Turbocell introduces this technology!!

Mobile charger for your mobile phones - Technology grows!

Cellphones were originally designed to keep you connected while out in the field. Though "the field" can be rather lacking in wall outlets, so when your phone's batteries run dry, and you've gotta top up, you'll need a portable charger. The Turbocell Charger uses simple and readily available AA batteries to pump some go-juice into your cellphone's lithium ions. As small as a pack of gum, and with enough connectors to mate with nearly any manufacturer's phone, you'll be good to go, no matter where it is you're going. Technology is growing much faster than ever.

The average AA battery can add up to 2 hours of extra talk-time, which might be just what you needed - especially if, during the above movie, you have to hack into the aliens' computer network to upload a virus from your Mac. It would suck if your cellphone gave out at the last minute, and would make a terrible downer of a movie ending.

Details

Plugs into 9 different brands of phones: Audiovox, Blackberry, LG, Motorola, Nextel, Nokia, Samsung, Sony Ericsson
Takes 1 AA battery
AlgorChip charges your cellphone's battery safely without damage or risk of fire
Up to 2 hours extra talk-time per average AA battery

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.

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.

Feeling lonely? No girlfriend?

Get yourself a Virtual Girlfriend!

Hong Kong based company Artificial Life have developed an interactive virtual girlfriend that appears as an animated girl for new mobile phones with video capability. According to a company spokesperson, users of the latest 3-G mobile phones who subscribe to the service will be able to send messages to the virtual girlfriend, who will respond by voice. Each girlfriend will follow an evolving daily and weekly schedule which includes visiting her virtual home, work or bar, and shopping with her virtual girlfriends.

Although all the virtual girls look pretty similar, they behave in a different way depending on how well the user treats her.

Buying her flowers and diamonds will get her attention and advance the relationship to higher levels. In return, she will unlock new levels and aspects of her life, such as introducing her female friends - who also happen to be electronic images.

However, it's not as easy as it sounds, because the virtual girlfriend will get angry and ignore the user if she does not get what she wants. And since the users will be charged real money to pay for all those virtual flowers, in addition to the subscription charge, she might turn out to be not just virtual high maintenance, but real high maintenance! Although for now, it has not been determined how much the gifts will cost.

Classified as a game by its makers, it does not contain any elements of a sexual nature, and is "suitable for all ages", the spokesperson said.

Artificial Life hope to launch the new game later this year, with a "virtual boyfriend" equivalent scheduled for early next year.

The Virtual Girlfriend is based on intelligent animated 3-D characters (avatars) that live in a virtual mobile world. The virtual girls can be contacted and seen using a 3G phone at any time. However, the characters will be involved in different activities during the day, for example, the girlfriend may be in her virtual home or at her virtual workplace or in a virtual bar or restaurant or just shopping with another virtual friend in a virtual shopping mall.

The user can watch the characters during these activities and interact with them via the mobile phone. The characters and the game follow a certain daily and weekly schedule which will continuously change and progress over time.

Users can interact with the game characters on their mobile phones by sending SMS and MMS messages or chat with them in real time through a J2ME client. Several interactive game icons are available as well. Users even have the option to interact with the Virtual Girlfriend by sending her virtual gifts which can elevate the user to different, more sophisticated game levels.

Inkless magic!

The pen that never runs out!

While most pen designs are getting more complex, this inkless metal pen takes inspiration from the past for its simple design and functionality. Though not likely to usurp the ballpoint, the novel pen made from stainless steel contains no ink yet is able to write on any most types of paper without ever needing a refill.

The metal pen takes its inspiration from medieval times when artists and scribes often used a metal stylus in order to draw on a specially prepared paper surface. The material the pen was made from was a sign of the status of the scribe’s employer. Gold and silver were used by the upper classes and lead by the less wealthy. This type of pen was commonly known as Metalpoint, or Silverpoint when the stylus was made of silver. Artists such as Leonardo da Vinci used them.

This solid metal 'nib' of this particular metal pen is made from metal alloy rather than silver. It leaves a mark on most types of paper and works best on standard copier/printer paper. The mark it leaves looks like that of a pencil however it cannot be erased.

I wouldn’t use it to try and write the great American novel, but it’s definitely a handy implement to have around and not worry about whether your pen has run out of ink. It could also be a help to "lefties" to help them avoid ink smudge. The metal pen is available from Grand Illusions for US$29.98, a long-term investment since there is no need to replace the ink or buy a new pen for at least 25 years.

Now u can send sms through Pens!!

SMS & Email Pen

D:Scribe is a digital fountain pen that allows users to send SMS and email messages from paper. Just write out the message and circle the person’s name to send. This does away with a keypad and allows you to focus on communicating in a more personal way from anywhere as long as you have a bluetooth enabled phone and a surface to write on. The pen also records everything you write which can be accessed on a computer. Of course for the creative peeps, if writing doesn’t suit your fancy, the D:Scribe also works with genius and not so genius drawings of brilliance.

The design is loosely based on a quill and inkwell where by the quill is the writing apparatus and the inkwell is an electromagnetic induction charger.

Once a message is sent, the status is displayed on the built-in OLED screen. The designers have also expanded its capabilities beyond that of messaging. Should your home electronics and appliances be bluetooth enabled, you could potentially program the pen to input commands by writing in the air. A little abstract but lets pretend this idea is more a patent for possibilities.

The New Smart pen!!

Merging the mobile and computer with the humble pen

Efforts to combine the sheer convenience of the pen as an input device with the benefits of digital technology continue to evolve with Livescribe's launch of the Pulse Smartpen. Based on licensed technology from pioneering digital pen developer Anoto, the Pulse is a computer in the shape of a pen that not only digitally captures handwriting, but simultaneously records audio and synchronizes it to the writing. Working in conjunction with a special Dot Paper Notebook, the system promises incredible benefits for students, professionals or anyone in a note taking situation... and that's just the beginning. By simply tapping the pen on the paper, the system will replay audio coinciding with the moment those notes were taken and using navigation controls printed on the bottom of each page, users can fast forward, rewind, jump ahead, pause, and even speed up or slow down their audio recordings. In short - everything you hear, speak or write is captured by the Pulse.

"Pulse is a new type of mobile computer that supports the four basic modes of human communication – reading, writing, speaking and listening," said Livescribe, Inc. Founder and Chief Executive Officer Jim Marggraff. "Using an embedded speaker and display for audio/visual input, and microphones and a pen for audio/visual output, Pulse advances the power and flexibility of mobile computing – it's the missing link that now connects the paper and digital worlds."

The Pulse Smartpen will be available in two models. The 1GB model (USD$149) that provides storage for around 100 hours of recorded audio, 16,000 pages of digital notes or add-on applications while the 2GB (USD$199) provides more flexibility for downloading future applications.

Housed in anodized aluminum, the Pulse Smartpen weighs 1.3 ounces (36 grams) and measures 6.1 inches (155mm). The device features a Samsung ARM 9 (32-bit, 150 MHz) processo,r high speed infrared camera (over 70 images per second) incorporating Dot Positioning System (DPS) technology, a rechargeable lithium battery, a high contrast 96x18 OLED display, dual microphones with noise cancellation and an embedded speaker and an audio jack for Livescribe's 3D Recording Headset, itself optimized for capturing audio in noisy environments.

Recharging and transfer of data to computer is via a light weight USB Mobile Charging Cradle and the included Desktop Software allows storage, replay, and searching for words within handwritten notes after they are transferred to PC. The package will also give users access to the Livescribe Online Community which includes 250MB of online storage to upload and share notes and audio as interactive Flash movies or PDF files.

The Dot Paper Notebook works via a series of nearly-invisible micro dots printed each page that communicate with the smartpen so that it knows where you are writing or tapping. TIn addition to the navigation functionality this allows, the Dot Positioning System also facilitates a full-function calculator on the inside front cover of every notebook. According to Livescribe, additional notebooks will be comparable in price to ordinary paper notebooks and from April, the technology will become available on qualified laser jet printers so that you can print your own Dot Paper.

Coinciding with the launch, Livescribe has also announced a Developer Program inviting developers to build innovative, paper-based computing applications for the Pulse smart pen. Examples of applications already in progress include foreign language translators, productivity tools, games, interactive books, transcription services, and specialized educational aids like applications to assist visually-impaired students.

The applications for this technology seem only limited by the imagination. One interesting example already in development through Audio Tutor is an interactive birding journal that provides visuals and information in both text and audio and lets users record their birding expeditions through handwriting, drawings and audio recordings.

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.

Rinspeed sQuba Concept Car

Rinspeed sQuba Concept Car features dive and drive:



Mover Q your amphibious car designs are redundant, maybe they were good enough for the previous spies but the next-gen demands a more synced-up version. In case you need to take pointers, make sure you are there at the Geneva Motor Show (March 6th thru 16th, 2008), where Swiss design company Rinspeed will showcase their sQuba Concept Car.


The makers claim that it is the world's first real diving car. And if its aquatic feats were not enough, the car can (at the push of a button) drive autonomously. It can dive to the depth of up to 10 meters (33 feet). The "sQuba" fulfills Rinspeed's boss Frank M. Rinderknecht long cherished dream of creating something that marries fictitious movie concepts to reality.


Thus taking inspiration from "The spy who loved me", sQuba features an electric motor with powerful torque that drives the rear wheels. The thrust on the water is ensured by two propellers in the stern and two powerful jet drives in the bow propel the vehicle under water while diving. The car promises zero emissions thus zero pollution to the water. The light weight body with components made of futuristic Carbon Nano Tubes encloses in a streamlined manner the driver and passenger who are supplied with fresh breathing air by the self-contained on-board system.



Rinspeed sQuba is a one off car. No commercial production is planned.

3D Display - Awesome!!

Phillips intros 20-inch 3D display

Don't count Philips as the first outfit to dream up a 3D display that allowed you to leave the eyewear at home, but it looks like the technology is coming ever closer to the mainstream -- for better or worse. The firm has reportedly developed a 20-inch LCD "designed to increase brand awareness and attention value of products at point-of-sale locations," and is showing off the (literally) eye-popping effects at this week's InfoComm. Of course, this rendition seems to be aimed at businesses rather than consumer applications, but we'd expect to see more where this came from as the WOWvx-equipped lineup expands.

The newest duo consists of a frame-mountable 20-3D2W01 (pictured above) and a more decorated 20-3D2W04 if you're wanting a bezel and stand. As expected, there's no word yet on pricing or availability, but feel free to peep another shot of the third-dimension after the break. (source : engadgetdotcom)