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Smart arm bracelet warns of nighttime epileptic seizures
Nighttime epileptic seizures can be genuinely dangerous. If you have therapy-resistant epilepsy or a mental condition, you may have a one-in-five chance of dying from them. Thankfully, researchers at TUe may have a viable way of detecting and responding to those seizures in time to save lives. They've developed a smart arm bracelet, Nightwatch, that both detects signs of severe seizures and contacts care staff. It combines both a heart rate sensor and a motion sensor to look for both an unusually high heart rate as well as the rhythmic jolting characteristic of a seizure.
A 3D-printed bridge is being built using reinforced concrete
3D printing is a massive category that covers everything from small, DIY, plastic projects to metal meant to be used in Boeing's 787 airplane. Yet another usage has come to light, courtesy of the Eindhoven University of Technology in the Netherlands. Researchers there have started manufacturing parts for a 3D-print reinforced concrete meant for a cycling bridge. When the construction is complete, it'll apparently be the first bridge to use 3D-printed, reinforced concrete (but not the first 3D printed bridge using other materials -- or even concrete itself. (The image above shows a 3D-printed concrete test done at the Nanyang Technological University in Singapore; the one below comes from the Eindhoven University of Technology.)
Augmented reality may save you from road rage
When you're driving, it's all too easy to rage at fellow motorists who are either in a hurry or taking their sweet time. After all, you don't know the context. Are they in a real predicament, or just careless? If TUe researchers have their way, though, you'll know when to cut some slack. They've developed a mobile app, CarNote, that uses augmented reality (displayed in front of you through a periscope lens add-on) to let fellow drivers signal their intents and feelings. If you're in a rush to the hospital, for instance, you can notify commuters behind you so they don't honk their horns or chase you down. There are limits to how often you can use it, so habitual speeders can't just leave it on to excuse their behavior.
Dutch scientists' artificial leaf can create medicine anywhere
Wouldn't it be great to have the ability to concoct medicine anywhere the sun shines, even if it's on another planet? A team of Dutch scientists from Eindhoven University of Technology have developed an artificial leaf-like device that could make that happen. The researchers, inspired by plants that can make their own food through photosynthesis, used materials that can match leaves' capability to capture and store sunlight for later use. These materials are called luminescent solar concentrators (LSCs), which have special light-sensitive molecules that can capture huge amounts of incoming light.
Tiny wireless sensor never needs a battery
The internet of things is a nice idea, but there's one big catch: you have to power all those smart devices, which is no mean feat when some of them might not even have room for a battery. Dutch researchers think they have a solution, though. They've built an extra-small (2 square millimeters) wireless temperature sensor that gets its power from the radio waves that make up its wireless network. All it needs is energy from a nearby router -- once there's enough, it powers up and starts working.
European researchers have created a hive mind for robots and it's being demoed this week
RoboEarth isn't as sinister as it sounds. It's not a special interest group advocating for a new world order with robots at its core -- not yet, anyway. The project, which is backed by the European Union and brings together researchers from universities in Germany, the Netherlands and Spain, is actually more benign than that; it's being described as a "world wide web for robots." We know what you're thinking: What does that even mean? And what would a robot-curated Tumblr look like? The implications are ridiculous, but the reality is not. Simply put, RoboEarth is a four-years-in-the-making, cloud-based hive mind for robotics that aims to store and share knowledge among (you guessed it) robots. The end goal being that single-tasked robots will become a thing of the past. And now, its many collaborators are ready to show off what RoboEarth can realistically do this week. This initial RoboEarth demo, set to take place on January 16th at Eindhoven University in the Netherlands, will highlight the system's ability to offload real-time computational tasks in the cloud and then disseminate that knowledge to four networked robots working in a mock hospital. According to the BBC, these robots will be tasked with serving drinks to patients, assisting in navigation by uploading maps to the cloud and even helping to open pill boxes. The benefit of all of this shared data being that no one robot is limited to a specific task -- any robot can become multi-purpose. But there's another upside to this cloud processing that could impact the reality of assistive technology in the home and that's the potential for cheaper-to-produce and longer-lasting commercial robots. With much of the data computation being offloaded to the cloud, manufacturers won't need to create robots with top-shelf components, making them more affordable long-term investments for consumers. Which, in turn, means you'll be able to hold onto Rosie just long enough to consider her a member of the family.
Cotton-polymer material absorbs or repels moisture depending how hot it is
Aside from the sweltering daytime heat and the freezing night-time temperatures, the biggest problem for folks living in desert regions is finding sources of water. Researchers from Eindhoven University of Technology and Hong Kong Polytechnic have leveraged those temperature swings to help solve the arid region hydration conundrum with a cotton material that absorbs water straight from the surrounding air. Of course, it's not your run-of-the-mill fabric woven from fluffy white stuff. This cloth is coated in a special polymer, called PNIPAAm, that's hydrophilic (read: super absorbent) at temperatures 34°C and below, but becomes hydrophobic (read: repels water) when it gets any hotter. In absorption mode, the cloth can hold 340 percent of its own weight -- compared to just 18 percent without the polymer's aid -- and when it warms up, it releases the collected moisture as clean and pure potable water. So, it can help hydrate both plants and people in desert regions around the world. The boffins who created the stuff claim it's reusable and can be used on locally-sourced cotton fabrics for a minimal, 12 percent cost increase given current manufacturing conditions. Not impressed? Well, the magical moisture-absorbing material may get even better, as the plan is to increase the amount of water the material can hold and lower the temperature threshold for its release.
Dutch scientists develop half million euro, 'affordable' super laser
The folks at Eindhoven University of Technology (TU/e) have lovingly referred to their latest contribution to the world of science as the "poor man's X-FEL." An X-FEL, or X-ray Free-electron Laser, is like a super strong video microscope that converts electrons to X-rays to observe high-speed molecular movement. TU/e's super laser alternative depends solely on a very specific bunching of electrons to do the same thing, allowing for a much smaller (it fits on a tabletop), much cheaper setup. With an estimated cost of half a million euro, the laser is hardly cheap, but it's far more affordable than the competition: Stanford's X-FEL runs hundreds of millions of dollars, and measures a whole kilometer. TU/e researchers admit that their laser can't do everything that an X-FEL can, but, hey, you get what you pay for. Up next for TU/e? In vitro pork products. Yummy.
Guust Hilte's tactile texting device solves the 'every pixel feels the same' problem (video)
Moving away from buttons on phones has lead to a higher level of design purity, but has also made life a lot more difficult for the blind or seeing impaired -- or anyone who doesn't want to look at their phone while texting. We've seen how solutions like the Brailliant-32 can let users interact with mobile devices, but that's hardly portable. Guust Hilte's device is. Looking like a cross between an egg and a rubber stamp, or perhaps the abdomen of a Cyclocosmia spider, it features a series of what Hilte calls gullies on the top that users can trace over with their thumb to enter letters, shown after the break (complete with chill Röyksopp soundtrack). However, that's just a prototype, a Masters project at the Eindhoven University of Technology, with the ultimate goal to integrate the thing into the back of phones. Hilte's vision is users flipping over their celly, entering their message, and then sending away without looking. We think the same could be done without flipping, instead using your index finger, and finally making use of all that wasted space 'round back. %Gallery-100358% [Thanks, Fabian Hemmert]
Blue Eye rocks a scanner with a gesture-based interface
Sure, it's by no means the first gesture-based interface that we've seen, but the combination of a scanner with a Minority Report-esque setup comprise this invention, which its Dutch inventors are calling the "Blue Eye." From what we can tell based on the Eindhoven University of Technology's video, Blue Eye is a glass table and a camera mounted overhead all rolled into a slick touch-based UI. Once an object is placed on the table and you push a button, the camera takes a quick snapshot of that object, cropping out the background. Further, you can take pictures of an object in various orientations to create a simple animation right on the table -- ok, so it's not that crazy powerful even compared to the PS3 demo at E3, but go watch that hypnotic video of theirs already and groove to the hip background music.[Via NewScientist]