OpenStage 2.0 by Organic Motion Shakes Up The Motion Capture Market
Somewhere or another, you have definitely seen motion capture work being done. It's usually a person in a skintight spandex suit, with what look like little ping pong balls attached to the suit at different parts of the body, in front of a bright green or blue curtain. They then record the person doing various movements, and with the help of computer programs, they isolate the person from the bright green or blue backdrop, and use the white balls to create a wireframe model that looks very much like a crude stick figure. It's a pretty common technology in games and movies that feature computer generated characters, like Gollum in The Lord of the Rings movies.
But a company called Organic Motion has figured out a way to do away with all that. Their system, called OpenStage 2.0, does all of that work without the use of the skintight suits, green curtains, and white balls. Instead, they use anywhere between 8 and 24 cameras capable of recording 200 frames per second. Not too shabby for a revolutionary technology. The best part is that it can record multiple people moving at one, even with props in their hands. If you've got $40,000 to spare, feel free to try out the bottom-of-the-barrel 8-camera setup.
Check the source link for more pics and video.
Source: Engadget
New Apple Patent Shows Off Strange Inductive Charging Headphones
Just a few days ago we covered inductive charging in a post about Evatran's Plugless Power system for electric vehicles, and the technology has just come up again in the news today.
Apple submitted a patent today for a system of inductively charging their mobile devices not through the headphone jack, but through the headphones themselves. One of the designs shows a charger base with a post on it, around which the headphone wires of an iPod or iPhone wrap around. The patent stipulates that the wires have a mesh of conductive metal on the outside, so as to create an inductive coil around the pillar-shaped charger stand.
The patent also describes another method of charging via headphones, but this one uses the actual earpieces. This method of charging is a really interesting concept, as it uses the existing technology of the speaker to do so. When music is playing through earphones (or speakers of any size for that matter), power is sent to the components inside, which in turn vibrate outwards and disturb the air. These disturbances are sensed by our ears, and translated into sound. Apple's patent would effectively reverse this process, vibrating the components in the headphones, generating current that is sent back down the headphone wires and into the iPhone or iPod's batteries! If these patents ever actually make it to production, it will be a really wondrous thing to behold!
Source: Engadget
Researchers Use Graphene to Improve on Battery Electrodes
It seems like every day, researchers at some lab in some part of the country are coming up with new and amazing ways to use graphene to improve battery performance in some manner that we never thought possible. This time, the news is coming from the Lawrence Berkeley National Laboratory in Berkeley, California.
For those who aren't familiar with graphene, it's the building block of substances such as graphite (pencil lead) and charcoal. It forms one-atom-thick sheets, which are stacked upon each other over and over again to make larger materials. The reason that it's a fantastic conductor of electricity, and can be used in conjunction with other materials to boost efficiency.
Specifically, these researchers have used graphene to improve on existing battery electrode technology (aka the + and - ends of your friendly neighborhood AA). The start by layering alternating graphene and tin sheets, one by one. The resulting sheet is then baked at 300 degrees Celsius (572 degrees Fahrenheit). The heat makes the tin expand, giving it greater volume, and improving the performance of the electrode that it is used to make. This process makes the battery charge much faster, making it an alluring concept for makers of electric vehicles, which run on large rechargeable batteries. Obviously, nobody is going to want to buy a car that has to be recharged over a 12-hour period every time it needs more juice, so many manufacturers will probably be keeping a close eye on this technology as it improves and develops. The only downside to this discovery is that it isn't as resilient as current electrode technology, only lasting about 30 charging cycles, as opposed to the hundreds of charging cycles that something as sizable as an electric car battery would need.
Source: Engadget
Evatran’s Plugless Power System Gets An Upgrade, Looks More and More Attractive
One of the issues that is under constant discussion when talking about renewable energy use in cars is how they will be refueled or recharged. While there are gas stations virtually on every other corner in the country, there isn't a nationwide infrastructure for electrical vehicles (EVs) or hydrogen power vehicles. Part of this is due to the fact that no one form of renewable energy has beaten out all others definitively. Nobody wants to invest all of their money in creating charging or refueling stations for a technology that will be replaced in a year or two. It would be a living nightmare to try to switch the wires, plugs, adapters, and all the other little doodads and parts that the new technology would need. A recharging technology that doesn't have too many moving parts, is simple to use, and effective would be ideal, both in terms of catching on in the EV industry, and in terms of ease of replacement.
Enter Evatran, a company that has developed a system of recharging the batteries in electric vehicles without any physical contact like plugs or adapters. Evatran's Plugless Power charging system take advantage of inductive charging, a method of energy transfer that uses an electromagnetic field, without any physical contact of materials (as is necessary in conductive charging, which we all know and love).
The Plugless Power system uses a disc that is slightly smaller than an hubcap that is anchored to the ground and another plate that is fastened to the underside of your car. When you need to recharge your electric vehicle's battery, just drive over the disc on the ground, and the Plugless Power system will begin to transfer energy to the plate under your car, which in turn is connected to you EV's battery. The ground plate can be anchored just about anywhere there is adequate power, so it wouldn't be restricted to recharging station use - you could install it in your own garage! About a year ago, Evatran's ground-anchored disk was actually a rectangular mat that was about as long and wide as a car's underside, mustered only 80% efficiency, and required you to line up accurately if you wanted it to charge properly. Today, the mat is smaller than a tire, boasts 97% efficiency, and has a little bit of wiggle room in terms of aligning the plates up to charge.
Testing is beginning on Chevy Volts and will expand in January, but you can get your own car retrofitted and buy your own charging station for your home if you are willing to pay. An indoor charging station will run you $2,000, an outdoor station will cost $3,000, and retrofitting your car will cost an additional $2,000.
Source: Autobloggreen via Engadget
3D Printing Set to Take Off From University of Southampton
Lately there's been a lot of hubbub around 3D printers. The idea has been around for a while, but it has been gaining a lot of public attention from appearances on television shows like Known Universe on the National Geographic Channel, and the Colbert Report on Comedy Central.
The concept is simpler to grasp than you might think when you hear "3D printer." Basically, a laser is fired at a powder that solidifies when burned, layer by layer, from top to bottom. In order to print an item, you need a 3D image, which can be designed from scratch, or copied from an existing object by scanning it with special devices that can an object down to within 40 microns (less than the width of a human hair) of its actual dimensions.
Known Universe had an episode that focused on the potential benefits that 3D printing would have in space, for replacing small parts for repairs, while the Colbert Report touched on 3D printer company Makerbot, which focuses more on the consumer market and miniature likeness of Steven Colbert with tentacles.
But researchers from the University of Southampton in England have proven another area where 3D printers excel - aeronautical engineering. In just one week, they designed and built a model airplane from scratch, tweaking designs and reprinting parts that didn't work or that they wanted to test out. Because 3D printing even works for objects with moving parts, everything fit together perfectly, too. Best of all? It's cheaper than other methods of design. Here's to hoping for some new and exotic aeronautical designs in the future with the help of 3D printers.
Check out the video below for a look at the plane's test flight.
Source: Engadget
Stanford Researchers Create Transparent Battery
Those guys at Stanford University are pretty bright, aren't they? First they come up with paper batteries, then they discover efficiency-boosting technologies for lithium-ion batteries. Well, tack on another achievement, folks, because they have just created a transparent battery!
Professor Yi Cui and masters student Yuan Yang led a team of researchers that devised a way to create nanometer-wide grids that, when assembled properly, create a working lithium-ion battery. The best way to imagine it is to think of an incredibly small grid that is held together by a transparent, rubbery, and conductive compound called polydimethylsiloxane (PDMS). The name looks like quite strange and is certainly a mouthful, but anybody who wears contact lenses will be quite familiar with PDMS.
The individual gridlines are composed of layers of metal, a special solution that contains "nano-sized active electrode materials" (aka the positive and negative ends of the battery), and a transparent gel that acts as a separator and electrolyte (aka the stuff in the middle that electricity passes through) simultaneously. Each one of these gridlines is 35 microns in width, making it impossible to see with the naked eye. This, in conjunction with the PDMS in which the grid sits, makes it an incredibly thin and transparent lithium-ion battery.
But how effective is it? Unfortunately, these transparent batteries are only half as powerful as their opaque brothers. Yang compares their energy density to that of nickel-cadmium batteries, an older technology that is most common in toys and other small electronics.
The good news is that what it lacks in capacity, it makes up in its lower costs. Cui claims that if they were to use low-cost metals, these transparent batteries could be as cheap as the AA and AAA batteries you see at your local supermarket.
Check out the video below from Stanford University to get a glimpse at the new technology. Professor Cui talks about having a transparent phone, but I personally think that would just make it twice as impossible to find. I'm more interested in cell phone accessories like cases or skins that double as backup batteries, without adding the additional bulk that current ones do.
Sources: Stanford University News via Engadget
Mozilla Announces Boot to Gecko, Jumping Into the Mobile OS War
With smartphones becoming as commonplace as they are these days, it's no surprise that companies other than Google, Apple, and Microsoft are trying to get into the lucrative market of programming apps and operating systems for mobile devices. And why wouldn't they? As more and more people make the switch from feature phones to smartphones, any tech company worth its salt has to have some hand in the market, be it accessories like headsets, cables, or cases, if not an app or operating system.
Although Mozilla has been battling Google and Microsoft on the internet browser front for a while, it's been noticeably absent from the mobile OS front that's been very hotly contested in the past few years by its competitors. Until today, that is. MozillaWiki added an entry today describing B2G, a shorthand reference to Boot to Gecko, a project by Mozilla "to pursue the goal of building a complete, standalone operating system for the open web."
Here's the lowdown: Mozilla plans to use use a small amount of Google's Android operating system code for hardware interaction. Everything aside from that will be built from scratch, including an entirely new user interface, as well as a suite of unique apps to go along with it. Unlike Android, it will not be using Java as its coding language, and it won't support programming in native code. The project is still in its infancy, and Mozilla has announced it in order to get as much feedback as it can from the public (at least, the programming public).
Source: Gizmodo, Tech Radar, MozillaWiki
Stanford Breakthrough Could Drastically Improve Lithium-Ion Batteries
Lithium ion batteries have been available commercially since the early 90s, powering our cameras, phones, laptops, and all sorts of mobile electronics. And they've been doing a pretty good job. Aside from being a bit fragile, they have remained the dominant battery technology for many years, seeing the advent of mp3 players, smartphones, and tablets such as the iPad or Galaxy Tab.
But although they are almost perfect for mobile devices, lithium-ion batteries have fallen short when it comes to heavy-duty applications such as in power tools and electric vehicles. In cases like this, batteries using nickel metal-hydride or nickel cadmium chemistry are used, because of their similar energy densities and lower costs of production.
But what if we could boost the output of lithium-ion batteries and make them worth the cost?
Like any other battery, lithium-ion batteries have an anode (aka the minus sign, or black end of the battery), a cathode (aka the plus sign, or red end of the battery), and an electrolyte. Depending on whether you are charging the battery or discharging it (read: using it) lithium ions will travel through the electrolyte, either from the anode to the cathode, or vice versa. The output of the battery is limited by the specific capacity of the materials that are used for both the cathode and the anode, so different batteries use different materials, yielding different capacities. This is in part due to the fact that your battery is only as good as the cathode or anode with the lowest specific capacity - an electrical bottleneck, if you will.
Researchers at Stanford University may have found a way to use sulphur to make the cathode of their lithium ion batteries, dramatically increasing their output. Whereas most materials used for cathodes have a specific capacity of 160 milliamp hours per gram (mAh/g) to a silicon anode's 4200 mAh, sulphur has a specific capacity of 1672 mAh/g. The only thing holding battery manufacturers back from increasing the capacity of their batteries is the fact that sulphur doesn't conduct well, and would physically degrade if used as a cathode.
But Hailiang Wang and his fellow researchers at Stanford University have found a way to make it work! Instead of using just sulphur, they've coated sulphur molecules in graphene, a versatile form of carbon. The graphene adds conductivity and physical stability to the sulphur, making it much more viable as a suitable material for making battery cathodes. This is just a breakthrough though, and they are still working on optimizing their discovery. For instance, they suggest that mixing this sulphur-graphene composite material with silicon could yield much more impressive results than the composite material by itself.
Source: Technology Review
Invisible Phones
Microsoft's Kinect add-on to the Xbox 360 has opened our eyes to new ways for controlling our devices. Using hand gestures and movement of other body parts to control electronic devices is a great idea and this technology is being applied to new applications every day. But how about taking it a step further and using our bodies as an electronic device? The following video shows how our hands can be used to control a smart phone:
Source: MIT
What If Everything Was Finally Connected….
We all love our gadgets. We love our cool SMART phones, our flat screen 3D tvs, our cars that stream sattelite radio and play MP3s. Only a few short years ago most of this was just a dream and you could only see these things on TV. Imagine what will happen in 5 years? Or in 10? What if everything in our house, and outside, was completely interconnected. Imagine touch-screen TVs connected to our phones, to our mirrors, our phones to retail displays, to all the things we use and our everyday life. Now, when you're done imagining, check out Corning's vision of how this all will look in the near future at the link below. I think it's amazing!