Tech News

Developers at Microsoft Research and Carnegie Mellon University are working together to create an armband -- named Skinput -- that projects an interface directly on your skin.

They have combined a mini projector, which creates a changing display, with a sophisticated sensor that can tell which part of your arm is being tapped.

The researchers showed Skinput could be used to control audio devices, play simple games such as Tetris, make phone calls and navigate simple browsing systems.

The gadget effectively turns your arm into a touchscreen surface by picking up the various ultra- low sounds produced when you tap different areas.

Different skin locations are acoustically distinct because of bone density and the filtering effect from soft tissues and joints.

Source: Mail Today New gadget turns your hand into a touchscreen

Fancy a bite to eat? Tea for the kids? All you need to do is press your hand down on the softened surface to create a hole and in go the ingredients.<center></center>

Setting the temperature and time is then another simple flick of a finger. This is the future according to Electrolux and their new tactile design concept called ‘ Heart of the Home’. The ingredients are placed on the mouldable surface and the same area then heats up and cooks your food. Before it does this, it analyses what has been placed on it and offers you a range of recipe options to choose from.

So, unlike cooking stoves in use at present, the cooker will afford some choices of recipes for the ingredients after putting them in its mouldable surface.

If you need to cook larger amounts and need a wider surface, then you simply press down on a bigger area. And because there are no pots and pans, there won’t be any washing up.

Although the firm’s concept video doesn’t explain how it is cleaned, it presumably takes just a swish of a dishcloth to clear away any remains.

In the video, the user is shown creating a number of pans simply by pressing on the malleable surface. Once a recipe is selected the user is able to move the ‘ hobs’ across the surface.

Source: Mail Today Future cooker does away with utensils

Users will simply have to think of what they want to say and a voice synthesizer will translate the thoughts into speech almost immediately. They have tested the device on a patient who has " locked- in syndrome", after a stroke stopped neural signals travelling from his brain to the rest of his body.

The rare condition means that the person is aware and awake, but cannot move or communicate because of complete paralysis of nearly all voluntary muscles in the body except for the eyes.

The 26- year- old volunteer was asked to think of a series of basic vowel sounds. The researchers were able to translate these and vocalise them in just a fraction of a second using the new system.

His accuracy increased with each practice session from 45 per cent to 89 per cent.

Scientists began the experiment three years ago, when they implanted an electrode in the patient's brain on the boundary of the two regions that govern speech and movement.

Within four months, neurites had grown into the electrode and begun producing neural signals.

Source: Mail Today Implant in brain that could read your mind

PRANAV Mistry makes up things as he moves.

And if you were him, this newspaper would be feeding you a live video of Wednesday's top news on a salmon pink backdrop, streamed straight from the studios of ET NOW.

And the smartphone in his pocket would capture live feed from the website and a camera would track his finger using computer-vision techniques while a projector beamed it on to the pink backdrop.

All of it made up by devices costing under $350.

"I now realise that many ideas I came across during my IIT Bombay days are getting done in places like MIT in the US, and everybody is giving a lot of attention," Mistry, who is in Mysore to talk at the Technology Entertainment and Design (TED) conference, told ET in an interview.

A PhD student at the Massachusetts Institute of Technology's famed Media Lab, Mistry, 28, has come a long way from being the president of the Young Scientists Club at hometown, Palanpur, in northern Gujarat. "I come from a middle-class family and have always learnt to work with affordable solutions," he says. Patent application for device filed

Called SixthSense, the prototype is made up of a pocket projector, a mirror and a camera. The hardware components are coupled in a pendant-like mobile wearable device while the projector and camera are connected to the mobile computing device in the user's pocket via bluetooth. Mistry has filed a patent application for the device.

Source: Economic Times With Easy Tool, Indian Blurs Physical-Digital World Gap

Methanol is nasty stuff. Careless distillation in many a backwoods still has caused it to blind the imbibers of "alternative" alcoholic drinks. Yet it has its uses, and one of them may be to restore fuel cells to their oft-vaunted role as the power packs of the future--but with a twist. The main role that has been discussed for fuel cells over the past few decades is as replacements for the internal-combustion engine. Their actual use may turn out to be to provide power for portable electronic devices.

That idea has not gone very far, either. But it has provoked another thought. What if it were possible to decompose the methanol without steam, and within the fuel cell itself? And that has, indeed, turned out to be possible. The resulting cells are nowhere near powerful enough to run cars, but they are plenty powerful enough to stand in for small batteries. What is more, they last far longer than batteries and when they do need recharging, it is the work of a moment.

Proton power
In a direct-methanol fuel cell (DMFC) the methanol is oxidised at the anode in the presence of liquid water. The reaction, which requires a catalyst, turns the methanol and water into protons and electrons (in other words, dissociated hydrogen atoms) and carbon dioxide. While the electrons pass along an external circuit as an electric current, the protons diffuse through a membrane to the cathode, where they recombine with the incoming electrons to form hydrogen atoms that react instantly with oxygen to make water. With pleasing symmetry the water is then channelled back to mix with the incoming methanol. Even though DMFCs produce carbon dioxide, the amount is small enough for the cells to count as a much greener technology than batteries. Some companies also think the new cells could be safer than batteries, which can burst into flame if short-circuited.

The efficiency of a DMFC is determined by its membrane. One of the most commonly used sorts is made of Nafion, a polymer developed by DuPont from a variation of Teflon. Nafion, however, can be expensive and it allows some methanol to seep through, which wastes fuel. Researchers are therefore trying to come up with more efficient membranes--and one group, led by Paula Hammond of the Massachusetts Institute of Technology (MIT), appears to have done so.

If you thought training modules by e-learning companies can only be delivered online, think again. Anil Chhikara, president, 24x7 Learning, an e-learning player, claims that the company has already started delivering its modules through podcasts and mobiles.

"The younger generation wants a more collaborative and interactive interface to learn, something they can carry in their iPods and mobiles," he says.

The growth in the e-training market is also pushing Muralidhar Rao, COO and president, NIS Sparta -- an Anil Dhirubhai Ambani Group company -- to extend its training modules beyond desktops to mobiles and iPods.

"By the end of 2008, we will enable employees to use e-learning modules on various handheld devices and PDAs during their tedious commutes," says Rao.

Action in India's e-training market is also attracting global e-learning players. Crossknowledge, a Europe-based distance training solution player, has announced an exclusive tie-up with NIS Sparta to launch over 248 e-learning modules.

Crossknowledge boasts of over 1 million users and has tie-ups in 45 countries. "We have a network of 12,000 professionals across 65 countries, who meet regularly to exchange information about managerial issues," says Hervé Gouchaux, co-creator of Crossknowledge.

Back home, NIS Sparta's Rao says that corporate training via ipods and mobiles will help employees make good use of their commuting time. Companies, on the other hand, will get the best out of their investment in e-learning tools.

The content NIS Sparta will make available on the mobiles is designed as a follow-up to classroom teaching and will include text summaries.

These summaries will be simplified to facilitate easy navigation on the mobile phone keyboard. The quizzes will be restricted to short multiple-choice questions.

Yahoo Labs Bangalore will be a centre of excellence for next-gen eration search and advertising technologies, focussed on making the Web more relevant and simple for users and advertisers. Rajeev Rastogi, a fromer Bell Labs director, has been appointed as vicepresident and head of the new lab.

THE NEW laboratory-with an initial team of 100 scientists and engineers-will be part of the expansion of its R&D operations in the country
YAHOO LABS Bangalore will be a centre of excellence for nextgeneration search, focussed on making the Web more relevant and simple for users

"Yahoo Labs Bangalore intends to build a world-class team focused on delivering the most valuable insights and leading-edge technologies to delight all of our customers worldwide," according to Prabhakar Raghavan, senior vice-president and head of Yahoo! Research.

He told a news conference in Bangalore, "As an extension of our research and development (R&D) operations here, Yahoo! India Lab will initially have a 100-member team of scientists and engineers. They will work on multiple projects to make the Web more relevant and simple for users and advertisers worldwide. The India lab will work in tandem with the other labs in the US for deriving new algorithms to enhance the performance of our search and retrieval tools. While the R&D centre will write software codes for various functions, the lab will develop products for databases," he said.