November 19th, 2009

7 things you should know about Body Area Networks (BANs)

Posted by Chris Jablonski @ 12:08 am

Categories: Computers & Internet, Defense & Security, Health & Medicine, Wireless & Telecom

Tags: Communication, Sensor, IEEE, Wireless, Body Area Networks Technology, Wi-Fi, Wireless And Mobility, Chris Jablonski

The budding field of Body Area Networks gives new meaning to the term “personal” in PCs. In a nutshell, the technology leverages wireless communications protocols that allow for low-powered sensors to communicate with one another and transmit data to a local base station and to remote places like hospitals.

For instance, small flat sensors placed on the skin, or even under it, could be used to create a “medical” body area network that provides doctors with real-time data about their patients’ bio-signs. Another key application is short-range person-to-person communications that could help protect front line soldiers in combat.

BAN technology is still in its infancy and mainstream adoption is still over the horizon as engineers and researchers work to overcome challenges involving interoperability, sensor design constraints (i.e. power and complexity), privacy, and security to name a few. Once these issues are overcome, expect BANs to first revolutionize healthcare allowing for concepts like telemedicine and mHealth to become real, and potentially allow for groundbreaking uses in communications, security, and sports.

Below, in no particular order, is a list of facts, news, and generally good things to know about BANs: Read the rest of this entry »

October 9th, 2009

Ubicomp 2009 and the fusion of our digital and physical worlds

Posted by Chris Jablonski @ 12:00 am

Categories: Computers & Internet, Engineering & Innovation, Wireless & Telecom

Tags: Ubiquitous Computing, Cell Phone, Chris Jablonski

Recently, I used my newly downloaded Zipcar app on my iPhone to unlock and honk my booked vehicle from several yards away. It was more novel than useful, but a tall tale example of the countless invisible interactions we’re having with sensing, inferring, and data transferring machines every day. It’s also a good sign that ubiquitous computing (ubicomp) has arrived.

New to ubicomp? Here’s a quick refresher: The concept of ubiquitous computing (also called pervasive computing) centers on information processing bridging the gaps between the digital and physical worlds. It includes all intelligent device communications and connected services that utilize sensors and devices across wire-line and wireless networks. That includes, but is not limited to, Industrial Ethernet, cellular, satellite, wireless LAN, and Bluetooth.

A recent conference dedicated to ubiquitous computing is another example of the multidisciplinary field anchoring in as the center of our computing future.  Hundreds of researchers and students gathered at the 11th International Conference on Ubiquitous Computing (UbiComp ‘09) at the Walt Disney World Resort in Orlando to present their ideas for the gadgets of tomorrow.

Here are a few of the notable examples that made it into the Miami Herald:

• The “Cheeron++” is a fluffy color-changing robot built by students in Japan that cheers after a day of exercise, and gets mad when you haven’t been active enough.
• Another student from Ochanomizu University in Japan put computer chips in clothes hangers that could help a computer keep track of your outfits and share it with a social network like Twitter to help you coordinate your wardrobe.
• Students from Tsinghua University in China used cellphone cameras and a projector to let passersby use a phone to brush the air and paint on the projected image.
• A group from Carnegie Mellon University proposed sensors in cellphones to test the air quality.

Eric Paulos, an assistant professor at Carnegie Mellon, told the Miami Herald; “We’re used to using our mobile phones as a communication tool, but it can also be a measurement instrument. We know what happened when people added a camera, we got citizen journalism. . . . What happens if you could measure things? You could talk about the air quality in your neighborhood.”

The combination of technologies that continually provide real time information at the point of task and distribute updates to where we are and what we are doing will change our behaviors and make ubiquitous computing indispensable.

June 24th, 2009

Students create portable device to detect suicide bombers

Posted by Chris Jablonski @ 11:52 pm

Categories: Defense & Security, Engineering & Innovation, Wireless & Telecom

Tags: Student, Air Force, Portable Device, Corporate Communications, Handhelds, Networking, Marketing, Hardware, Chris Jablonski

According to latest reports, improvised explosive devices (IEDs), the weapons of suicide bombers, are responsible for about half of soldier casualties in Iraq and Afghanistan.

To help contain this urgent threat, specialized contractors are being called in to provide services like counter IED training and technologies like counter-IED jammers. But a group of undergraduate engineering students at the University of Michigan has developed a new way to detect IEDs that appears to be magnitudes cheaper than comparable approaches.

The students invented a wireless network of portable hand-held metal detectors that could be hidden in trash cans, under tables, in flower pots, and, ideally, in inconspicuous roadside objects, for example. The network of palm-sized detectors conveys to a base station where suspicious objects are located and who might be carrying them. Compared with existing technology, the sensors are cheaper, lower-power and longer-range.  Each of the sensors weighs only about 2 pounds.

Read the rest of this entry »

June 8th, 2009

Heads up! Interactive data eyeglasses

Posted by Chris Jablonski @ 6:39 pm

Categories: Computers & Internet, Engineering & Innovation, Wireless & Telecom

Tags: Team, Temple, Organic Light-emitting Diode, Image, Chip, Team Management, Semiconductors, Network Technology, Management, Hardware

A team of scientists at the Fraunhofer Institute for Photonic Microsystems IPMS in Dresden, Germany, is working on a device which incorporates eye tracking to influence the content presented to the viewer. Without having to use any other devices to enter instructions, the wearer can display new content, scroll through a menu or shift picture elements simply by moving her eyes or fixing on certain points in the image.

The data eyeglasses display information and respond to commands. Credit: Fraunhofer IPMS

“We want to make the eyeglasses bidirectional and interactive so that new areas of application can be opened up,” says Dr. Michael Scholles, business unit manager at IPMS.

Read the rest of this entry »

April 8th, 2009

Top 5 futuristic music interfaces and instruments

Posted by Chris Jablonski @ 3:47 pm

Categories: Computers & Internet, Leisure, Wireless & Telecom

Tags: Performance, Instrument, Video, Music, Kurt Biederwolf, Corporate Communications, Performance Management, Marketing, Human Resources, Workforce Management

You may recently have heard about the Stanford Mobile Phone Orchestra, or MoPhO, a six person orchestra that uses iPhones to play improvisational pieces and chamber music. The group’s Ocarina app has been downloaded 600,000 times, which means that many people now have a 12,000-year-old clay wind instrument at their fingertips.

The creation and control of music is already democratized through cheap production software. Now, gesture-based computing is opening the door further with a new breed of music applications available on mainstream devices such as the iPhone and Wii.

Still, there are also intriguing music controllers and interfaces on the market that are relatively obscure. I contacted Kurt Biederwolf, who holds the Music Synthesis chair at the Berklee College of Music in Boston, MA, for his take on the state of music technology and key examples.

“So far, traditional MIDI interfaces have been limited to traditional instrument groups: keyboard, percussion, wind, string, etc. But now we’re seeing a crop of really fresh alternatives,” said Biederwolf. “We are seeing the acceptance of a new type of music aesthetic. Artists are approaching sound in a gestural way with an evocative quality.”

In no particular order, here are the coolest instruments, controllers and interfaces that are available on the market:

Monome

Designed by staunch environmentalists Brian Crabtree and Kelli Cain, the simple device has a reconfigurable grid of backlit buttons that can be programmed to trigger a variety of audio and video functions or scripts. It connects to a computer and the interaction between the keys and lights is determined by the application running.  The minimal device has no hard-wired functionality, but is rather an open ended performance interface designed for customization. It uses the Open Sound Control protocol.

“All of these devices can use MIDI commands, but there is a newer protocol called Open Sound Control (OSC) which is essentially a high-res version of MIDI that is more flexible and offers no  preconceived notion of what it is supposed to be for. It’s for deep shaping of audio rather than just triggering musical notes and basic controller events,” said Biederwolf.  (Video)

Lemur

The Lemur, from Jazzmutant, has a multi-touch-sensitive surface that can track multiple fingers simultaneously. The controller allows for users to design and assemble the interfaces themselves with sets of generic control objects such as faders, switches, and pads. Biederwolf explains: “With the Lemur, you can build your own interface on the touch screen and create anything you might need to interact with software in a performance setting or in compositional work.”

“There’s a bit of emulated physics involved. For example, you can create a ball that will follow the movement of your finger on the screen, and its movement can be set to affect a number of sonic and/or visual parameters. You can even create one for each finger and “throw” them around so that as they move about or bounce off the screen’s boundaries they affect multiple sounds and effects. You even have control over the amount of friction as they travel,” he said. (Video)

Next –>

April 6th, 2009

Interview with Andrea Vaccari, research associate at MIT's SENSEable City Laboratory

Posted by Chris Jablonski @ 6:04 pm

Categories: Computers & Internet, Energy & Environment, Engineering & Innovation, Wireless & Telecom

Tags: City, Mobile, Network, Data, Massachusetts Institute Of Technology, Cell Phone, Analysis, SENSEable City Laboratory, Cellular Phones, Networking

Now that machine and sensor data is joining social data traffic on the Internet, the ability to interpret and create meaning out of the information to improve life could be the post-Web 2.0 manifesto.

MIT’s Senseable City Lab has been on the task for years with various projects that utilize sensors and hand-held electronics to help describe and understand cities. But some skeptics, while impressed by the “info-porn” generated by the lab’s data visualizations of city-scale data, are now asking if the work will create meaningful change in cities.

Andrea Vaccari, a research associate at the lab spoke recently at the ETech conference in San Jose, and ZDNet caught up with the researcher to get more resolution around the latest work and aims of the Senseable City Lab.

For those unfamiliar with the lab, tell us a little about the work and your background.

I’m a Research Associate at the Senseable City Lab of the Massachusetts Institute of Technology where I investigate how digital technologies are revolutionizing the way we live in urban areas, the way we study people’s flows through urban space, and the way we can configure more livable, sustainable, and efficient cities.

I leverage the huge volume of real time geotagged data provided by mobile devices, sensor networks, and pervasive systems to better understand cities as real-time control systems, and to provide new tools to innovate and anticipate the effects of such innovations.

I’m currently working on CurrentCity, a new initiative that aims at analyzing and visualizing aggregate information on cell phone activity to identify unexpected events and assist public authorities and first responders.  Another project is MIT Enernet, a platform to identify, assess, and communicate energy efficiency opportunities by studying energy consumption, HVAC levels and human occupancy at the scale of the room, estimated through connections to the WiFi network.

Credit: CurrentCity.org

Read the rest of this entry »

February 25th, 2009

ETech 2009 Preview

Posted by Chris Jablonski @ 5:07 pm

Categories: Computers & Internet, Energy & Environment, Engineering & Innovation, Health & Medicine, Nanotechnology, Robotics, Science & Nature, Wireless & Telecom

Tags: Technology, Cyberthreats, Manufacturing, Government, Viruses And Worms, Security, Chris Jablonski

Next month, Silicon Valley welcomes ETech, the O’Reilly Emerging Technology Conference. In it’s 8th year now, the hands-on confab brings together thinkers, doers and “alpha geeks” to demo and discuss disruptive technologies and business models. The overarching theme for the four-day event that’ll kick-off March 9th is how the way we live is changing — through policy, technology and ideas. ‘The proliferation of sensors, advances in materials and manufacturing, the changes in government and the financial market will all have a profound effect on our industry.’

There’s little doubt that in his keynote talk, Tim O’Reilly, founder and CEO, will bring into context the current economic climate and global resource concerns as he shares his seasoned perspectives on the latest technology trends.

The conference schedule is extensive, so here are but a few of the highlights:

• Real Hackers Program DNA - MIT biological engineer discusses the development of technologies that allow for rapid prototyping of biological systems.
• Low-Cost, Low-Power Computing - Mary Lou Jepsen, former CTO of the OLPC, has started a new company aimed at a low-cost, low-power screen. She will share insights gained in manufacturing, developing, and deploying this new technology.
• Viral Forecasting -  (visiting) Standford Professor Dr. Nathan Wolfe will discuss how novel viruses enter into the human population from animals and go on to become pandemics, then discuss attempts to study this process and attempt to control emergent viruses.
• Sustaining the American Family - Worldchanging’s Alex Steffen shows the results of his latest project about how to make us more sustainable.

February 17th, 2009

Nano-sized radio plays Eric Clapton’s "Layla"

Posted by Chris Jablonski @ 5:23 pm

Categories: Nanotechnology, Wireless & Telecom

Tags: Nanotube, Radio, Nanotube Radio, Nanotechnology, Advertising & Promotion, Emerging Technologies, Marketing, Chris Jablonski

Accurately more nano than the iPod Nano, a radio built out of a single carbon nanotube that detects and plays songs was singled out in the latest issue of Scientific American as one of the first truly functional nanoscale devices that has a “measurable effect on the larger, macroscale world.”

Credit: Zettl Research Group, Lawrence Berkeley National Laboratory and University of California at Berkeley

The nanotube radio was developed in 2007 by physicist Alex Zettl and his colleagues at the University of California, Berkeley. It is a fully functional, fully integrated radio receiver, orders-of-magnitude smaller than any previous radio. If you’re in disbelief, you can actually listen to the song “Layla” played on the nanotube radio. (Note there’s a significant amount of static noise since it uses none of the external circuitry to filter or process the signal typically found in typical radios).

Why the nanotube radio sticks out as a milestone in the world of nanotechnology two years after its development is likely two-fold. For one, a functioning miniature of an everyday electronic device that qualifies as a nanoscale machine is pretty cool. Secondly, it’s an achievement that’s relatively easier to understand as compared to most emerging nanotechnology-based applications, especially those in the area of computing and biotechnology.

Read the rest of this entry »

November 16th, 2008

1,000-device personal networks in 2017?

Posted by Roland Piquepaille @ 7:48 am

Categories: Computers & Internet, Engineering & Innovation, Wireless & Telecom

Tags: Researcher, Network, Bluetooth, Networking, Wireless, Roland Piquepaille, Device, Sensor

According to ICT Results in ‘The Network of Everything,’ wireless experts estimate that our personal networks will include about a thousand devices in 2017, including dozens of sensors checking our health and our home. This is why European researchers have launched in 2006 a networking project called ‘MAGNET Beyond.’ The name is an acronym for ‘My personal adaptive Global NET and beyond.’ The article suggests that the researchers have in fact built the Smart Personal Network, which integrates the concepts of Personal Networks (PNs) and Personal Area Networks (PANs). Read more to discover the results already achieved…

The EU-funded MAGNET Beyond project was completed in June 2008 by a consortium of 35 companies from 16 countries. The EU provided about €10 million for a budget of over €17 million. The picture above shows the ‘MAGNET Beyond’ architecture. (Credit: MAGNET Beyond) Here is a link to a larger version of this diagram and another one to a page giving additional details.

But first, where does this number of a thousand devices in a personal network come from? “In reality, it is hard to know what kind of devices or technology might be around for sure, but one thing is certain… there will be a lot of them. Hence the Wireless World Research Forum’s (WWRF) prediction of 7 trillion devices for 7 billion people by 2017 — in other words, around a thousand devices for every man, woman and child on the planet.”

How is this possible?

Read the rest of this entry »

November 6th, 2008

Using wireless networks to avoid car crashes

Posted by Roland Piquepaille @ 9:31 am

Categories: Computers & Internet, Engineering & Innovation, Wireless & Telecom

Tags: Car, Network, Wireless Network, Wireless, Roland Piquepaille

European researchers are working on a project named I-WAY, an acronym for ‘Intelligent co-operative system in cars for road safety.’ The goal of this project is to develop new automotive safety systems that will alert drivers to potential hazards by using data obtained from in-vehicle sensing systems, the road infrastructure and other road users. With this system, drivers will receive warnings and alerts for weather conditions, traffic jams or accidents, so that they could avoid crashes. The I-WAY project started in February 2006 and should be completed in January 2009 for a total cost of 4.59 million euro, with a EU funding of 2.6 million euro. But read more…

You can see above the architecture used by the I-WAY project, which mixes information gathered by the in-vehicle subsystems and from the external transport system. (Credit: I-WAY project) Foe more information, here are two links to the official I-WAY website and to its description by the EU.

As mentioned in the first paragraph, this project is far from completed. However, preliminary results are encouraging.

Read the rest of this entry »