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Building Better Batteries Link One of the key obstacles faced by mobile and ubiquitous computing is providing a reliable and long-lasting source of power. When one looks objectively at this problem, what we have today are plain and simple, lousy batteries. Researchers are developing new batteries that could keep tomorrow's mobile gadgets alive for the long haul. Some use microfabrication methods borrowed from the computer chip industry. Others exploit atomic physics in the form of nuclear microbatteries. The aim of them all is to put all the power you'll need right in your pocket. Some of this microbattery development includes those made with photolithographic technology as well as research to develop batteries that get their energy from thin radioactive films. Though in the case of the latter, "It might be harder to convince the regulatory commission that they should allow people to carry around nuclear isotopes just so they won't have to charge their mobile phones," says key researcher James Blanchard. [ permanent link to this entry ]
The PlaceLab Link The PlaceLab has been designed to be a highly flexible and multi-disciplinary observational research facility designed explicitly for the scientific study of people and their interaction patterns with new technologies and home environments. Or, put more simply, how people behave at home. The goal of the shared research lab is to explore technologies with the potential to improve health, diet, disease management, indoor air quality, energy conservation, user interfaces, and injury prevention. Hundreds of sensing components are installed in nearly every part of the home, which is a one-bedroom condominium in a residential building. These sensors are being used to develop innovative user interface applications that help people easily control their environment, save resources, remain mentally and physically active, and stay healthy. The sensors are also being used to monitor activity in the environment so that researchers can carefully study how people react to new devices, systems, and architectural design strategies in the complex context of the home. The PlaceLab is occupied by volunteer subjects who agree live in the home for varying lengths of time. While they occupy the facility they have little or no contact with researchers, and the laboratory has been designed so that data is analyzed off the site. [ permanent link to this entry ]
Link Glasgow Caledonian University (Scotland) has set up the eMotion Laboratory , a living room with a two-way mirror to study the "sweaty palmed excitement" of people playing their computer and console games.
Infrared cameras will track eye movements and pupil dilation, pressure sensors measure contact on game pads and moisture sensors track excitement. Analysis of the information could provide information as to what involves a player and why. Jon Sykes, the head of the laboratory, said: "The sale of a computer game depends upon the initial five minutes of play and the eMotion Laboratory will help designers to determine which moments are emotionally stimulating, and which fail to impress." "Soon players will weep at the death of a game character, much as they currently do when watching a movie." One of his prototypes was a Game Boy Advance fitted with a special cartridge containing controllers for sensors to be attached to the body of the player. The goal was to help asthmatic children learn to control their attacks. The biofeedback device displayed the child's heartbeat and respiration through metaphors. To achieve a high score in the game, the kid had to relax and pay attention to his respiratory process, using biofeedback to adjust his respiratory functions. [ permanent link to this entry ]
Biohybrid' Limbs For Amputees Link A collaboration of MIT, Brown University and the Providence Veterans Affairs Medical Center have begun a five-year research project to restore arm and leg function to amputees. The scientists are working on "biohybrid" limbs that will use regenerated tissue, lengthened bone, titanium prosthetics and implantable sensors that allow an amputee to use nerves and brain signals to move the arm or leg. These active knees and ankles will be controlled by an amputee's own nervous system and powered by muscle-like devices. For proper knee rotation and propulsion, special fluids will be used: they solidify into a paste when passed through a magnetic field, then reliquify when the energy is removed. Force will be controlled by a tendon-like spring powered by an electric motor. The ankle system will either use a similar spring or an artificial muscle, made of electroactive polymers, which turn electrical energy into mechanical work. To control these joints, BION (TM), a wireless microchip about the size of a grain of rice, will be injected into existing leg muscle, where they pick up signals from nerves and send movement instructions to the knee and ankle. Additional sensors, attached to the heel and forefoot of an external prosthesis, will relay information about ground reaction forces to a microprocessor to further guide movement of the artificial joints. [ permanent link to this entry ]
Always 'Talking': When Three Days Without a Word is an Eternity Link For a generation accustomed to near-instantaneous keeping in touch, a generation of peers are perfectly comfortable with face-to-face encounters taking a backseat to cyber contact. While their time spent in front of the computer and online has grown, teens are now spending less time on other social activities. In a 2004 survey of youths aged 13 to 18, White said the number of teens going to the mall and out on dates dropped by five percent, compared to 1997. Those going to dances decreased by 10 percent. Contrary to some perceptions, youths spend most of their time online communicating with people they know, not strangers, said Elisheva Gross, a psychology researcher at the Children's Digital Media Center at the University of California at Los Angeles. Read the rest... [ permanent link to this entry ]
Fab Labs Link At the time of writing, an example of such a lab includes the unique integration of three Linux PCs, a laser cutter, a combination 3-D scanner and drill, a numerically controlled X-Acto knife, and a handful of RISC chips. The resultant output, a collection of basic solid objects and now, at MIT, even electronic devices like radios... According to Sterling, fab labs are well on their way to 'Napsterizing' manufacturing. Here is a worthwhile paraphrase of the story: (via Treehugger): Today's top-of-the-line desktop fabricators, a.ka. 3-D printers, rapid prototypers, and stereolithographs, have already proven successful in the realms of architecture, design, medicine, and packaging. They assemble bits of matter - powder, glue, ceramic, paper, plastic - into solid objects, which tend to be frail, just prototypes really. Now, to make an object with a desktop fab, there are three essentials - the equipment, a digital mock-up of the object, and the "goop" with which it'll take shape in the physical world. The first, says Sterling, are easy to come by via open-sourcing resourcefulness, but where to get the goop? "You've got to round up some low-cost atoms," as he puts it. The source? Garbage. Scrap plastic, glass, and wood pulp - items a lot of people pay to get rid of - are excellent materials that come to mind. And once you've got goop, you've got goods. Sterling imagines a "consumer cornucopia for the anti-developing world; a mushroom patch of recycled decay that pops up whenever the World Trade Organization, World Intellectual Property Organization, or U.S. Patent and Trademark Office turns its back." And though it will surely be a long time before desktop fabs turn out quality "functional circuitry, it might not be long at all before they can make nearly every essential possession in a third world village. Nobody copyrights those." Sounds like a resourceful, recycling situation to us. Rejoice! [ permanent link to this entry ]
New Toyota Concept Gives You Two Robot Legs Link Toyota reportedly plans to unveil at Japan's EXPO 2005 its new "i-foot" robot vehicle. Designed as a replacement for a wheelchair - but, hey, who wouldn't want one of these? The i-foot can walk up and down stairs. The driver controls it with a simple joystick.
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