Hasta La Gadget!

Researchers from Asia and Europe have developed the world’s lightest and thinnest organic circuits, which in the future could be used in a range of healthcare applications.

Lighter than a feather, these ultrathin film-like organic transistor integrated circuits are being developed by a research group led by Professor Takao Someya and Associate Professor Tsuyoshi Sekitani of the University of Tokyo, who run an Exploratory Research for Advanced Technology (ERATO) program sponsored by the Japan Science and Technology Agency (JST), in collaboration with Siegfried Bauer’s group at the Johannes Kepler University (JKU) Linz, Austria.

The circuits are extremely lightweight, flexible, durable and thin, and conform to any surface. They are just 2 microns thick, just 1/5 that of kitchen wrap, and weighing only 3g/m^2, are 30 times lighter than office paper. They also feature a bend radius of 5 microns, meaning they can be scrunched up into a ball, without breaking. Due to these properties the researchers have dubbed them “imperceptible electronics”, which can be placed on any surface and even worn without restricting the users movement.

The integrated circuits are manufactured on rolls of one micron thick plastic film, making them easily scalable and cheap to produce. And if the circuit is placed on a rubber surface it becomes stretchable, able to withstand up to 233% tensile strain, while retaining full functionality.

“This is a very convenient way of making electronics stretchable because you can fabricate high performance devices in a flat state and then just transfer them over to a stretchable substrate and create something that is very compliant and stretchable just by a simple pick and place process.”

This prototype device is a touch sensor featuring a 12×12 array of sensors on a 4.8 cm x 4.8 cm circuit. It is made up of two layers, an integrated circuit layer and a tactile sensor layer.

With the development of these plastic electronics, the possibility for flexible, thin, large area electronics has been realized. In the future, the group would like to expand the capabilities of these circuits.

“The new flexible touch sensor is the world’s thinnest, lightest and people cannot feel the existence of this device. I believe this development will open up a wide range of new applications, from health monitoring systems, wearable medical instruments, and even robotic skins in the future.”

The results of this research were published in the July 25, 2013 issue of the journal Nature.

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Via: University of Tokyo

This is the world’s first pair of glasses which prevent facial recognition by cameras. They are currently under development by Japan’s National Institute of Informatics.

Photos taken without people’s knowledge can violate privacy. For example, photos may be posted online, along with metadata including the time and location. But by wearing this device, you can stop your privacy from being infringed in such ways.

“You can try wearing sunglasses. But sunglasses alone can’t prevent face detection. Because face detection uses features like the eyes and nose, it’s hard to prevent just by concealing your eyes. This is the privacy visor I have developed, which uses 11 near-infrared LEDs. I’m switching it on now. It prevents face detection, like this.”

“Light from these near-infrared LEDs can’t be seen by the human eye, but when it passes through a camera’s imaging device, it appears bright. The LEDs are installed in these locations because, a feature of face detection is, the eyes and part of the nose appear dark, while another part of the nose appears bright. So, by placing light sources mostly near dark parts of the face, we’ve succeeded in canceling face detection characteristics, making face detection fail.”

Compared with previous ways of physically hiding the face, this technology can protect privacy without obstructing communication, as all users need to do is wear a pair of glasses.

However, because this system utilizes the difference in spectral sensitivity between human vision and imaging devices, another method is needed for cameras that aren’t affected by infrared light.

“In that regard, what we’re thinking of is a visor that doesn’t use electricity, but uses reflective material. For example, one like this. This makes light from outside look white, or absorbs it. That pattern breaks up the features used in face detection. So you can prevent face detection even without using electricity, by wearing this visor. It is also very cheap to make.”

Event: NII Open House 2013

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Via:
National Institute of Informatics

Stationary Observation System for High-speed Flying Objects

This camera system can track very fast moving objects, keeping them in the center of the screen at all times. Currently under development by the Ishikawa Oku Lab. at the University of Tokyo, this latest version captures Full HD video and can be used outdoors.

“Ordinarily, to change the direction a camera faces, you move the camera mechanically. But in this system, it’s not the camera that moves, it’s the mirrors. This makes it possible to change where you’re looking really quickly. In this demonstration, we’re tracking a table tennis ball. The ball moves extremely fast, but this system can keep compensating for the ball’s motion, so the ball stays in the middle of the image.”

This device consists of two mirrors for pan and tilt, and a group of lenses. The Saccade mirrors can be controlled at high speed, on the order of milliseconds. The mirrors move independently, so this system doesn’t lose its high-speed response even if it’s connected to a large, heavy camera.

Also, by connecting a projector instead of a recording device, images can be projected onto a fast-moving object. This could also be used in AR applications, showing interactive content on moving objects.

“Using a rotating mirror is a common method, but usually, the mirror is in front of the camera, so a very large mirror is needed. But a feature of this system is, it can even capture wide-angle images with a small mirror. That’s because the system contains special optics called a pupil shift system.”

“Another important point is, this system does very fast image processing to recognize the subject. It captures and processes an image every 1/1000th of a second. In this way, it can track the subject stably and continuously, simply by feeding back the subject’s position, without particularly predicting its behavior.”

“For example, this system can record, in great detail, the instant a player hits a home run, including how the bat bends and the ball reacts, and the ball’s subsequent path. Or in soccer, it can record things like penalty kicks in amazing detail. We think this will make it possible to shoot sports in a really compelling way.”

“Right now, we’re actually taking this outdoors to where sports are played, to check how accurately it works. We hope it will be usable for actual broadcasting in about two years.”

Event: The 19th Symposium on Sensing via Image Information (SSII2013)

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Via:
Ishikawa Oku Laboratory
The University of Tokyo

This marketing analysis tool, under development by Fujitsu, uses technology to sense people’s movement. By analyzing how customers behave in response to merchandise, entirely new kinds of marketing information will be obtainable.

“This exhibit is designed with retail stores in mind. The system determines how people choose products, whether they were interested in a product already, and what products they compare, using Kinect and a camera.”

With regular POS systems, the only information obtained is how much merchandise has been sold. But by using this system, it’s possible to find out how customers acted while contemplating the purchase of a product. This system could help with marketing by showing how customers behaved when they were thinking about buying a product, but didn’t complete the purchase.

“For example, we think this system will make it possible to analyze how a person considered two products, found it hard to decide between them, and finally chose one of them. It’ll enable analysis to go deeper, regarding whether a person who had difficulty deciding was a man or woman, and how old they were.”

“Rather than using this system by itself, we think it could be used in conjunction with RFID tags and other sensors. Also, rather than using Kinect to detect people coming and going, it could be combined with more specialized sensors. In fact, all this system does is collect data, so when it comes to analysis, it could be cross referenced with point of sale data and big data, or the system could be used to correlate information regarding the effectiveness of introducing customer loyalty points programs. So, we hope this system will be utilized in combination with Fujitsu’s all-round solutions.”

Event: Fujitsu Forum 2013

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Fujitsu has developed technology which can measure a person’s pulse in real time by analyzing video of their face.

“As blood circulates through the body, the amount of light absorbed by the face varies, depending on how much blood there is in it. The first point about this technology is, it identifies minute changes in light intensity on the face, and converts them to a pulse. Also, it accurately detects people’s movements, to distinguish noise. Consequently, it can make a measurement in as little as five seconds.”

When the user is sitting still, the system continuously detects changes in light intensity on the users face, as shown by the green waveform. The red waveform shows the resulting wave with noise associated with movement removed. Fujitsu has found that that accuracy of the system is within about three beats per minute.

“The main point about this technology is, it can make the measurements naturally. All the person needs to do is be in front of the camera, without operating a device. For example, when you’re working on a computer, you often stop moving for at least five seconds while you’re thinking. We think that, by detecting those moments and measuring your pulse rate, this system could be used to support health management, by recording changes throughout the day.”

“In the case of a security camera, it might be possible to detect suspicious persons, based on the assumption that people about to do something risky have a high pulse rate. However, we don’t think that can be done using this technology alone. We think it might be possible through all-round analysis, by combining this with other technologies.”

“We’d like to release this as a device embedded in our products. Right now, we’re working to bring such products out this year, including smartphones as well as PCs.”

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