sensors
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SensoGlove revamp brings automatic pressure check, stops us from strangling our golf swing
Hand rookie golfers a driver and they'll frequently make the classic mistake of gripping the club as though their lives depend on it. A seasoned veteran knows that a little give and take might be needed, which is why Sensosolutions just updated its long-serving SensoGlove to better encourage a balanced hold. The new automatic sensitivity toggle will offer a recommended grip through the LCD based on how tightly the club has been held in the past; throttle the 9 iron often and you'll be asked to loosen up. Longer battery life is also in the cards versus the older model, although we're reaching out to determine how many more holes the glove will handle in one charge. No matter how you slice (or hook) it, the newer SensoGlove is shipping for $89 in versions for both hands and multiple sizes.
iPhone 5 and Nokia Lumia 920 face off with image stabilization test (hands-on video, updated with Galaxy S III and HTC One X)
Nokia's Lumia 920 packs the industry's best image stabilization -- there's no questioning that -- thanks to a camera module that pairs both sensor and lens-based optical IS. The iPhone 5 also offers a notable improvement over its Apple-made predecessor on the video front, but considering that its stabilization is of the digital variety, we wouldn't expect it to top Nokia's new flagship. We had an opportunity to test both smartphones in a head-to-head demo at Nokia's research and development facility in Tampere, Finland, about two hours north of the company's Espoo headquarters. In fact, we're told that this is the very first such comparison shoot in the world, considering that the iPhone made it to market just last week and the only opportunity to shoot with a Lumia 920 is currently in the European country where the device was born. As expected, the Nokia phone was able to capture far smoother video than what we snapped with the iPhone, with both devices secured side-by-side in a homemade foam holster. Unlike our handheld interview shoot earlier today, we pushed the limits a bit further this time, running through Nokia's parking lot and turning every which way as well. It's important to note that the Lumia 920 we used was a prototype, but its performance was still quite solid. You'll find the side-by-side video just past the break -- the Lumia 920 is on the left, with the iPhone clip on the right.
Researchers take full control of cockroach's movement, turn it into a wireless sensor
Built-in power supply? Check. Ability to survive anything? Check. Easy to control? Okay, anyone who's had a cockroach as an uninvited houseguest knows that's not the case. So, rather than re-inventing the biological wheel with a robotic version, North Carolina State university researchers have figured out a way to remotely control a real Madagascar hissing cockroach. They used an off-the-shelf microcontroller to tap in to the roach's antennae and abdomen, then sent commands that fooled the insect into thinking danger was near, or that an object was blocking it. That let the scientists wirelessly prod the insect into action, then guide it precisely along a curved path, as shown in the video below the break. The addition of a sensor could allow the insects to one day perform tasks, liking searching for trapped disaster victims -- something to think about the next time you put a shoe to one.
Apple patent application details method for detecting and displaying hand position on screen
We've had a glimpse at Apple's conception of a sensor-based keyless layout, and the latest patent application from Cupertino shows the company looking to further refine the input experience -- this time using a camera and other sensors to detect hand position and overlay that hand position on a device's screen. The filing details three methods to this end. The first shows a user's hands on a traditional hardware keyboard projected in an on-screen representation (as background, Apple mentions the ergonomic strain of looking down to check your hand placement, so perhaps that's the thinking behind this one). A second scenario involves a laptop with unlabeled keys, where the marked keyboard is displayed on the screen, and the final, most intriguing, setup shows backside controls on a tablet a la the PS Vita, with a user's fingers projected as if the device was transparent. Of course, this is just a patent application at this point, so don't expect to see this tech make its debut September 12th.
STMicroelectronics details pressure sensor in your Galaxy S III, can tell when you're mountaineering
If you're the sort to tear down your Galaxy S III, you might have noticed a mysterious STMicroelectronics LSP331AP chip lurking on the motherboard. While we've known that it's a pressure sensor, we now know that it's a new generation -- new enough that ST is just getting to explaining the technology to a mainstream audience. The piezoresistor-equipped MEMS chip tracks altitude through atmospheric pressure with an uncanny knack for precision; it can tell when you've crossing between floors, which could be more than handy for future iterations of indoor navigation. Don't worry if you're an extreme sports junkie that might push the limits, either. The sensor can do its job at the kinds of pressure you'd normally see when 32,800 feet high or 5,900 feet below sea level, which should keep it working even if you're checking your phone during a climb up K2 or a HALO skydive. We don't know if anyone beyond Samsung is lined up to use ST's pressure sensor in their devices, but we wouldn't be surprised if it becomes a mainstay for smartphones and outdoor gear in the near future.
Mosoro releases its Bluetooth LE sensors and SDK for VIP appcessory developers
Since we last heard about Mosoro's Lego-brick sized Bluetooth LE modules, they've changed their names, picked up another member and are now making their way to iOS app developers. The 3D-Motion's got an accelerometer, gyroscope and magnetometer, while the Enviro measures temperature, humidity and barometric pressure. New to the team is Proximity, useful for triggering location-based apps and tracking motion for creating alerts. All three rechargeable Bluetooth low energy sensors have "shake-to-wake" support, an RGB "glow-cap" for notifications and a humble programmable button. They are expected to hit retail in fall 2012, but "VIP" app developers can grab them now, as well as the SDK which simplifies iOS Bluetooth integration. Got the ideas and inclination to become one of Mosoro's "rock star app-developer partners?" Then go sign up on the website and see if you make the VIP grade.
Wireless Sensor Tags alert you to movement and temperature changes, fit on your keyring
There's plenty of sensor gear around for hobbyists to play with, but not so many polished products for the monitoring-obsessed. Cao Gadgets is attempting to fill that niche with its functionally named Wireless Sensor Tags -- small devices which monitor movement and temperature, notifying you if anything's amiss. A magnetometer registers movement by changes in its orientation, and can inform you of door openings or similar disturbances, while the temperature triggers are based on upper or lower thresholds. The $15 sensors (or $12 if you want three or more) have a battery life that should last several years depending on their setup, but there is one catch -- you also need the Tag Manager hub ($50), which plugs into your router via Ethernet. It keeps in frequent contact with any subordinates in its 200-foot range, and if after several attempts it finds one MIA, a warning can be sent in case any of your home guards have walked or fallen asleep. The tags also have inbuilt beepers which can be pinged to track down any rogue possessions they're partnered with, like your keys. A lot of thought has been put into micromanaging the tags, which are customizable through web-based, Android or iOS apps, and will send out alerts via email, Twitter, or push notifications on slates and phones (text-to-speech is available if you're too lazy to read). If you're into your data, you can also access trigger statistics from the software, complete with graphs. The home monitoring kit is available now, and instead of crashing your browser with too many embeds, we've decided to point you to the source below for the half-dozen demo vids.
TechBASIC 2.3 links iOS to world of sensors through Bluetooth, no pesky computers in the way (video)
If a Bluetooth sensor doesn't already have iOS support, pairing it up will often involve a patient wait for an official app or some not-quite-official tweaking, at best -- Apple won't allow just any old unauthenticated device through the gates. Byte Works' TechBASIC 2.3 update takes those barriers down. The mobile app lets those of us with a new iPad or iPhone 4S create programs that talk to, and read from, a wide range of Bluetooth LE devices without having to write any Objective C code on a Mac. Only a TI key fob has a fully ready example program, but large swaths of devices will communicate with help from intrepid programmers -- whether they're heart rate monitors, home theater gear or seemingly anything in between. Existing TechBASIC owners can add the Bluetooth LE support through a free update; it's a relatively pricey $15 to buy the app if you're new to Byte Works' world, although it may be worthwhile to give any unused sensors a new reason for being.
Disney Research's Botanicus Interacticus adds capacitive touch to ordinary plants, we go hands-on
Sure, you spend plenty of time talking to your plants, but have you ever made them sing? In partnership with Berlin-based Studio NAND, Walt Disney's experience development arm, coined Disney Research, has found a way to take human-plant interaction to an almost freakish level. The project's called Botanicus Interacticus, and centers around a custom-built capacitive sensor module, which pipes a very low current through an otherwise ordinary plant, then senses when and where you touch. Assuming your body is grounded, the device uses more than 200 frequencies to determine exactly where you've grabbed hold of a stem. Then, depending on how it may be programed, the sensor can trigger any combination of feedback, ranging from a notification that your child is attempting to climb that massive oak in the yard again, to an interactive melody that varies based on where your hand falls along the plant. Because this is Disney Research, the company would most likely use the new tech in an interactive theme park attraction, though there's currently no plan to do much more than demo Botanicus Interacticus for SIGGRAPH attendees. This week's demonstration is giving the creators an opportunity to gather feedback as they try out their project on the general public. There's four different stations on hand, ranging from a stick of bamboo that offers the full gamut of sensitivity, including the exact location of touch, to an orchid that can sense an electric field disruption even as you approach for contact. While interactive plants may not have a role in everyday life, Botanicus Interacticus is certainly a clever implementation of capacitive touch. You can see it action just past the break.%Gallery-162014%
FDA approves Proteus Digital Health's e-pills for dose monitoring
An "ingestible sensor" doesn't sound like the tastiest of snacks, but soon it might be just what the doctor ordered. A tiny microchip which activates upon contact with stomach acid has recently been given the green light by the US FDA. When the sensor is swallowed, an external patch picks up its signal and shoots a message over to whoever it's supposed to. The technology is aimed at tackling an issue known in the healthcare biz as compliance -- or, following instructions. Correct timing and dose are important for many drugs, and lax schedules can be responsible for treatment failures or the development of nasty drug-resistant bugs. Although the pills have only been used in trials, one pharmaceutical heavyweight has already bagged a license to the technology for real-world applications. If you don't like the thought of a belly full of microchips, no need to worry -- the harmless sensors pass naturally after completing their mission.
N-Trig pen tech whittled down to single DuoSense chips and sensors, shrinks scribblings to travel size
As much as N-Trig is an old hand at supporting styluses, it's had to focus on tablets and other larger devices due to technology limits: the HTC Flyer is about as small as the company has gone to date. A new version of N-Trig's DuoSense chipset family could be the ticket to going to much smaller sizes. The new 4000 series condenses both pen input and multi-touch finger gestures into a combination of one chip and one sensor, letting any entrepreneurial device maker stuff the two control methods into a handheld device with as little as a 5-inch display. Naturally, the chip line scales all the way to 15.6-inch panels for creatives poking at the screens of laptops and larger Ultrabooks. We're told that both Android and Windows slates will get N-Trig's tinier touch tricks before the end of the year -- whether or not that includes phablets with the same girth as the Galaxy Note or Optimus Vu, however, is left to our wild imaginings.
Qualcomm to deliver Snapdragon SDK to Android developers
At this year's Uplinq conference, Qualcomm hit Android developers with some exciting news. In the coming months, the chip maker will deliver a Snapdragon software development kit (SDK) that will provide devs with access to the "next-generation technology and features" embedded in its processors. Through APIs, the kit will allow application architects to leverage facial processing, burst camera capture, surround sound recording, echo cancellation, sensor gestures, low power geofencing and indoor location capabilities. Initially, the SDK will only be available for the S4 8960 wafer, but Qualcomm hopes to include more models over time. Head past the break to have a gander at the full press release.
Robot with tactile sensor is better at identifying materials than you are (but only wants to help)
Researchers at USC's Viterbi School of Engineering have developed a robot capable of identifying materials, thanks to a tactile sensor. The so-called BioTac sensor mimics the human finger, with flexible robot skin layered over a liquid filling -- and the skin even has fingerprints to increase the robot's sensitivity to vibration. Researchers trained the robot to recognize 117 common materials, and by making "exploratory movements" to feel out textures it was able to correctly identify materials 95 percent of the time -- a higher accuracy rate than humans achieve. Still, though the robot is an ace at understanding textures, it doesn't possess the ability to decide which materials are preferable to humans. For this reason, the USC team says it will focus more on applications such as human prostheses and consumer product testing. Relax: your fingers are still worth something -- for now.
Nokia and X-Prize put medical sensors on the spot for next challenge
Sometimes the X-Prize foundation gets a little ahead of itself. We couldn't get a private mission to the moon off the ground and apparently we can't built a tricorder either. But, we can take baby steps. Presumably that's what the newest X Challenge is all about. The group has teamed up with a certain Finnish phone maker to introduce the Nokia Sensing X Challenge. Rather than dive head first into Star Trek tech, the two are offering $2.25 million to further the development of health sensors and their associated technology. Nokia's interest is clear: it's widely expected that those tricorders of our dreams will one day become a reality and take the form of our cellphones. The challenge will actually be broken up into three different events to be held over the next three years, with many of the same competitors expected to follow up by entering Qualcomm's competition. For more, check out the PR after the break.
Insert Coin: Knut WiFi-enabled sensor hub (video)
In Insert Coin, we look at an exciting new tech project that requires funding before it can hit production. If you'd like to pitch a project, please send us a tip with "Insert Coin" as the subject line. On the surface, Knut (pronounced Kah-noot) doesn't sound terribly exciting -- it's a pocketable WiFi-enabled device that beams you realtime stats over the web. But consider the possible applications, and you'll be much more anxious to pick one up. You can use Knut to measure humidity in your humidor, the temperature in your fish tank or even the status of a door or window. You can monitor stats in realtime, or set alerts so you'll know something's wrong before your goldfish cooks in the tank, those precious Cuban cigars you smuggled through Customs dry up and crumble or someone sneaks into your house through a window after you check in miles away on Foursquare. After popping in a pair of AAA batteries (which are said to last from 2 weeks to 10 years, depending on the battery and syncing options), you assign Knut an email address, which it then uses to communicate. Other Knuts can use the same email address, from which they'll send updates at pre-set intervals. Knut ships with built-in temperature and battery level sensors, and it's compatible with a variety of add-ons, from humidity and vibration to door and water presence sensors. You can also create your own sensor using the breakout board. The project creators have developed a functional prototype, but they need to raise additional funds to pay programmers and buy materials for mass production. As usual, that's where you come in. The first 200 Kickstarter backers can hop on board the pre-order train with a pledge of $80, while an unlimited number of devices will be available for $95. A $115 pledge will get you a Knut and an additional sensor, while $175 will up the order to one Knut, three sensors and a three-port hub. There's six weeks left to go on the campaign, with a goal of $25,000 and an estimated September ship date. As always, you'll find everything you need in the demo video and source link, just after the break.
The mysteries of the CCD revealed (video)
Sure, we've explained to you why sensor size matters in a digital camera, but maybe you need to take it back a bit. Maybe, you're not entirely sure how those sensors work in the first place. Well, Bill Hammack, better known as The Engineer Guy, is here to help. After breaking down LCDs and hard drives for your amusement and education, Bill has turned his attention to the CCD. The charge-coupled device is the heart and soul of many a digital camera, turning incoming photons into a charge that the impressively complex processor inside can convert into an image. What makes the CCD so impressive is it's rather ingenious solutions to problems such as interference (no wires, just a shift register) and color reproduction (pixel-sized filters and a hue-flattening algorithm). For more, check out the video after the break.
Sign language translator turns gestures into spoken letters, makes for a better world (video)
By far one of the greatest challenges of sign language has been to translate it for everyday folk that wouldn't know where to begin a conversation with the deaf. Cornell University engineering students Ranjay Krishna, Seonwoo Lee and Si Ping Wang -- along with some help from Jonathan Lang -- used their final project time this past semester to close this gap in one of the more practical solutions we've seen to date. Their prototype glove uses accelerometers, contact sensors and flex sensors to translate complex finger gestures from the American Sign Language alphabet into spoken letters: after converting hand positions to digital signals, the test unit both speaks out the resulting letters and sends them to a computer, where they can be used for anything from a game (shown in the video below) to, presumably, constructing whole sentences. Along with being accurate, the Cornell work is even designed with a mind towards how it would work in the real world, as the glove and its transmitter are both wireless and powered by 9-volt batteries. We hope that the project leads to a real product and an extra bridge between the deaf and the rest of us, but in the meantime, we'll be happy that at least one form of powered glove is being put to the noblest use possible.
Canon EOS 5D Mark III's light leak fix found to be black tape
When Canon promised a fix for the EOS 5D Mark III's preview LCD leaking light, photographers wondered just what the "countermeasures" would be to prevent the display from affecting exposure readouts. The remedy, it turns out, is a simple patch -- of the physical kind, not software. Roger Cicala at LensRentals was brave enough to tear down one of the DSLRs shipping with a fix already in place and found black electrical tape covering the LCD area that would otherwise spill light into the exposure meter. While basic, the solution does the trick, and will no doubt be a relief to shutterbugs who want to know exactly what exposure they'll get while snapping photos in the dark.
Samsung patent application explores the possibility of phasing out human crossing guards
We have definitely seen our share of robots and crossing guards, but we almost never really see a combination of the two. An application filed by Samsung back in October and made public today seems to suggest that at least some people have been thinking long and hard about bots helping humans conquer the mean streets of our cities using a multitude of on-board tech -- from infrared and proximity sensors -- to devices enabling wireless communication between traffic lights and other robots. According to the application, the machines could inherit the traditional reflective properties often associated with crossing guard attire -- you know, the perfect guise for keeping their true intentions concealed.
NASA READIs early detection GPS network, aids first responders with earthquake warnings
After tacking space shuttle Discovery onto the back of a 747, the brainy gang over at NASA's READI for a new challenge -- earthquake detection. The agency's GPS-monitoring system, known as the Real-time Earthquake Analysis for Disaster Mitigation Network, is being tested with the goal of more accurately detecting the scale of quakes and, consequently, getting tsunami warnings out as soon as possible. The setup, made possible by a partnership between the Department of Defense, the National Science Foundation, and the United States Geological Survey, works by measuring ground displacement in real-time to provide a faster, more detailed assessment of imminent damage, thereby giving first responders a head start on determining aid. So the next time you look up to the night sky and wish upon a tracking star, keep in mind that sometimes privacy-skewing, positioning tech could just save your life.
