Hasta La Gadget!

After seeing Dhani Sutanto from London embedding a RFID Transit Card into a ring, Becky from Adafruit thought that it would be a cool idea to try and embed one into her iPhone.

The process is pretty straightforward. First, you need to dissolve away the plastic of the card in acetone. Then you need to extract the antenna and chip. This needs to be installed under the iPhone backplate. You’ll probably have to experiment with paper and tape in order to insulate the chip from the guts of your phone.

The result is that you can carry around your transit card without actually carrying around your transit card. Of course, as NFC technology continues to come along, chances are that someday you’ll be able to pay for public transit just by holding your phone up to the reader anyhow. But for now, this is a clever hack and works with today’s systems.

[via Make:]

Dutch company NXP — best known for it’s NFC solutions — introduced a new audio chip today that’s set to significantly improve the sound quality of the micro-speakers commonly built into mobile devices such as smartphones and tablets. The TFA9887 integrated circuit combines NXP’s CoolFlux audio DSP, a class-D amplifier with current sensing and a DC-to-DC converter to boost the output level of micro-speakers up to five times (up to 2.6W RMS) without damaging the driver. Class-D amplifiers are highly efficient and, when combined with a DC-to-DC converter, provide a strong and clear signal regardless of battery level. With current sensing, the chip uses feedback from the driver to optimize power delivery, allowing micro speakers to provide louder, richer sound with deeper, tighter bass over the entire lifetime of a mobile device. Are you ready to turn it up to 11? Check out the full PR after the break.

Update: Hit the break for NXP’s PR video.

Continue reading NXP’s new audio chip pumps up the volume for mobile device speakers (update: video)

Filed under: Cellphones, Tablet PCs

NXP’s new audio chip pumps up the volume for mobile device speakers (update: video) originally appeared on Engadget on Tue, 17 Jul 2012 08:00:00 EDT. Please see our terms for use of feeds.

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We’ve seen a number of different devices that can harvest energy from various sources, but none quite like this new chip developed by a team of MIT researchers. It’s able to harvest energy from three different sources simultaneously: light, heat and vibrations. The key to that is a sophisticated control system that’s able to rapidly switch between the three sources at all times to prevent any of that energy from going to waste (and not draw too much power itself), with energy from the secondary sources stored in capacitors to be picked up later — as opposed to existing systems that simply switch between sources based on what’s most plentiful. As doctoral student Saurav Bandyopadhyay explains, efficiently managing those disparate sources could be a “big advantage since many of these sources are intermittent and unpredictable,” and it could in turn lead to the chip being used in a range of different applications where batteries or existing energy harvesting methods just aren’t enough: everything from environmental sensors in remote locations to biomedical devices.

Filed under: Misc. Gadgets, Science

MIT researchers develop chip that can harvest energy from multiple sources originally appeared on Engadget on Mon, 09 Jul 2012 15:06:00 EDT. Please see our terms for use of feeds.

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There’s no question that Micron has shifted its focus away from PCs in favor of producing components, shipping everything from SSDs to CMOS sensors in recent years, but the semiconductor manufacturer just took a $2.5 billion step even closer to bridging its gap between other companies in the same market, including Samsung, the chip producer’s top competitor. Under the deal, Elpida Memory, which is headquartered in Tokyo, will fall within the Idaho-based conglomerate’s growing umbrella, netting Micron a 50-percent boost in production capability. That increase did come at great expense, however — the transaction included $750 million in cash and $1.75 billion in future installments (1,750 easy payments of one million dollars?), which are set to continue through 2019. The acquisition was also paired with a 24-percent stake in Rexchip Electronics for an additional $334 million, which will complement Elpida’s investment, yielding a total 89-percent stake for Micron. While the amount does seem quite significant, investors appear to be on board, with Micron’s stock ($MU) currently up more than 4 percent since this morning. Both deals will reportedly close within the next year.

Micron scoops up Elpida Memory, 50-percent production boost for $2.5 billion originally appeared on Engadget on Mon, 02 Jul 2012 19:39:00 EDT. Please see our terms for use of feeds.

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Hidden away within Google’s X laboratory, where all kinds of secret projects are underway, its engineers have been working on creating an artificial brain. With 16,000 computer processors and freedom to learn whatever it chooses from the internet, though, it turns out that the brain does just what you do online: watch cat videos. More »