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Thursday, July 4, 2013

Moto X Smartphone's Advanced Sensors

The upcoming Moto X will let you customize its colors

There have been passed a week since we are listening rumours related to Motorola’s next big device "the Motorola X phone". It is Google's superphone that would compete with the iPhone and Galaxy S series.


Motorola yesterday placed Moto X ads in all of the major US newspapers promising "the first smartphone that you can design yourself," but it remained a mystery exactly which elements you could personalise.


According to ABC News, customers will be able to customize their handset which will allow them to specify the colour of their device as well as adding an engraving to the back cover.

Moto X customization includes selectable trim colors

This will work through an online system,  which will enable you  to pick different colors for both the phone's back and bezel. You can also add some text to engrave on the back, or upload your own photo for engraving.

The report confirmed that users won't be able to customise the internals of the phone (which was always a fanciful idea), and confirmed that it would be a "mid-range" phone.


FEATURES:

  • 720p display
  • 1.7GHz dual-core CPU
  • Qualcomm Snapdragon S4 dual-core 28 nm SoC clocked at 1.7 GHz (MSM8960 Pro)
  • 2 GB of RAM
  • 16 GB of internal storage
  • a 2MP camera on the front
  • a 10MP camera on the back
  • Google's Android 4.2.2 "Jelly Bean" OS
  • screen size of around 4.7 inches
  • over 25 color options
  • very slim bezel
  • Adreno 320 GPU
  • support for cameras up to 20MP
  • USB 2.0 OTG (480 Mbps)
  • integrated Bluetooth 4.0
  • integrated dual-band Wireless N

Google-owned Motorola is allegedly adding hardware and software to Moto X like advanced sensor usage. It's suggested that users will be able to flick the phone to launch the camera app, and that the phone will be intelligent enough to know when you're driving, and will kick in the speakerphone function accordingly. 

ABC News reports that Motorola's new 500,000-foot factory in Texas will enable it to deliver personalized devices within days of placing an order. Even more, the company has provided a website, and is currently taking signups, where customers can select from a palette of different colors for the back panel and the trim -- these can be the same color or separate. Customers can also have a message engraved into the panel, and upload a photo that can be used as the phone's wallpaper.

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Human Liver Creation From Stem Cells

Human Liver Creation From Stem Cells

A team of scientists led by Takanori Takebe of Yokohama City University said that they had grown human liver tissue from stem cells in the world first time that holds promise for alleviating the critical shortage of donor organs derived from skin and blood and say their success points to a future where much-needed livers and other transplant organs could be made in a laboratory. They report in the journal Nature that they have grown tissue "resembling the (human) adult liver" in a lab mouse.


 They first created induced pluripotent stem (iPS) cells that they mixed with other cell types and coaxed them into “liver buds” — the precursor clusters that develop into a liver.

Human Liver Creation From Stem Cells

The buds, each about five millimetres big, were then transplanted onto a mouse brain, where they were observed transforming into a "functional human liver" complete with blood vessels, the scientists wrote.

While it may take another 10 years before lab-grown livers could be used to treat patients, the Japanese scientists say they now have important proof of concept that paves the way for more ambitious organ-growing experiments.

“The promise of an off-the-shelf liver seems much closer than one could hope even a year ago,” said Dusko Illic, a stem cell expert at King’s College London who was not directly involved in the research but praised its success.

Human Liver Creation From Stem Cells

There are two main forms of stem cells — embryonic stem cells, which are harvested from embryos, and reprogrammed “induced pluripotent stem cells” (iPS cells), often taken from skin or blood.

Countries across the world have a critical shortage of donor organs for treating patients with liver, kidney, heart and other organ failure. Scientists are keenly aware of the need to find other ways of obtaining organs for transplant.


The Japanese team, based at the Yokohama City University Graduate School of Medicine in Japan, used iPS cells to make three different cell types that would normally combine in the natural formation of a human liver in a developing embryo — hepatic endoderm cells, mesenchymal stem cells and endothelial cells — and mixed them together to see if they would grow.

They found the cells did grow and began to form three-dimensional structures called “liver buds” — a collection of liver cells with the potential to develop into a full organ.

When they transplanted them into mice, the researchers found the human liver buds matured, the human blood vessels connected to the mouse host’s blood vessels and they began to perform many of the functions of mature human liver cells.

Human Liver Creation From Stem Cells

Associate Professor Ernst Wolvetang, of the Australian Institute for Bioengineering and Nanotechnology says the research will may one day alleviate the shortage of donated livers for transplantation.

"This provides proof of concept that this may be possible in humans in the future.," says Wolvetang.

"It however remains to be established whether the artificially regrown livers from iPSC will prove to be safe in the long-term.'

Stuart Forbes, professor of transplantation and regenerative medicine at the University of Edinburgh, is equally cautious about the results.

"Whilst the title of the paper is 'functional human liver', these liver buds do not contain the biliary structures (which drain toxins out of the liver) or immune cells that characterise real human liver," he says.

Takebe says the method may also work in organs like the pancreas, kidneys or lungs, but it would be another 10 years before trials are done in humans.

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Wednesday, July 3, 2013

Panasonic's Home Stereo With Neon Subwoofers

Panasonic's Home Stereo With Neon Subwoofers

Panasonic announced the launch of the SC-MAX650 Extra-Large Audio System, a 2300 Watt audio system that produces powerful amplification paired with crystal clear sound quality. It's Panasonic’s most powerful audio system yet. 

It has a pair of four-way floor-standing speakers with prism-color illumination. Each 22 x 31 x 21-in (558 x 796 x 525-mm) speaker weighs 68.3 lb (31 kg) and houses a 15-inch ultra super woofer, a 7.87-inch super woofer, and a 4-inch woofer to take care of the mids to deep lows, and a 2.36-inch tweeter sporting a nano-sized bamboo cone that provides high sound pressure and clarity, resulting in crisp, clear vocals.


The main unit has dimensions of 19 x 9 x 14 in (485 x 231 x 378 mm), include D. Bass with Smart Control for powerful, rich bass sounds, Maximized Bass Sound PLUS for a distortion free clear bass reproduction regardless of volume level, a CD player , an FM/AM tuner, a microphone jack for use as a PA system or even for Karaoke functionality, plus USB port, auxiliary input, as well as a music port for expanded options of audio sources.
22 x 31 x 21-in speaker and 19 x 9 x 14 in main unit
The Panasonic SC-MAX650 Extra-Large Audio System is set to be available this month and carries with it an equally extra-large price tag of $1,199.99. 

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An Electronic Door Lock That Generates Its Own Electricity: Recodura

An Electronic Door Lock That Generates Its Own Electricity: Recodura
Horatio and Tuomi who work closely together in the field of locking systems, incorporates one complicating factor in unlocking doors i.e. they require a power supply. The Recodura lock, however, generates its own electricity when users push on its handle.

Every time the handle is used, an energy-harvesting mechanism within the lock generates enough power to run built-in RFID and NFC readers.

Full Description: Recodura
Recodura is a revolutionary new RFID locking and access control system, with door control units that are fully self-powered. Energy produced by using the door handle is automatically converted to electrical energy to operate the RFID locking system – no batteries or power cables are needed. This uniquely innovative feature means high CO2 efficiency and low maintenance, with practically none of the servicing demanded by conventionally powered systems.

Recodura is secure, versatile and flexible in operation. The access ID reader interface can be rapidly and easily reprogrammed, so that, for example, lost ID keys can be immediately invalidated and unauthorised access blocked.

Recodura is future-proof due to NFC functionality. In addition to access ID cards, it will soon also be possible to operate the door units using a smartphone. Access authorisation can be rapidly sent to a mobile telephone: this means that a doctor or other designated person could gain emergency entry to your home, or a co-worker could be permitted exceptional, one-off access (perhaps over a weekend) to their office or allowing one-time access to a certain room to a person by sending an update to the key on that person’s phone.

In emergency situations where a room simply has to be accessed immediately, a physical key can still be used in the provided receptacle

a slot for physical key for emergency situations in Recodura



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Electromagnetic Field Visualization Using Smartphone App

Electromagnetic field of a MacBook 
Two designers at the Copenhagen Institute of Interaction Design have made the invisible visible by creating their own Android app. Luke Sturgeon and Shamik Ray have created light paintings from the EMFs emitting from our everyday electronics using long-exposure photography and stop-motion animation. The result are ghoulishly pretty images showing wisps of light floating above a laptop and flowing from a radio’s speaker.

The EMF on a radio


The EMF floating above a radio speaker
This android app would allow them to draw and map EMFs. The screen of the Android smartphone has been entirely covered. With a camera set to long exposure, the handset is slid over the device (a Macbook for example), and the visible slit shows a series of colored dots which apparently relate to the EMF field.


“We were surprised by the difference in magnetic strengths between objects and how strong the electromagnetic field is around hard drives and laptop computers and mobile phones, all of which we live in constant close proximity to every day”, said Sturgeon.

Sturgeon says they don’t yet have a way to quantify how strong each EMF is, though he notes that the EMF from the laptop hard drive was so strong it would stall the phone’s magnetic sensor.

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New Google Glass App Syncs with Tesla Model S


Independent software engineer and repeat tech newsmaker Sahas Katta has struck again. On Monday, Katta released his first app for Google GOOG +0.46% Glass platform called Glasstesla which pairs Google’s experimental augmented reality eyewear with the Tesla Model S electric car. This  newly-released app called "GlassTesla" uses the interactive capabilities of Google Glass to connect wirelessly with Tesla's Model S. Once connected, owners have a variety of Glass activated commands at their beck and call and information in front of their eyeballs.



The resulting GlassTesla app communicates with Tesla’s onboard system to provide drivers with instant visual feedback through Google Glass without taking their hands off the wheel or eyes off the road.


The app gives drivers access to a range of information and commands, including monitoring the vehicle’s charging status and providing the option to start or stop charging via Glass.

The application includes all of the features of the Android app, which aren’t necessarily meant to be used while driving. Instead, it focuses on features that are useful when the car is parked: charging can be turned on and off, the internal temperature can be queried and adjusted, doors can be locked and unlocked, the sunroof can be opened and closed, the horn can be honked and the lights flashed. If you decide to park somewhere where that isn’t a charging station, you can ping your car and have it show up on a map.  It’s a set of luxury features for a luxury vehicle.


Owners who have forgotten the location of their Model S can direct Glass to locate the aforementioned lost Tesla on the map. Glass then taps into Tesla’s GPS system and directs owners accordingly. Forgot to lock the doors? No problem, Glass can check the car to see that doors and trunk are locked and secured on command.

“I’m already working on it,” Katta said. “We’ll soon be able to do something along the lines of being able to say ‘OK Glass, open the trunk,’ for when you’re carrying groceries and your hands aren’t free.”

Driving is perhaps the prime time when your hands and eyes aren’t free, so with voice commands, the app will also be able to open the sunroof or change the temperature or do any number of other actions. So even though Glasstesla is nestled in a niche that fewer than 50 people are likely to use, it’s on the cusp of something big.


“I think this absolutely highlights the potential of wearable technology and how it will interact with the tools we use every day,” Katta said.


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Tuesday, July 2, 2013

Germany's New TOrque Controlled Humanoid Robot : TORO

Humanoid Robot : TORO

HUMANOID ROBOT :- A humanoid robot is a robot with its body shape built to resemble that of the human body. A humanoid design might be for functional purposes, such as interacting with human tools and environments, for experimental purposes, such as the study of bipedal locomotion, or for other purposes. In general, humanoid robots have a torso, a head, two arms, and two legs, though some forms of humanoid robots may model only part of the body, for example, from the waist up. Some humanoid robots may also have heads designed to replicate human facial features such as eyes and mouths. Androids are humanoid robots built to aesthetically resemble humans.

Engineers at the German Aerospace Center (DLR) have created a Torque controlled humanoid Robot that can react to its environment and move safely in an unknown area which they began in  the summer of 2009, with two legs and a camera mounted on top – but it was still far from being a robot of humanoid appearance. But now the walking machine, has become more human-like – an upper body, a head with camera eyes and arms have been added. TORO is now complete, with forearms and hands with sensors and flexible joints that allow it to respond to its environment with exceptional sensitivity.  It has strong legs, slightly thinner arms, but as yet no face.


Its creator is Christian Ott, a doctor of engineering, who has set himself the goal of teaching TORO how to walk - step by step. In more precise terms, the aim is the art of "flexible walking" -  climbing stairs or opening doors, for example.

"Now that the robotic body is complete, we can test processes where the robot carries out sequences of movements with foresight and fluency," explains Project Manager Christian Ott. Ott began his work in 2009 with the model of an arm which he evolved into a walking apparatus – without an upper body and shoulders attached to the hip.


The researchers at DLR want to push TORO beyond what other humanoid robots like ASIMO already do, including the ability to react autonomously and intelligently in a range of different circumstances, navigating stairs and opening doors, for example.

The actual further development of TORO takes place on the computer: using simulations, the researchers refine algorithms and develop methods for rendering TORO's gait more robust and flexible. In the long term, the DLR researchers intend to further adapt their walking apparatuses to emulate humans even more, for instance, by imitating sinews. This is to enable future generations of robots to walk faster whilst requiring less energy.

TORO'S evolution

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