Life was much more easy before the Technology Comes in our lives.
Life was much more Comfortable when Apple & Blackberry were just fruits.
We are changing with the Development of Science & Technology in our Lives. We are always indulge in having something electronic in our hand - a tool to be connected to Internet, Social Games, Emails.
We’re bypassing the real
world to get a digital quick-fix; our work, play and plans for stress
release seem to depend on a broadband connection.
Technology Addiction can be classified to Change Human Behavior as discussed below
A new kind of danger on the road
Have you ever found yourself checking your smartphone for updates
while still behind the wheel? I do; when I stop at a red light, queue up
at a drive-thru, or while waiting to pick someone up. It’s a silly
thing to do, I admit, but I’d never do the same when the vehicle I’m
driving is moving, but that’s just me.
While we’re on the subject, drivers on the road are getting younger
and younger; and the cars are getting bigger and more powerful. In many
countries in the world, a 16-year-old who can barely hold his beer can
legally go behind the wheel and speed 50 mph down the highway. Add the
lethal dose of an addiction to their phones, a sense of reckless
abandonment, and you have a recipe for disaster.
The Impact
Well, so many people are actually texting while driving, and getting
into accidents that there is now a call by the National Transportation
Safety Board (in the US) to ban texting or the use of electronic devices
while driving a vehicle.
Come to think of it, all of this is already happening right now.
Technology has slowly eased its way into our lives and formed glass walls between individuals who can communicate with each other but instead chose not to.
The Impact
The good news is much of the world still operates on a non-virtual
basis; the bad news is we are prepping the younger generation to
function better online than off. You may view this as a good thing, with
the world getting smaller and tech tools getting more powerful and
everything, but our youths are not retaining general knowledge in their
heads (you can thank Google for that), there is no need to be
grammatically correct in text-speak (you can thank the 140 char limit for
that) and well, social networks – they open up a new can of worms.
Searching for the ‘Like’ button offline
Ever wonder why social networking sites are so popular? My theory is
that we have the burning desire to be the ‘popular kid’. In school, the
unwritten goal was to have loads of friends, being able to share our
‘deep’ thoughts, have followers, and to a childish extent, show off the
assets that we have – a pretty face, the latest tech gadget, a nice ride
etc. Sound familiar?
Social networking sites are apparent, virtual replacements of this.
You have the friend’s list or followers; you get to post status updates
or quotes, as well as pictures depicting fragments of your life or the
things you encounter. It’s like high school all over again, without the
classes, of course. The one thing that this virtual counterpart does
better than the conservative way is the spreading of information which
is as easy as clicking ‘Share’.
The impact
These systems have made it so easy to post these bits and pieces of
your life online that if you stumble upon anything worthy of posting,
you’d drop everything and do it. See a car accident, it goes online, see a dog begging for food with its master, shared, see someone trying to jump off a building, posted.
Suddenly, even in the real world, you’re a surfer. You don’t stop to
help the victim get out of the car, actually drop some coins into the
beggar’s cup, or call the police to come stop the hapless jumper. Nope,
it’s all about accommodating these urges to have the post of the day.
All things short and sweet
Our attention spans are getting shorter and shorter. Personally, I
can no longer sit through a full movie, which would explain why I
haven’t been to the cinema for the longest time… but that’s not the
point.
The point is I can no longer concentrate on a single task at hand.
That does not automatically mean that I am a multi-tasker, or that I am
good at it. It just means that I have too many things, at home, at work,
at school that needed my attention. Again, that’s not the point.
The fact that I can’t concentrate on one single task for a long
enough period, is a source for worry. And I’m not the only one with the
problem. And that is the point. We are turning into digital gold fish!
While we’re on the subject of ‘short’ things, let’s talk about short fuses. This is my most hated icon of all time…
…because it indicates that I have to act like a grown up and wait.
Patience is a virtue, one that this generation finds hard to pursue. And
can you blame us? We read news all around the clock, not only on a
finite batch of papers th
at contains news that happened 24 hours ago.
True, those articles contain more details which are confirmed and
checked through but when it comes to getting the news first, it’s
Twitter for us. Straight from the horses’ mouth, 140 chars, and easy to
spread and share.
Conclusion
Despite the gloomy outlook painted in this article, I’m sure that the
technology that keeps us connected to the Internet has done much good
for our lives. However, do remember who is in control and act like it.
When your digital devices are taking up too much of your life, you know
it’s time to switch it off and enjoy life unplugged.
The Nokia-branded Android Smartphone is Coming to Market but is it too Late for the Company?
The News is that Nokia will license its name for the next 10 years to a new range of Phones & Tablets, only running with Google Platform.
But the question is "Does anybody still care about the Nokia Device ?"
Today's licensing deal isn't the first such move by Nokia - the company lent its branding and some design oversight to an Android tablet a couple of years ago, though it never officially reached western markets, and dabbled in Android phones with the short-lived Nokia X - but it is the most significant.
The phones and tablets will be made by a new company, HMD global,
formed in Finland specifically to pump cash into a fresh line-up to be
manufactured by Foxconn. Nokia will get royalties covering its name and
its IP, while former exec Arto Nummela - until now the head of
Microsoft's Mobile Devices business for Greater Asia, Middle East and
Africa - will be HMD global's CEO.
As well as provisionally securing the Nokia brand from Microsoft to
use on more basic phones, HMD global also has acquired "certain related
design rights" from the Windows maker; it's too soon to say whether that
means the distinctive poly-carbonate and metal design we'd grown
familiar with from Lumia will be returning, but that's likely to be the
hope among Nokia fans.
All the same, just how many of those fans are there now?
Back when Nokia made the big switch to Microsoft's OS, ditching
Symbian in the process, the smartphone market was a very different one
to today. Android was still a Wild West of sorts - 3.0 Honeycomb was
only just being released - and the big names who had dominated flip and
then feature phones were still the primary players.
The iPhone 4, meanwhile, was doing nothing to slow iOS adoption, the
first significant design swing from Apple as the software itself filled
in many of the gaps users had complained kept it from greatness.
Today, Apple dominates a huge section of the market. More
importantly, the Android OEM space has condensed down: Samsung still
succeeds, as much by its marketing budget as its phones, but new names
like Huawei have - with the heft of Google and the Nexus project behind
them - been propelled into the market with an alluring combination of
affordability and high-end specifications.
Meanwhile HTC and LG, once huge names, are now struggling to gain anywhere near the same degree of traction.
Then there's Xiaomi.
The Chinese phone-maker is notable not only for the quality and low
price of its devices, but the huge fanbase it has cultivated along the
way. In fact, you could easily compare that near-rabid support with the
vocal fans Nokia itself used to command.
The days of such unwavering support are behind the Nokia name, slewed
in waves with the loss of Symbian, the adoption of Windows Phone on
Lumia, and then - for many the final insult - the sell-out to Microsoft.
Without a guaranteed audience to count on, the reborn Nokia will have
to convince on features, pricing, and style. In a best-case scenario,
that could look like the sleekest Lumia, pack the photographic abilities
of a PureView, and undercut the Nexus 6P on shelves.
The worst-case is Nokia phones and tablets that tug at sentiment that died a long time ago.
Human Behavior is
a complex interplay of a variety of different processes, ranging from
completely unconscious modulations of emotional reactions to
decision-making based on conscious thoughts and cognition. In fact, each
of our emotional and cognitive responses is driven by factors such as
arousal, workload, and environmental conditions that impact our
well-being in that very moment.
To
help you peek beneath the surface of human behavior and its underlying
processes, we recently have set you up with the ins and outs of Eye Tracking EEG, GSR & Facial Expression Analysis.
“I want to measure human behavior. Which biosensor should I use?”
Admittedly,
if you are new to the field it can be quite overwhelming to gain a
solid overview of the different bio-metric sensors and the available
metrics (let alone the interpretation of physiological data), given the
fact that each modality will provide insight into a specific key aspect
of human behavior.
Which
sensor is the most suitable to address your research question? Is one
sensor alone able to deliver all the insights you seek or should you
rather opt for multiple sensors to get to the bottom of things?
Here is your kick-start to the what, how and why of bio-metric measurements in one handy format I hope this gives you some deeper
insights into the world of human behavior measurements. If you have any
questions you are always more than welcome to contact us.
“Superman Memory Crystal” has the
Capacity to save huge amount of information for upto 13.8 billion years, acc. to
Research. It has been tried with the Magna Carta, the universal Declaration of
Human Rights & the King James Bible which has digitally stored on a piece
of Glass Known as Superman Memory Crystal.
Using a method of laser etching,
researchers at the University of Southampton, in the United Kingdom, archived
these documents, along with Issac Newton’s Scientific treatise
"Opticks," on coin-size pieces of glass. These tiny discs can survive
for billions of years at temperatures of 374 degrees Fahrenheit (190 degrees
Celsius). And at room temperature, they can last virtually forever, the researchers
said.
"It is thrilling to think that
we have created the technology to preserve documents and information and store
it in space for future generations," Peter Kazansky, a professor at the
university's Optoelectronics Research Centre, said in a statment. "This
technology can secure the last evidence of our civilization; all we've learnt
will not be forgotten."
Kazansky and his colleagues first
reported their "5D data storage" in 2013 at the Conference on Lasers
& Electro-Optics in San Jose, California. The researchers use femato second
lasers, which are lasers that produce very short pulses, to inscribe
information in nano structured dots that are 5 micrometers apart. These
nano-size etchings polarize light that travels through the glass. A combination
of a polarizing lens and an optical microscope is all that is needed to
"decode" the message, the researchers said.
The 5D moniker refers to the 3D
positioning of the nanostructures as well as their size and orientation.
In 2013, the researchers recorded a
300-kilobyte text file, but the capacity of a single glass data disc is 360
terabytes (1,000,000,000 kilobytes), they reported. The discs are stable up to
1,832 degrees F (1,000 degrees C).
Southampton researchers gave the
copy of the Universal Declaration of Human Rights as a gift to the United
Nations Educational Scientific and Cultural Organization (UNESCO) in early
February, part of the closing ceremony of that organization's Year of Light
initiative. The scientists call the glass the "Superman memory
crystal," a nod to memory crystals in the "Superman" films and
comics. According to the university, the researchers are now seeking industry
partners to further develop the technology.
Copies
of the Magna Carta, the Universal Declaration of Human Rights and the
King James Bible have now been digitally stored on a piece of glass
known as a "Superman memory crystal" that has the capacity to save huge
amounts of information for up to 13.8 billion years, researchers say.
Using a method of laser etching, researchers at the University of
Southampton, in the United Kingdom, archived these documents, along with
Isaac Newton's scientific treatise
"Opticks," on coin-size pieces of glass. These tiny discs can survive
for billions of years at temperatures of 374 degrees Fahrenheit (190
degrees Celsius). And at room temperature, they can last virtually
forever, the researchers said.
"It is thrilling to think that we have created the technology to
preserve documents and information and store it in space for future
generations," Peter Kazansky, a professor at the university's
Optoelectronics Research Centre, said in a statement. "This technology can secure the last evidence of our civilization; all we've learnt will not be forgotten." [Science Fact or Fiction? The Plausibility of 10 Sci-Fi Concepts]
Advertisement
Kazansky and his colleagues first reported their "5D data storage" in 2013 at the Conference on Lasers and Electro-Optics
in San Jose, California. The researchers use fematosecond lasers, which
are lasers that produce very short pulses, to inscribe information in
nanostructured dots that are 5 micrometers apart. These nano-size
etchings polarize light that travels through the glass. A combination of
a polarizing lens and an optical microscope is all that is needed to
"decode" the message, the researchers said.
The 5D moniker refers to the 3D positioning of the nanostructures as well as their size and orientation.
In 2013, the researchers recorded a 300-kilobyte text file, but the
capacity of a single glass data disc is 360 terabytes (1,000,000,000
kilobytes), they reported. The discs are stable up to 1,832 degrees F
(1,000 degrees C).
Southampton researchers gave the copy of the Universal Declaration of
Human Rights as a gift to the United Nations Educational Scientific and
Cultural Organization (UNESCO) in early February, part of the closing
ceremony of that organization's Year of Light initiative. The scientists
call the glass the "Superman memory crystal," a nod to memory crystals
in the "Superman" films and comics. According to the university, the
researchers are now seeking industry partners to further develop the
technology.
- See more at: http://www.livescience.com/53783-superman-memory-crystal-data-storage.html#sthash.LmmCsLAP.dpufd
Copies
of the Magna Carta, the Universal Declaration of Human Rights and the
King James Bible have now been digitally stored on a piece of glass
known as a "Superman memory crystal" that has the capacity to save huge
amounts of information for up to 13.8 billion years, researchers say.
Using a method of laser etching, researchers at the University of
Southampton, in the United Kingdom, archived these documents, along with
Isaac Newton's scientific treatise
"Opticks," on coin-size pieces of glass. These tiny discs can survive
for billions of years at temperatures of 374 degrees Fahrenheit (190
degrees Celsius). And at room temperature, they can last virtually
forever, the researchers said.
"It is thrilling to think that we have created the technology to
preserve documents and information and store it in space for future
generations," Peter Kazansky, a professor at the university's
Optoelectronics Research Centre, said in a statement. "This technology can secure the last evidence of our civilization; all we've learnt will not be forgotten." [Science Fact or Fiction? The Plausibility of 10 Sci-Fi Concepts]
Advertisement
Kazansky and his colleagues first reported their "5D data storage" in 2013 at the Conference on Lasers and Electro-Optics
in San Jose, California. The researchers use fematosecond lasers, which
are lasers that produce very short pulses, to inscribe information in
nanostructured dots that are 5 micrometers apart. These nano-size
etchings polarize light that travels through the glass. A combination of
a polarizing lens and an optical microscope is all that is needed to
"decode" the message, the researchers said.
The 5D moniker refers to the 3D positioning of the nanostructures as well as their size and orientation.
In 2013, the researchers recorded a 300-kilobyte text file, but the
capacity of a single glass data disc is 360 terabytes (1,000,000,000
kilobytes), they reported. The discs are stable up to 1,832 degrees F
(1,000 degrees C).
Southampton researchers gave the copy of the Universal Declaration of
Human Rights as a gift to the United Nations Educational Scientific and
Cultural Organization (UNESCO) in early February, part of the closing
ceremony of that organization's Year of Light initiative. The scientists
call the glass the "Superman memory crystal," a nod to memory crystals
in the "Superman" films and comics. According to the university, the
researchers are now seeking industry partners to further develop the
technology.
- See more at: http://www.livescience.com/53783-superman-memory-crystal-data-storage.html#sthash.LmmCsLAP.dpuf
Idea of having its own Retail Stores was not well response by many but it the scenarion changes when the first two Apple stores were launched by Steve Jobs himself.
Nearly 15 years later, Apple has more than 400 of their retail stores worldwide.
The majority of Apple Stores is standardized: each store has a clear
glass front with panels stacked on either side of the main door,
lighting that cut across the front of the store to the back, the same
make and design of shelves and tables, a high ceiling and an overall
minimalistic yet boxed up feel. This design and layout was actually patented in 2013
.
That said, many Apple Store designs worldwide break the mold
and truly outshine their predecessors with amazing architectural leaps
of faiths – carefully calculated deviations that do nothing but impress
loyal fans and dissenters alike.
Brief History of Apple Stores
Steve Jobs was not only the brains and vision behind many of Apple’s
early and iconic products, he also directed his attention towards
glorifying and glamming up Apple Retail Stores
(as they were called in early press releases) to the point where even
today, fans still queue up for hours, sometimes days in advance to be
one of the first to enter a newly launched Apple Store.
To understand the allure, let’s delve into the architectural history
of Apple Store design, and to do that, we wil have to start at the
beginning.
To undull history, I cheated and turned this section into a 10-item list.
The first two Apple Stores opened in the US on May 19, 2001, one in the Tyson’s Corner Center mall in Virginia and the other in Glendale Galleria in California.
Both stores opened at 10 am but due to the different time zones, the store in Virginia was opened three hours before the one in California, and thus was considered technically, the first store.
Steve Jobs himself showed journalists around at the store in Tyson’s Corner.
In 2001, 25 Apple Stores opened in the US. A year later, the number
rose to 57. By the end of 2015, Apple has 463 Apple stores in 18
countries, and counting.
The first Apple Store outside of the US was opened in Ginza, Tokyo, Japan. It was November 2003.
A year later, the first Apple Store was opened in Europe on London’s Regent Street.
China only had its first Apple Store in 2008, in Beijing. By mid-2016, the company plans to open 40 stores in China.
The most recent additions to the family are the first two Apple Stores in the Middle East, namely in Abu Dhabi and Dubai.
Despite rumors that the store in Dubai may become the largest Apple Store in the world, Covent Garden in London still retain that honor at 40,000 sq ft across 3 storeys.
In 2016, Apple will open its first retail store in Southeast Asia, in Singapore.
An Obsession With Glass
It’s clear to anyone who has ever stepped into an Apple store that they have a fixation on glass. Apple’s tradition of having glass staircase as a common fixture in an Apple Store notably began with New York
City’s first Apple Store in Manhattan’s SoHo district. The store
featured the first of a long line of glass staircase designs that would
connect future multi-storey Apple Stores.
The steps of the glass staircase in the SoHo store were made of
opaque glass panes attached to side glass walls. Stainless steel bars
are strategically and aesthetically positioned to guide visitors without
taking away the element of elegance the structure portrays.
The design of the staircase was later on patented
and the material further enhanced 10 years later in 2012. The new
upgrade featured 13 m long zig-zag glass side walls made entirely out of
a single pane of glass, removing any signs of dividing or adjoining
lines.
Apple’s obsession with glass does not end with the staircase. It
sought to build whole buildings made predominantly of glass. Take for
instance, the Palo Alto store, which was the 9th Apple Store to be
opened in the US and the first "street-level" Apple store. Back in 2001, it looked something like this.
Then, in October 2012, they closed down this shop to move to a newer,
more modern Apple Store version, complete with stone panel walls, glass
windows and curved glass rooftops.
Much better. And yet, when this store was open in October of 2012, a
former Apple employee who visited the store wrote about how it was too loud to be in, citing architectural oversight as the cause of this noisy atmosphere. Others believed that the higher-than-expected noise levels was planned all along.
In any case, the same building design would be revisited in Third
Street Promenade in California, Highland Village, Houston, Texas as well
as the stunning Upper West Side, in New York City.
Third Street Promenade, Santa Monica, California
The building that was there, before Apple built their store at the
Third Street Promenade, housed a three-story Borders bookstore, at which
time a real estate firm bought the property
for $26 million. They tore down the building and rebuilt it to its sole
tenant, Apple’s specifications, and later on sold the property for $60
million.
Two years later, the new buyer turned seller, and resold the property
for $100 million – at roughly $5,700 a foot. This happened in under 5
years. As much as Apple’s retail stores are great for increasing local
market values however, it isn’t all a bed of roses for all their
locations.
Highland Village, Houston, Texas
The Highland Village store is designed similar to Palo Alto and Third Street Promenade except it had the additional glass back wall. The store was also among the 5 unfortunate subjects of a shooting spree by unknown gunmen in the wee hours of May 1, 2012.
Two of the glass panels were shattered by the bullets
but still held in place. The glass panels were later taped up with
adhesive tape for extra measure, as they await replacement parts. If you
ever wondered about the quality of the glass material used to build
many of Apple’s stores, there’s your answer right there.
Upper West Side
Of all the stores that were influenced by the design at Palo Alto,
it’s the one in the Upper West Side that really turns heads. Unlike the
original design however, a larger portion of the glass building
protrudes out into the street. The side and front of the store are built
parallel to the street corner it’s on, giving it a sharp edge
structure, that strangely enough, cannot be noticed at all when viewed
from the right angle (see image below).
The 40-foot-high glass building takes advantage of the daylight
pouring in from above, while the wall panels fill the room with
reflected light. The store also has a spiralling glass staircase that
leads to an underground floor and the Apple logo hangs inside the
multi-award winning building.
Wangfujing
The Apple store at Wangfujing also spots a curved glass not on the
roof but at the storefront. The glassy curved storefront design was also
in use at the Altmarkt-Galerie store and Dusseldorf store in Germany. Wangfujing is the third store in Beijing after two others
were opened in Sanlitun and Xidan Joy City. It was the largest one in
Asia, at 25,000 sq ft locatedly roughly a mile from the Forbidden City.
Thousands thronged the store on the first day itself.
Apart from its prime location, and massive size, the store is also renowned for housing a three-story glass staircase, a rarity in Apple Store design. It is only available in two other Apple Stores, the first on West 14th Street, New York, and another in Boylston Street, Boston, Massachusetts.
When it comes to featuring Apple Stores in China, there will always
be couple of stores that cannot be left out. They are the stores in
Pudong, Shanghai, and Jiefangbei, Chongqing.
Pudong, Shanghai
The second Apple Store in China opened in Pudong, Shanghai with a
whole new look. A cylindrical glass entrance took center stage in the
plaza with a spiral glass staircases that leads into an underground
store 1,500 sq meters large.
While designing the Pudong cylindrical glass entrance, Jobs had the
idea that the plaza surrounding the entrance would look nice as a
circle. It wasn’t one at the time construction but Jobs had a discussion
with the developer and according to Peter Bohlin, BCJ architect and
fellow collaborator, Jobs successfully convinced the developer to redesign the Plaza the way he had envisioned it.
Jiefangbei, Chongqing, China
The same cylindrical entrance is also erected in Jiefangbei which
opened in Chongqing China in January of 2015. This version is smaller
than the 40-foot block in Pudong but Apple took pains to make the
unveiling a spectacular one.
Before the unveiling of the glass cylinder, the structure was wrapped
in a mural that was the combined work of art between two artists. US
photographer Navid Baraty had taken a photo of the city skyline and
local-born painter, Yangyang Pan added her own interpretation to the
photographs.
Fifth Avenue, New York
The Apple Store at the corner of 57th Street and Fifth Avenue is
easily one of the most beautifully designed retail building in Midtown.
The glass cube entrance stands in front of the GM building and customers
descend down into the underground store via a (you guessed it) glass
staircase.
And yet the value of that basement area was unrealized for 40 years before a demo
in the middle of the night by property mogul, Henry Macklowe helped
cemented Steve Jobs’ vision for what would become one of the most iconic
32 foot cube in the retail industry.
Like many other Apple Stores on this list, Bohlin Cywinski Jackson
were also the architects behind this marvel. The store was opened in
2006, but briefly closed for a hardware upgrade"
to the cube building in 2011. Stronger, larger, more transparent and
fewer (from 90 to 18 pieces) glass panes replaced the originals, leaving
behind a clearer and purer form of engineering ingenuity. But the best
was yet to come.
Zorlu, Istanbul
The Zorlu Center was the first Apple Store of two in Turkey opened in 2014. It was designed by Foster and Partners, the firm behind Apple's much-awaited campus (opening in 2016, fingers crossed) and also the Westlake Apple Store in China.
The design featured an exquisite "carbon fiber reinforced plastic"
ceiling and 10m long by 3m high glass side walls, held together with
structural silicone. The entrance led underground into the 20,000 sq ft
Apple Store via a glass staircase. The glass entrance also allowed in
natural lighting much like Upper West Side.
Apple Zorlu, or also known as the Glass Lantern took home the Supreme Award for Structural Engineering Excellence in 2014 as well as the award in the Commercial or Retail Structures category.
The
next few years could see vehicles of all shapes and sizes, from
Google’s current prototype car to Class 8 trucks, move from human
drivers to computer algorithms.
Daimler, the parent company of
Mercedes Benz, has already started testing its semi-truck in Nevada and
Germany. Volvo and a Volkswagen subsidiary are also testing autonomous
trucks in Europe, with Volkswagen’s managing over 2,000km without taking
over control. The freight business relies quite heavily on trucks, the provider of more than half the shipments in the United States, according to Wired. Bringing self-driving into the mix might be a blessing and a curse, as it might with all industries.
Autonomous
trucks will reduce accidents on the road and might allow truckers — an
industry that has a 90 percent labor turnover rate — to watch movies or
read books instead of constantly watching the road, which might lead to a
lower turnover rate.
But that short-term advantage for truck
drivers will be lost once regulators let autonomous trucks drive on the
road without a human inside. That is bound to bring a swift end to the
freight business, at least for drivers.
Electric trucks another innovative step
Autonomous
functionality is not the only innovation coming to trucks in the near
future. A Salt Lake City-based startup, using the first half of Nikola
Tesla’s as their brand name, has announced plans to launch a Class 8 electric truck, named the Nikola One.
This
is not like other electric vehicles however, it features a turbine that
continues to power the car, making it self-sufficient. If it happens to
turn out of juice, it has a fuel agnostic car that accepts natural gas,
making it the safest and cheapest car to run on the roads.
Nikola
Motors promises a 1,200 mile range and 1 million miles of free fuel,
though the latter might be a promotion for the first few hundred buyers.
It also plans to utilize self-driving systems in the future to improve fuel efficiency.
"Google Driver less Car - Is it a myth or a reality"?
I could still remember the day I watch the iRobot as a teen, and
being skeptical about my brother’s statement that one day, the
driverless car will become reality. And it’s now a reality, made
possible by… a Search Engine Company, Google.
While the data source is still a secret recipe, the Google Driverless Car is powered by artificial intelligence that utilizes the input from the
video cameras inside the car, a sensor on the vehicle’s top, and some
radar and position sensors attached to different positions of the car.
Sounds like a lot of effort to mimic the human intelligence in a car,
but so far the system has successfully driven 1609 kilometres without
human commands!
“You can count on one hand the number of years it will take before
ordinary people can experience this.” Google co-founder, Sergey Brin
said. However, innovation is an achievement, consumerization is the
headache, as Google currently face the challenge to forge the system
into an affordable gem that every worker with an average salary could
benefit from.
A number of devices now exist to
provide extra power to mobiles and wearables, such as power packs, mobile hand
generators and solar cells. But although external power packs have become
popular, they add size and weight, and mobile hand generators and solar cells
produce only limited amounts of power.
New Inventions in Technology called “PowerShake”
allows mobile and wearable devices to wirelessly charge other mobile and
wearable devices on the go, even when those devices are being held or worn. Wireless-Charging
Technologies are becoming more prevalent, but many of these stations are fixed,
and do not account for devices near or in contact with skin.
This innovative solution could help
people easily recharge mobile or wearable gadgets, particularly for tasks such
as emergency phone calls, the scientists added.
"When mobile phones first came
out, people really found them liberating because they didn't have to be attached
to a wire, but they actually still do have to be attached to a wire when they
recharge," said study co-authorMike Fraser, a computer scientist at the
University of Bristol in England. "So now we're seeking to liberate mobile
phones again, to help them manage power without plugging in."
Wireless charging involves at least
two coils — one in the power transmitter, and one in the power receiver. When
an electric current passes through the power transmitter coil, it creates an electromagnetic field that can
transfer charge to another coil. Power transmission is best at close distances,
the scientists said.
The researchers experimented with a
variety of power transmitter and receiver coils. They also devised
electromagnetic shielding made of ferrite plates and copper tape on the back of
coils in order to prevent any transmitted energy from reaching human tissue.
They noted flexible coils were also possible, and potentially embeddable in
watch straps.
In experiments, PowerShake fit into
small devices, met wireless power transfer safety guidelines, and performed
about as well at power transmission as commercial alternatives, such as the Qi
wireless charging pad, transferring about 3.1 watts of power, the researchers
said. They estimated that about 12 seconds of charging would support 1 minute
of additional talk time, while 2 minutes of charging would support about 4
minutes of video watching.
One drawback of PowerShake is that
twice as much energy needs to be transmitted as is received.
"The power transfer is not ever
going to be cost-free," Fraser told Live Science. "That's just the
intrinsic power cost of wireless
charging in general — wireless charging is always going to consume more power
than wired charging."
In workshops, the researchers found
that volunteers exploring the potential usefulness of PowerShake liked the idea
of sharing power with their friends or family. However, due to the power costs
of PowerShake, volunteers noted that if they needed to make an emergency call,
they would probably just ask to borrow a phone instead of asking for power.
Still, "if one needs to complete something on a particular device, and
have already started but are running out of power halfway through and can't
switch devices, this could help people," Fraser said.
The researchers now seek to have
volunteers test PowerShake in real environments, "to see if it actually
works, and if people do find it useful," Fraser said.
The scientists detailed their
findings May 11 at the annual CHI conference on human-computer interactions in
San Jose, California.
It's
any phone-obsessed person's nightmare: you're out, your phone's battery
is depleted down into the red zone, and there's not an electrical plug
in sight. But one day, mobile and wearable devices could engage in
"power-sharing," by wirelessly charging each other on the go,
researchers say.
This innovative solution could help people easily recharge mobile or wearable gadgets, particularly for tasks such as emergency phone calls, the scientists added.
Mobile and wearable devices are now virtually everywhere, but their
battery lives remain limited, with many lasting for less than a day. [Top 10 Inventions that Changed the World]
Advertisement
A number of devices now exist to provide extra power to mobiles and
wearables, such as power packs, mobile hand generators and solar cells.
But although external power packs have become popular, they add size and
weight, and mobile hand generators and solar cells produce only limited amounts of power.
Instead, an invention called PowerShake allows mobile and wearable
devices to wirelessly charge other mobile and wearable devices on the
go, even when those devices are being held or worn. Wireless-charging technologies are becoming more prevalent, but many of these stations are fixed, and do not account for devices near or in contact with skin.
"When mobile phones first came out, people really found them liberating
because they didn't have to be attached to a wire, but they actually
still do have to be attached to a wire when they recharge," said study
co-authorMike Fraser, a computer scientist at the University of Bristol
in England. "So now we're seeking to liberate mobile phones again, to
help them manage power without plugging in."
Wireless charging involves at least two coils — one in the power
transmitter, and one in the power receiver. When an electric current
passes through the power transmitter coil, it creates an electromagnetic field that can transfer charge to another coil. Power transmission is best at close distances, the scientists said.
The researchers experimented with a variety of power transmitter and
receiver coils. They also devised electromagnetic shielding made of
ferrite plates and copper tape on the back of coils in order to prevent
any transmitted energy from reaching human tissue. They noted flexible
coils were also possible, and potentially embeddable in watch straps.
In experiments, PowerShake fit into small devices, met wireless power
transfer safety guidelines, and performed about as well at power
transmission as commercial alternatives, such as the Qi wireless
charging pad, transferring about 3.1 watts of power, the researchers
said. They estimated that about 12 seconds of charging would support 1
minute of additional talk time, while 2 minutes of charging would
support about 4 minutes of video watching.
One drawback of PowerShake is that twice as much energy needs to be transmitted as is received.
"The power transfer is not ever going to be cost-free," Fraser told Live Science. "That's just the intrinsic power cost of wireless charging in general — wireless charging is always going to consume more power than wired charging."
In workshops, the researchers found that volunteers exploring the
potential usefulness of PowerShake liked the idea of sharing power with
their friends or family. However, due to the power costs of PowerShake,
volunteers noted that if they needed to make an emergency call, they
would probably just ask to borrow a phone instead of asking for power.
Still, "if one needs to complete something on a particular device, and
have already started but are running out of power halfway through and
can't switch devices, this could help people," Fraser said.
The researchers now seek to have volunteers test PowerShake in real
environments, "to see if it actually works, and if people do find it
useful," Fraser said.
The scientists detailed their findings May 11 at the annual CHI
conference on human-computer interactions in San Jose, California. Follow us @livescience, Facebook & Google+. Original article on Live Science.
- See more at: http://www.livescience.com/54790-new-tech-enables-wireless-charging.html#sthash.gr2pYmPS.dpuf
Life was much more Comfortable when Apple & Blackberry were just fruits.
Life was much more Comfortable when Apple & Blackberry were just fruits.
