Direct from your brain! Technology never stops!

Control the system from your brain! Directly!

The Human Interface has a new contender technology. Though we’d like to think we’ve come a long way with computers, the keyboard and mouse remain the predominant way we interface with them. We’ve had the unfulfilled promise of handwriting and voice recognition and hope that something better will come along sooner or later. Perhaps this is it - brain computer interface technology pioneer Emotiv Systems will have its EPOC neuroheadset to market before Christmas 2008. The lightweight US$300 EPOC is, worn on the head but does not restrict movement in any way as it is wireless. The set detects conscious thoughts, expressions and non-conscious emotions based on electrical signals around the brain. It opens up a plethora of new applications which can be controlled with our thoughts, expressions and emotions.

The Emotiv EPOC will be the first high-fidelity brain computer interface (BCI) device for the video gaming market when it becomes available to consumers via Emotiv’s Web site and through selected retailers in late 2008 for a recommended retail price of $299.

The company is also opening its Application Programming Interface (API) and providing a range of development tools to enable developers to integrate neurotechnology into their applications. The initiative will spur the adoption of brain computer interface technology in video gaming and other industries, enabling consumers to experience an entirely new form of human-machine interaction.

The Emotiv EPOC detects and processes human conscious thoughts and expressions and non-conscious emotions. By integrating the Emotiv EPOC into their games or other applications, developers can dramatically enhance interactivity, gameplay and player enjoyment by, for example, enabling characters to respond to a player’s smile, laugh or frown; by adjusting the game dynamically in response to player emotions such as frustration or excitement; and enabling players to manipulate objects in a game or even make them disappear using the power of their thoughts.

Yet another direction enabled by the EPOC is that of live animation using the unit’s facial recognition sensors to mimic the wearer’s facial expressions in an animated avatar.

We look forward to exploring this one further. Very exciting possibilities.

Beware of Sim spy!!

Never leave your sim card alone

It is the Sim Card data extractor and it will take all the data out of the Sim that you have in your hand and instantly transfer it to a PC. So what is so great about this little gadget? For starters if you are trying to get in to someone else’s phone just for the sake of information, then you no longer need to try unlocking it.

Smoke Digitally!!

Smoke without any side effects! But costly!

Products have recently been released allowing smokers to indulge their addiction and get a nicotine hit, without the harmful chemicals, toxins and cancer-causing poisons released by burning tobacco. These products are a type of “electronic” or “digital” smoking, in part designed to allow smokers to light up in places that have now banned smoking in effort to protect non-smoking patrons and employees.

One such product is the Crown7, an Art Deco styled tube with a cartridge and rechargeable battery. The cartridge contains water, propylene glycol, nicotine, and a tobacco flavor. One cartridge is equivalent to about two packs of cigarettes and each cartridge costs US$2 making it a much more affordable option than one-off use cigarettes although the initial investment in the reusable tube is significant, ranging from US$64.95 to $$149.95. The Crown7 comes in three styles to cater for all kinds of smokers: cigarette, cigar and pipe. Benefits of the Crown7 are that it contains nicotine but does not pollute the environment, emits only a harmless vapor, leaves no residual clothing or room odor and causes no harm to people in the surrounding area.

The second offering is the Vapir from AIR-2, an air vaporizer that transforms the active elements of virtually any plant substance into an inhaleable mist without actually burning the substance. “When a plant is burned its chemical make-up may change. When catalyzed by flame, many plants transform and create new compounds which were not inherent in the plant itself,” explains AIR-2 CEO Shaahin Cheyene.

A patented microchip regulates plant-specific temperatures for vaporization, also known as volitization, to avoid overheating or burning. The idea is to induce the plant to release its active elements without burning it. With tobacco users get the nicotine which they need to feed their addiction, but without the harmful smoke.

The concept even has the support of Harvard Medical School Associate Professor Lester Grinspoon who believes that the “applications are vast. This is the future of smoking. It may well be the future of all drug delivery.” Medicinal vaporization has the potential to eliminate hypodermic needles and oral medications which can be degenerated by digestive enzymes.

Here comes Electronic Paper Book!

Philips and Sony present first ePaper book

Philips, Sony and E Ink have won the race to market for electronic paper and announced the world’s first consumer application of an electronic paper display module in Sony’s new e-Book reader, LIBRIé, which went on sale in Japan as we publish. E Ink’s electronic ink technology offers a truly paper-like reading experience with contrast similar to newsprint.

The display is reflective and easily read in sunlight or dim light and at any angle, just like paper. Its black and white ink-on-paper look is achieved with a resolution of 170 ppi (pixels per inch), far better than most portable devices (computer screens are normally 72 ppi). As the display uses power only when an image is changed, you can read 10,000 pages on a set of over-the-counter batteries. With a compact, lightweight form factor LIBRIé is similar in size to a paperback book.

LIBRIé allows users to download content, such as books or comic strips and read it anywhere, and it can store 500 downloaded books.

While the way people experience entertainment has changed dramatically with the rapid growth of portable entertainment devices like music and movie players, the way people read books, magazines and newspapers has not.

The commercialization of this revolutionary display technology is a result of a strategic collaboration among E Ink Corporation, Toppan Printing, Philips and Sony and has resulted in more than 100 patents in chemistry, electronics and manufacturing processes.

Thats very portable!!

'Infinitely Charged' Built-in cell phone charger

Now here’s a solution that really does have a significant problem to solve. Everyone who owns a cell phone has found themselves somewhere with a low battery without their charger, usually in the least convenient place at the most inconvenient time. In today’s anytime, anywhere communications environment, being without a working cell phone is the equivalent of being technologically naked – it’s not a good look and it can can lead to all manner of collateral problems. Infinitely Charged is a patent-pending design that enables a cell phone to plug directly into a power point.

It’s not the whole answer, but it’s a lot better than having to carry your cell phone charger with you and there’s bound to be a sizable market for all those mission critical people out there who are prepared to sacrifice a smidgen of style to ensure they are connected at all times. Indeed, it would be quite possible to have the phone charging while you’re using it via a Bluetooth headset.

Infinitely Charged is equipped with an electrical plug-in (120v AC power) directly located in the back of the cellular phone. It is designed to flip the plug prong up to store when not in use and flip down when charging is needed.

It’s claimed to be the only product of its type by Californian inventor Ronald Kearns who has a patent pending on the design and is keen to discuss serious production and marketing enquiries.

A simple hands free!!

Hands free, now very easy to use!

Hands-free products for mobile phones did actually made our "hands free"
however, the way most products are designed can easily be affected by noise,

Leading to unclear voice transmission just like pulling up your neck tie,
'Tie up' can pull the microphone towards your mouth. Thus, even if you are in a
crowded space or in a public place where silence is necessary, with the
minimum volume of your voice, Pleasant communication is possible.

1. When the lower body and the microphone is separated the call is forwarded.
If you think of it the other way around, the microphone unit can be pulled towards
the lower body unit. When the microphone is plugged in the call will automatically
end.
2. The user doesn't need to spend all day trying to find the volume button.
Simply just pull it and instant volume control is possible

The Mental Typewriter

Unbelievable!!

Scientists demonstrating a brain-computer interface that translates brain signals into computer control signals this week at CeBIT in Berlin. The initial project demonstrates how a paralysed patient could communicate by using a mental typewriter alone – without touching the keyboard. In the case of serious accident or illness, a patient’s limbs can be paralyzed, severely restricting communication with the outside world. The interface is already showing how it can help these patients to write texts and thus communicate with their environment. There’s also a PONG game (computer tennis) used to demonstrate how the interface can be used. Brain Pong involves two BBCI users playing a game of teletennis in which the “rackets” are controlled by imagining movements and predictably the general media has focussed the majority of its attention on computer gaming applications but BCCI could equally be used in safety technologies (e.g. in automobiles for monitoring cognitive driver stress), in controlling prostheses, wheelchairs, instruments and even machinery.

On the first day of the CeBIT Computer Fair, Fraunhofer FIRST and the Berlin Charité demonstrated how the mental typewriter could be used for this purpose. On the other days of the CeBIT Fair, a simulated test setup using a shop-window dummy will be on display.

Cooperation between Fraunhofer FIRST and the Charité to develop an interface between the human brain and the computer began some years ago. The result was the Berlin Brain-Computer Interface (BBCI which uses the electrical activity of the brain in the form of an electroencephalogram (EEG). Electrodes attached to the scalp measure the brain’s electrical signals. These are then amplified and transmitted to the computer, which converts them into technical control signals. The principle behind the BBCI is that the activity of the brain already reflects the purely mental conception of a particular behaviour, e.g. the idea of moving a hand or foot.

The BBCI recognizes the corresponding changes in brain activity and uses them, say, to choose between two alternatives: one involves imagining that the left hand is moved, the other that the right hand is moved. This enables a cursor, for example, to be moved to the left or right. The person operating the mental typewriter uses the cursor to select a letters field. The next step reduces the choice, and after a few more steps we arrive at the individual letters, which can be used to write words. This process enables simple sentences to be constructed within minutes. A first prototype of the mental typewriter is currently available. In a series of experiments, different spelling methods are tested in terms of their usability and are adapted to the BBCI. It will be some years, though, before the mental typewriter can be used in everyday applications. Further research is needed, in particular to refine the EEG sensors.

The two project heads, Prof. Dr. Klaus-Robert Müller (Fraunhofer FIRST) and Prof. Dr. Gabriel Curio (Charité), will be available for interviews.

Could you belive this? My god!!

New data transmission record - 60 DVDs per second!!

As the world’s internet traffic grows relentlessly, faster data transmission will logically become crucial. To enable telecommunications networks to cope with the phenomenal surge in data traffic as the internet population moves past a billion users, researchers are focusing on new systems to increase data transmission rates and it’s not surprising that the world data transmission record is continually under threat. Unlike records where human physical capabilities limit new records to incremental growth, when human ingenuity is the deciding factor, extraordinary gains are possible. German and Japanese scientists recently collaborated to achieve just such a quantum leap in obliterating the world record for data transmission. By transmitting a data signal at 2.56 terabits per second over a 160-kilometer link (equivalent to 2,560,000,000,000 bits per second or the contents of 60 DVDs) the researchers bettered the old record of 1.28 terabits per second held by a Japanese group. By comparison, the fastest high-speed links currently carry data at a maximum 40 Gbit/s, or around 50 times slower.

"You transmit data at various wavelengths simultaneously in the fiber-optic networks. For organizational and economic reasons each wavelength signal is assigned a data rate as high as possible", explains Prof. Hans-Georg Weber from the Fraunhofer Institute for Telecommunications,Heinrich-hertz-Institute HHI in Berlin, who heads a project under the MultiTeraNet program funded by the Federal Ministry of Education and Research.

A few weeks ago the scientist and his team established a new world record together with colleagues from Fujitsu. Data is transmitted in fiber-optic cables using ultrashort pulses of light and is normally encoded by switching the laser on and off. A pulse gives the binary 1, off the 0. You therefore have two light intensity states to transmit the data. The Fraunhofer researchers have now managed to squeeze more data into a single pulse by packing four, instead of the previous two, binary data states in a light pulse using phase modulation."

"Faster data rates are hugely important for tomorrow's telecommunications", explains Weber. The researcher assumes the transmission capacity on the large transoceanic traffic links will need to increase to between 50 and 100 terabits per second in ten to 20 years. "This kind of capacity will only be feasible with the new high-performance systems."

Next generation chip! Amazing!!

Six times smaller chip next generation TV-on-mobile in U.S. Market

Philips announced its next generation TV-on-mobile solution for the North American market at CTIA today. An amazing six times smaller than its previous version, the new Digital Video Broadcast - Handheld (DVB-H) front-end solution, the smaller size BGT216 improves the integration potential of the chip into mobile devices, which will enable handset and other mobile hardware manufacturers to create simpler, sleeker designs which satisfy the current consumer trends towards small, ultra-portable devices. DVB-H technologies enable consumers to receive live TV-like experiences directly onto mobile handsets and other DVB-H-based devices. The U.S. market for TV-on-mobile is predicted to have 15 million consumer users by 2009, up from only 1.2 million in 2005, according to eMarketer.

Philips has also responded to the industry issue of power consumption and mobile TV by designing the BGT216 to require low power, maximizing battery life and service value for consumers.

Electronic Contact Lens!!

Electronic Contact Lens promises bionic capabilities for everyone!



“These are lens that are exactly the right size, but they have never been incorporated into a contact lens so what’s really encouraging is that a lot of these things exists and one of our hopes is that we have opened the venue of the contact lens to microelectronics – people thinking about contact lenses as a place where we can put elecronics and optoelectronics.”

Building the lenses was a challenge because materials that are safe for use in the body, such as the flexible organic materials used in contact lenses, are delicate. Manufacturing electrical circuits, however, involves inorganic materials, scorching temperatures and toxic chemicals. Researchers built the circuits from layers of metal only a few nanometers thick, about one thousandth the width of a human hair, and constructed light-emitting diodes one third of a millimeter across. They then sprinkled the grayish powder of electrical components onto a sheet of flexible plastic. The shape of each tiny component dictates which piece it can attach to, a microfabrication technique known as self-assembly. Capillary forces – the same type of forces that make water move up a plant's roots, and that cause the edge of a glass of water to curve upward – pull the pieces into position.

The prototype contact lens does not correct the wearer's vision, but the technique could be used on a corrective lens, Parviz said. And all the gadgetry won't obstruct a person's view. Ideally, installing or removing the bionic eye would be as easy as popping a contact lens in or out, and once installed the wearer would barely know the gadget was there, Parviz said.

"There is a large area outside of the transparent part of the eye that we can use for placing instrumentation," Parviz said. Future improvements will add wireless communication to and from the lens. The researchers hope to power the whole system using a combination of radio-frequency power and solar cells placed on the lens, Parviz said.

The results of the project to date were presented last week at the Institute of Electrical and Electronics Engineers' international conference on Micro Electro Mechanical Systems by Harvey Ho, a former graduate student of Parviz's now working at Sandia National Laboratories in Livermore, Calif. Other co-authors were Ehsan Saeedi and Samuel Kim in the UW's electrical engineering department and Tueng Shen in the UW Medical Center's ophthalmology department.

The most expensive TV in the world!!

Tv with Diamonds!

On display for the first time at the recent IFA show in Germany and also in New York earlier this month at an exhibition promoting Italian craftsmanship was the yalos diamond, a EUR 100,000 (US$130,000 in round figures) television set by Neapolitan (from Naples) Keymat Industrie s.p.a.



The 40 inch LCD TV has provision for 1080i and 720p high definition picture formats and is as technologically sound as is humanly possible with a picture contrast ratio of 1200:1. The really expensive bit is the workmanship, the design and the fact it’s plated in white gold and studded with 160 diamonds (4 gm) of diamonds. Source - gizmag.com