF). The device, called the Argus® II Retinal Prosthesis System, transmits images from a small, eye-glass-mounted camera wirelessly to a microelectrode array implanted on a patient's damaged retina. The array sends electrical signals via the optic nerve, and the brain interprets a visual image. While the Argus II is a major breakthrough in retinal  prosthetics, researchers are continuing their research. This third-generation retina chip, itself still very early in the development stage, contains 1,000 electrodes and was developed by Wentai Liu, a professor of bioengineering at the UCLA Henry Samueli School of Engineering and Applied Science and his colleagues. Early engineering done by Liu and his team was licensed to Second Sight

for the Argus II Retinal Prosthesis  System. The FDA approval currently applies to individuals who have lost sight as a result of severe to profoundretinitis pigmentosa (RP), an ailment that affects one in every 4,000 Americans. The implant allows some individuals with RP, who are completely blind, to locate objects, detect movement, improve orientation and mobility skills and discern shapes such as large letters.The Argus II is manufactured by, and will be distributed by, Second Sight Medical Products of Sylmar, Calif., which is part of the team of scientists and engineers from the university, federal and private

Credit: Wentai Liu, UCLA

sectors who spent nearly two decades developing the  system with public and private investment. "Seeing my grandmother go blind motivated me to pursue ophthalmology and biomedical engineering to develop a treatment for patients for whom there was no foreseeable cure," says the technology's co-developer, Mark Humayun, associate director of research at the Doheny Eye Institute at the University of Southern California and director of the NSF Engineering Research Center for Biomimetic MicroElectronic Systems(BMES). "It was an interdisciplinary approach grounded in biomedical engineering that has allowed us to develop the Argus II, making it the first commercially approved retinal implant in the world to

 restore sight to some blind patients," Humayun adds. The effort by Humayun and his colleagues has received early and continuing support from NSF, the National Institutes of Health and the Department of Energy, with grants totaling more than $100 million. The private sector's support nearly matched that of the federal government. "The retinal implant exemplifies how NSF grants for high-risk, fundamental research can directly result in ground-breaking technologies decades later," said Acting NSF Assistant Director for Engineering Kesh Narayanan. "In collaboration with the Second Sight team and the courageous patients who volunteered to have experimental surgery to implant the first-generation devices, the researchers of NSF's Biomimetic MicroElectronic Systems Engineering Research Center are developing technologies that may ultimately have as profound an impact on blindness as the cochlear implant has had for hearing loss." Although some treatments to slow the progression of degenerative diseases of the retina are available, no treatment has existed that could replace the function of lost photoreceptors in the eye. The researchers began their retinal prosthesis research in the late 1980s to address that need, and in 1994 Humayun received his first NSF grant, an NSF Young Investigator Award, which built upon additional support from the Whittaker Foundation. Humayun used the funding to develop the first conceptualization of the Argus II's underlying artificial retina technology. Since that time, he and his collaborators--including Wentai Liu of the University of California, Los Angeles and fellow USC researchers Jim Weiland and Eugene de Juan, Jr.--received six additional NSF grants, totaling $40 million, some of which was part of NSF's funding for BMES, launched in 2003. BMES drives research into a range of sophisticated prosthetic technologies to treat blindness, paralysis and other conditions. "We were encouraged by the team's exploratory work in the 1980s and 1990s, supported by NSF and others, which revealed that healthy neural pathways can carry information to the brain, even though other parts of the eye are damaged," adds Narayanan. "The retinal prosthesis they developed from that work simulates the most complex part of the eye. Based on the promise of that implant, we decided in 2003 to entrust the research team with an NSF Engineering Research Center," says Narayanan. "The center was to scale up technology development and increase device sensitivity and biocompatibility, while simultaneously preparing students for the workforce and building partnerships to speed the technology to the marketplace, where it could make a difference in people's lives. The center has succeeded with all of those goals." The researchers' efforts have bridged cellular biology--necessary for understanding how to stimulate the retinal ganglion cells without permanent damage--with microelectronics, which led to the miniaturized, low-power integrated chip for performing signal conversion, conditioning and stimulation functions. The hardware was paired with software processing and tuning algorithms that convert visual imagery to stimulation signals, and the entire system had to be incorporated within hermetically sealed packaging that allowed the electronics to operate in the vitreous fluid of the eye indefinitely. Finally, the research team had to develop new surgical techniques in order to integrate the device with the body, ensuring accurate placement of the stimulation electrodes on the retina. "The artificial retina is a great engineering challenge under the interdisciplinary constraint of biology, enabling technology, regulatory compliance, as well as sophisticated design science," adds Liu. "The artificial retina provides an interface between biotic and abiotic systems. Its unique design characteristics rely on system-level optimization, rather than the more common practice of component optimization, to achieve miniaturization and integration. Using the most advanced semiconductor technology, the engine for the artificial retina is a 'system on a chip' of mixed voltages and mixed analog-digital design, which provides self-contained power and data management and other functionality. This design for the artificial retina facilitates both surgical procedures and regulatory compliance." The Argus II design consists of an external video camera system matched to the implanted retinal stimulator, which contains a microelectrode array that spans 20 degrees of visual field. The NSF BMES ERC has developed a prototype system with an array of more than 15 times as many electrodes and an ultra-miniature video camera that can be implanted in the eye. However, this prototype is many years away from being available for patient use. "The external camera system-built into a pair of glasses-streams video to a belt-worn computer, which converts the video into stimulus commands for the implant," says Weiland. "The belt-worn computer encodes the commands into a wireless signal that is transmitted to the implant, which has the necessary electronics to receive and decode both wireless power and data. Based on those data, the implant stimulates the retina with small electrical pulses. The electronics are hermetically packaged and the electrical stimulus is delivered to the retina via a microelectrode array." In 1998, Robert Greenberg founded Second Sight to develop the technology for the marketplace. While under development, the Argus I and Argus II systems have won wide recognition, including a 2010 Popular Mechanics Breakthrough Award and a 2009 R&D 100 Award, but it is only with FDA approval that the technology can now be made available to patients. "An artificial retina can offer hope to those with retinitis pigmentosa, as it may help them achieve a level of visual perception that enhances their quality of life, enabling them to perform functions of daily living more easily and the chance to enjoy simple pleasures we may take for granted," says Narayanan. "Such success is the result of fundamental studies in several fields, technology improvements based on those results and feedback from clinical trials--all enabled by sustained public and private investment from entities like NSF."  Contacts and sources: National Science Foundation, Source: Nano Patents And Innovation

Read More........→February 16, 2013

BlueAnt Ribbon streams your music wirelessly

Enjoying the music on the go is always fun, and today we have a device that will let you enjoy in music wirelessly wherever you go. BlueAnt has announced its latest multi-functional Ribbon music streamer that  lets you stream music via Bluetooth to any speaker. In addition, Ribbon doubles as a headset, because you can attach it to your shirt and connect your headphones to it, so you can enjoy in music
while on the go. Ribbon works as a Bluetooth 3.0 receiver, and it comes with 3.5mm  stereo output, so you can easily connect it to any speaker system that has 3.5mm AUX input, using the AUX cable. We

have to mention that   Ribbon comes with a built-in microphone, so you can use it to for calls as well. As for streaming, Ribbon is using Apt-X technology, and the device itself comes with volume control and

playback buttons.In addition, if you’re using Ribbon with Android or iOS device, you can use it to listen to your text messages. This music streamer will provide you with six hours of play time, and up to 250 hours

of standby time, and as for the recharge, it takes less than two hours for battery to recharge completely. BlueAnt Ribbon music streamer should be available soon for $69. Source: Saqatorrent

Read More........→January 18, 2013

Talk to the hand with the latest Bluetooth gloves

Using your touchscreen smartphone can be almost impossible if you’re wearing gloves, but fear not, since with today’s pair of gloves you’ll be able to use your smartphone and do much more at the same time. Smartphones have been using capacitive touchscreens for a while, and only way to use them while wearing gloves is to take the glove off and use your bare hand, but during cold winter days that might not be the best and easiest solution. Today we have a special pair of gloves that comes with capacitive

threads, so you don’t have to take them off if you need to use your touchscreen smartphone. In addition, these gloves come with a Bluetooth receiver, microphone, and speaker that are built right into the glove, so you can take calls by talking to your hand. These Bluetooth gloves come with MicroUSB for charging, and if you don’t mind looking a bit silly while talking to your hand, you can pre-order these gloves from Hi-Fun for 50 €. Source: Saqatorrent

Read More........→December 20, 2012