Plastic 12-Bit RFID Tag and Read-Out System With Screen-Printed Antenna

Quad Industries, Agfa, Imec and TNO made an announcement recently that they established and verified a plastic 12-bit RFID tag and read-out systems with security that is screen printed. For the first time, the system combines a screen-printed antenna and a printed user interface that is based on touch, which allows the reader to operate on curved surfaces. The demonstrator has developed for applications pertaining to badge security, but also shows scope for many other applications as well such as smart packages, games that require interaction and wearables.

Compared to silicon (Si)-based identification devices, RFID tags that are made of plastic electronics have more advantages. They can be attached to curved packaging, effortlessly incorporated in everyday objects and its manufacturing is low-cost. The usual application consists of identification of items, smart food packaging, protecting the brand and badge security. A dedicated RFID reader is needed to scan the RFID tag which is usually in two centimetres of the tag. The antenna in the tag as well as the reader should both be flexible, utilising the advantages of plastic electronics to the fullest. Screen-printed antennas have been applied effectively on the top of an RFID tag but inflexible PCB-based antennas are generally used by the read-out systems. This is primarily because of the fact that the printed antenna has a poor resistance and Q-factor.

For the first time, industries like Imec, Quad Industries and Agfa have combined a screen-printed antenna in both of the items, the RFID tag as well as the read-out system. This allows the application of both these devices on a diverse range of surfaces. Quad Industries have screen-printed antennas using printing inks from Agfa.

This new technology has been demonstrated in an application pertaining to badge security. The access badge integrates the printed antenna, which is size of a credit-card, with a plastic 12-bit RFID chip, placed on plastic substrate that’s flexible. Imec’s metal-oxide thin-film transistor (TFT) technology has been used to manufacture the RFID tag. Large-area manufacturing processes are used by this technology that makes large-scale production at a low cost possible.

The read-out system includes uniquely printed functionality at diverse levels. To begin with, an RFID read-out antenna is made by screen-printing on a plastic film, making room for best possible integration on flat, curved or 3-D shaped reading surfaces. Also, a fully printed touch screen interface with numerical keypad has been placed between the cover lens and the display, which allows any user without a badge to enter the building by punching in a numerical code. Highly transparent screen-printed inks have been used to print these printed touch screen.

There are recently developed Ag inks which are nanoparticle based that makes lower resistances over conventional Ag-flake based inks achievable which in turn enables integrating new functionalities directly by screen printing. In addition to this, the antenna is printed at the same level as the printed touch screen which results in direct, more economical combination of the printed antenna and the customized touch screen in the device that’s the reader.

This technology allows for economical screen-printing manufacturing, is effortlessly customizable and eco-friendly and allows direct chip integration on many substrates which includes plastics, paper, etc. This technology also sees a promising use in smart packaging, smart PCB and smart gaming.

Sensor Solution: Sensor Boutique for Early Adopters

It is known that a very individual fraction of infrared light is absorbed by every chemical substance. This absorption can be used for recognising substances with the help of optical methods, which is almost like the concept of a human fingerprint.

To elaborate this concept, when the infrared radiation, that falls within a certain range of wavelength, are absorbed by molecules, they are animated to a higher level of vibration, in which they rotate and vibrate in a typical and distinctive pattern or rather in a “fingerprint” pattern. These patterns can be used for identifying specific chemical species. Such kind of a method is used, let’s say, for example, in the chemical industry but also has its uses in the health sector or in criminal investigation. A company often needs an individually tailored sensor solution if it plans a new project.

EU-funded pilot line called MIRPHAB (Mid InfraRedPhotonics devices fABrication for chemical sensing and spectroscopic applications) support companies that in search for a suitable system and help in the development of sensor technology and measurement technology in mid-infrared (MIR). Participating in this project is the Fraunhofer Institute for Applied Solid State Physics IAF.

Pilot line for ideal spectroscopy solutions

A company has very individual needs if it is looking for a sensor solution, for example, if it has to identify a particular substance in a production process. This begins with the substances that have to be recorded to the number of sensors required up to the speed of the process of production.Considering most of the cases, a custom-made solution that suits all does not suffice and various suppliers are required for the purpose of developing the optimal individual solution.Here is where MIRPHAB comes into picture and proves to be very useful.

Leading European research institutes and companies belonging to the MIR environment have collaborated to provide customers with a custom-made and best suited offers made from a single source. Parties that are interested can get in touch with a central contact person, who can then make a compilation of the best solutions possible from the MIRPHAB members component portfolio as per the modular principle.

EU funding has supported MIRPHAB in the development of the individual MIR sensor solution within the framework, in order to fortify the European industry in the long run and increase in its leading position in chemical analysis and sensor technology. This considerably lessens the investment costs and as a result also reduces the entry point for companies in the MIR area.

Companies that have previously faced high costs and development efforts are now looking at a high-quality MIR sensor solution as an object of interest due to its combination with the virtual infrastructure which is a development caused by MIRPHAB.Also, MIRPHAB provides companies access to the latest and modern technologies, enabling them with an added advantage as an early adopter compared to the competition.

Custom-madesource forMIR lasers

The Freiburg-basedFraunhofer Institute for Applied Solid State Physics IAF along with the Fraunhofer Institute for Photonic Microsystems IPMS situated in Dresden, is providing a central component of the MIRPHAB sensor solution. The Fraunhofer IAF is presenting the new technology of quantum cascade lasers that emanate laser light in the range of MIR. In this type of laser, the range of the wavelength of the emitted light is spectrally extensive and can be adapted as per requirement during manufacturing. To select a particular wavelength within the broad spectral range, an optical diffraction grating has to be used to choose and then coupled back into the laser chip. The wavelength can be adjusted constantly by turning the grating. This grating is created at the Fraunhofer IPMS in a scaled-down form in so-called Micro-Electro-Mechanical-System or MEMS technology.Thus it is then possible to oscillate the grating up to one kilohertz of frequency. This further enables the tuning of the laser source’s wavelength up to a thousand times per second over a large range of spectrum.
The Fraunhofer Institute for Production Technology IPT in Aachen also has involvement in MIRPHAB in order to make the manufacturing of lasers and ratings more proficient and to enhance them for pilot series fabrication.With the help of its proficiency, it changes the production of the quickly adaptable MIR laser into industrially applicable manufacturing processes.

Process exploration in actuality

Currently, there are many applications in the field of spectroscopy that are still in the category of visible or near the range of infrared and use comparatively feeble light sources. MIRPHAB provides solutions has the concept of infrared semiconductor lasers as a foundation. These have comparatively higher intensity of light thus allowing the scope for completely new applications. This results in a recording of up to 1,000 spectra per second with the help of the MIR laser source which, as an example, provides for the real time programmed monitoring and control of biotechnological processes and chemical reactions. Thus, MIRPHAB’s contribution is considered to be important and vital to the factory of the future.

Can Artificial Intelligence Help Us Make More Human Decisions?

About 88 million pages of original and authentic handwritten documents belonging to the past three-and-a-half centuries, line the tiled halls of a simple 16th-century trading house located right in the middle of Seville, Spain. These are stored here, incompletely transliterated, where some of them are almost indecipherable. A few of them were carried back on armadas from the Americas while a few have undergone scanning and digitisation.

These documents contain the answers and the context for the innumerable questions pertaining to the Conquistadors, the European history, the New World contact and colonialism, politics, law, economics and ancestry. However, it is unfortunate that hardly some of these carefully kept pages were ever read or interpreted since they were written and brought to Seville centuries before and it is highly unlikely that most of them never will be.

All hope is not lost as a researcher from the Stevens Institute of Technology is trying to get computers to read these documents, before we are out of time, while the documents are still readable. A Stevens computer science professor, Fernando Perez-Cruz asks “What if there was a machine, or a software, that could transcribe all of the documents?”.

Perez-Cruz, who’s expertise lies in the research area of machine learning also says “What if there was a way to teach another machine to combine into groups those 88 million pages and convert them into searchable text categorised into topics? Then we can start understanding the themes in those documents and then will be aware where to look in this storehouse of documents for our answers”. Thus Perez-Cruz is working on both factors of this two-fold approach which, if right, could then be applicable to many other new age and futuristic data analysis queries such as independent transport and analysis of medical data.

Pricing on Amazon, medical study, text reading machines

Perez-Cruz, who is a veteran of Amazon, Bell Labs, Princeton University and University Carlos III of Madrid, has had a very interesting career dealing with scientific challenges.In 2016, he joined Stevens and contributed to the growing asset of the computer science department of the university. Stevens aims at making this a strong research department which in turn is drawing more talent and resources. Perez-Cruz is using this to his advantage in his work. Currently, at Stevens, he is working to develop something called as ‘interpretable machine learning’ which is a systematized intelligence that humans can still work on.

As far as the problem of the historical document analysis is concerned, Perez-Cruz is in the hopes that he will be able to develop improved character-recognition engines. With the help of short excerpts of documents written in varied styles, which have been earlier transliterated by experts, he aims to teach software to identify both the forms of characters and often correlated associations between letters and words, thus constructing a growing recognition engine over time that is absolutely precise. The only question remains, he says, is that how much data or how much handwriting that is transcribed, is sufficient to do this well. The work on this concept is still developing.

Perez-Cruz states that he believes even though it is a technical challenge, it may still be achievable. He is even more fascinated about the next part which is organisation of large quantities of transcribed matter into topics that can be used in a glance. He says that the machine should be able to give us information right away from these three-and-a-half centuries of data when transcribed and should itself learn from the locations of the words and sentences. This is, what he calls, topic modelling.

A key link: Systematically grouping large data into easily accessible topics

After sufficient data has been entered into the algorithm, it begins to spot the most vital identifying and organizing forms and designs in the data. Very often, it so happens that various cues from the human researchers are vital and are searched for.Perez-Cruz notes that eventually, we might discover that there are, let’s say, a few hundred topics or descriptions that run through the whole of this archive and then all of a sudden there may be 88-million-document problems that have been scaled-down to 200 or 300 ideas.

If algorithms can consolidate 88 million pages of text into a few hundred lots, a huge progress in systematisation and efficiency can be achieved by historians and researchers who need to make choices about which particular document, theme or time periods are to be searched, reviewed and analysed in the formerly unmanageable archive. The same concept could be used to find styles, themes and concealed meaning in other vast unread databases.

He concludes saying that one begins with a huge quantity of unorganised data and in order to understand what material does that data contain and how it can be used, a kind of a structure needs to be brought to that data. Once the data is comprehended, one can begin to read it in a particular way, understand better what questions are to be asked pertaining to that information and make better conclusions.

Selfies: Selfie-Presentation in Everyday Life

Study – First Significant Experimental Research on Selfie

 
Georgia Institute of Technology researchers have scrutinized through 2.5 million selfie post on Instagram, to comprehend the photographic spectacle better and how people tend to form their personalities online and to determine what types of identity statement people tend to make on taking and sharing selfies. When it comes to Selfies, appearance tends to be almost everything.

Almost 52% of all selfies tend to fall in the category of appearance, with images of people portraying their make-up, clothes, lips etc. Images regarding looks seems to be twice more well-known than the other 14 categories altogether. After the appearance category, social selfies with friends, loved ones as well as pets were most common to 14%.

The ethnicity images at 13%, travel – 7% and health and fitness to 5%. It was observed by the researchers that the prevalence of ethnicity selfies is an indication that people seem to be proud of their background and also found that several selfies were solo picture instead of taken with a group. The data had been collected in the summer of 2015.the Georgia Tech team are of the belief that the study is the first significant experimental research on selfies.
 

Selfie – An Identity Performance

 
Generally, on Instagram, an overpowering 57% of selfies had been posted by 18-35 year old multitude which according to the researchers is not too surprising taking into account the demographic of the social media platform.

Selfies posted by the under-18 age group was about 30% while the older group of 35+ shared them less often around 13%. Appearance on the other hand was most popular among the crowd of all age groups. Julia Deeb-Swihart, lead author stated that selfies are an identity performance which means that users tend to carefully craft the way they may tend to appear online, which is an extension of that.

 Deep-Swihart had stated that `just like on other social media channels, people are inclined to project an identity promoting their wealth, health together with physical attractiveness, with selfies we decide how to present ourselves to the audience and the audiences tends to decide how it identifies you.

 

Type of Blending of Online/Offline Selves

  This work is stuck in the theory offered by Erving Goffman in `The Presentation of Self in Everyday Life’. The attires we tend to choose to wear together with the social roles we are inclined to play, are all intended to control the version of ourselves we prefer our peers to view.

Deeb-Swihart had commented that `selfies are a type of blending of our online and offline selves and is a way to prove what is true in your life or at least what one would want people to believe is true’. The data had been accumulated by the researchers by searching for `#selfie’, then utilised computer vision to confirm that the pictures really included faces.

 Almost half of them did not seem to have and they found plenty of spam with blank images or text. The accounts had been utilising the hashtag in order to show up in additional searches for the purpose of obtaining more followers.

How to Create the Perfect App

App Streamlining Path to App Success

A lot of individuals would prefer pricing their app at the 99 cent price point and by default, it could not essentially be the best price for your app. But 99 cents could be a good offer for a game which kids tend to buy since it seems easy for them to convince their parents to spend some money on a game. However when it comes to an utility apps, there seems a sense that one would get what you pay for and hence people could really opt for a higher priced app in the same group.

Some may prefer to charge a million dollar from a user though no one would purchase it. However one needs to be realistic while not underestimating one’s services. An individual could experiment with their price and find a price where some seem to purchase your app at a fast speed. Several of the app makers tend to find the price to be about $4.

 App monetization assistance is provided to individuals by online service provider. The app had been developed in order to assist streamlining the path to app success and is expecting that with the help of videos they would be successful in directing the user step by step to their app career.

Various App Styles – Develop & Monetize

Guidance is provided in imparting knowledge on how to build an app from scratch, how to create an app from a template and how one could distribute your app. Moreover there are also videos which could explain the marketing techniques together with videos that provide full explanation.

At times reading on how to develop and market an Android app could be puzzling and daunting and essential information has been made available by the provider for every app making need though there could be requirement of further assistance and it is here that the provider offers the necessary guidance.

A short one minute video tutorials has been created which tends to portray how one could create an app from scratch, giving the user ideas for content, guiding them on how to make money from their app. They have also permitted the complete collection of app templates to be monetized which gives the user more than 50 various app styles that one could develop and monetize.

Style of Affiliate Ads

For creating apps one could log in and opt for the template style. Then you could insert your content either the URL of your company, your brand icon, family video, or any content which one may have developed and within a few clicks it is accomplished.

To monetize the app, one needs to insert the code of your ad publisher in your dashboard within the monetization tab. The best way to monetize your app in a passive way is the banner ads. The way it tends to work means that a person at any point of time is using your app and with the banners displayed, you tend to get revenue though the amount earned is not known since it is based on several factors.

This could comprise the style of affiliate ads one may have chosen, the number of times people may tend to view the banners and the time which is spent on your app.

Cyber Firms Warn of Malware That Could Cause Power Outages

Malicious Software – Modified with Ease Harming Critical Infrastructure

It was recently noted that malicious software had been uncovered by two cyber security firms which is presumed to have caused a December 2016 Ukraine power outage, cautioning that the malware could be modified with ease in harming critical infrastructure operations all over the world.

A Slovakian maker of anti-virus software – ESET together with Dragos Inc. a U.S. critical-infrastructure security firm had released information analyses of the malware called Industroyer or Crash override and had dispensed private alerts to governments as well as infrastructure operators to assist them in defending against the threat.

The U.S. Department of Homeland Security had mentioned that they were investigating the malware but it had not perceived any evidence to put forward that it had infected U.S. critical infrastructure. The two firms had stated that they were not aware of who had been behind the cyber-attack. Ukraine had put the blame on Russia but the officials in Moscow had denied the blame constantly.

The firms still cautioned that there could be added attacks utilising the same method by the group that built the malware or by imitators who alter the malicious software. ESET malware researcher Robert Lipovsky had stated in a telephone interview that the malware was easy to repurpose and utilise against other targets which was certainly alarming and could cause wide-scale destruction to organization systems that are dynamic.

System Compromised by Crash Override

That warning had been verified by the Department of Homeland Security stating that it was working to understand better the threat posed by Crash Override. The agency had mentioned in an alert post on its website that `the tactics, techniques and procedure described as part of the Crash override malware could be modified to target U.S dangerous information networks and systems’.

 The alert had posted around three dozen technical indicators that a system had been compromised by Crash Override and requested firms to contact the agency if they had doubted that their system had been compromised by the malware. Robert M. Lee founder of Dragos had stated that the malware had the potential of attacking power systems all over Europe and had the tendency to be leveraged against the United States with small modifications.

Risk to Power Distribution Organizations

Lee had further mentioned by phone that` it is able to cause outages of up to a few days in portions of a nation’s grid but is not strong enough to bring down an entire grid of a country’. Lipovsky had stated that through modifications, the malware could attack other kinds of infrastructure comprising of local transportation providers, gas and water providers.

A leader of Kroll’s cyber security practice, Alan Brill had mentioned in a telephone interview that power firms are concerned that there will be more attacks. He further added that they have been dealing with very smart people who came up with something and deployed it. It represents a risk to power distribution organizations everywhere.

Industroyer had been the only second piece of malware that has been uncovered till date which has the potential of disrupting industrial process to manually intervene, without the help of hackers. Stuxnet was first discovered in 2010 and is generally believed by security researchers to have been utilised by the United States as well as Israel for attacking nuclear program of Iran. The Kremlin and Federal Security Service of Russia had refrained from replying to their request for clarifications.

Deep Learning With Coherent Nanophotonic Circuits

Light processor recognizes vowels

Nanophotonic module forms the basis for artificial neural networks with extreme computing power and low energy requirements

Supercomputers are approaching the enormous computing power of up to 200 petaflops, ie 200 million billions of operations per second. Nevertheless, they lag far behind the efficiency of human brains, mainly because of their high energy requirements.

A processor based on nanophotonic modules now provides the basis for extremely fast and economical artificial neural networks. As the American developers reported in the magazine "Nature Photonics", their prototype was able to carry out computing operations at a rate of more than 100 gigahertz with light pulses alone.

"We have created the essential building block for an optical neural network, but not yet a complete system," says Yichen Shen, from the Massachusetts Institute of Technology, Cambridge. The nanophotonic processor developed by Shen, together with his colleagues, consists of 56 interferometers, in which light waves interact and form interfering patterns after mutual interference.

These modules are suitable for measuring the phase of a light wave between the wave peak and the wave trough, but can also be used for a targeted change of this phase. In the prototype processor, these interferometers, which in principle correspond, in principle, to a neuron in a neural network, were arranged in a cascade.

After the researchers simulated their concept in advance with elaborate models, they also practically tested it with an algorithm for recognizing vowels. The principle of the photonic processor: A spoken vowel unknown to the system is assigned to a light signal of a laser with a specific wavelength and amplitude. When fed into the interferometer cascade, this light signal interacts with further additionally fed laser pulses and different interference patterns are produced in each interferometer.

To conclude these extremely fast processes, the resulting light signal is detected with a sensitive photodetector and is again assigned to a vowel via an analysis program. This assignment showed that the purely optical system could correctly identify the sound in 138 of 180 test runs. For comparison, the researchers also carried out the recognition with a conventional electronic computer, which achieved a slightly higher hit rate.

This system is still a long way from a photonic light computer, which can perform extremely fast speech recognition or solve even more complex problems. But Shen and colleagues believe it is possible to build artificial neural networks with about 1000 neurons from their nanophotonic building blocks.

In contrast to electronic circuits of conventional computers, the energy requirement is to be reduced by up to two orders of magnitude. This approach is one of the most promising in the future to compete with the viability of living brains.

Gelsight Sensor Giving Robots a Sense of Touch

Innovative Technology – GelSight Sensor

The research group of Ted Adelson at MIT’s Computer Science and Artificial Intelligence Laboratory – CSAIL had unveiled an innovative sensor technology known as GelSight sensor, eight years ago which utilised physical contact with an object in providing an amazing comprehensive 3-D map of its surface.

The two MIT teams have now mounted Gelsight sensors on the grippers of robotic arms providing the robots with better sensitivity and agility. Recently the researchers had presented their work in twofold paper at the International Conference on Robotics and Automation.

Adelson’s group in one paper had utilised the data from the GelSight Sensor to allow a robot to judge the hardness of surfaces it tends to touch a crucial ability if household robots are to handle the daily objects. In the other Robot Locomotion Group of Russ Tedrake at CSAIL, GelSight Sensors were used to allow a robot to manipulate smaller objects than was earlier possible.

The GelSight sensor is said to be somewhat a low-tech solution to difficult issues comprising of a block of transparent rubber. The gel of its name is one face which is covered with metallic paint. When the paint coated face is pressed against an object, it tends to adapt to the objects shape

GelSight Sensor: Easy for Computer Vision Algorithms

Due to the metallic paint the surface of the object became reflective and its geometry became much easy for computer vision algorithms to understand. Attached on the sensor opposite the paint coated surface of the rubber block one will find three coloured light with a single camera.

Adelson, the John and Dorothy Wilson Professor of Vision Science in the Department of Brain and Cognitive Sciences has explained that the system is said to have coloured light at various angles and it tends to have this reflective material and on viewing the colours, the computer is capable of figuring out the 3-D shape of what that thing would be.

A GelSight sensor in both the groups of experiments had been mounted on one side of a robotic gripper which is a device to some extent like the head of pincer though with flat gripping surfaces instead of pointed tips.

As for an autonomous robot, gauging the softness or hardness of objects is needed in deciding where and how hard to grasp them but also on how they would behave when moved, stacked or even laid on various surfaces. Moreover physical sensing would also assist robots in differentiating object which may look identical.

GelSight Sensor: Softer Objects – Flatten More

In earlier work, robot had made an effort to evaluate the hardness of object by laying them on a flat surface and gently jabbing them to see how much they give. However this is not how humans tend to gauge hardness. Instead our conclusion depends on the degrees to which the contact area from the object to our fingers seems to change as we press it.

Softer objects seem to flatten more increasing the contact area. This same approach had been utilised by the MIT researchers. A graduate student in mechanical engineering and first author on the paper from the group of Adelson, Wenzhen Yuan had utilised confectionary mould in creating 400 groups of silicon objects with 16 objects for each group.

 In each group, the object seemed to have the same shapes though with altered degrees of hardness which was measured by Yuan utilising a standard industrial scale. Then GelSight sensor was pushed against each object physically and thereafter documented on how the contact pattern seemed to change over a period of time thereby producing a short movie for each object.

In order to regulate both the data format and keep the size of the data adaptable, she had extracted five frames from each movie, consistently spaced in time describing the formation of the object which was pressed.

Changes in Contact Pattern/Hardness Movement

Eventually the data was provided to a neural network that mechanically looked for connections between changes in contact patterns and hardness movements resulting in the system taking frames of videos as inputs producing hardness scores with high accuracy.

A series of informal experiments were also conducted by Yuan wherein human subjects palpated fruits and vegetables ranking them according to their hardness. In every occasion, the GelSight sensor -equipped robot came to the same rankings.

The paper from the Robot Locomotion Group originated from the experience of the group with the Defense Advanced Research Projects Agency’s Robotics Challenge – DRC wherein academic as well as industry teams contended to progress control systems which would guide a humanoid robot through a sequence of tasks linked to theoretical emergency.

 An autonomous robot usually tends to utilise some types of computer vision system in guiding its operation of objects in its setting. Such schemes tend to offer reliable information regarding the location of the object till the robot picks the object up.

GelSight Sensor Live-Updating/Accurate Valuation

Should the object be small most of it will be obstructed by the gripper of the robot making location valuation quite difficult. Consequently at precisely the point where the robot needs to know the exact location of the object, its valuation tends to be unreliable.

 This had been the issue faced by the MIT team at the time of the DRC when their robot had picked up and turned on a power drill. Greg Izat, a graduate student in electrical engineering and computer science and first author on the new paper had commented that one can see in the video for DRC that they had spent two or three minutes turning on the drill.

 It would have been much better if they had a live-updating, accurate valuation of where that drill had been and where their hands were relative to it. This was the reason why the Robot Locomotion Group had turned to GelSight. Izatt together with his co-authors Tedrake, the Toyota Professor of Electrical Engineering and Computer Science, Aeronautics and Astronautics and Mechanical Engineering, Adelson together with Geronimo Mirano, another graduate student in the group of Tedrake had designed control algorithms which tends to utilise computer vision system in guiding the gripper of the robot towards a tool and thereafter turn location estimation over to a GelSight sensor when the robot is said to have the tool in hand.

Solar Paint Offers Endless Energy From Water Vapor

Solar Paint and its capability to Produce Fuels out of Water Vapor

Researchers always tend to turn the whirlwind with their innovative research and invention. This time they have decided to bewilder the world with the most innovative research in terms of paint. We have heard about the use of solar energy to generate electricity, but this time the impact of solar power will be located in paints as well. The researchers have unveiled this new development (Solar Paint) which can be used as a measure to generate water vapor which would further split to provide hydrogen. This has left all the science Nazis with utmost eagerness to follow up this research as soon as possible.

The paint would be so tempting because it would contain all essential compounds which would act like silica gel. This compound seems to be frequently used in most of the materials, these days. It is most commonly used in all the sachets in order to absorb moisture, so that the food, medicine or any other product in sachet would remain fresh and undetected from any sort of bacteria. But other than this gel, there are several other materials such as synthetic molybdenum-sulphide which also acts as a semi-conductor and behaves as a catalyst in spitting the water molecules into hydrogen and oxygen.

One of the renowned researchers at the University of RMIT in Melbourne known as Dr. Torben Daeneke, Melbourne, Australia, has confirmed that they once absorbed that when they added titanium particles to compounds it resulted in forming a paint that could absorb sunlight and thus, produced hydrogen from solar energy and moist air. Hence, the name solar paint was given.

Observation suggests that the white pigment which is already present in wall paints is known as titanium oxide, which means that just with the addition of this new component a simple material can upgrade itself to form large chunks of energy harvesters and real estate which produces fuel by converting walls of brick.

The researcher has further concluded that this invention in terms of solar paint has several advantages. Usage of water can be restricted to some extent, as the water vapor or moisture absorbed from the atmosphere can now be utilized to produce that too in much-affected ways. One of his colleagues also seconded him by adding that hydrogen is the cleanest and purest forms of energy which could be used as fuels by utilizing it in fuel producing cells and in combustion engines that are conventional with an alternative measure other than fossil fuels.

This invention can be used in all sorts of places irrespective of the weather conditions. May that be a hot or cold climate or places near to the oceans this formula would be applicable in all places. The formula is very simple, the sea or ocean water would evaporate due to sunlight and thus, the vapor formed can be utilized to produce fuels. The way solar paint is turning out to be beneficial in everyday life soon its impact would be realized globally. 

DirectReality of Microsoft - New VR Interface Planned for Windows

Since Microsoft has presented projects such as HoloLens, the company is the pioneer in innovation for many people. Now Microsoft has once again secured more rights to something new called

Although Microsoft recently assured that VR is not shown during this year's E3 during the own briefing, the company only a few days earlier secured the rights to something called DirectReality.

Sounds exciting and many people will now say that it has nothing to do with gaming, but you are wrong. DirectReality is said to have a direct reference to gaming. Microsoft has just registered a new brand name just a few days ago, which points to a new interface for Windows and perhaps also the Xbox One Scorpio. What exactly lies behind DirectReality hides this year's E3 probably not give up.

Microsoft applied for trademark protection for the term "DirectReality" on June 2, 2017 in the United States and applied for computer software, computer games, software for holographic apps and their online versions. However, the US Patent and Trademark Office (USPTO) does not provide more detailed information. Companies such as Microsoft also often secure brand names, which are ultimately not used.

 

DirectX, Direct3D - DirectReality?

However, in the context of the forthcoming E3 games fair and the presentation of the Xbox One Scorpio, the brand DirectReality ensures some speculation. Microsoft has been using the term "Direct" for important interfaces for the Windows operating system, for example DirectX, Direct3D or DirectShow. Even the Xbox owes its name to DirectX, since it was originally planned as a DirectX box. This could be a new graphics interface for DirectReality that is related to the mixed reality features that Microsoft is planning for Windows 10 and in Hololens.

Perhaps a standard for VR / AR under Windows

However, it would also be conceivable that Microsoft, like DirectX for 3D graphics under Windows, is planning a new standard for virtual and augmented reality in Windows 10, which allows the development of software for hardware from many different manufacturers.

A standard would probably also be very useful for developers who want to offer their VR software for consoles like the Xbox One, Scorpio and Windows 10. There may be some information at E3 during the Microsoft press conference. Microsoft has a lot to tell and in the person of Phil Spencer already warned that this time 90 minutes will not be enough.

The Microsoft could be a feature with regard to the HoloLens, but of course also the Scorpio, which supports VR headsets, possibly also the Hololens. In addition to Virtual Reality, Augmented Reality and Mixed Reality, DirectReality would be a new form and could even be a reference to a controller unit. With a little luck, we know more about the E3, otherwise it could be a long-term project, so we could only learn about it in the distant future.

Novel Innovation Could Allow Bullets to Disintegrate After Designated Distance

Purdue University – Bullet to Be Non-Lethal

Presently bullets have been made from various materials particular for the projected application which tends to retain an important portion of their energy after travelling hundreds or thousands of meters. This could result in unwanted significances like unintended death or injury of those around the place as well as security damage if the target was missed.

Very often stray bullet shootings are overlooked consequence of firing which could result in severe injury or even death to bystanders or collateral damage victims in the military. Hence a need in law enforcement, military together with civilian segments for a safer bullet would considerably decrease collateral damage as well as injury.

Technology has been created that could avoid these occurrences at Purdue University. Research group headed by a professor of materials engineering and electrical and computer engineering, Ernesto Marinero has designed novel materials and fabrication which enables a bullet to be non-lethal which collapses after a selected distance.

This technology was the consequence of a need for safer bullet which would considerably decrease security damage as well an injury in law enforcement, civilian and military segments. Conservative bullet tends to have a substantial percentage of their energy after travelling a hundreds or even thousands of meters.

Combination of Stopping Power of Standard Bullets/Restriction of Range

The newly developed Purdue innovation helps the bullet to break over a predetermined period owing to the heat that is generated at the time of firing in combination with air drag together with an internal heating component. The heat conducts over the complete bullet part, melting the low temperature binder material facing drag forces that tends to result in breakdown.

The technology is said to be a combination of stopping power of standard bullets, the shrapnel-eliminating aids of frangible bullets together with a restriction of range in decreasing injury or death of would-be spectators. The Office of Technology Commercialization of Purdue Research Foundation has patented the technology and is said to be available for license. The researchers at Purdue University had established materials together with fabrication for ammunition which became non-lethal after a chosen space.

A professor of emergency medicine and director of the Violence Prevention Research Program at UC Davis School of Medicine and Medical Centre, Garen Wintemute had commented that `stray bullet shootings gave rise to fear and insecurity among the people. They tend to remain indoors and stop their children from playing out in the open thereby changing their pattern of their daily routine to evade from being struck by a bullet intended for someone in mind.

No Research – Exploring Epidemiology of Firings

However, no research had been done at the national level in exploring the epidemiology of these firings and such information is essential in identifying preventive measures’. He further added that stray bullet firings are mostly a side effect of planned violence what is indirectly known as collateral damage.

Those who tend to get shot have little or no warning; opportunities to indulge in preventive measures once the shooting tends to take are restricted. We will only be capable of preventing these shootings to the extent that we are able to prevent firearm violence unless we intend to bulletproof the complete communities together with the residents.

Millimeter-Wave Technology: Highly Sensitive Tracking Nose in Space

Low Power Millimeter-Wave Amplifier

It was recently announced by Hiroshima University and Mie Fujitsu Semiconductor Limited – MIFS, the development of a low power millimetre wave amplifier which tends to feed on 0.5 V power supply, covering the frequency range from 80 GHz to 106 GHz. It had been invented utilising Deeply Depleted Channel – DDC technology of MIFS and is the first W-band amplifier (75-110GHz) which operates with low power supply voltage.

 Technology details will be presented at the IEEE Radio Frequency Integrated Circuits Symposium – RFIC 2016 which was from June 4th to 6th in Honolulu, Hawaii. The W-band is said to cover frequencies utilised by automotive radars. Radars with millimetre-wave beam would be essential for sophisticated driver-assistance and self-driving to scan capability which can `see’ in day as well as night conditions as well as in adverse weather situations.

 This type of phased array would comprise of up to hundreds of transmitters and receivers. Since battery-powered cars tend to be more common, it is vital that these circuits have a tendency to be low power and lowering the power-supply voltage seems to be the most effective means of achieving the same. But transistor performance tends to fall with voltage and W-band amplifier has not operated so far as low as 0.5 V.

High-Performance Silicon MOS Transistors

A W-band amplifier at 0.5 V had been successfully demonstrated by the team of researchers by bringing together DDC technology of MIFS and design techniques created by Hiroshima University. The DDC technology provides high-performance silicon MOS transistors also at low voltages and is presently made available as a 55-nm CMOS process from MIFS.

 Moreover, the design techniques tend to enhance transistor as well as circuit performance at millimetre-wave regularities. A graduate School of Advance Sciences of Matter, Hiroshima University, Professor Minoru Fijishima had commented that `now seriously low power W-band circuits really seem possible, they would think about what can be done with them. Applications aren’t restricted to automotive radars and high-speed communication between base stations.

 What if one had radar on their smartphone? Presently smartphones tend to sense things already such as acceleration, audible sound, and visible light together with the magnetic field of the Earth. However the only active searching device is that tiny LED – light emitting diode, which can brighten at best a few meters.

W-Band Amplifier - Reliability

He further stated that by adding millimetre-wave radar on your smartphone, it does not have to be a imaginary main radar that tends to sense waves reflected back but your smartphone could respond to waves from the radar of your friend, sending some signals back to them.

 A new set of applications can be developed comprising of games. Professor Fujishima further added that another significance of our 0.5 V W-band amplifier is reliability and the researchers are aware that they are long lasting. They tend to degrade as one measure them, within days or hours and not years due to the supposed hot-carrier effects.

The 0.5 V supply voltage is said to reduce hot-carrier generation, considerably. In comparison to conventional SMOS the DDC transistors provide amazing performance in low-power processes. The research group intends to progress in exploring the possibility of low-voltage millimetre-wave CMOS circuits.

High Pressure Key to Lighter, Stronger Metal Alloys, Scientists Found

With the scientists and technicians creating a revolution, the world has witness some of the great changes. We are quite grateful that we are able to live a more peaceful and cosy life when compared to our earlier generations. However, the world has progressed in every field be it technology, medicine or even metallurgy. There are reports every day that amuse us and we are quite blessed to live in this era. Each day we come across some new kinds of discoveries and this has only got better with each passing day. Certainly, a change has shaped the world into a better place. Few weeks ago, a report was released which stated that if high pressure was allowed, then it could make the new and improvised versions of metal compounds which are can resist heat than the normal metal alloys. This theory of the conventional metal alloys was released by the researchers of the Stanford University. 

THE BLENDING OF METAL ALLOYS

It has been since ages that metallurgy has seen the blending of the metals in order to create improved and stable metal alloys. They used to have exclusive properties for the last hundreds of years. The previous theory included with one or two important metal comprising a higher portion of the mixture and the other elements are in less proportion.

They form a compact structure. Ever since the inception of the metallurgy, the scientists were successful in creating 2 structures till date. The third structure has taken a huge toll on the scientists as they have not been able to figure out still.

THE STUDY

The recent study which was published in the recent journal have reported that they were successful to come up with a new design of an alloy which comprised of normal metals. The structure is somewhat hexagonal in shape and it is closely packed. This type of similar structures has been created in the past but they used to contain a huge amount of harmful elements.

The elements were mostly alkaline metals or rare species of metals. They have been able to make the compact structure from the very common metals which are normally used in the engineering department.

THE PRESSURE APPLIED ON METAL ALLOYS

They have found that it is ultimately the pressure that helps in achieving all these. A new device kind of form has been used in order to achieve this. The device is used to confine the minute samples of the high entropy metal alloys to get pressurized to a high pressure normally as 55 Giga Pascals.

The pressure is so humongous that it can be seen when there is large meteorite crashed on the surface of the earth. The high pressure seems to break the interaction of the magnetic impact. The metal alloys still maintain the compact hexagonal structure even if the high pressure is taken off from them. So, we are grateful to the great renowned scientists.

Largest Hybrid Flywheel Battery Project to Help Grid Respond to Energy Demand

The Biggest Innovation of Hybrid Flywheels to Satiate the Demand of Energy.

The engineers from the university of Sheffield are up for a biggest venture till date that would compensate the ever-growing demand of energy till date. To meet this venture Europe’s biggest and UK’s the very ancient flywheel system induced by battery will be coming together to the grids of United Kingdom and Irish that will enable to meet the demand of energy with adaptable Balanced Energy and Freqcon.

A project of 4 million euro, with 2.9 million is being developed for this innovative measure of developing hybrid flywheel battery that would provide hybridized storage of energy with aiming at balancing of excessive power in Europe on the prevailing grid infrastructure.

Wheels to fly work by stabilizing a rotor to a maximum speed using electrical energy that effectively stores the energy within the system as a rotational energy; so, that it can be converted back to electricity whenever required. Flywheels don’t degenerate over time in comparison to batteries that degenerate over time. Thus, the combination of two uplifts the system supporting storage to function more marvelously and it also minimizes according to the lifetime of the system. This seems to be the most effective formula that would give a new dimension to the production of batteries.

This latest technology initiated by Schwungrad Energie Limited, includes Adaptive Balancing Power Gmbh who is sure to guarantee dynamic flywheel technology. Freqcon Gmbh has assured that they are sure to build amazing adaptable power converters that can connect the flywheel to grids.

A noted professor called Dr. Dan Gladwin belonging from the Department of Electrical and Electronic Engineering; University of Sheffield has confirmed that the United Kingdom national grid is progressing towards being volatile because of the increasing non-perishable sources of energy. This would have the capability to indulge itself in manipulating differentiations from the minimal 50Hz frequency or as per the demand is.

Technologies related to Battery and flywheel has the potential to provide immediate responses, and can also travel energy induced by this technology to be both adaptive and responsive in times of fluctuating frequency.

The facility of hybrid flywheel battery is reported to be put up in Ireland first, which would be foreseen by Energie of Schwungrad at their very hybrid flywheel battery facility, which has already led to the expansion of high demonstrable projects, in combination to EirGrid. Hybrid flywheel battery has the power to support the power of 500kW and can also store 10kWh energy all throughout.

Further reports are such that shows progress in terms of Hybrid flywheel battery is still going on and it will upgrade to offer 1MW of power and 20KWH storage of energy and can also be used to provide hybridized form of energy storage with the aid of batteries which would locate responsive frequency services.

The way the progress in terms of flywheels is taking place, in no time this would emerge as a valuable innovation which would be capable of satiating the ever increasing demands of energy all throughout the world that too in a much volatile way.

Scientists Demonstrate Microwave Spectrometer Tailored for the Majorana Quest

Majorana Particles: The Researchers Quest Pass on to Next Level

A scientific team led by Attila Geresdi to research in Majorana particles has recently paved way to pass the research of the Majorana particle to the next level. They had illustrated a new technology altering certain description for future control of Majorana particles. The Majorana states, unusual quantum particles, only survive under very special condition.

While in theory projected in 1938, the researcher team of Leo Kouwenhoven inm 2012 were determined for the first time in a chip. The key constituent is a nanowire ariled by a superconducting part’, states Attila Geresdi, directing researcher of the study.

These magical particles are the structure blocks of topological quantum computation, a bright path in quantum technology that is chased by various research groups in cooperation with Microsoft.

The topological quantum bits are as such bastioned from faults, that means that if you execute a quantum procedure, it ever works. In the road towards the quantum computing based on Majorana particles there are big obstacles on the way to face, but this recent great work open the grand doors to a new program of quantum experiments. Through this new method both primal physics and scientific challenges towards the activity of Majorana states can be explored.

The Quest for Majorana Particles

The Majorana particles, named after Ettore Majorana, are used in elementary particle physics to mathematically describe fermions (i.e., particles with a half-numbered spin) when they are equal to their own antiparticles: so-called majorana fermions.

This property implies that the particles described must not bear any electrical charge. The researchers across the globe has great quest for this Majorana particles which are the building blocks for the topological quantum computer. Generally, the realization of this Majorana particles is quite difficult as they exists only in a very particular circumstances. Majorana research through Nanowires

Semiconductor nanowires represent an interesting research area at the interface between basic research and technology. Analysis of the growth process, properties and possible applications is part of the research on semiconductor nanowires.

Successive semiconductor nanowires have been successfully produced and characterized by various growth methods in the electron microscope. Further studies, e.g. Of the electrical and optical properties are currently being carried out. The superconducting propinquity phenomenon in semiconductor nanowires has newly alter the work of new superconducting edifice.

The researchers across the globe in colloboration with Microsoft are conducting researches to find out the Majorana using the Nanowire covered with a super conducting layer. Fortunatly the team of researchers found that the Majorana states only rely on measuring of electron flow through Nanowires.

The Delft research team joined hands with scientists from Yale University combines a Nanowire to a Microwave Spectrometer which does not disturbs Majorana's in any manner. The researchers across the globe are greatly facing hurdles on the research for Topological quantum computing.

But, this wonderful work of the researchers has paved way and pass quantum computing to the next level. This amazing work of these researchers can be found at Nature Physics.

Intel unveils 18 core / 36 thread Core i9-7980XE

Intel was reeling under huge pressure from its competitors in past couple of months due to the launch of highly affordable range of processors. However Intel is making a comeback in a glorious fashion with the unveiling of new Core X series processors which will boast the 18 cores and 36 threads specification. Before this AMD was ruling the market with its Ryzen 9 1998X which had 16 cores and 32 threads along with the ThreadRipper processor.

This new offering from the Intel will be featured right alongside the other existing line up and it is expected to make use of the LGA 2066 pin socket that is usually found on the X299 motherboards. Intel has made this massive upgrade in the number of cores after a pretty long time that also at a better price point which has left a number of tech experts surprised.

Everything about the Intel Core X series

Before the official unveiling of the Core X series everyone was expecting it come with anything above 12 cores and no one was expecting the 16 or 18 cores offering at all. Intel has worked to keep the cores details under wrap and take the market by surprise as well subdue the consistent rise of the AMD varied SKU lineup with a remarkable product offering.

It is worth noting that the complete line up for the Skylake X and Kabylake X are designed to make use of the LGA 2066 socket and users will certainly get a wide count spread to choose from while powering their devices in future. The best thing about the new Intel platform is that they are highly scalable. Intel will be shipping the Core X series processors along with the latest version of the Intel Turbo Boost Max Technology 3.0 which will help in improving the single as well as dual core performances.

Secondly one should also note that the unveiling of the new X299 platform also brings the demise of the X99 platform. Intel has claimed that the new core X series will bring 10 percent faster multi-thread performance as well as 15 faster on the single threaded performance than the earlier generation processors.

More power comes with the Extreme Edition

Intel will also be bringing the Extreme edition CPUs which will take the performance levels to a whole new level for the computing activities. The new Core X series will allow the AVX-512 ratio offset along with the memory controller trim voltage control into the play. This functionality will help the users in getting a better stability at higher clocks while working on the robust projects.

This is specifically designed to handle the CPU heavy programs with ease with the existing programs without limiting the overall performance of the device. This will help in bringing fast video encode, audio production, image rendering as well as offering real time previews in the best resolution to the users.

3D Printed Turbine Blades a 'Breakthrough', Says Siemens

SIEMENS MADE THE HEADLINES WITH 3D-PRINTED TURBINE BLADES

The world is full of competitors and the tech companies have taken it to another level. We always witness a tussle among the top-rated companies and we are the ones who get the advantage of being a common man. Due to the advanced technologies prevailing in this world, we have been able to lead a more comfortable life. Once we start getting things easily, we don’t really care from where it is coming and how it is happening.

We just enjoy the flow without knowing the nitty gritty. Well, the tech companies are always on the run to develop new gadgets and design something new for the betterment for the lives. Recently, the company Siemen have made a breakthrough in terms of the printing technology by challenging the 3D printed turbine blades.

THE BLADES

The German pioneer Engineering group Siemens has gone ahead and made a breakthrough by testing the 3D printed turbine blades. The technology of the 3D printing is new and it was purchased by them from Material solutions. The 3D printed turbine blades make revolutions of 13000 per minute and that too when the temperature is more than 1250 Celsius. This is certainly incredible. The mechanism has made really breakthrough. The 3D printed turbine blades have a weight more than 180 gm but when the blade rotates it weighs more than 11 tonnes with speed.

THE FACTS

Additive manufacturing is another term of 3D printing. This takes into consideration of adding extra thin layers of materials one after the other. The 3D printed turbine blades were made from a special technology of 3D printing which includes the impact of cooling geometry. A special type of powder made from metals is placed over the layer and the rest is done by the laser.

The parts can be designed and printed using the Auto Cad software which is in high demand for the designing purposes. The fact that is not still clear is that the time duration that the 3D printed turbine blades will take to roll into the market and become available for the common multitude. However, the testing duration is a bit more.

Once it becomes available for the market, it would gain a huge popularity. The scientists are trying their best to bring this into the commercial market. The tests are going on and also they need to check the durability of the material so that once it is rolled into the market, it does not create any sort of mess. The 3D printed turbine blades should be hard and durable in order to make and impact among the other competitors of the turbine blade dealers.

THE MATERIAL

The material is processed by using the process of casting. Well, it is one of the best technology in order to process such kinds of materials. But one thing that will annoy you is the time required for the completing the process. The time can be shortened by using additive manufacturing. The time is cut down to 3 months.

FaceDisplay and Other Bizarre Virtual Reality Projects from CHI 2017

Explore/Innovate/Inspire

Recently in Denver the ACMCHI Conference on Human Factors in Computing took place and similar to last year, hosted some remarkable, unbelievable and absolutely unusual technology demos. The theme for this year is `Explore, Innovate, Inspire’, which tends to provide adequate room for encouraging the weirdness that CHI is famous for. Some of the most amazing 3D printing related stuff are:

• FaceDisplay
• Fingertip Tangible Devices 
• CarVR 
• Ambiotherm 
• Haptic Walls

FaceDisplay – Supporting Multi-user Interaction for Mobile Virtual Reality

Observing someone while they seem to don a head mounted display, experiencing virtual reality environment would seem to be quite boring. FaceDisplay, a multi-display mobile VRHMD, enabling by-stander to view within the immersed virtual world of the users, permitting them to interact through touch. A prototype is built comprising of three additional screens together with prevailing interaction techniques as well as an example application which tends to power the FaceDisplay design area.

Fingertip Tangible Devices for Virtual Object Operation & Assessment

Often controlling objects in VR has been unproductive and the fact that one does not tend to feel anything when your virtual hand touches a virtual object seems to interrupt you from the experience, making you aware that in the imaginary territory, the object nor the hand tends to actually exist. This crafty glove seems to put force on your fingertips in order that one can grasp something in VR and get a convincing physical feeling of the weight of a virtual object.

The most important obstacle to immersivity at the time of object manipulation in virtual reality is the absence of feedback of realistic haptic. The intention here is to express convincing interactions with virtual objects like grasping, pressing, squeezing, lifting together with stroking without the need of a bulky, world-grounded kinaesthetic feedback device or the utilisation of predetermined passive object. In order to attain this, a pair of finger-mounted haptic feedback device which tends to bend the skin on the fingertips in expressing cutaneous force information from object manipulation is used. It is detected that users appear to see alterations in virtual object weight and they relate to increasing grasp forces while lifting virtual objects as condensed mass in increased.

Besides this, it is also observed that inexperienced users view changes of physical properties of a virtual object when skin deformation in rendering objects with varying mass, friction and stiffness is utilised. The research portrays that fingertip skin deformation devices tend to offer a convincing haptic familiarity adequate for virtual reality scenarios pertaining to object manipulation. 

CarVR Empowering In-Car Virtual Reality Entertainment

When cars tend to be driverless, the main issue on road trips would be keeping oneself amused wherein VR tends to be of great support with the exception that the motion of the car would probably be an issue. CarVR on the contrary utilises the motion of the vehicle in improving the VR experience, syncing what tends to happen in VR to what the car seems to be doing in the actual world. This would make the VR much more immersive as well as supportive in alleviating impulsive spewing.

CarVR is a solution permitting VR in moving vehicles by subtracting the rotation of the car and mapping vehicular movements with the visual information. This enables the user to feel the precise kinaesthetic forces at the time of the VR experience. A comparison with CarVR inside a moving vehicle with the baseline of using VR without vehicle movement was made.

 It was shown that apparent kinaesthetic forces caused by CarVR increase enjoyment and immersion considerably while simulator sickness is abridged in comparison to a stationary VR experience. Lastly the design space of in-car VR entertainment application utilising actual kinaesthetic forces was explored to develop design considerations for practitioners.

Ambiotherm – Increasing Sense of Existence in Virtual Reality on Simulating Real World Environmental Conditions

To evaluate Ambiotherm, a wearable accessory for head-mounted display is presented which offers thermal as well as wind stimuli in simulating real-world environmental conditions like ambient temperatures together with wind condition to augment the awareness of virtual reality. Ambiotherm comprises of Ambient Temperature Module which is linked to the neck of the user, a Wind Simulation Module directed towards the face of the user together with a control module using Bluetooth communication. A demonstration was conducted on Ambiotherm with two VR environments, a hot desert as well as a snowy mountain to showcase the various kinds of computer-generated environmental conditions. Several researches were also done to address design factors of the system, to evaluate the effects of Ambiotherm on factors connected to the sense of presence of the user. It was discovered that the calculation of wind and thermal stimuli considerably improved sensory and realism aspects contributing to an improved sense of presence in comparison to traditional VR experiences.

Offering Haptic to Walls & Heavy Objects in Virtual Reality through Electrical Muscle Stimulation

A wall is said to be something wherein it tends to be difficult to pass through. To simulate a wall in VR, a system is utilised which uses electrical muscle stimulation in taking-over the muscles in your arm in order that one is physically incapable of passing your arms through a virtual wall. It is somewhat a brute force approach to haptic though apparently is effective but hard to believe that the feeling is mostly pleasant. Other options were considered on how to add haptic to walls together with the other heavy objects in virtual reality. Our systems tends to trigger the user’s shoulder, arm and wrist muscles whenever a user attempts to push such objects, through electrical muscle stimulation, developing a counter force which seems to pull the user’s arm backward. This device has achieved this in wearable form aspect. The repugnance design together with the soft design is said to receive high scores on `prevented me from passing through’ and `realist’. In the second research, the effectiveness of approach was demonstrated, by enabling participants to explore a virtual world wherein all the objects offer haptic EMS effects comprising of walls, gates, boxes, sliders together with projectiles.

Researchers Engineer Concocted Shape Shifting Noodles

I can say even your grannie can play with the noodles or spaghetti the one that MIT researchers has invented. Yes, these spaghetti/ noodles caters a lot more fun than the normal noodles can't. What so fun about these edible films? This MIT team has made the dining experience more synergistic and lot of fun. Just add water in it and you find these can transform their shapes.

The MIT's Tangible Media Group, have commix something similar to the eatable origami, that is in the shape of flat sheets of starch and gelatin. If you immersed in water, immediately they shoot into 3D formations, that comprises of regular shapes of pasta such as macaroni, noodles and rotini. These edible three-dimensional formations can also be skillfully arranged to crimp into the form of a flower and other irregular designs. To play with these culinary prospective, the MIT researchers formulated flat discs that wrap up around caviar, akin to cannoli, and spaghetti that impromptu divides into littler noodles while soused in hot stock. They have presented their work to the Association for Computing Machinery’s 2017

This MIT's team describes that these edible 3D formations are not only the art of culinary performance, but it is a functional way to cut down food-shipping costings.

The edible films could be piled together and shipped to the customers, so alter into their ultimate shape later, while plunged in water. If you make a perfect pack of it, you will gain 67 percent of package will retain empty says the co author of the paper.

Programmable pasta

MITs researchers, Wang and Yao had been working the effects of respective materials to moisture. They were working generally with a definite bacterium that can metamorphose its form, shrinking and enlarging in effect to humidness. Coincidentally, that particular bacterium is used to ferment soybeans to prepare a regular Japanese dish called as natto. They worked with gelatin, which of course spread out while it takes up water.

This material can spread out to respective degrees that depends on the density. Then the team researched to control the bending structures of the pasta, so that they create various 3D shape-changing gelatin sheets. These gelatin sheets were covered with cellulose strips that controls the amount of water the gelatin sheet can absorb. This cellulose strip act as a water barrier! The print the cellulose onto the gelatin sheets, that can predictably control the shapes response to water and the shapes that it finally expected.

Designing for a noodle democracy

Wang and Yao formulated various different structures from the gelatin sheets, from macaroni like designs, to structures that matches flowers and horse saddles. The team showed their newly invented edibles to the head chef of a high-class Boston bistro. These two professionals designed some culinary creations.

They transcribed the cellulose shapes and the attribute of entire structures they were able to make, and as well tested properties such as strength, make all this into a database. This team used a lab 3-D printer to shape cellulose onto the gelatin films, merely they have defined ways in which we can produce akin effects with more common method, such as screen printing. With this online tool can render design instructions, and a startup establishment can transport the materials to you. They want to change the design of noodles.

A Google Engineer Recreated a DSLR Photo Using a Nexus 6P with Absolute Perfection

Create Image Utilising Nexus 6P

Smartphone cameras have been enhanced beyond our imaginations and from the rough VGA cameras which the earlier phones featured, to the updated Dual Cameras lots that tend to replicate DSLR type portrait shots with perfections, smartphone photography had progressed to great extent.

However there seems to be one segment wherein smartphones are unable to compare up to the DSLRs low light photography and Google has plans of changing it. OEMs tend to advertise low-light photography as a feature in their phone cameras though usually it is more of a trick. An engineer Florian Kainz working on Gcam team of Google, the team behind the legendary camera of the Google Pixel had been challenged by his colleague to develop a night shot of the Golden Gate Bridge which had originally been shot by a DSLR utilising a smartphone camera.

He had accepted the challenge and had managed in creating the image utilising the Nexus 6P together with some post-processing and created an image using smartphone providing us a glimpse of what Google could do in making night-time outdoor photography a real thing with the support of smartphones.

Technique for Shooting Milky Way – Google Pixel

Using a technique he was capable of shooting the Milky Way utilising the Google Pixel from the Californian coast where the nights tend to get very dark and the stars are said to be the only source of light on nights when the moon is not in sight.

But at 9 to 10 megapixels, the subsequent photos did not seem to be as high quality as a DSLR, though the details seemed to be there. With the results of the Pixel together with the Nexus 6P, it is clear that the final frontier of smartphone photography is on the threshold of being penetrated.

Software has been developed by OEM in order to process the images internally, with all the additions together with the subtractions as well as the averaging of the multiple photos to make night point and shoot photography utilising a smartphone, a reality. But one can’t take photos yet the same way with your smartphone and the Google Pixel tends to come the nearest in taking such images though not close enough.

HDR+ Feature

Google is said to utilise the HDR+ feature that swiftly takes 10 short exposure shots and averages them to form an individual image to eliminate blur and noise at the time of collecting adequate light for good photos at practically low-levels though it will still tend to be impractical in very low-light, moonlight landscapes for example, or starlight photos.

To achieve the image, Kainz had installed a custom Android app which enabled him to set the ISO, shutter speed and focus manually. He also utilised a tripod to keep the phone steady. The custom app was to eliminate the maximum 4-second exposure time for taking longer exposure shots in order to lessen the ISO setting and thus reduce the noise.

When the shutter button is pressed, the app tends to wait a few seconds and then takes up to 64 frames with the selected exposure and ISO settings. Thereafter it saves the frames as DNG file wherein these are later exported to a PC to post-process into one.