Getting into shape is hard! A good gadget can distract you from the drudgery of exercise. Like the Forerunner 610, a shiny and impressive watch to make you forget about that aneurysm as you delve into its mighty feature set. More »
Whether you’re taking in the sights of the Big Apple or spelunking the Catacombs beneath Paris, you’ll need to be just as prepared as if you were in the wilderness. Explore the urban jungle to your heart’s content with these six hiking tools.
The old Xbox 360 headset is gigantic and expensive, considering it only worked with the Xbox 360. The new Xbox 360 headset? Not only is it much, much better promises Senior Director of Xbox Accessories, Zulfi Alam, it’s a Bluetooth headset. More »
This article was written on June 21, 2006 by CyberNet.
The reverse peephole viewer is designed for police to look through a peephole from the outside and let them see perfectly through into an apartment or house. While you may start to think that this is a pretty cool little gadget why don’t you think about the real people that are probably buying these things. All of your neighborhood creeps probably carry these things around in their pockets.
This gets me thinking though, if someone holds this up to the outside of a door then they can see perfectly through. What would the person inside the apartment/house see if they happened to look through the peephole? If there was enough light entering the peephole would they see a gigantic eye? Hmmm…too much thinking!
Many of the projects I see on Kickstarter seem interesting, but all to often they crumble under investigation. The thought of sponsoring a product makes one feel like it should be perfect, like just the thing you’ve always wanted. If something doesn’t measure up to that standard, then why go through with sponsorship and waiting […]
If you find yourself in a Samuel L. Jackson movie and not surrounded by any mutha f***in’ snakes, good news! You’re about to be eaten by a hyper-intelligent shark. These 6 tools will at least give you a fighting chance. [Top art courtesy of Iggy via Flickr] More »
Apple’s brought both sizes of the MacBook Air line straight up to what you’d expect from a laptop in 2011, adding a Thunderbolt port, but more importantly some sweet Sandy Bridge i5 and i7 chips—and backlit keyboards. More »
The phrase “wireless hard drive” probably isn’t one you’ve heard before, but Seagate has gone ahead and done it–got an external hard drive and slapped on a battery and wireless router. With this $200 contraption people can stream video, music, and images to their portable devices (though it’s basically designed to work with the iPad and […]
Omron, a Japan-based global company that focuses on developing MEMS (Micro Electro Mechanical Systems) products for customer solutions, has attempted to address Japan’s recent energy concerns with three particularly interesting innovations that were on display at MEMS 2011. The lineup included a full office energy management solution featuring: the “Indoor Environment Monitor,” new facial recognition security system, and an automated air-conditioning adjustment system.
The Indoor Environment Monitor utilizes MEMS technology to create a comfortable (and safe) working environment. The monitor aggregates information such as the room’s temperature, relative humidity, air velocity/airflow, and occupant’s active metabolic rate to calculate an effective body temperature. The system then determines the severeness of heat illness in levels in ascending order from “Need for Care, “Caution,” “Heightened Alert,” to “Danger.” What’s interesting about this monitor is that it wirelessly transmits this information to a smartphone app or PC, which can be used remotely to monitor a grandparent or young child left by themselves at home. Innovation such as this that allow remote care via sensors is a particularly useful advancement.
With the recent increase in software security threats causing a slight panic among the general public, and growing concerns of unsafe and unprotected passwords, Omron also introduced an “intelligent” security system that takes into account “setsuden” (energy saving) as well. In the form of a webcam, this system adds the concept of using thermal detection on top of facial recognition, and combines these two security measures to solve two challenges: unauthorized access to users’ computers and energy saving.
The process is fairly simple in the sense that the thermal camera detects faces of registered users and only allows access if body temperature is detected. Holding up a picture of a registered user would not grant access to the computer. Not only does this make logging in easier and convenient, with regards to “setsuden,” it saves energy by going into sleep mode the second the user leaves their computer (laptop). This reduction may seem trivial when compared to the rest of energy saving products that we have introduced in previous articles, but the Japanese have a popular saying: “even ashes can pile up to form a mountain.” What is most fascinating about this new system is that the whole process is instant and takes less than a second to turn itself on and off.
Omron’s third product involves using SSMs (Smart Sensing Module) to significantly reduce air conditioning power by using adaptation features while maintaining production standards. Using the same technology from the two innovations above, the SSMs are placed in strategic places, acting as a human detection sensor, air flow, and temperature/humidity sensor. The SSMs then transmit their calculations to the air conditioner, which adjusts accordingly the amount and temperature of the air flow it releases. Omron’s Semiconductor factory, which monitors clean room conditions in real time, has been testing the effectiveness of their new technology and so far, have successfully achieved a power consumption reduction of 25%.
New products that use cutting-edge technology never fail to impress us, and Omron has certainly done a fine job of appealing to society’s latest concerns like the aging community and “setsuden”. Energy saving measures have been rolled out across all industries as a result of the disasters in Japan, and innovations in technology aimed at reducing energy consumption due to blackout threats have become a noticeable selling point in consumer appliances.
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