Now Experience Your Sense of Touch in VR through These Gloves

As if now people have seen sensing virtual reality by means of sound as well as sight so far. Now you will be able to experience the sense of your touch in the virtual world as well. You will be able to touch any virtual objects as thanks to this new pair of gloves. This new green and black gloves have been developed by a Spain-based tech company NeuroDigital Technologies and the glove are currently being called as "Gloveone". These gloves will make you feel all the sensations like that weight as well as shape during the interaction of the user with the virtual objects.

According the reports published, the developers of the gloves are claiming that the wearer of the gloves will be able to feel the fire and the rain as well as something very ethereal like the wings of butterfly.

What is the technology all about? 

The technology has the ability to translate the touch sensation in the form of vibration and each of the pair has nearly 10 sensors which have been placed in the fingertips and the palm. Four of these sensors which have been placed in the thumb, plan, middle as well as index fingers have the ability to detect out each other. They will allow the users to grab an apple and even fire a gun.

These gloves also comprise of a 9-Axis inertial measurement unity also known as the IMU sensor and this can be easily placed under the gloves. An IMU sensor is mostly used in a manoeuvre aircraft, which has the ability to record orientation, velocity as well as gravitational forces by means of gyroscopes, accelerometers, as well as magnetometers.

When it comes to Gloveone, this sensor will be tracking the hand movements of the users within the virtual work and be able to offer more realistic experience. The company has been able to further describe the sensation behind wearing these gloves in simple words stating that it is like a realistic perceptual illusion. This means that the users will not be able to feel the actual weight of the virtual object which should be similar to that one the same object in the real life.

But the users will be able to compare the weight of the items inside the virtual world. Reports suggest that the company has finalized the prototyping the product and has been able to create a Kickstarter page that will allow them to raise finance for manufacturing the gloves.

Currently people have the option of buying the gloves as they are available in three sizes. Each of these sizes is sweat proof as well as anti-bacterial and also has been fitted with a Bluetooth wireless connection. A pair of gloves has the ability of offering the user more than four hours of overall battery life. The only downside for the customers is that they have to wait till 2016, till they will be able to enjoy any of the virtual work experience by means of this Gloveone.

Kirigami-Based Stretchable Lithium-Ion Batteries

Battery Created on Origami variant Kirigami

Researchers at the Arizona StateUniversity have developed a battery which can stretch up to around 150%, giving rise to a wide range of potential applications in wearable technology. Created on the origami variant kirigami, the team was capable of transforming a larger battery into various smaller one through chains of folds and cuts.

Associate professor Hanqing Jiang in the School of Engineering of Matter, Transport and Energy, one of ASU’s Ira A, Fulton Schools of Engineering, together with the researchers created the battery utilising slurries of graphite and lithium cobalt dioxide, then coating them on sheets of aluminium foil making positive and negative electrodes, from which they added bends and cuts to begin the patterns. The outcome was a battery that could stretch while still maintaining full functionality.

 The team has stated that regardless of using origami as inspiration by the engineers for foldable batteries which can flex in the past, it marks the first time that a lithium-ion battery has been made stretchable. To test the efficiency of the battery, the kirigami-driven prototype battery, was sewn in an elastic wristband that was attached to a Samsung Gear 2 smartwatch. As the strap was stretched in various ways, the battery was capable of providing power to the watch for its functions inclusive of playing video.

Replace Bulky & Rigid Batteries

Jiang had commented that `this type of battery could potentially be used to replace the bulky and rigid batteries that are limiting the development of compact wearable electronic devices and this type of stretchable batteries could be integrated into fabrics, which include those used for clothing’.In the research journal Scientific Reports, a paper was published on June 11, describing how the team had developed kirigami based lithium-ion batteries with the use of a combination of folds and cuts creating patterns which permitted a significant increase in stretch-ability.

Hongyu Yu, an associate professor in the School of Electrical, Computer and Energy Engineering and the School of Earth and Space Exploration; Zeming Song, a material science doctoral student and Xu Wang, a mechanical engineering doctoral student, are some of the leading members of his ASU research team. Song and Wang have been praised by Jiang for utilising several kirigami patterns and for conducting experiments as well as characterising the properties of the materials that have been utilised in the development of the technology.

In-Depth View in Progress & Obstacles – Origami-Based Lithium-Ion Batteries

Others who have also made their contributions comprise of ASU engineering graduate students Change LV. Yonghao An, Mengbing Liang, Teng Ma and David He, a Pheonix high school student together with Ying-Jie Zheng and Shi-Qing Huang from the MOE Key Lab of Disaster Forecast and Control in engineering at Jinan University, Guangzhou, China.

Jiang together with some of his research team members as well as other colleagues, in an earlier paper in the research journal of Nature Communication, had provided an in-depth view in the progress and obstacles in the development of origami-based lithium-ion batteries where the paper clarified technical challenges in flexible battery progress which Jiang states that the teams’ kirigami based devices are helping to solving.

Windows 10 PC Squeezed Inside Quanta's Compute Plug

Reports suggest that a Taiwanese company has been able to create a plug like computer which is capable of running on the forthcoming version of Windows operating system (Windows 10) from Microsoft. Compute plug of Quanta has been designed in such a manner that it can be pushed directly into the wall power socket. It has an HDMI port that can be used for TV connections apart from having two USB sockets.

However we need to know that this is not the first time this kind of device has been made by any company or available in the market. A similar form of PCs was earlier promoted in 2009 by US Chipmaker Marvell. As if now, the Marvell's computers have not been able to set up a strong appeal in the market despite of targeting the device for being eco-friendly and best for use at schools and smart homes.

Fingerprint PCs

Microsoft released out details pertaining to the new Wi-Fi enables windows device on their official blog. The details indicated that the device has been designed in such a manner that it can e cable linked to any screen and turn the screen into voice-controlled portable computer. The blog also indicated that the new compute plug is like a mini PC as well as a power adaptor, which can be inserted into any outlet as well as connect with a TV and turn them into a smart computer. These can be controlled by using Bluetooth remote, Bluetooth headset and using Cortana.

Microsoft also revealed another device which was quite unusual and made by Foxconn. It is Taiwanese company who is popular for carrying out the assembling process of products of other companies. It has been currently names as Kangaroo. These devices squeezed Windows 10 powered PC in a box that pretty much looks like a portable hard disk which has been fitted with a fingerprint reader on the top of the device.

Microsoft has described this device as ultra-portable computer having the capability of turning a TV into a complete Windows 10 PC. At present no details has been released about the pricing or the specific launch date of the device. But market is expecting to get more details at the same time as that of Computex trade show. We have numerous concerns about the availability of the device.

According to Peter Bryer, CCS Insight consultant, none of the companies are out boasting about the computing power that can be achieved from these devices. People are waiting to use tiny computer and if they want, they are other products available in the market as well. Each day companies are coming forward with product creating a challenge for other companies.

From the customer’s perspective, we hope that we are able to see new designs and additional features. Today, computer are no longer categorised into being luggages but they have now transformed into tiny, short plug-in devices. One can only wait for the release of these devices to get details and reviews.

A Computer Just Solved a 120-Year-Old Mystery - Without the Help of Humans

A 120 years old mystery surrounding the regeneration of flatworm cells seems to have been solved by a computer. This computer was programmed to help in the development of scientific theories and that too without any assistance from humans. This machine has been built by the biologists at Tufts University. It has been able explain the process which show how the sliced-up flatworms genes are able to regenerate the sliced-up called into a new organism. This process is being called as Planaria.

Planaria: 

The computer has scanned the information that’s has been gathered from various studies performed in the same field and then it stimulated numerous networks that has been formed by the genes of the work till it was able to find an exact match for this study. Every time the system was able to successfully match the data will the study, it saves results and manipulated the entire system and restarted the search to find a new match again. This process was continued for 3 days before the team came up with the needed answers.

Virtual Assistance: 

According to Michael Levin, the senior author of the paper highlighting the details of this discovery, this can be considered as the most comprehensive and detailed model of planarian regeneration every found, until now. He also added that little assistance was taken from the artificial intelligence for carrying out the computations, the outcomes of this research is completely a theory based on the activities of the worm. Levin also stated that it was quite remarkable that the outcomes were a comparatively simple model that will be easy for humans to understand and not get tangled in the overall mess.

This clearly indicates that artificial intelligence can be very much used in every aspect of science and not being limited to data mining. It can be extended to understand the meaning behind the data. Levin stated that they this problem for finding out solution because mainly it was very interesting and these worms and primarily immortal. Even if they are cut in pieces they have the ability to continuously transform into new organisms.

Is it the rise of new computer scientist? 

Despite the fact that it just took 3 days for the computer to find a solution, it took the team years to design and develop the computer program. Levin states that if the computer-driven trial-and-error approach can be used for developing scientific theories, it can be very much used in all disciplines of science, especially the ones that involve too much of complicated data.

This program shows that it is important for the approach and the problem to be universal. They are hoping that this program is used for getting valuable insights into some basic science. Levin hopes that this approach will be used for finding solutions to different questions in biology be it cancer metastasis. All it requires is the change in the formal language, building of the database with the necessary facts and adding stimulator.

Google to Offer Mac-Friendly Version of Chrome

Much after people reduced the use of old-school Microsoft Internet Explorer and chose the most beloved browser Google Chrome, Google finally announced Mac friendly version of the web browser, which will consume less battery and will offer better performance. It was high time for US tech giant Google to spread their wing into iMacs and Mac OS, as the company now expects the Chrome to work with its full potential in Mac computers. According to tech pundits, Google have placed a well-planned and firm bet by releasing Mac-friendly Chrome, only to triumph Apple’s own web browser, Safari. Though Safari works just perfectly as a web browser on Apple systems and offers lot additives, Google officials and developers are confident enough to beat the likes of Safari and to claim the favourite spot for Mac-freaks.

The news got proper shape when Senior chrome engineer Peter Kasting recently announced an update to Google chrome with some intelligent tweaks are coming very soon. Though Google have not announced any launch date, but the update details are coming from trusted official sources. According to official sources, Google developers’ team is currently testing the latest tweaks, which are expected to reduce the load by chrome on the processor and also promises for longer battery life and enhanced performance.

What is coming with Mac-friendly Chrome! 

Last week Casting posted on Google+ about the Chrome update for Mac users and stated that the new Chrome version will change how it processes the idle tabs, which are not in use at that point of time. In technical words, the new chrome will render the tabs differently and the unused tabs will be less prioritised further. The tests conducted have showed better browsing performance, better idle wake up time and also showed less battery consumption, which have been always a great concern on Mac systems. Google have also integrated some intelligent moves with new Chrome, like waking up from low-power mode to check necessary tasks and it will reduce idle wake time.

For Mac systems, some of the biggest problems reported for Chrome are huge battery consumption, high memory acquisition. Google tech team have been preparing Chrome for this launch for a long time now and stated that the team has been restless during this time as they could not allow their users are having issues with their product. Also the newer version of Chrome is coming with stable enabled flash service.

Vs Safari

According to the technology experts, Google Chrome is going for a direct assault with Safari by matching their performance graph on Mac systems. Certain quality check tests have been conducted and showed significant boost in performance level. For example, a test showed the consumption of processing power by new version of Chrome reduced to 0.1 percent from 0.3 percent.

According to the official source, Google will be releasing the new version of Chrome through its beta channel in a while and the final version will be launched in next month or so.