[StarTech] TechNews: Sixth Sense ready to become a reality!

http://www.thedailystar.net/story.php?nid=85321

MIT wearable gadget gives you Sixth Sense

The sixth sense, often quoted in novels, books and articles, is about a rare and mystical sense of things happening around you or things which could happen. Now it is set to become a common man’s thing, thanks to MIT Media Lab researchers, who have cooked up Sixth Sense, a wearable computing device that turns any surface into a Web interface, augmenting the five senses we’ve been given naturally.

The researchers at MIT’s Media Lab (Fluid Interfaces Group) have developed a gesture-controlled wearable computing device that feeds you relevant information and turns any surface into an interactive display. Called the Sixth Sense, the gadget relies on certain gestures and on object recognition to call up virtual gadgets and Web-based information, in a way that conjures up the Hollywood movie Minority Report.

The team built the Sixth Sense $350 (approx. BDT 24,500) prototype using off-the-shelf componentsa simple web cam and portable battery-powered projector with a small mirrorthat are fashioned into a pendant-style necklace that communicates with a cell phone.

When might Sixth Sense hit retail shelves? There’s no release date, and MIT Associate Professor and Founder of the school’s Fluid Interfaces Group Pattie Maes calls it “very much a work in progress.” (Perfecting the image recognition, for example, is an ongoing challenge.) Still, the MIT team says it has the potential to be made available today in a limited form.

Developed by Maes and MIT grad student Pranav Mistry (who Maes describes as the genius behind the gadget), along with the help of other MIT students, Sixth Sense aims to more seamlessly integrate online information and tech into everyday life. By making available information needed for decision-making beyond what we have access to with our five senses, it effectively gives users a sixth sense, says Maes.

Things you could do using the Sixth Sense include making a call, calling up a map, taking pictures, create multimedia reading experiences, calling up e-mail, getting flight updates and of course, checking the time!

Information Source: cio.com

[StarTech] TechNews – Adaptive lighting for grandpa!

http://www.thedailystar.net/story.php?nid=80430

Today, the major source of light in most of our apartments and offices, like it or not, constitutes of artificial lights and not natural lights! And it is no secret that artificial light affects us in subtle ways; at its best, ambient lighting can relax, soothe or excite, but used poorly it can drain us of energy and disrupt sleep. Ever thought about a lighting system that could adapt automatically to meet our individual needs?

According to a report published in ICT Results of the European Commission Website, a team of European researchers say the result would be an improvement in the general wellbeing of anybody who spends long periods in artificially lit buildings, particularly the elderly and the infirm, but also factory and office workers.

“Studies have shown that the quality and type of lighting can have a significant impact on our health and comfort,” explains Edith Maier, a researcher at Vorarlberg University of Applied Sciences (FHV) in Austria.

Maier coordinated the EU-funded Aladin project which brought together academic and industrial partners from Austria, Germany, Hungary, Italy and Romania to develop an innovative ambient lighting system that adapts intelligently to individual needs and wishes.

The system uses information from biosensors worn by the occupants of a room or building to determine what users are doing and then changes the lighting accordingly. The researchers’ goal is to use the technology to improve the wellbeing of the elderly, people suffering from age-related illnesses and people with reduced mobility, many of whom spend a lot of time confined indoors.

“Poor lighting can accentuate existing vision problems and reading difficulties among the elderly, it can cause depression and disrupt sleep cycles,” Maier says. “By automatically adapting the lighting in a room to what people are doing, many of these psychological and physiological problems can be reduced.”

Most adaptive ambient lighting systems in use today do not take individual needs and activities into account. They rely instead on a preset-time cycle to brighten and dim during certain periods of the day. In contrast, the Aladin system uses data from sensors in a glove worn by users to measure their heart rate and skin conductance response the electrical resistance of the skin which goes up during periods of activity and down while at rest. Fed wirelessly into a control system, the bio-data lets the system know automatically when to switch between a brightly lit “active setting” and a more subdued relaxation mode.

More than a hundred people participated in a series of lab and field tests conducted in Austria, Italy and Germany. The trials showed that elderly people quickly learnt how to use the system and, over the course of three months, experienced improvements in their general wellbeing, including less trouble reading and less disturbed sleep patterns.

Source: ICT Results (European Commission Website)

[StarTech] TechNews – Revolutionary microchip on cards

http://www.thedailystar.net/pf_story.php?nid=75654

Researchers at Rice University (USA) and Nanyang Technological University (Singapore) have developed a microchip that is cleaner and greener and yet 7 times faster than the chips in use today!

In the first real-world test of a revolutionary type of computing that thrives on random errors, scientists have created a microchip that uses 30 times less electricity while running seven times faster than today’s best technology. The U.S.- Singapore team developing the technology, dubbed PCMOS revealed the results recently at the International Solid-State Circuits Conference (ISSCC), the world’s premier forum for engineers working at the cutting edge of integrated-circuit design.

Conceived by Rice University Professor Krishna Palem, PCMOS is built on the “complementary metal-oxide semiconductor” technology, or CMOS, that chipmakers already use. That means chipmakers won’t have to buy new equipment to support PCMOS, or “probabilistic” CMOS. Although PCMOS runs on standard silicon, it breaks with computing’s past by abandoning the set of mathematical rules — called Boolean logic — that have thus far been used in all digital computers. PCMOS instead uses probabilistic logic, a new form of logic developed by Palem and his doctoral student, Lakshmi Chakrapani.

“PCMOS is fundamentally different,” Palem said. “We lower the voltage dramatically and deal with the resulting computational errors by embracing the errors and uncertainties through probabilistic logic.”

PCMOS was jointly validated by Rice and Nanyang Technological University (NTU) in Singapore via a joint institute that Palem founded in 2007, the Institute for Sustainable Nanoelectronics (ISNE). Directed by Palem, ISNE is based at NTU, where the first prototype PCMOS chips were manufactured last year in collaboration with Professor Yeo Kiat Seng and his team.

The prototypes were application-specific integrated circuits, or ASICs, that were designed solely for encryption. Unlike the general-purpose microprocessors that power PCs and laptops, ASICs are designed for a specific purpose, and they are “embedded” by the millions each year in a growing constellation of products like automobiles, cell phones, MRI scanners and electronic toys.

The Rice-NTU team plans to follow its proof-of-concept work on encryption with proof-of-concept tests on microchips for cell phones, graphics cards and medical implants.

Palem said PCMOS is ideally suited for encryption, a process that relies on generating random numbers. It’s equally well-suited for graphics, but for different reasons. In a streaming video application on a cell phone, for example, it is unnecessary to conduct precise calculations. The small screen, combined with the human brain’s ability to process less-than-perfect pictures, results in a case where the picture looks just as good with a calculation that’s only approximately correct.

“The key is to consider the value that the computed information has for the user,” said Palem, who directs Rice’s Value of Information-based Sustainable Embedded Nanocomputing Center, or VISEN. “Our goal is green computing. We’re looking for applications where PCMOS can deliver as well as or better than existing technology but with a fraction of the energy.”

If PCMOS can slash energy use for embedded ASICs in key devices, the implications are enormous. For consumers, it could mean the difference between charging a cell phone every few weeks instead of every few days. Globally, that would help reduce the information technology industry’s carbon footprint.

Information Source: Rice National Media Site

[StarTech] TechNews – WiMAX in spotlight

http://thedailystar.net/story.php?nid=55439

ZTE Corporation, one of the largest telecommunications enterprise of China, organised a workshop titled ‘WiMAX Journey in Bangladesh’ at a local hotel in Dhaka recently. The workshop had different sessions including ‘ZTE WiMAX Overview’, ‘WiMAX Business Model and case Study’, ‘ZTE WiMAX End-to-End solution’, ‘ZTE WiMAX Network Planning and Optimization Solution’ and ‘ZTE Engineering Introduction’.

In the event the speakers talked about ZTE’s success stories in constructing WiMAX Networks in different countries of the world including USA, China, Singapore, Libya, Netherlands, Kazakhstan, etc. They also spoke about ZTE’s ability to provide end-to-end WiMAX solutions and the many different technological advances it has made since it started Research & Development on WiMAX in 1998.

Today, ZTE boasts over 600 international patents related to WiMAX ranging from standard technologies, product implementations, testing methods to network deployment.

The company has different solution packages according to targeted usage, whether it is a small, medium or large scale office buildings or shopping malls, railway/ subway stations to single unit houses and apartment complexes. A series of base station types, the Macro, Micro, PICO, and Femto series are deployed according to intended usage.

ZTE Corporation has rich experience in professional training and with advanced training equipment, standard management and excellent trainers, the training network has covered all over the world, providing trainings on systems, maintenance and management for nearly 130,000 customers in over 90 countries.

In the workshop, different management and technical officials from the ZTE China and Bangladesh offices, BTRC officials and other industry people were present.