Hasta La Gadget!

University of Illinois chemistry professor Alexander Scheeline has developed software that turns a camera phone, an LED, and a few other cheap tools into a spectrometer. Armed with these, he thinks we can bring high-end analytic tools to high school chemistry labs all over the world.

“The potential is here to make analytical chemistry a subject for the masses rather than something that is only done by specialists,” Scheeline said. “There’s no doubt that getting the cost of equipment down to the point where more people can afford them in the education system is a boon for everybody.”

Purpose-built spectrophotometers are essential tools in analytic chemistry. By measuring the electromagnetic spectrum a substance absorbs or emits, you can determine its molecular composition. They’re also expensive, which is why they’ve generally been confined to universities. Scheeline has already brought his cellphone spectrometers to high schools in Atlanta and Hanoi. Other high-school chemistry and physics teachers doing professional development at Illinois have also brought Scheeline’s tools to their classrooms.

Initially, Scheeline hadn’t been looking for ways for students to use their phones in class. Instead, he wanted students to build their own spectrophotometry tool, to better understand their instruments and their limitations. Putting together the LED as a light source, diffraction gratings and cuvettes were easy; finding a small sensor to capture the light was hard.

“All of a sudden this light bulb went off in my head: a photodetector that everybody already has! Almost everybody has a cellphone, and almost all phones have a camera,“ Scheeline said. “I realized, if you can get the picture into the computer, it’s only software that keeps you from building a cheap spectrophotometer.”

Scheeline with the analysis software he’s developed for the cell-phone spectrometer.

Scheeline wrote a Windows desktop program to analyze the students’ JPEG files from their phones. One advantage of this approach over developing a smartphone application to do the analysis directly: Because the phones are used only to take the photographs, it doesn’t matter what operating system a student’s phone is running.

Scheeline then published his source code, a compiled executable application and the cellphone spectrometer instructions for anyone to download from the Analytical Sciences Digital Library. He also published an article on the device and its potential in chemistry education in the academic journal Applied Spectroscopy.

“Science is basically about using your senses to see things – it’s just that we’ve got so much technology that now it’s all hidden,” Scheeline said. “The student gets the impression that a measurement is something that goes on inside a box and it’s completely inaccessible, not understandable – the purview of expert engineers.”

“In order to get across the idea, ‘I can do it, and I can see it, and I can understand it,’ they’ve got to build the instrument themselves,” he added.

Can you analyze me now? Cell phones bring spectroscopy to the classroom [University of Illinois]

All images by L. Brian Stauffer via news.illinois.edu

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Updated to include Intel’s comments about current MeeGo devices

It hasn’t been smooth sailing for MeeGo, Intel and Nokia’s combined effort to develop a Linux-based operating system for mobile devices. A key executive departure and news that smartphones running the operating system won’t be available until sometime next year has left Intel and Nokia fighting to stay on course.

“The community around MeeGo is very strong,” Suzy Ramirez, an Intel spokesperson told Wired.com. “We are on schedule and MeeGo will be available for TVs and in-car entertainment systems soon, and other devices next year.”

MeeGo has had a tough week.  On Tuesday, Ari Jaaksi, the vice-president of Nokia’s MeeGo division, confirmed he will leave the company for “personal reasons.” Last month, Nokia went through a change of guard when CEO Olli-Pekka Kallasvuo stepped down to be replaced by former Microsoft executive Stephen Elop.

A Nokia spokesperson has said the company’s MeeGo roadmap remains unchanged.

Meanwhile, Intel vice-president Doug Fisher told Forbes that the company expects to show the first smartphones running MeeGo operating systems early next year and have them in hands of consumers by mid-2011.

“All this has added confusion to MeeGo’s prospects, especially given the tremendous stride being made by alternative operating systems such as Android and iOS,” said Avi Greengart, an analyst with research and consulting firm Current Analysis. “Given the management changes at Nokia and the possibility that MeeGo phones could be delayed, it leaves question marks about the future of MeeGo.”

Over the last three years, the rise of smartphones and the growing popularity of tablets and streaming media players has opened the doors for new operating systems that can promise a better user experience. For instance, Android, which launched in 2008 for smartphones, has now spread to tablets and has even birthed Google TV, a platform that combines cable TV programming with sites from the internet.

MeeGo hopes to do something similar. But it started small. Last year Intel started a project called  Moblin that would be a Linux-based operating system designed specifically for netbooks. Separately, Nokia had been working on a Linux-based software platform called Maemo for smartphones and tablets.

At the Mobile World Congress conference in February this year, the two companies decided to combine efforts and spawn a new OS called MeeGo. MeeGo is now hosted by the Linux Foundation and has expanded its reach to phones, tablets, TVs and even in-car entertainment systems.

Both companies desperately want to control a next-generation mobile OS. Nokia has heavily relied on Symbian, which enjoys massive popularity worldwide but is saddled with an archaic, needlessly complicated interface that hasn’t adapted well to the world of touchscreen phones. And Intel has seen success supplying its Atom chips to the netbook market, but hasn’t made significant inroads into smartphones; it’s hoping that an OS might help it leverage its chip business into a new market.

In the next few weeks, Intel plans to release a version of the nascent OS so developers can start creating the user interface required to put MeeGo on different devices. MeeGo with an Intel-developed skin is expected after that. MeeGo will have its first developers’ conference in Ireland in November.

“From a product perspective, we expect to show smartphones and tablets on MeeGo in mid-2011,” says Ramirez.

Already some intrepid device makers have released MeeGo-based devices. German company WeTab is offering a MeeGo based tablet, while U.K. company Amino has shown a TV that runs MeeGo.

Still Greengart isn’t convinced that plans for MeeGo won’t change. Intel is dependent on Nokia to deliver the hardware that will bring MeeGo to consumers and Nokia’s big management changes could affect MeeGo’s future, he says.

So far, Nokia has said that it plans to use the Symbian OS for low and mid-level smartphones and build MeeGo into high-end devices that are more focused on computing.

“The problem is that Nokia executives, including the CEO who talked about this strategy just a week or two ago, are  not there. And who knows what’s going in the company,” says Greengart. “The future of MeeGo depends on how much Nokia and Intel are willing to stick to their plans in a fast-changing world.”

See Also:

• Nokia Phones Hacked to Run Android
• Kno Creates 14-inch Tablet for Students
• Linux Chief Sounds Off on Android, Apple and App Stores
• Letter From Silicon Valley: Doing the Math on Android vs. Apple

Photo: MeeGo Phone browser (Steve Paine/Flickr)

Brits are using their iPhones to cheat their way out of hedge mazes, cracking the hour-and-a-half long puzzles in just minutes.

The maze at Longleat Safari Park, Wiltshire, England has – according to the Daily Mail – two miles of pathways formed by 16,000 yew trees. Normally this confusing and frustrating labyrinth takes around 90 minutes to escape, but when manager Tim Bentley took a walk around inside he found that lazy, impatient patrons were using GPS and satellite images to negotiate the 7-foot high pathways.

But using Google Earth to navigate a maze seems stupid. Isn’t the whole point of a maze to get lost and try to avoid dead ends as you slowly creep towards the exit? As my mother never tired of telling me, you’re only cheating yourself. It’s like buying a delicious cake and then getting somebody else to eat it for you, or following a walk-through guide to a video game.

On the other hand, we see stories almost weekly about idiots who follow their GPS into sticky or dangerous situations. Perhaps Longleat could add shifting hedge walls, or better, add piranha pits and crocodiles. Try using your iPhone to beat that.

IPhone cheats crack Britain’s biggest hedge maze in minutes [Mail]

Photo: Andrew/Flickr

See Also:

• GPS Users Still Lost in the Woods
• GPS Causes 300000 Brits to Crash

Follow us for real-time tech news: Charlie Sorrel and Gadget Lab on Twitter.

Late yesterday, Verizon and Motorola announced a new Android smartphone with a front-facing QWERTY keyboard, sleek black business-casual look and a 3.1″ multitouch multimedia screen. The Droid Pro is expected to attract a big chunk of Verizon’s existing Android and Blackberry high-end and business users when released in the coming weeks.

My first, beloved smartphone was a first-generation Blackberry Bold; for me, Motorola’s Droid Pro is clearly the handsomest Android phone I have ever seen. (Yes, I like it more than the R2-D2 Droid.) The major differences between the new Droid Pro and my old Blackberry Bold are Android apps and a touchscreen. As long as the Droid Pro’s keyboard is a champ like the Bold’s, the touchscreen isn’t too teeny and its yet-unannounced pricing isn’t too obscene, we can say that it’s improved in every way.

The Droid Pro’s specs are also impressive: Android 2.2., a 1GHz processor with 2GB of storage, Adobe Flash Player 10.1 and support for both Exchange and Google email and calendar programs. It can act as a 3G mobile hotspot (although Verizon has disabled that functionality for current Droid users) or stream media from a server over a Wi-Fi network using the Digital Living Network Alliance (DLNA) standard. Its 5MP camera can shoot still images and video, so you might even have something on your phone worth streaming back.

When the Droid Pro’s finally released, upgraders should make sure they don’t throw their old phones away: Verizon Wireless today announced a new trade-in/recycling program that will appraise your old phone, refurbish or recycle it and offer you a Verizon Gift Card. Even non-Verizon phones can be traded in, so network-switchers can take advantage of it too.

Price and release date for the Droid Pro have yet to be announced; when released, it will be available through Verizon Wireless’s online and retail outlets. You can fully expect that Verizon’s people will be happy to sell you one.

Image from Motorola.

See Also:

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• Hands On With the Motorola Droid X
• Verizon Won't Offer Free Tethering, but Droid Hackers Might …
• HTC Droid Eris
• HTC 'Incredible' Android Phone Lands on Verizon
• The R2-D2 Droid Phone You're Looking For
• Reviled by Reviewers, BlackBerry's Storm Rages On
• Verizon + Skype Not Mobile VoIP Nirvana, But Closer
• Android Gains While iPhone, BlackBerry Lose Share
• Most Clicked Mobile Ads Aren't On Android or iPhone

SAN FRANCISCO — Cisco on Wednesday morning launched an electronics kit that turns a high-definition television into an expensive videoconferencing phone.

Called Umi (pronounced “you-me”) Telepresence, the product includes a console, an HD camera and a remote control. The console containing the video-conferencing software hooks up to the television and a broadband connection. The Umi kit costs $600 and an additional $25 per month for the phone service.

Umi videoconferencing is not limited to Umi users. Cisco has partnered with Google so that people can use Google’s video chat service on their computers to chat with Umi users, Cisco said during a morning press conference in San Francisco.

“Video is the most powerful medium of all, and if the experience is right it changes behavior and it changes the way people live, play and learn,” said Marthin De Beer, Cisco’s senior vice president of emerging technologies. “Umi telepresence is about you and me connecting in new ways on your television.”

Video conferencing broke into the mainstream in the 2000s when the feature became available in instant-messaging clients such as iChat and Google Chat. In recent years, tech manufacturers have been pushing the technology beyond computers onto devices like smartphones and televisions. The iPhone 4, for example, includes a front-facing camera for “FaceTime” video chatting anywhere you have a Wi-Fi connection. TV-based videoconferencing is catered to group interactions: business meetings, for example, or connecting with family members.

Gina Clark, vice president of the Umi Telepresence product group, said that the Umi will be extremely easy for any type of user to set up.

“The natural behavior and sense of being able to roam around that living room and really enjoy each other is the difference with Umi Telepresence versus competing products,” Clark said.

The Umi is shipping November 14, available at Best Buy and Magnolia Home Theater retail stores. Pre-orders begin today.

Product page [Cisco]

See Also:

• Apple Unveils High-Resolution, Videoconferencing iPhone 4
• Nyoombl Uses the TV for Video Conferencing
• Asus Announces World’s First Skype Video Phone

Photo: Brian X. Chen/Wired.com