Toyota to set up social networking service

Toyota is setting up a social networking service with the help of a U.S. Internet company and Microsoft so drivers can interact with their cars in ways similar to Twitter and Facebook.

Japanese automakerToyota MotorCorp. and Salesforce.com, based in San Francisco, announced their alliance Monday to launch"Toyota Friend,"a private social network for Toyota owners that works similar to tweets onTwitter.

In a demonstration at a Tokyo showroom, an owner of a plug-in Prius hybrid found out through a cellphone message from hisPriuscalled"Pre-boy"that he should remember to recharge his car overnight.

When the owner plugged in his car to recharge it, the car replied,"The charge will be completed by 2:15 a.m. Is that OK? See you tomorrow."

The exchanges can be kept private, or be shared with other"Toyota Friend"users, as well as made public onFacebook, Twitter and other services, the company said.

The companies did not give details of how the technology, such as the content of the talking car's dialogues, will be managed. A launch where such details will be offered is set for Tuesday.

Toyota is investing 442 million yen ($5.5 million),MicrosoftCorp. is investing 335 million yen ($4.1 million) and Salesforce.com 223 million yen ($2.8 million) in the project.

Many cars are already equipped with navigation and other network-linking capabilities, and can function as a mobile device just like aniPhoneor a Blackberry.

Toyota's service, built on open-source cloud platforms that are the specialty of Salesforce.com, as well as on Microsoft's platform, will start in Japan in 2012, and will be offered later worldwide, according to Toyota.

Toyota President Akio Toyoda, a racing fan, said he always"talks"with his car when he is zipping around on the circuit.

With the popularity ofsocial networking, cars and their makers should become part of that online interaction, he said.

"I hope cars can become friends with their users, and customers will see Toyota as a friend,"he said.

Salesforce.com chief executive Marc Benioff said social networks can add value to products and companies. It can also help Toyota gain massive information not only about their buyers but about how the car is working or not working, he said.

"I want a relationship with my car in the same way we have a relationship with our friends on social networks,"he said.

Toyoda, who has always been interested in telematics, or the use of Internet technology in autos, has been aggressive in forging alliances with new kinds of companies, including one with U.S. luxury electric carmaker Tesla Motors that he announced last year.

Partnerships with dot.com types have been a bright spot in Toyoda's bumpy career as president. He has faced growing doubts about reliability and transparency because of the massive global recalls that began two years ago, shortly after he took office, and which now affect more than 14 million vehicles.

Toyota is also battling parts shortages after the March 11 earthquake and tsunami in Japan destroyed key suppliers, hampering production.

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AIDA 2.0 brings a full panel, plus some, location display to drivers (w/ video)

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(PhysOrg.com) -- If you remember the AIDA (Affective, Intelligent Driving Agent) system, which came out roughly a year and a half ago, then you remember that it was a joint project, made by MIT and Volkswagen,<a href="http://www.physorg.com/news176294342.html">that put a robot head in your dashboard</a>. The head gave driving directions to end users. The newest version, AIDA 2.0, has gotten rid of the talking head, and turned the entire view of the car into one large navigation display.

In the AIDA 2.0 system all of the information that the driver needs will be placed onto the dashboard and surrounding areas. While this will make the information easily accessible, it may also lead to potential distractions on the road. The new virtualdisplaynow consists of the entirety of thedashboard, the console, the instrument panel, and the wing mirrors. Working in conjunction, they create one virtual display that is able to update itself as you move.

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While this idea does seem really cool, like something out of a Tron movie, it does stretch the drivers view, and could potentially distract from the stretch of road in front of the driver, and the other cars on the road.

On the bright side, the system is both adaptive and considerate. The system will, over time, learn facts about you such as the types of places where you like to eat and the activities that you are interested in. Then, it will search through information about the area and tell you about things that you may be interested in that are close by. As with any adaptive system, the more you use it, the better it will become.

No word has been given yet about when consumers will see the AIDA 2.0 system in cars.

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Sony develops 'SmartAR' Integrated Augmented Reality technology

Sony has developed integrated‘Augmented Reality (hereafter referred to as‘AR’) technology’ called as“Smart AR.” When capturing visuals through a camera on a device such as a smartphone, the technology enables additional information to be displayed on the device’s screens such as virtual objects, or images and texts that cannot be identified by visual perception alone. The technology employs the markerless approach, forgoing any requirement for special markers such as 2D barcodes. The object captured by the camera is quickly recognized and can be tracked at high-speed along with the movement of the camera, as it is displayed over the actual 3D space.

AR technology has recently been the subject of much interest, and is being used in a variety of applications such as advertisements, promotions, games, and information searches. Sony began researching AR in 1994 with two-dimensional barcodes recognition (marker approach), and in 1998, it developed VAIO“PCG-C1” personal computers equipped with software which automatically recognized‘CyberCode.’

“SmartAR” technology combines‘object recognition technology’ (markerless approach in which no special markers are required) for recognition of general objects such as photographs and posters with Sony’s own proprietary‘3D space recognition technology,’ which has been fostered through the research of robots such as“AIBO” and“QRIO.” With“SmartAR” technology objects can be recognized and tracked at high-speed. In addition to displaying virtual objects or additional image or text information (hereafter,‘AR information’), the technology also facilitates the expression of AR information over an extended space, thus producing a dynamic, large-scale AR experience.

Furthermore, information can be acquired or navigated by simply touching the AR information directly on the screen of the smartphone or other device, thus achieving an intuitive and seamless user interface that is unique to“SmartAR.”

Main features

(1) Object recognition that enables the markerless approach
  AR information can be displayed on the captured image which appears on a device’s screen, including those images that do not have any special markers for AR. This technology is also compatible with image recognition technologies that use conventional markers (such as“CyberCode”). Because“SmartAR” can recognize everyday objects such as posters and menus, it has the potential for a wide variety of applications.

  “SmartAR” object recognition technology identifies objects by analyzing features detected from a portion of the image (hereafter,‘local features’) together with their positional relationship. Our feature matching technology that employs a proprietary probabilistic method that matches local features with minimal calculations enables high-speed recognition that is resistant to changes in lighting or the position of the object. In addition, recognition is still possible even if the object captured appears to be comparatively small in the display.

(2) High-speed tracking (‘rapid&accurate’)
  Sony achieved its natural-feeling‘rapid&accurate’ AR by quickly displaying AR information on the screen and then tracking the camera’s movements at high-speed. This has been realized by combining object recognition technology with our proprietary matching technology that uses features detected from a portion of the image (‘local features’) and image tracking technology that is capable of dealing with changes in the shape of the object.

(3) 3D space recognition
  With our dynamic, large-scale AR, virtual objects can be merged with 3D structures detected in the physical world. For example, even if the AR image is a gigantic virtual character whose size exceeds the dimensions of the device’s screen, the technology allows the user to grasp the entirety of the virtual character when the camera is moved around. Furthermore, it is also possible to move the virtual object in the actual 3D space as if it were really there.

  Three-dimensional space recognition technology is based on use of the disparity observed by the camera movements to estimate the shape of the 3D space and the position and angle of the camera. By combining this with object recognition technology, devices become capable of identifying and remembering 3D space constructions.

(4) AR Interaction
  Information can be intuitively acquired and navigated by directly touching the AR information displayed on the smartphone or device’s screen. The distinctiveness of“SmartAR” technology comes from the user interface which enables users to naturally use and operate additional information and virtual objects.

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Queens University students hack Microsoft Kinect to make a 360-degree display

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(PhysOrg.com) -- It seems like lately everyone is playing around with the Microsoft Kinect to make something different than the in the box configuration. This time the modifications are coming students at Queens University. They have combined a pair of the Kinect sensors with a hacked 3D HD projector and a hemispherical mirror mounted inside of an acrylic sphere to make a pseudo holographic display.

The project, aptly dubbed Project Snowglobe, is capable of showing a360-degree viewof a digital object. While at first that may sound really cool, the display system is limited to a single user at the present moment. The system cannot project a truly 3D object at the moment. It simply tracks the movement of the viewer and rotates the image so that it is in sync with their position.

Don't expect to see this bit of creative hacking on sale any time in the near future; no plans have been made at this time.

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In-car device monitors blood sugar for diabetic drivers

People with diabetes and their caregivers know that careful and constant monitoring of their blood sugar levels is critical to managing the disease. But even while driving?

In an unusual marriage of medical technology, consumer electronics and automotive engineering, Fridley, Minn.-based Medtronic Inc. and Ford Motor Co. on Wednesday unveiled aprototype devicethat uses the automaker's in-car communications system to help drivers track theirblood glucoseactivity while on the go.

"It's a real high-tech approach to the old saying, 'I've fallen and I can't get up!'"said Phil Nalbone, an analyst with Wedbush Securities."This makes good use of widely available communications technology to safeguard patients and improve quality of care."

Using Bluetooth connectivity, the system links the automaker's popular in-car infotainment system, called Sync, to a Medtronic continuous glucose monitor. If a driver'sglucose levelsare too low, an alert sounds or a signal appears on a dashboard screen.

Low blood sugar, in particular, can cause light-headedness, blurry vision and other potentially dangerous symptoms that could cause a traffic accident. TheAmerican Diabetes Associationestimates nearly 26 million adults and children in the United States have diabetes, but of that amount, only a portion use glucose monitors and insulin pumps.

The Ford-Medtronic prototype is still being researched, so it's unclear when - and if - the technology will ever be marketed."Today it's all about possibilities,"said Medtronic senior vice president James Dallas, who attended an unveiling at Ford headquarters in Dearborn, Mich., on Wednesday."There's nothing formal yet, but the technology has reached a point where possibilities can become probabilities."

The idea has won some preliminary fans in the diabetes community."I know when I'm driving, if the 'check engine' light comes on, I'm going to pay attention,"said Dr. Richard Bergenstal, executive director of Park Nicollet's International Diabetes Center."It's kind of the same principle."

For Medtronic, the partnership signals a growing movement toward managing health remotely through smartphones, tablets, laptops and, possibly, cars. Dallas said the company is in talks with other tech leaders, such as IBM, Cisco, Apple, Verizon and Qualcomm, for other partnerships."It helps us extend our reach in new ways,"Dallas said.

Medtronic's $1.2 billion diabetes business has led the way in continuous glucose monitoring, which recordsblood sugar levelsthroughout the day and night. The readings permit patients to make adjustments to insulin levels, often using a Medtronic insulin pump, or by ingesting sugar to coax levels back into normal territory.

"Ideally, we will get to a place where the sensor and pump communicate and when you get a reading, the pump automatically adjusts,"Medtronic spokesman Brian Henry said.

Pairing the Medtronic technology with automotive engineering may seem far-fetched at first blush, but Ford maintains that 78 percent of U.S. consumers are deeply interested in"mobile health solutions."According to a study by MobileStorm cited by the company, medical and health care applications are the third-fastest growing category of smartphone apps.

Ford also announced a project on Wednesday to provide drivers with allergy alerts and pollen levels on the Sync device for those suffering from asthma and severe allergies.

"Ford's approach to health and wellness in the vehicle is not about trying to take on the role of a health care or medical provider,"said Gary Strumolo, the company's global manager of interiors, infotainment, and health and wellness research."We're a car company."

By partnering with"experts,"Strumolo said, the Sync system can be used as a kind of"secondary alert system and alternate outlet for real-time patient coaching services."

Ford released Sync in 2008 to mostly positive reviews. Developed with Microsoft, the system enables voice control of phones and audio systems and is available in most models of Ford vehicles. (It's an extra $395 when optional.)

However, as safety concerns mount over potentially distracted drivers using cell phones for texting, talking and other activities, U.S. Transportation Secretary Ray LaHood expressed concern last fall about systems like Sync and General Motors' OnStar, even if they are"hands free."

There are also questions about whether there's significant money to be made."It remains to be seen how Medtronic will monetize this and whether it will contribute to a meaningful revenue stream,"Nalbone said."But it's an intriguing idea."

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AnatOnMe: Doctor patient communication enhanced with new Microsoft device (w/ video)

(Medical Xpress) -- Microsoft researchers announced this week a new handheld device that they hope will work as an aid for doctors and patients to better communicate injuries and recommended therapy treatments. The new prototype device is called AnatOnMe and enables doctors to project an image of the bones, tendons and muscles involved in an injury directly onto the patient's skin.

AnatOnMe is composed of two parts. The main component has a handheld projector, a digital camera, and aninfrared camera. The second part of the device holds alaser pointerand the main control buttons. Amy Karlson from Microsoft Research’s Computational User Experiences Group located in Redmond, Washington says that the technology is actually low-tech but could provide many possibilities in the future.

The projector is capable of projecting stock images of an injury onto a patient’s skin to better enable them to see inside and understand the injury. The camera enables a doctor to take images of a patient to document progress and allow doctors to make notations. They can also take pictures of a patient performing physical therapy and note what they might be doing wrong or need to work on. This method allows the patient to better see how their body is working and what needs to be done in order to heal from the injury.

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AnatOnMe is a projection-enabled mobile device designed to improve patient-doctor communication in a medical setting.

After an exam, the doctor is then able to print out the pictures and create a personalized file to show what has been discussed in the office visit for the patient to take home, as well as provide detailed information in a patient’s medical record. By making the visit and instructions more personalized, the hope is to better improve patient body awareness and communication between the doctor and the patient.

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YikeFusion: same design, heavier frame, less expensive

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(PhysOrg.com) -- Some of you may be familiar with the YikeBike. For those you who are not familiar with the YikeBike it is a computerized bike that can be folded up and packed away when it is not in use. The bike, which looks like it belongs to a classic cartoon character, allows users to tool around on the sidewalk much faster than most of us could walk, or even pedal on a standard bike.

The standard version of the YikeBike weighs in at 10.8kg or 24 pounds, which is about the same as a Brompton folding bike. That low weight comes with the help of a carbon fiber body. The carbon fiber is lighter than other materials on the market, but it also makes the bike fairly expensive. Anyone who wants to buy the original YikeBike would have to pay $3,800.

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If $3800 is not in your budget then you should be glad that Yike has created the Fusion. The Fusion is significantly less expensive, at $2000, because it is made from analuminumcomposite, which makes it notably heavier at 14kg or roughly 31 pounds. This change of materials in the frame has added about seven pounds. This less expensive bike still carries over the same design from the original YikeBike, and features the same 450-watt motor. That motor will take you about six miles in total with a top speed of 14mph.

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Since both the YikeBike and the YikeFusion are meant only for short-term commutes the extra weight should not be a significant issue for the majority of users, who could stash it in the trunk of a car or rolling suitcase. The YikeFusion is already on the market.

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The worlds smallest 3D HD display

(PhysOrg.com) -- It seems like small displays are all of the rage these days, and they just keep getting more and more advanced. In October of last year Ortus Technology created a 4.8-inch liquid crystal display that showed full color images. At the time, this screen with its pixel density of 458 pixels per inch, a density beyond the detection limit of the human eye, was the latest and greatest in the world of tiny screens. Now, it is only the most advanced of the 2D screens out there.

Now, it has some 3D competition, and the call is coming from inside the house. Ortus has created a HyperAmorphous SiliconTFT (HAST) screen. This new screen reduces the space between the pixels and gives it a whole new view. The 4.8-inch LCD screen will still show 2D images at the 458 pixels per inch rate, but now it can also show 3D images at a fairly impressive rate of 229 pixels per inch. This rate of pixels per inch will be able to show full HD resolution images with a final resolution of 1920 x 1080 pixels. The 3D does require the use of glasses to see the images pop, unlike other small format 3D screens such as the one found on theNintendo3DS. The 3D images will have a viewing angle of 160 degrees, and will be able to display up to 16.77 million colors.

The 3D effect is created with a circular polarizing film known as Xpol, which was developed by Arisawa Manufacturing. The film needs to be precisely placed on the screen because this technology shows images for the left and right eye alternately on each line, halving the vertical resolution.

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The next generation of E-ink may be on cloth (w/ video)

(PhysOrg.com) -- Most people have become familiar with E-ink through e-readers. Devices, such as the Amazon Kindle and the Nook, have brought a less limited version of the bookstore to the reader. E-ink technology works by using an electrophoretic display that either push black magnetic powered to the top, or hides it on the bottom, creating a black and white screen. Either way, the result is the same, a matte finished screen, without any serious sun glare issues, that displays black and white text.

Well, more recently, the E-ink of the world has been getting some upgrades. First it was the addition of images. Then it was the capability to have color screens. Now, video is the next frontier for e-ink, and this time, it won’t be on the screen of a handheld device.

It may just be on a piece of cloth. One of the most interesting, and potentially expensive ways to use E-ink in the future would be to print it on screen cloth. Demo videos, taken from CES, show off this capability to embed e-ink displays in other types of materials. In the video below, you can see an e-ink screen, embedded in a bit of Tyvex cloth which can be viewed and crumpled over and over again. Some of you may already be familiar with Tyvex cloths, since its paper-like quality allows it to be used in high durability shipping envelopes. The cloth-like paper is able to withstand significant wear and tear.

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Envelopes made for e-ink could be made to be reusable, eliminating waste, by allowing for quick and easy address changes, without the need for multiple packing slips and a new envelop every time. Basically, this type of envelope could be a kind of endless routing slip, one that would never get those annoying ink smudges or eraser marks.

No word yet on when these products would come out, or how much they would cost, but give the high cost of e-ink readers when they first came out, this e-ink fabric would not be inexpensive.

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Color Video on an E-ink Screen

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Waste-conversion startup Sanergy bowls over competition

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A team of students with a toilet and a dream won this year’s grand prize, as well as the audience-choice award, in MIT’s 21st annual $100K Business Plan Competition.

Sanergy, the finalist in the emerging-markets track, beat out 280 teams with its plan for an innovative form of low-cost, energy-converting sanitation. Throughout the competition, Sloan School of Management MBA candidates David Auerbach and Ani Vallabhaneni refined their pitch, which they presented at the competition’s finale on Wednesday night.

Auerbach and Vallabhaneni opened with a question to the audience:“Who here has used a clean toilet today?” They then outlined the critical need for clean, affordable sanitation in African slums.

Sanergy’s solution: a low-cost, portable toilet facility that separates waste to be collected and converted to biogas and organic fertilizer. Within five years, the team hopes to provide facilities to more than 500,000 Africans, generating 7.5 million kilowatt-hours of electricity and 11,000 tons of fertilizer.

Later in the evening, Sanergy’s pitch garnered the most votes from the crowd, winning the team the audience-choice award and an additional $5,000 dollars.

Sanergy took home a total of $120,000, which it plans to put toward building and implementing up to 60 toilets throughout Kenya.

Seed money for top seeds

Sanergy joins a list of more than 150 companies launched with the help of MIT’s $100K Business Plan Competition. The contest, started in 1990, is the largest student-run business competition in the world. Of the 280 teams that entered this year, 27 semifinalists advanced; each worked for two months with an experienced entrepreneur to hone its business plan.

Six finalists were announced last week, representing winners in each of six tracks: energy, life sciences, mobile, products and services, web/IT, and emerging markets. During Wednesday’s $100K finale, finalists pitched their ideas to a packed house at Kresge Auditorium. Each finalist received a check for $15,000.

Cool Chip Technologies, the winner of the $200,000 Clean Energy Prize earlier this week, was automatically entered as a $100K finalist in the energy track. The team of three MIT graduate students has developed a fan system for cooling processor chips, a potentially significant cost-saver for busy data centers. Chip developer William Sanchez, a doctoral student in electrical engineering and computer science, says the fan, which is less than three inches wide, could also potentially work in personal-gaming systems such as Microsoft Xbox and Sony PlayStation.

Zinaura Pharmaceuticals won the top spot in the life-sciences category. The startup, helmed by Drew Cronin-Fine, a graduate student in MIT’s Biomedical Enterprise Program, and Heather Kline, an MBA student at Harvard Business School, is built around the compound Huperzine A, a treatment for epilepsy and pain. The team hopes the drug, which targets novel biochemical pathways that can cause seizures, will successfully treat the 30 percent of epilepsy patients who do not respond to current medications.

In the mobile category, Sensactive took top billing. Matt Hirsch, a PhD student in the MIT Media Lab, devised an LCD screen that senses gestures in 3-D, enabling users to manipulate on-screen images with a wave of their hand. In their pitch to the MIT audience Wednesday night, the team likened the technology to“Kinect for mobile devices.”

The winner of this year’s products and services track has already received a significant financial boost: Last year, Green Logistics won the $100K Elevator Pitch contest for its concept of collapsible air cargo containers that are stackable when empty, conserving cargo space. According to Sloan MBA student Anand Dass, airlines waste millions of dollars’ worth of fuel annually transporting empty cargo containers back and forth across the country. The team hopes to shop their prototype around to the airline industry in the coming year, offering potential fuel savings of up to 30 percent.

The startup Upkast led the web/IT category with its plan for a virtual file-sharing system. David Jia, a computer science undergraduate at MIT, developed an online platform that connects to popular web applications such as Facebook, Picasa and Google Docs, making it easier for users to jump between applications, sharing files and photos among multiple services. Jia is currently developing an Upkast app for the iPad.

Failure is an option

Venture capitalist Vinod Khosla, co-founder of Sun Microsystems, gave the keynote address at Wednesday night’s finale. Khosla said the key to entrepreneurial success is having the guts to fail.

Khosla also advised the young entrepreneurs at MIT:“Sell your heart out, with guts and a level of arrogance that’s mostly unwarranted… in-your-face bravado is absolutely essential {to entrepreneurial success}.”

As an example, Khosla outlined his experience applying to MBA programs. His sights were set on Stanford, but he lacked the requisite two years’ work experience. Eager to speed the process along, Khosla took an unconventional approach, working two full-time jobs for one year. Still, Stanford hesitated. He badgered the admissions office weekly until, one week before the start of the fall semester, he called with a bold question: Where was his acceptance letter? His persistence paid off: One day before the start of classes, Khosla enrolled as a Stanford student. 

New competitive streak

This year, competitors in the $100K competition also had the opportunity to enter a new category: the Linked Data Prize, an award inspired by the work of Tim Berners-Lee, director of the World Wide Web Consortium. Berners-Lee, who served as a judge for the new contest, has championed the concept of linked data: unearthing and connecting raw data from disparate sources, thus revealing new patterns between previously unconnected records.

Three teams shared the Linked Data Prize of $10,000: Convexic, for a novel algorithm that matches job applicants with ideal positions; Link Cycle, for a collaborative online tool that improves environmental life-cycle analyses; and Upkast.

For the first time this year, $100K organizers also introduced YouPitch— an online contest challenging any student in the world to pitch a business idea, in 60 seconds or less, in the form of a YouTube video. Entries with the most“likes” made it to the final round. The inaugural YouPitch challenge generated 34 videos from four continents, including entries from Pakistan, Cameroon and Taiwan.

The winning video came from Clear Ear, a team from MIT and Stanford that has developed a patent-pending earwax-removal system. While some video entries featured people pitching ideas directly to the camera, Clear Ear took a playful approach, illustrating its concept through a flipbook of hand drawings. MIT electrical engineering and computer science graduate student Michael Yung Peng and Stanford graduate Lily Truong took home $2,000 in prize money for their video pitch.

“Many of the {YouTube} entries were very innovative, both with respect to ideas as well as delivery,” said Kourosh Kaghazian, managing director of the $100K Business Plan Competition.“We're planning to make it even bigger and better for next year.”

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This story is republished courtesy of MIT News (http://web.mit.edu/newsoffice/), a popular site that covers news about MIT research, innovation and teaching.

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Water wonder

A brilliant water saving idea by UNSW engineering academics Greg Leslie and Bruce Sutton has impressed the judges on ABC TV’s<i>New Inventors</i>program.

Associate Professor Leslie, of the School of Chemical Engineering, and Professor Sutton, formerly of the University of Sydney and now a Visiting Fellow at UNSW, won their night on the popular program and will now go on to the finals, to be held later this year.

The pair won for ROSDI, their Reverse-Osmosis Sub-surface Drip Irrigation system, which allows saltywaterto be used in crop irrigation without energy-intensive water treatment.

ROSDI uses pipes made from reverse-osmosis membrane, like that used in desalination plants, to filter salt from brackish groundwater for cropirrigationin times of drought or low water availability.

Drip-feed ... a diagram of the ROSDI concept

The system uses the suction force created by a plant’s roots to draw water through the membrane, dispensing with the need for pumping.

New Inventorsjudge james Bradfield Moody described ROSDI as a"really elegant, potentially world-first"concept.

ROSDI also won the Eureka Prize for Water Research and Innovation in 2010.

The technology is beingcommercialisedby NewSouth Innovations, UNSW's technology commercialisation company.

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Voice-based phone recharging

(PhysOrg.com) -- The noise that we produce can be a lot of things. It can be a valid means of communication. It can be an annoyance when you are trying to get to bed at night. It can be a migraine waiting to happen, and depending on who you ask, it can even be a form of pollution. But, could that annoying loud man next to you on the subway, or your can't keep it down neighbors TV, be a potential source of renewable-energy?

Sang-Woo Kim, a researcher at the Institute of Nanotechnology at Sungkyunkwan University in Seoul thinks that it just might be.

He is working in a field known as energy scavenging in which power is made by the day-to-day life of humans. Other forms of scavenged energy include California's current proposal to grab vibrational energy from cars driving on the highways as a source of power. These types of innovation have the possibility to give usrenewable energy sourcesthat do not require putting up solar panels orwind turbinesin areas where this type of construction may not always be possible.

You may be wondering how this sound-based technology would work. Well, the proposed technology would convert sound into the kind of energy that a phone can use by pairing the electrodes with strands of zinc oxide. When the noise comes at the phone, a pad designed to absorb the noise would capture it, and vibrate the phone (or other device in question), which would make thezinc oxidefibers expand and contract. It is this expanding and contracting that actually generates the power for the battery.

A currentprototype systemwas able to convert 100decibelsof sound, the equivalent of city traffic, into 50 millivolts of power.

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The Aeryon Scout gets VideoZoom10x upgrade (w/ video)

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(PhysOrg.com) -- The Aeryon Scout is not a new piece of technology. This flying robot, which was created by a Canadian company called Aeryon Labs, is able to quietly hover in place and point a camera down onto the people and objects below. If you have, or are interested in getting your hands on, one of these quadrocopters then you are in for a substantial upgrade, known as the VideoZoom10x payload.

The VideoZoom10x payload is ready to turn your bot into a full-fledged spy copter. The payload, which weights in at just 200 grams, adds a stabilized ten times opticalzoomvideo capability, which means that you will be able to see a lot more detail in what is going on, at least within the payloads useful range, which comes out to be around 300 meters.

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This is not the first adaptation of the Aeryon Scout. Previous versions have carried a Kinect sensor, a mini quadrotor DIY project, or a quadrotor that is able to juggle. The company even claims that the machine has helped to take down a drug lord in Central America by providing importantsurveillanceof a narcotic-traffickers compound deep in the jungles of an unnamed country.

The Scout has a maximum range of 3 kilometers with a top speed of 50 kilometers per hour. It is able to deal with wind up to 80 km/h. The base unit weighs a little bit more than a kilogram. It can be carried in case, and also has athermal cameraoption for nighttime use.

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Courts nationwide hold hearings with video

(AP) -- Courts in New York City and around the country are increasingly using video conference software to hold minor hearings.

The technology is boosting efficiency and also cutting costs.

The savings for some are staggering. According to a recent national survey, $30 million has been saved in Pennsylvania so far, $600,000 in Georgia, and $50,000 per year in transportation costs in Ohio.

Advocatessay the virtual hearing is easier on defendants, who don't have to spend hours going back-and-forth from prison and waiting for their appearance.

Judges say their cases are moving faster. And civil rights groups say the practice raises no red flags.

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Japanese company introduces irresistibly cute mind-controlled 'cat ears' (w/ video)

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(PhysOrg.com) -- In a bit of science mixed with whimsy, a Japanese company has created a set of electromechanical cat ears that can be worn on the human head and manipulated with nothing but the mind. Called the necomimi (a combination of the Japanese words for cat and ear) and looking very much like the ears that come with a cat costume, the ears respond to thoughts or mood by means of a sensor on a second small band pressed against the forehead; they can stand straight up when the wearer is concentrating, or wriggle and turn slightly when amused, or lay flat when tired or bored, demonstrating what the company calls, an ability to reveal emotion.

The company, called Neurowear, demonstrated its new product in the“Smile Bazar”at Omotesando Hills, which it captured on video and displays on its site; and while the participants are clearly amused by the cat ears moving around, and there is much smiling and some laughing, it’s difficult to tell just how much control over the ears the wearers have. A natural question arises also as to whether people can get better at manipulating their ears if they wear them over time.

In spite of the gimmick quality of the necomimi, it’s obvious that the concept could have a more serious purpose, such as helping those with communication difficulties express themselves.

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Also, a not so obvious part of the necomimi experience is the reaction of the people around the person wearing the ears; in the video, it’s impossible to not notice the looks of mirth on the faces of the people around, and, it’s difficult to not smile yourself as you watch the people in the video try on the device; their reactions, and the way the ears react combined with the expressions on their face, is actually rather profound, though it’s hard to say why. Whether it’s the cuteness factor, or a feeling that something is being conveyed by the person, albeit artificial ears, that you don’t generally see in any other way, there is something unique and sweet about the whole human/machine interaction that very clearly evokes something in others.

The necomimi is another in a long line of products that listen and respond to brain waves, and doubtless there will be many more, though what’ s not certain, is whether they will be nearly as cute.

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Snail Braille reader could read books to the blind

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(PhysOrg.com) -- To most of us, Braille is largely a mystery. It feels really cool, but the idea of actually reading it is kind of a pipe dream. Our sense of touch simply is not as sensitive as that of a blind person. That is not a problem if you happen to have picked up a Braille book out of curiosity. If however, you have recently lost your eyesight, then this is a major problem. As with learning any new language, it takes time to adapt.

That time can be very frustrating, since writing and reading are still important forms of communication in our society. That is where a tool such as the Snail Braille reader could come in handy.

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This tool takes Braille text, and by rolling over a straight line of Braille text, the machine is able to read the Braille, and then translate it into speech. The machine, which is capable of storing text for latter replay, can also be paired with a standardBluetoothheadset, similar to the ones you get with your cell phone. That is good news for students who want to study without having to search for the page in a book, or for people who like to hear the instructions while they are completing a task.

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The machine would also feature kinetic recharging, which could possibly allow the reader to charge the device while they are using it. The only snag currently is that this device has not been created. It is currently in the design and prototype stages of development. With proper funding however, this tool could become indispensable to the newly blind.

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