Applied Nanodetectors Ltd (AND) has a rather ambitious vision – diagnosing a person’s health just by breathing into a cell phone. At this year’s International Nanotechnology Exhibition & Conference, the UK-based company presented the prototype of a cell phone embedded with their specialized medical chip. Manufactured by Finnish company Nokia, the handset carries AND’s chip and sensors needed to be able to accurately diagnose a disease.
According to source, the sensors are capable of determining the presence of gases such as carbon dioxide, ammonia and nitrogen oxide. After calculating for the density of each of the gases it identifies in the user’s breath, the chip matches the figures to a predetermined range of illnesses before coming up with the prognosis. AND says the process is pretty much like fingerprint matching. Asthma, food poisoning, diabetes and even lung cancer are but some of the conditions AND claims the technology can diagnose. It will be a while before we get to test its accuracy though – launch dates and even marketing schedule of the handset is yet to be determined.
We know, we know — it’s just the natural evolution of technology, right? With Intel just recently slashing the MSRP on its 80GB SSD, not to mention to scads of others ratcheting things down as well, it’s not shocking to hear that SSD-equipped netbooks are becoming all the more affordable. DigiTimes has it that demand for SSD-based 8.9-inch netbooks in particular are clogging up sales channels, which is forcing companies to move them (at least in Taiwan) for lower-than-advertised amounts. Of course, we’re still betting it takes a month or so before these elusive price drops make their way to America, but keep a close eye out for sudden discounts if you’re in the market.
Maximizing space in overcrowded cities is a key value in construction projects nowadays.
The Giken Company from Japan has figured out an ingenious way to apply this principle to storage facilities, by literally turning building-making upside down with fully-automated underground garages for bikes (and even cars).
Giken’s ‘Eco-park’ parking structures are secure, simple, and useful. They’re also quite cool. Unmanned by attendants, they are defined by a small garage outpost coming out of the ground that would be mistaken for aerodynamic ATMs if you didn’t know anything about them.
In order to use it, you’re supposed to find an open hub and place the wheels on the aluminum runway. Then, in an adjacent slot, you have to swipe your membership card, for which you pay a monthly fee. Once the machine IDs your account, the doors of the garage open, and a locking base comes out in order to dock the bike. Then – whoosh! The bike is sucked into the hub quick and the doors close dramatically.
Within 10-25 seconds, your bike has descended into the deep machinery abyss underground. But don’t worry, it’s safe and sound. The locking base is switched underground and suspended in place in its own railway. Each garage includes 144 railways for bikes, which must abide by a certain length, height, and tire size (at 28-inches). Still, it’s definitely a space saver.
Check out the video below to see how the process looks like.
So far, I haven’t heard of machine complications that would crush bikes or make them fly off their railway. In fact, Giken is confident about the structure’s ability to handle potential structural damage.
According to its website, Eco-parks are made with prefabricated structural cylinder piles that are ‘pressed-in’ to the ground with large piling machines that minimize vibration and noise. It takes fifty working days to build the structure from start to finish. Apparently, Giken is one of the leading construction businesses using this tech and has been used before to build tidal/flood defense systems.
Appropriately for this area of the world, the cylinder’s wall structure (only about 23 ft. in diameter) is also designed to handle strong earthquakes.
Not surprisingly, Giken has also implemented the system for car garages. For that, the company needs about 63 feet in diameter to fit an underground cylinder storing fifty cars.
But what if the bike (or car) inevitably gets stuck or the city needs to make a repair? For that, there’s a cubbyhole that allows a designated engineer to go under and fix it.
Currently, it costs about $30 (in Yen) for a monthly ticket and students pay half that amount.
What do you guys think? Should we try to get these in some of our most crowded cities? Would you trust the machine to take care of your car or bike for hours at a time? Let us know in the comments below.
If you’ve found more of these machines in Japan or elsewhere, let me know at jferm80@gmail.com.
NEDO, an administrative institute in Japan, has been working on what it calls the “Project for Strategic Development of Advanced Robotics Elemental Technologies” since 2006. The project has now entered its second phase, and boasts some pretty impressive looking bots. Murata Machinery’s robotic delivery system (pictured above) which is designed to help in places like hospitals, delivering medications late at night so that nurses and aids don’t have to spend a lot of time on such tasks. The company plans to test it and monitor the bot in use at hospitals in order to verify its effectiveness. We don’t know about you, but the idea of this guy visiting us late at night when we’re feeling low in a hospital is either really awesome or terrifically creepy. Either way, we fully expect this guy to have a starring role in The Phantom of the Opera any day now. Hit the read link to check out the other participants in the project.
More rumors have surfaced about the LG Versa, the new all-in-one modular touch screen phone from Verizon Wireless. If you’ll recall, the Versa is a touch screen phone much like the LG Dare, but you have the option of attaching modules to it, …
As we’ve seen with the MacBook Air, Apple clearly feels there are a select group of you out there who can live without an optical drive on your laptop. Now, MCE is giving you unibody MacBook and MacBook Pro owners a similar option. The OptiBay is essentially a second hard drive that is installed internally in place of the optical disc drive, giving MB and MBP users the ability to vastly increase their storage space or tap into a RAID setup. The company has announced that said solution is shipping today to those interested, with options including 250GB, 320GB and 500GB drives. Oh, and if you’re worried about that optical drive you’ll be removing, fret not — these guys have a nifty external enclosure designed specifically to give it another home. How quaint.
We’ve already heard a few of you clamoring for internet radio support on Verizon’s Hub, and if a mall unit is indicative of shipping units, your prayers have been answered. Mr. Dave Zatz happened upon a Hub while checking out the good word at a Verizon mall kiosk, and sure enough, WiFi radio functionality was in tact and working smoothly. We’re told that the company’s initial music partner is Clear Channel’s iheartradio.com, though details beyond that are nonexistent. In all honestly, the Hub seems like the perfect device to see all sorts of added utility via firmware updates, so we’re crossing our fingers in hopes that Verizon feels the same way.
Lenovo said Monday that it will label eight ThinkPad laptops as “semi-ruggedized,” after those laptops passed special tests designed by the U.S. military to measure the toughness of a notebook.
The ThinkPad X200, X301, X200s, X200 Tablet, T400, T500, R400 and SL300 have all received the special designation, which was arrived at after all eight passed some specialized military tests. However, they have not been officially designed as “ruggedized,” which can also mean compliant with the MIL-STD-810F tests set up by the U.S. government for testing notebooks under a variety of conditions.
(A press release announcing the changes was posted on Engadget. Lenovo representatives could not be reached for comment, or for confirmation.)
Lenovo also said that it would equip its ThinkPad T400 laptop with an optional high brightness, wide angle screen. Prices will begin at about $1,350.
LG, Samsung and Kodak have already gotten themselves into quite a legal tangle, but things have really come full circle in the last few days, with both Samsung and LG filing suits at the International Trade Commission over some alleged patent infringment on Kodak’s part. This, of course, follows Kodak’s complaints that both Samsung and LG were infringing on its patents, which the ITC is now apparently investigating in full. As you might expect, however, details on the patents involved, and any other specifics, are fairly light all around, but Kodak did manage to get a shot in at Samsung, saying that its latest filing is just a “retaliatory tactic and we intend to vigorously contest Samsung’s claims.” No word of a squabble between Samsung and LG just yet, though the two aren’t without their past tensions.
Read – Reuters, “LG Electronics asks for patent suit against Kodak” Read – Reuters, “Samsung asks US to ban Kodak camera imports”
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Applied Nanodetectors Ltd (AND) has a rather ambitious vision – diagnosing a person’s health just by breathing into a cell phone. At this year’s International Nanotechnology Exhibition & Conference, the UK-based company presented the prototype of a cell phone embedded with their specialized medical chip. Manufactured by Finnish company Nokia, the handset carries AND’s chip and sensors needed to be able to accurately diagnose a disease.
