Japanese carrier KDDI’s never been shy about showing off its latest and greatest from its lab, and here at CEATEC 2011 we got to lay our fingers on a couple of its in-development smartphone sensory enhancements, along with a free-viewpoint concert concept that’s being researched on. The first demo we saw was actually the same haptic smartphone prototype that was unveiled back in May, but we thought it’d be nice to give it a go with our very own hands — read on to find out how well it performed.
A baby book for our cosmos? That’d be a happy by-product of the massive insight star-gazing scientists are set to glean from Alma — the telescope responsible for ushering in a “new golden age of astronomy.” The Atacama large millimeter/submillimeter array (as it’s known in long form), located 3,000 meters above sea level on a Chilean plateau, goes beyond the voyeuristic powers of current optical telescopes, delivering detailed imagery of the dense gas clouds that birth baby stars. Why is this significant? Well, using the complex 20-antenna strong array (a total of 66 are planned), astronomers from North America, Europe and Japan will get a first-hand glimpse of the gaseous mix that was our universe a few hundred million years post-Big Bang. Consider the research a time-traveling peek back into the formative years of existence. Heady stuff, yes, but the array won’t have its multiple, celestial-focused eyes trained solely on star nurseries; scientists from around the globe already plan on getting an up close look at the Sagittarius A black hole. When these “Pyramids of the 21st Century” finish construction in 2013, we’ll be just one step closer to viewing the limits of our cosmic fishbowl.
The eyes of the physics community are collectively fixed upon Illinois today, where, later this afternoon, researchers at Fermilab will shut down the Tevatron particle accelerator… for good. That’s right — the world’s second-largest collider is being laid to rest, after a remarkable 25-year run that was recently halted due to budgetary constraints. Earlier this year, Fermilab’s scientists and a group of prominent physicists pleaded with the government to keep the Tevatron running until 2014, but the Energy Department ultimately determined that the lab’s $100 million price tag was too steep, effectively driving a nail through the accelerator’s subterranean, four-mile-long coffin. First activated in 1985, the Tevatron scored a series of subatomic breakthroughs over the course of its lifespan, including, most notably, the discovery of the so-called top quark in 1995. Its groundbreaking technology, meanwhile, helped pave the way for CERN’s Large Hadron Collider, which will now pursue the one jewel missing from the Tevatron’s resume — the Higgs boson. Many experts contend that the collider could’ve gone on to achieve much more, but its ride will nonetheless come to an inglorious end at 2PM today, when Fermilab director Pier Oddone oversees the Tevatron’s last rites. “That will be it,” physicist Gregorio Bernardi told the Washington Post. “Then we’ll have a big party.”
Microsoft Research was founded way back in 1991 as a way of turning cutting edge concepts into products. Over the years, the division has been behind some of the most exciting ideas that have come out of Redmond, from fluffy mice to HIV / AIDS research. The department is celebrating its 20th anniversary by highlighting some of its favorite projects over the next four weeks, so we’re beating it to the punch with some of picks. Check out our list below.
Spain — the land of pasión, jamón ibérico and flamenco is throwing a stylish solución towards the medical community’s way. Researchers at the Universidad Carlos III de Madrid have created an intelligent eT-shirt (looks more like a tank top to us) for biomonitoring of hospital patients. The wearable, washable chaleco is embedded with electrodes that monitor its wearer’s vitals, and a removable thermometer and accelerometer for the collection of temperature and positioning data. A separate in-pocket GPS dongle is also used to locate individuals “within a two-meter margin of error,” but the team plans to incorporate this localizer directly into the shirt in future iterations. Tested at the Cardiology unit of Madrid’s Hospital Universitario La Paz, the collaborative LOBIN (Locating & Biomonitoring by means of Wireless Networks in Hospitals) project prototype could help reduce in-patient stays, delivering SMS alerts to off-site, connected medical staffs. No word on whether this’ll be offered in S, M, L or XL, but hey, at least that black is slimming. ¿Hablas español? Pues, skip past the break for a video tour of the form-fitting device.
Notoriously difficult to pin down, electrons have always been free spirits — until now that is. According to a paper published by science journal Nature, folk at Cambridge University much cleverer than we have tamed single electrons, succeeding in coaxing them directly from point-to-point. The technique involves creating a small hole in gallium arsenide, called a “quantum dot,” then creating a channel of energy higher than the neighboring electrons to shuttle cargo off to another empty “dot.” Why should you care? Well, while you might not see this technology in the next smartphone, it should give quantum computing a bit of a nudge forward, smoothing the rate of information transfer. If the concept works out, it’ll improve the way qubits move around those sub-atomic circuits, where jumping around like a frog in a sock is generally considered bad form.
The yellow blob-like My Keepon is a small stationary robot that reacts to touch and music. It’s been tickling audiences over the web for years, but in a month from now, you’ll be able to take home one of your own.
We got a chance to check out a final production prototype of My Keepon in real life. It’s no Wall-E or Jonny 5, but if you’re looking for a dancing companion who won’t steal the spotlight, it’s an entertaining addition to your desk or bookshelf.
My Keepon has two modes: music and touch. In music mode, it listens for a rhythm using sophisticated beat detection software. It can either detect strong beats, like hand clapping or drum hits, or listen in a different way to react to more complicated music. The “dancing” is a mix of squirming up and down, leaning side to side and rotating around his base, and the style varies depending on the music being played. You can choose which mode you want it in with one of two buttons toward the bottom of its black base.
The robot has a sensor on its head, a mic in its nose and sensors all around its belly. You can scratch its nose, bop its head, or poke it in the side or the stomach, and it’ll react with a combination of sound and movement.
“He doesn’t like being poked in his butt,” said Marek Michalowski, co-creator of the robot. When My Keepon is poked in the rear, it issues an indignant exclamation and sometimes turns around to “see” who did it.
The robot was responsive to the various stimuli Michalowski and I put it through. It sometimes had trouble finding the beat of more mellow tunes, but a quick song change fixed that (and who wants to rock out to Celine Dion anyway?). The prototype we used was responsive to pokes, prods and hugs when you squeeze both sides of its spherical body, and the little sighs and squeaks, beeps and boops, are completely giggle-inducing. If I had one of these at my desk, rest assured my productivity level would go way down (and my coworkers might hate me). Unfortunately, like many toys there is a degree of novelty to My Keepon that could get worn after a handful of uses and leave it dusty and forlorn on a bookshelf.
Though the robot is cute (and fun!), it’s also dancing for a good cause. Michalowski helped develop the $30,000 original Keepon used to study social interaction with autistic children. A portion of proceeds from the My Keepon toy go back toward putting more research Keepons in the hands of clinics working with autism.
As the consumer version of the robot won’t run you $30,000, it’s obviously a bit of a downgrade. For instance, the research version of the robot is made of silicon rubber; the consumer My Keepon is made of a similar, cheaper material able to be mass-produced. The consumer version also lacks a camera, which the research version includes for tele-operational purposes.
The My Keepon robot will be available for purchase in late October for less than $50.
You can test drive a car before buying it, so why not take the same approach to pregnancy? Such is the idea, apparently, behind the “Mommy Tummy” — a system that gives women (or men) a taste of what it would feel like to have a bun in the oven, even if they haven’t received any lovin’. Developed by researchers at Japan’s Kanagawa Institute of Technology, this simulator invites users to don a jacket replete with rubber balloons, vibrators, a water bag and other things you’d expect to find in Buffalo Bill’s basement. Once strapped on, the jacket’s midsection gradually expands as it swells with warm water funneled in from an adjacent tank, resulting in an immaculately conceived baby bump. A compressor, meanwhile, slowly augments the jacket’s chest area, while a separate array of balloons rapidly inflate and deflate, thereby mimicking the kicking and side-to-side movements of a real-life fetus. KIRF mothers can monitor their KIRF baby’s vital signs on a monitor, though they’ll have to pay close attention. Unlike real pregnancies, the Mommy Tummy’s gestation period lasts a merciful two minutes, giving your boyfriend just enough time to formulate a coherent response. Must-see video footage after the break.
Update: Turns out our bros at Joystiq got some hands-on time with this bundle of joy at TGS. Check it out.
Back in 2005, Bruce Logan and his team of Penn State researchers developed a microbial fuel cell capable of converting poop into power. Now, Logan has refined his system to the point where it can produce hydrogen from wastewater or biodegradable organic materials without using a drop of grid electricity, and without emitting even a hint of carbon dioxide. His approach, outlined in the September 19th issue of the Proceedings of the National Academy of Sciences, involves something known as reverse-electrodialysis (RED) — a process that harvests energy from the ionic discrepancy between fresh and salt water. Logan’s bacterial hydrolysis cell (pictured left) features a so-called RED stack that’s comprised of alternating positive and negative ion exchange membranes, which it uses to split water molecules into hydrogen and oxygen. Normally, this process would involve about 25 pairs of membranes, but by using RED technology in conjunction with electricity-producing exoelectrogenic bacteria, Penn State’s team was able to extract hydrogen with just five membrane pairs. All told, Logan’s cells proved to be about 58 to 64 percent energy efficient, while producing between 0.8 to 1.6 cubic meters of hydrogen for every cubic meter of liquid that passed through the system. The researchers’ results show that only one percent of that energy was used to pump water through the cells, which are completely carbon neutral, as well. According to Logan, this breakthrough demonstrates that “pure hydrogen gas can efficiently be produced from virtually limitless supplies of seawater and river water and biodegradable organic matter.” Somewhere, the US Navy is taking scrupulous notes. Full PR after the break.
If we ever manage to capture a live giant squid, researchers at the University of Washington are going to have a field day. Enterprising minds at the institution’s materials science and engineering department have discovered a use for chitosan — an extract made from squid pen or crab shells that could lead us down a cybernetic road to human / machine interfaces. The team incorporated the organic compound into their field-effect transistor prototype, and effectively created the first protonic circuitry “that’s completely analogous to [the way] an electronic current” can be manipulated. Naturally, the silicon-based tech isn’t ready (or safe) for implantation into humans just yet, but could one day be used to control biological functions, sending on / off commands to our bodies. So, maybe we won’t have to fear that robot apocalypse, after all. You never know, give scientists ample time to fully flesh this advancement out and Spielberg’s next great cinematic, sci-fi opus could wind up becoming a cyborg rom-com. Stranger things have happened folks.
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