Hasta La Gadget!

The FDA has issued approval for an interesting medical gadget that is designed to be swallowed. The digestible sensor is designed to report back to doctors on a patient’s adherence to medications, as well as to share their vital signs. The device is called the Ingestion Event Marker system and uses what appears to be a pill with a sand grain sized transmitter embedded inside.

The product comes from a company called Proteus Digital Health and the information the sensor gathers is collected on an iPhone app. The sensor was approved for use in Europe in 2011. The sensor itself is embedded inside of a pill or other consumable item and gathers power from stomach fluid.

The sensor sends signals to a patch worn on the user’s stomach that then sends information out to a smartphone application. Information the sensor gathers includes heart rate, body position, and activity. Once the data is received by the smartphone application it can also optionally be sent automatically to a physician. The sensor eventually makes its way out of the body and into the toilet.

[via CBS News]

ARM isn’t content with dominating the mobile space. It’s been by the far the most vocal about an Internet of Things where everything is connected — and to make that happen, it just established an industry forum in the UK that it hopes will establish common ground for all those internet-linked light bulbs, refrigerators and thermostats. Home energy firm Alertme, cloud-aware sensing outfit AquaMW, lighting maker EnLight and white space wireless guru Neul will start meeting with ARM from August 24th onwards to hash out our automated, eco-friendly future. There’s a certain urgency in this for the chip designer: it expects 50 billion devices on the grid by 2020. With IDC estimating a billion new connected devices just in 2011, the clock on that connected device transition is ticking very loudly.

Continue reading ARM forms UK group to foster an Internet of Things, put 50 billion devices online by 2020

Filed under: Household, Internet

ARM forms UK group to foster an Internet of Things, put 50 billion devices online by 2020 originally appeared on Engadget on Thu, 26 Jul 2012 19:36:00 EDT. Please see our terms for use of feeds.

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As much as N-Trig is an old hand at supporting styluses, it’s had to focus on tablets and other larger devices due to technology limits: the HTC Flyer is about as small as the company has gone to date. A new version of N-Trig’s DuoSense chipset family could be the ticket to going to much smaller sizes. The new 4000 series condenses both pen input and multi-touch finger gestures into a combination of one chip and one sensor, letting any entrepreneurial device maker stuff the two control methods into a handheld device with as little as a 5-inch display. Naturally, the chip line scales all the way to 15.6-inch panels for creatives poking at the screens of laptops and larger Ultrabooks. We’re told that both Android and Windows slates will get N-Trig’s tinier touch tricks before the end of the year — whether or not that includes phablets with the same girth as the Galaxy Note or Optimus Vu, however, is left to our wild imaginings.

Continue reading N-Trig pen tech whittled down to single DuoSense chips and sensors, shrinks scribblings to travel size

Filed under: Cellphones, Tablet PCs

N-Trig pen tech whittled down to single DuoSense chips and sensors, shrinks scribblings to travel size originally appeared on Engadget on Thu, 19 Jul 2012 02:04:00 EDT. Please see our terms for use of feeds.

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Imagine how much easier life would be if we had sensors on all of our stuff. You could just raise your hand and the lights would go off, clap your hands to turn the TV on and off, and snap your fingers to run a bath.

But let’s start small, get real, and focus on smartphones instead, because a new technology is coming that will equip it with a sensor of its own: the Sensordrone.

It’s basically a teensy-sized sensor that fits on your keychain so you can use it to add a wealth of uses for your smartphone. There are a lot of apps out there that need a decent sensor to function, and if you’ve been looking for one–then you’ve just hit the motherload.

With Sensordrone, you can run apps that detect gas leaks, measure light intensity, carbon monoxide levels, humidity levels, temperatures, capacitance, and so much more.

It’s currently up for backing on Kickstarter, where a minimum pledge of $175(USD) will get you your very own Sensordrone.

One of the things I like so much about Kickstarter is that you never know what kind of project will turn up. One of the most recent projects that caught my eye is the device called the Knut. This is a small battery-powered Wi-Fi enabled device that you can use for monitoring just about anything you can think of. It can be used to monitor environmental conditions in your home such as the temperature of various things and humidity.

It can also be used to monitor when something is open or closed such as a gun cabinet or liquor cabinet. The Knut is also able to monitor vibration and can be placed inside a box with something sensitive or fragile you might be shipping to monitor if the package is being treated appropriately. You can even use it to remind you to water plants.

The device is controlled by an app that would run on the smart phone or computer and receive the data the Wi-Fi enabled sensor spits out. The device will also e-mail the information to a specific e-mail address so you can check it without bothering with your phone. The user can control how frequently Knut checks sensors, with some sensors such as accelerometers and switches checked anytime they change. This project is seeking $25,000 and has so far racked up $39,834 with seven days to go before funding. It will cost you $80 or more to get one Knut sensor during the Kickstarter project. Delivery is estimated for September.

Knut can monitor just about anything is written by Shane McGlaun & originally posted on SlashGear.
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