Hasta La Gadget!

It seems we can never be content with how sensitive our camera sensors are to light. Scientists in Singapore are working on a new camera sensor technology made from graphene that will supposedly make future cameras 1,000 times more sensitive to light and uses 10 times less energy than current camera sensors.

In turn, this will produce way better low-light photos, to the point where we hopefully don’t even have to bother with ISO. Plus, the scientists working on the new technology say that these new sensors will be the fifth of the cost of current camera sensors, meaning that we could see camera prices drop significantly in the future.

The sensor works by trapping light-generated electron particles far longer than current sensors can, while only being made from a single sheet of graphene. The sensor will be able to be used in a number of different cameras, including infrared cameras, traffic cameras, as well as satellite imaging cameras, thanks to the wide spectrum of light that the new sensor can capture.

Plus, Assitant Professor Wang Qijie from Nanyang Technological University says that the research team is keeping “current manufacturing practices in mind,” which means the camera industry “can easily replace the current base material of photo sensors with the new nano-structured graphene material.”

Obviously, it’s too early to tell when we’ll be seeing these new sensors in consumer cameras, but they’ll ultimately hit the enterprise and government first, being used in security cameras, traffic cameras, etc. Of course, graphene is already set to be used in new flexible OLED screens, so the technology will definitely be on its way to the mainstream soon.

VIA: CNET

SOURCE: Science Daily

Graphene camera sensor 1,000 times more sensitive to light is written by Craig Lloyd & originally posted on SlashGear.
© 2005 – 2012, SlashGear. All right reserved.

This week the folks at the development studio known as Instrument have brought a virtual reality demonstration to Google I/O 2013, complete with a multi-display drop from the upper atmosphere down toward the earth in freefall. What this demonstration consisted of was seven 1080p displays, each of them run by their own Ubuntu PC working with a full-screen version of Chrome version 25. A motion tracker works to track the user, their arms, and the angle at which they’re standing – or leaning and falling, as it were.

This system was developed by Instrument to track user input and motion tracking with a custom C++ app built with openNI as well as an ASUS Xtion Pro 3D motion tracking sensor camera. As the motion tracker sees and understands the angle of the human playing the game’s torso and location of each arm, so too will their avatar on the display array move as they fall.

The 3D game content is rendered with WebGL using THREE.js, the WebGL layer being rendered with a totally transparent background. This setup allows the map layer underneath to show through, this map layer being generated by Google Maps.

What the user sees below – the earth they’re plummeting toward – is a completely live HTML Google Map instance. It’s accurate – meaning you could potentially be diving toward your house, a national landmark, or perhaps somewhere that’d be useful for real-world training.

In addition to this setup being live and ready to roll here at Google I/O 2013 as a playable demo, Instrument has created a Dive editor. With this Dive editor, an editor is able to build directly into the control node administrative console, each of these changes reflected instantly – live in the scene.

The editor user interface exists as a Google Map, the person editing it able to use draggable markers that act as game objects. With this interface, developers and savvy users will be able to utilize geocoding to center the map view on locations of their choice – anywhere Google Maps can see. Think of the possibilities!

Google Maps-driven Map Dive 3D-tracking hands-on is written by Chris Burns & originally posted on SlashGear.
© 2005 – 2012, SlashGear. All right reserved.

The 2014 World Cup will take place in Brazil, and folks are already beginning to prepare for the tournament. As qualifying goes on as we speak, organizers are working on a new system that will electronically detect when a goal has been scored, and it was just announced today that GoalControl will be providing the technology necessary.

This isn’t the first time that we’ve discussed goal-line technology for the 2014 World Cup. FIFA initially announced it back in February. However, more details were released today on how exactly it all will work. Overall, the stadium has 14 cameras spread out amongst it, with 7 cameras focusing on each of the two goals in order to detect when a goal is scored.

All objects that are within the cameras’ field of view are tracked, but the players and referees are cleverly filtered out, leaving just the ball being tracked. The ball’s position is continuously and automatically captured in three dimensions (X-, Y- and Z-coordinates) whenever it gets close to the goal, in order to accurately judge where the ball is.

If the ball crosses the goal line, the system sends an encrypted signal to a watch that referees will be wearing. The signal is sent in less than a second after the ball has passed the goal line. Plus, a virtual 3D image of any portions of the playing field can be shown on the big screen from any camera angle, thanks to those 14 strategically-placed cameras. It also doesn’t hurt to know that the 2014 World Cup will be broadcasted in 4K.

[via BBC News]

Image via Flickr

GoalControl to provide goal-line tech during 2014 World Cup is written by Craig Lloyd & originally posted on SlashGear.
© 2005 – 2012, SlashGear. All right reserved.

We first heard about Observos a month ago when it became a participant in our Insert Coin semifinals, but it wasn’t until the Hexagonal Research product showed up at Engadget Expand that we were able to see working models of its environmentally aware sensors. Each sensor, which is shaped like a hexagon and is about twice as thick as a hockey puck, is capable of monitoring the temperature, humidity and barometric pressure of virtually any object you can think of. For indoor sensors, a small screen on top displays the desired information of the item you’re monitoring, but there’s no need to keep a close eye on it — the information can be relayed to a web interface by communicating wirelessly with a base station hooked into your router. (Outdoor sensors are more rugged to handle external weather conditions and don’t have a display screen.

You can program the setup to alert you via email or text if something is awry, regardless of where you are, and you’ll be able to monitor everything directly from your smartphone; in the future, Observos hopes to expand into a control network that would give you the ability to make changes to environmental conditions remotely. In other words, if your plants get low on moisture, you’d be able to program a flow valve to open automatically.

While the company’s Expand booth featured only six sensors, up to 40 could be used simultaneously. The Observos team plans to launch its Kickstarter campaign this coming Monday, and backers can grab one indoor sensor and base station together for $175, with the price going up as more sensors are added; outdoor sensors will be a bit more spendy as well. A hacker’s board will also be available at $75 for anyone who just wants to tinker around with the goods. Check out our video and full image gallery below for another look.

Filed under: Cellphones, Peripherals, Mobile

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We may soon see a day when your iPhone and iPad physically deform at your touch and your MacBook has a disappearing keyboard, according to a patent Apple has been granted.