There’s a lot of technology news — but this digest aims to
highlight only the most interesting or important innovations.
This edition’s Headlines
Leia’s only hope: Holograms
Lenses as thin as paper
3D-printed wearable temperature sensor
Second Sight implants aid eyes
Brain-bossed Bionic Hand
Gadgets that touch you
Smartphone scans for HIV
Take-off for brain-driven drone
‘Butt Boop’ Boeing Launcher
Beam me up — Quantum teleportation achieved
3Doodler draws solid lines
Leia’s only hope: Holograms
A startup claims its multiview backlight system will display
full-color holographic images and video from a mobile phone.
Leia Inc. was
founded in December 2013, building on core technology developed at HP Labs. The
tech “relies on new physics enabled only by the latest nano-fabrication
methods,” the company says. “We developed
a mass-production process that makes it hardly different to fabricate from a
standard mobile LCD display. We also ensured that holographic content creation
would be a breeze, with a webGL-based API that lets web developers easily
create interactive holographic content in the browser or re-use existing 3D
graphics to turn them into mind blowing holograms.”
Technology Review reports a two-by-two-inch “holomodule”
will be Leia’s first product, and will be capable of producing full-color 3-D
images and videos that are visible—with no special glasses—from 64 different
viewpoints.
Lenses as thin as paper
Paper-thin lenses could shrink cameras and holographic
displays, Technology Review reports.
The “nanostructured sheets of silicon can bend light in
unusual ways, eliminating the need for bulky lenses.” The result could be
holographic displays that “offer new ways to interact with computers and new
opportunities for the entertainment industry.”
Professional-quality camera lenses could be no more thick
than a credit card.
Developed by a Harvard applied physics professor
“challenged” by Google to make RGB nanostructured films that it could use in the
Glass headsets.
3D-printed wearable temperature sensor
Overheating? An armband’s thermal sensor sounds an alarm in
case of high body temperature.
University of Tokyo researchers say the device will
continuously monitor vital signs including temperature and heart rate for
applications in healthcare settings, Kurzweil AI reports.
The self-powered wearable device is made of flexible organic
components that can be printed by an inkjet printer on a polymer film.
Smartphone scans for HIV
A new smartphone accessory detects HIV with a finger prick,
Wired reports. It costs $34 to make, delivers results in 15 minutes, and
according to researchers at Columbia University, is on par with the most
accurate HIV tests.
Early detection can reduce the risk of transmitting the
virus to their offspring to less than 1 percent.
The dongle plugs into an iPhones or Android phones through
the audio jack, which it uses to draw power and transfer data.
“A wide range of startups and researchers are building
portable devices that can screen for particular diseases,” Wired adds, “and in
many cases, can screen for multiple diseases simultaneously.” (This particular
device can also identify syphilis.) “…Researchers realized they could
significantly reduce the cost by piggy-backing on smartphones. If they handled
power and data collection on the phone, they could whittle their device down to
the basic equipment needed to perform the blood tests.”
Gadgets that touch you
Today your tablet might buzz a bit under your fingers, but
upcoming haptic feedback methods might better fool your sense of touch.
Technology Review reports
on the work of Immersion in San Jose, California
— which “may be the touchy-feeliest place I’ve ever been.”
The tech could be “crucial to new gadgets such as virtual
reality headsets and smart watches.”
Immersion currently offers software that “can wring more
nuanced sensation from the buzzers in existing devices… to let you feel things
like explosions or the whirring of helicopter blades when you hold a
smartphone.”
Immersion can now also “fool fingers sliding over a touch
screen into feeling textures that aren’t really there … I felt the roughness of
gravel, the nubbiness of carpet, and the bumpiness of a metal grating.”
The
full story is here, and also looks at Tactical Haptics in Palo Alto.
Second Sight implants aid eyes
Artificial optical systems have been implanted in three
patients in France under a new government program that covers their costs.
The patients have Retinitis Pigmentosa, a rare hereditary
disease that causes a progressive degeneration of the light-sensitive cells of
the retina. An estimated 1.2 million people worldwide have RP.
California-based Second
Sight Medical Products says its implantable visual prosthetics employs
electrical stimulation to bypass the defunct cells and stimulate remaining
viable retinal cells inducing visual perception in blind individuals.
The Argus II retinal
prosthesis is the first artificial retina to receive approval in the United
States and worldwide, the company says. It converts images captured by a
miniature video camera mounted on the patient’s glasses into a series of small
electrical pulses, which are transmitted wirelessly to an array of electrodes
implanted on the surface of the retina. These pulses are intended to stimulate
the retina’s remaining cells, resulting in the perception of patterns of light
in the brain. The patient learns to interpret these visual patterns, thereby
regaining some visual function. “The Argus II implant can positively impact a
blind person’s ability to conduct routine daily activities, such as recognizing
shapes or large objects, locating people, identifying the location of doorways,
and following lines or edges. Ultimately, this is meant to allow Argus II users
to live their daily lives with more confidence,” the company adds.
The Argus II has now been implanted in more than 100
individuals worldwide.
Brain-bossed Bionic Hand
A new bionic hand can be controlled by the patient’s brain —
and its grip restores many basic functions.
“European surgeons and engineers have devised a
mind-controlled bionic hand that restores function almost as well as a
flesh-and-blood transplant,” Discovery
News reports, “but without the risk of rejection, a research paper said
Wednesday.”
Take-off for brain-driven drone
A pilot on the ground can pilot a flying drone — using his
brainwaves, not a standard joystick or other control system.
“Imagine using a brain-to-computer interface that enables
people to control drones with their minds,” developer
Tekever says. “It’s not science
fiction anymore, and Project Brainflight is making it possible! …Aircraft can
be directly controlled by the human brain.”
The system uses “high-performance electroencephalogram (EEG)
systems to measure brain waves noninvasively, and then use specially conceived
algorithms to convert brain signals into drone commands. The drone operator,
wearing a cap that measures brain activity, influences the drone’s path using
nothing but simple thoughts. Essentially, the electricity flowing through the
pilot's brain acts as an input to the drone’s control system.”
‘Butt Boop’ Boeing Launcher
A new reusable launch vehicle design patented by Boeing will deliver satellites into
lower Earth orbit using three consecutive vehicles: a first-stage supersonic
aircraft, a second-stage hypersonic aircraft, and a satellite-toting rocket,
Popular Science reports.
“The first stage vehicle actually shoves its nose up into
the butt of the second stage vehicle,” PopSci adds. “The combined aircraft are
then mounted onto a carrier aircraft.”
Every part involved in the launch process is recovered
afterward.
Beam me up — Quantum teleportation achieved
The quantum phenomenon
of entanglement — in which two particles, separated by any amount of
distance, can instantaneously affect one another — has been used to
“teleport” data. (Not matter, let alone humans, Scotty).
CNet reports physicists in the Netherlands sent quantum data
concerning the spin state of an electron to another electron about 10 feet away
— “seemingly faster than the speed of light.”
The researchers say “quantum teleportation has been recorded
in the past, but the results in this study have an unprecedented replication
rate of 100 percent at the current distance.”
3Doodler draws solid lines
Top Tech in general won’t cover too many “version 2” updates
— plenty of sites serve that purpose. Nor do I want to cover every cool
Kickstarter project… they often never pan out. Buy hey, let’s break both
those guidelines!
WobbleWorks LLC launched “the world’s
first 3D printing pen” printing pen in March 2013. The 3Doodler 3D spews out
hot plastic that rapidly solidifies, letting you “draw” in three dimensions,
and “create real three-dimensional objects,” the
company says. The gadget “put the power of a 3D printer in the palm of your
hand… no computers or software needed.” WobbleWorks sold more 130,000 of the
first 3Doodlers.
Now, the upcoming new pen is slimmer, lighter, quieter and
easier to use. The company says it’s re-engineered the drive system to better
feed the plastic through the pen, and improved the nozzle design to deliver a
smoother ‘drawing’ experience. The pen should ship by April.
Intel flies 3D camera
Intel says its RealSense is “the world’s first and
smallest integrated 3D camera” that delivers real-time depth sensing.
The RealSense module weighs 8 grams and is less than 4mm
thick. Intel says it “senses the surrounding world to scan, interact, play
games, augment reality, and enhance photo and real-time video in three
dimensions.”
With RealSense, Intel’s Snapshot system “takes photography
to another dimension with multi-camera, depth-enabled tablets” the company says.
“Capturing a high-definition depth map optimized for photography along with
your full-resolution image, you can change focus and take measurements with a
touch of a finger, add dynamic effects and motion, and discover things in your
photos you never thought were there.”
In January, a remote copter Intel showcased had six RealSense cameras on board with
which it navigated around obstacles autonomously.
And Intel demonstrated a research project for vision-impaired
people, with wearable RealSense cameras that “sense the vicinity and trigger
vibrations as a feedback mechanism, helping people to navigate their
environment,” the company says.
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