Technology Trends

I’m sure that many of you are sick and tired to carry their laptops during your trips. Of course, you can use a USB key ring to carry your data to access it from any other PC. But what about having a handheld device, such as an iPod, containing the full image of your computing environment, and restoring this whole environment on another PC anywhere in the world? Thanks to researchers from IBM, it is now possible to use the SoulPad system, a portable device carrying a stack of software. The host PC, which can be of any variety, “boots an auto-configuring operating system (Knoppix) from the SoulPad, starts a virtual machine monitor, and resumes a suspended virtual machine that has the user’s entire personal computing environment.” Now, the IBM team is thinking to use cell phones as well to carry the SoulPad system as soon as they have enough disk storage capacity. This day, it will feel easier to travel…

Before going further, here is a diagram showing the multi-tiered architecture of the SoulPad (Credit: IBM Research).

Here are more details from IBM Research.

Essentially, SoulPad enables a user to hibernate a PC session to a pocket form-factor device and carry the device to some another PC and resume his session on that PC. SoulPad has minimal dependencies on PCs that can be used to resume a user session.

In specific, PCs are neither required to be network connected, nor have any pre-installed software. The only requirement is the support of a high speed local connection to a SoulPad device for an acceptable suspend/resume times and acceptable runtime performance.

The researchers note that their approach is very different from the Intel’s Internet Suspend/Resume (ISR) project because SoulPad doesn’t require a known stack of software on the second PC.

As you might guess, the second PC doesn’t boot instantaneously. But suspending and restoring times are very similar to the time it takes for your laptop to move to hibernating mode, about 2 minutes using a USB 2.0 connection.

And what about security if your SoulPad is stolen?

To protect user data if a SoulPad is misplaced or stolen, we encrypt the disk partition that holds the VM images using the AES128 block cipher. We used the publicly available loop-aes package for Linux in our implementation.

The encryption key is generated by hashing a usersupplied passphrase. After the Host OS boots, it prompts the user to enter the passphrase. If the user supplies an incorrect passphrase, the resulting hash will not correspond to the AES key and the mount operation will fail since the decrypted data will not correspond to a valid filesystem. In order to defeat brute force attacks that attempt to guess the passphrase, the loop-aes package requires the passphrase to be at least 20 characters long. For convenience, we permit users to supply this passphrase via an auxiliary USB flash key.

But will a friend allow you to use his PC? You can tell him that the SoulPad system doesn’t touch anything on his machine and will not leave any traces either.

The SoulPad project was presented at MobiSys 2005, the Usenix Third Annual International Conference on Mobile Systems, Applications, and Services, which was held on June 6-8, 2005, in Seattle, WA.

The researchers received an award for Best Paper for “Reincarnating PCs with Portable SoulPads.” Here are two links to the abstract and to the full paper (PDF format, 14 pages, 187 KB).

The IBM Research site also provides a link to a video showing how the SoulPad concept works (5 minutes and 53 seconds, 14 MB).

Finally, you might want to read two other articles about the SoulPad project, “System carries PC soul” from Technology Research News and “Pocket-sized computer ’soul’ developed” from New Scientist.

Sources: IBM Research Project page about SoulPad, 2005; and various web sites

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• Computers
  


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In “Wearable Computers You Can Slip Into,” BusinessWeek Online reviews several new unobtrusive wearable devices, such as a handbag with embedded chips. When this bag becomes available for about $150 in two or three years, it will remind you to grab your wallet or to pick an umbrella before going out. And according to research firm IDC, the clunky wearable computers which required users to be wrapped in wires like Christmas gifts are quickly becoming things of the past. The future of wearable computers is already here, especially for some health-care applications, such as a ’smart band’ that collects data on your physical activities and can be used as a weight-loss monitoring tool. But read more…

Let’s start with a bag designed by Gauri Nanda and fellow researchers at the MIT.

Gauri Nanda sees a wearable computer as a… handbag — one that’s built out of four-inch squares and triangles of fabric, with tiny computer chips embedded in it. Assembled together with Velcro that conducts electricity, these pieces form a bag that looks, feels, and weighs like your typical leather purse.

That’s where the similarities end: This bag can wirelessly keep tabs on your belongings and remind you, just as you’re about to leave the house, to take your wallet. It can review the weather report and suggest that you grab an umbrella — or your sunshades. This purse can even upload your favorite songs onto your scarf.

Of course, this kind of bag is using new technologies, such as RFID tags embedded in your wallet, or special fabrics, such as the Aracon fiber from DuPont. But the surprising thing is that — no pun intended — it will not break your wallet. Such a bag will cost only about $150.

Now, here is the ’smart band’ from BodyMedia, which is about to be deployed in fitness clubs.

Here, you can see how this works in the above image (Credit: BodyMedia). The unobtrusive ’smart band’ collects data on your physical activity, which is then processed by proprietary algorithms and finally displayed on a variety of devices.

Originally released three years ago as a tool for researchers — auto makers, for example, used it to understand stress in drivers — the band is about to enter the mainstream. Later this month, Apex Fitness Group, which distributes fitness products to 1,200 health clubs such as 24-hour Fitness, will begin promoting the band for consumers as a weight-loss monitoring tool [and under a cute trademarked name -- bodybugg.]

Then, there is a special shirt developed by VivoMetrics to monitor patients at hospitals, and which can also be used to accelerate new treatment trials.

Because of the volume of data it collects, the shirt can significantly reduce the number of participants in trials, as well as the trials’ duration. In the case of one study for a sleep drug, traditional methods like hooking up patients to various machines at a special sleep lab “would have been at least 10 times more expensive and would have taken 10 times longer,” says Steven James, a San Diego consultant to pharmaceutical companies. During this trial, 15 patients simply wore the shirts at home overnight. VivoMetrics sells a set of six shirts and related software and data recorders for $15,000.

Finally, BusinessWeek Online reports about the Nomad head-mounted display from Microvision, Inc. You can find more information about this device in a previous post from December 2004, “New Wearable Armyware.”

Sources: Olga Kharif, BusinessWeek Online, March 8, 2005; and various websites

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A vast majority of long-term patients in the world don’t take their medication in time, intentionally or not. In the U.S. alone, this represents an additional $100 billion yearly expense due to unexpected emergency hospital admissions. It is therefore crucial to gather accurately patient medical data in real time. For this purpose, a team at IBM Zurich Research Laboratory has developed a mobile health toolkit to perform this task. With this toolkit consisting of a Java-based middleware and Bluetooth-enabled sensors, all the medical patient data can be wirelessly exported to a doctor’s office via a PC or a cell phone. Read more…

Here are some facts to start with.

About 55% of all long-term patients in the US and in Europe, it is estimated, do not take their medication (either not taking the prescribed medication at all or more than 14 hours late) Around 12% of all hospital admissions in the UK are due to this non-compliance, the damage to the US taxpayer is an estimated USD 100 billion a year. Most of the patients that do not comply are simply forgetful (about 10% deliberately do not want to take the medication).

So how can we solve this problem?

Gathering current patient medical data promptly and accurately is vital to proper health care. The usefulness of electronic data capture (EDC) has been demonstrated in applications such as the home monitoring of at-risk heart patients via devices that transmit blood pressure from the home to a central database. Removing transcription effort (and associated inaccuracies) alone is worth the institution of EDC; but the side benefit of timeliness offers the hope of identifying and responding to trends as they occur, perhaps preventing a dangerous event, instead of simply allowing its diagnosis after the danger has manifest.

This is why IBM has developed its mobile health toolkit, “for gathering measurement data from a range of devices, and present it to management software via a well defined, and easily implemented interface.”

This illustration shows various devices, such as “a Bluetooth attached blood pressure cuff (left) and pill box (right) sending data to the mobile phone via Bluetooth. The mobile hub software integrated into the mobile phone (center) forwards the data to a care centre for monitoring (screen in the back) and returns reminders or alarms in an emergency.” (Credits: IBM and a former article in ERCIM News, “Remote Monitoring of Health Conditions.”)

Here are some details about this toolkit.

The IBM mobile health toolkit provides a Java-based middleware — using J2ME MIDP 2.0 (Java Mobile Information Device Profile) and JSR 082 (Java APIs for Bluetooth) — running on a personal (mobile) hub device to which sensors can connect wirelessly. We can perform local processing on the data, and forward the result to one or more fixed network connections. Data-handling modules can easily be added to the MIDlet suite (application suite compliant with Java Mobile Information Device Profile) on the hub, as can drivers for new sensor devices.

Using a wireless link from the hub to the devices allows the hub to be placed in an unobtrusive location, saves the user from fiddling with cables, and saves the sensor manufacturer the trouble of finding an acceptable case location for the data connector. By requiring only Bluetooth, MIDP support, and a network connection from the hub, the range of suitable hardware choices for the hub extends from full PCs, through OSGi home gateway units, all the way to cellular phones.

For more information, you can visit the IBM Zurich Research Laboratory website, and more specifically, the IBM Mobile Health Toolkit page, which states the following.

Solutions based on the IBM mobile health toolkit can improve the quality of patient monitoring while reducing overall healthcare costs. Moreover, it ensures that more timely information is available to medical caregivers. Medication-compliance systems can leverage the toolkit as a basis for intelligent reminders. For example, patients can be prompted to take their medication if the system detects that it is overdue.

Finally, for a more relaxed tone — say, less corporate –, you can check the site of one of the IBM researchers involved in this project, Dirk Husemann.

Sources: Dirk Husemann and Michael Nidd, IBM Zurich Research Laboratory, in ERCIM News No. 60, January 2005; and other IBM web pages

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After a patient has been hospitalized for a surgical intervention, he usually wants to return to his normal life. But doctors would like to monitor him to be sure that the operation was successful. How can they manage this without being too intrusive? In “Health Care Monitoring of Mobile Patients,” Italian researchers offer a three-layer networking solution. First, a body area sensor network would continuously record your cardiac activity or your body temperature. A second level would involve a home sensor network, including for example a PC wirelessly receiving this information. Finally, this home network would be able to alert an hospital network if needed. Right now, this whole idea is at the proof-of-concept level, but it really looks promising. Read more…

How can you monitor patients without asking them to come back weekly at the hospital after a cardiac surgery? The answer of the researchers from two different institutes of the Italian National Research Council (CNR) in Pisa, the Istituto di Fisiologia Clinica (IFC) and the Institute of Information Science and Technologies (ISTI) is to integrate several networks, from one located next to the patient, to remote ones, in hospitals which might be located in another part of the country.

The inner layer which provides monitoring support is organized as a body area sensor network. This network, hosted by the patient, combines the patient’s physiological data with information from the outer layers to support (basic) early diagnosis and produce (basic) alerts.

The outer layer (for example the patient’s domotic network) may include an environmental sensor network and one or more powerful nodes. Examples of such nodes could be an electrocardiograph offering diagnostic information or a PC receiving all the data and managing an advanced monitoring and alert detection service.

This layer interacts with outermost layer (the hospital network) to exchange physiological data, alerts and patient-related data. Wireless connections should be used where possible to support mobility and adaptability at the various levels of the network.

The system has been designed to minimize the burden of sensors on the patients and to optimize the amount of data to be transmitted over the different networks.

Of course, transmitting such sensitive data on public networks needs secure protocols. And the researchers are working on it.

Future work includes the study of dependable and secure communication protocols to connect the body area sensor network with domotic and hospital networks. These protocols should ensure confidentiality and protection against the transmission of malicious queries.

What do you think of this idea?

Source: Giuseppe Amato, Stefano Chessa, Fabrizio Conforti, Alberto Macerata and Carlo Marchesi, ERCIM News No. 60, January 2005

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In this short article, InformationWeek writes that “two sexy technologies that flamed out five years ago — wearable computers and artificial reality — are combined in a new training-development system” for the military. This system, developed by Quantum3D, includes a binocular head-mounted OLED display and head-leg-weapon motion-tracking systems, integrated with a vest-worn tactical visual computer. It runs under Windows XP and is compatible with the 802.11 a/b/g wireless networking standards. It will be used by the infantry to train soldiers, but it looks so complex that I would need intensive training just for using it. Read more…

Here is how InformationWeek describes the system.

Quantum3D Inc., which bills itself as a visual-computing vendor, has announced the availability of the Expedition, a combination wearable computer and artificial-reality gear. The Expedition’s target market is developers of so-called immersive training. Their products, in turn, are used to train armed services personnel and emergency-response workers.

Among the components are a binocular head-mounted display and head-leg-weapon motion-tracking system by eMagin, and Quantum3D’s Thermite tactical visual computer that’s worn on a vest. Together, the components are designed to give the wearer accurate simulations of fabricated situations, including visuals, surround sound, and voice command.

The above illustration shows all the components of the Expedition. (Credit: Quantum3D Inc.) It comes from this datasheet (PDF format, 2 pages, 901 KB), which includes a description of the realtime visual system — but please keep in mind that it comes from the company which wants to sell the Expedition.

The Quantum3D THERMITE Tactical Visual Computer features a man-wearable, light weight, small form factor, superrugged, sealed alloy enclosure with Mil-Spec connectors and conduction cooling that brings the performance and application compatibility of mobile PC workstations to deployed operations in hostile environments. The onboard NVIDIA GeForceFX Go 5200 Mobile GPU with 64 MB of frame buffer memory delivers industry-leading image quality and graphics performance.

The eMagin binocular OLED head mounted display (HMD) technology is used in Expedition’s primary viewing device and provides a 40 degree diagonal field of view and 1.44 megapixels per 24-bit color SVGA microdisplay. With a 200:1 contrast ratio, patented OLED-on-silicon technology to enhance refresh rates, and on-chip signal processing and data buffering, the HMD provides bright, crisp, and flicker-free stereovision capability.

Quantum3D offers slightly more information in this press release, but doesn’t provide a price for the Expedition system.

Sources: Jim Nash, InformationWeek, February 16, 2005; Quantum3D website

Related stories can be found in the following categories.

• Military Applications
  


• Pervasive Computing
  


• Vision and Visualization
  


• Wearable
  


• Wireless
  

In this article, eWEEK reports about new smart carts announced by Fujitsu. After entering your shopping list on your Bluetooth-enabled PDA, you’ll go to your supermarket and pick a smart cart which will download your list on the rugged screen (read brat-proof) of its $1,200 unit. The system will lead you around the store, alert you about promotions, show you new recipes and update the shopping list in real time. It also can send messages to the deli or pharmacy sections and tell you when your order is ready. The U-Scan Shopper system allows you to remain anonymous and to receive only regular store promotions. Or you can use a loyalty card, receive targeted ads or recipes based on your shopping history, which will be maintained in the retailer’s databases. The article doesn’t say anything about shoppers who still use paper lists, but I bet these carts are still not smart enough to guess what is written on them. Read more…

Here is the rosy scenario imagined by eWEEK.

With a craving for broiled salmon, Jane quickly sifted through her spice cabinet only to find that her bottle of dill weed was nearly empty.

With a few clicks on her Bluetooth-enabled PDA, she updated her Web shopping list with the dill, and a window opened onscreen suggesting a new salmon recipe. It looked good, so she approved the recipe and her shopping list was instantly updated with all of the necessary items, omitting those that her kitchen already had in stock.

Jane drove the half-mile to her local supermarket where she grabbed a smart cart, scanned her loyalty card and saw her updated shopping list appear in front of her. It had been categorized by aisle, and the cart directed Jane to each item. While she was checking for brown spots on broccoli heads in the produce aisle, her cart signaled the pharmacy to prepare a prescription refill and sent an order for lunch meats to the deli.

Here is an example of what you’ll see on this smart cart’s screen. (Credit: Fujitsu Transaction Solutions Inc.) Here is a link to a larger version which is customizable by retailers to fit their own needs.

Now, let’s look at the Fujitsu’s business model for these smart carts.

Equipping an ordinary shopping cart with Fujitsu’s new U-Scan Shopper unit will cost about $1,200. That price also includes about 60 infrared triggers to be strategically placed along various store shelves to help the cart find its path around the store. Fujitsu is hoping to sell 100 carts at each typical grocery store, according to Vernon Slack, Fujitsu’s director of mobile solutions.

And now, here are more details about the essential part of the system, its screen.

Slack points to more practical advantages of Fujitsu’s design, such as their claim that their cart-handle-mounted unit (it’s literally bolted on) is small enough to allow for a child to sit in the traditional front-compartment, while some rival units are too large.

The “just less than two-pound” unit with the 6.5-inch display is surrounded with a quarter-inch of hardened Mylar plastic making it almost indestructible, even by a curious child, Slack said. The units are also sealed with a polycarbonate cover.

Slack sees the fact that the cart would already have the unit bolted to its bar when the customer arrives as an advantage over smart-cart approaches where the customer has to pick up a pad at customer service or at the entrance and place it in the cart.

The article from eWEEK also looks at the privacy concerns which could be raised by such devices. It also addresses the checkout issues — yes, you’ll still have to pay — and the delivery of personal ads.

Now, I have two questions for you. Would you like to find these smart carts at your local supermarket? And who will profit the most from these systems, the retailers or you?

Sources: Evan Schuman, eWEEK, February 16, 2005; Fujitsu Transaction Solutions Inc.

Related stories can be found in the following categories.

• Business Intelligence
  


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You might remember that the U.S. Food and Drug Administration (FDA) approved in October 2004 the usage of a computer chip for humans, which can be inserted under our skin (read this Associated Press story to refresh your memory.) Maybe it doesn’t sound like a good idea to you, but some people take their jobs very seriously. John D. Halamka, the CIO of both the Boston’s CareGroup Health System and the Harvard Medical School, decided to take the plunge. Health Data Management reports that he’s now a RFID-Enabled CIO. He was successfully implanted with a VeriChip in the arm in December 2004 during a painless, 15-minute procedure. He said that RFID readers can identify him even if he wears several layers of clothing. He added he wanted to check how the chip could be used in future medical applications, such as retrieving information from a nonresponsive patient or checking if a medication or procedure was given to the correct person. Read more…

Here are some selected excerpts from the Health Data Management article.

John Halamka, M.D., does not have a chip on his shoulder. He has a chip in his shoulder.

Halamka, CIO at Boston’s CareGroup Healthcare System, has become the first volunteer to test an implantable radio frequency identification chip for medical use. The VeriChip, from Delray Beach, Fla.-based Applied Digital, was approved in October by the Food and Drug Administration for medical use in humans. In December, it was classified as a Class II medical device with special controls.

But why did he accept this implantation of a chip inside his body?

After Halamka met with VeriChip officials in November, he volunteered to evaluate the device and share his assessment with the vendor and the health care industry. He was implanted with the grain-sized chip on December 22, in what he called a painless, 15-minute procedure.

“The implantation required local anesthesia to a two-inch area of my arm between my elbow and shoulder,” he said Wednesday in an interview with Mobile Health Data. “The chip was inserted under my skin–between the fascia and the muscle. I can’t feel it.”

This CIO is not the only guinea pig in the U.S., but apparently, he’s the first person to get that this implant for medical purposes.

Nearly 40 people across the United States have been implanted with a VeriChip and are testing the device, said Richard Seelig, M.D., vice president of medical applications at Applied Digital. These volunteers, however, are using the system for identification and security access applications — not health care, he adds.

And just in case you would be tempted by a VeriChip, how much will it cost to get one?

Applied Digital will begin marketing the VeriChip system to clinicians and provider organizations next month, Seelig says. It will be classified as a prescription medical device and require a physician to perform the implantation.

The vendor will sell the chips to patients for $200 and the readers to health care organizations for $650, Seelig adds. The cost of the implantation will be established by a patient’s physician.

For more information about the company behind the Verichip, Applied Digital Solutions, you can check its website — if you enjoy Macromedia Flash sites — or go directly to this plain HTML page. You can even get a a $50 discount by filling this pre-registration form, aptly named Get Chipped™.

Finally, I want to reassure you: this implanted chip will not ruin your life. According to this short article from the South Florida Business Journal, “Halamka has since climbed several mountains, including Mount Washington in sub-freezing temperatures without any restrictions.”

Now I have two questions for you. Do you think such a chip could some day save your life? And if you answer is yes, would you be ready to accept such an implant?

Sources: Health Data Management, January 21, 2005; and various websites

Related stories can be found in the following categories.

• Medicine
  
  
• Pervasive Computing
  
  
• Privacy
  
  
• RFID
  

This is almost certain, according to Ian Pearson, a futurologist working for British Telecom. In fifteen years, local area networks will be replaced by body area networks. As writes BBC News Online, “when technology gets personal,” you can expect a “pervasive ambient world” where “chips are everywhere.” Not only we’ll be surrounded by intelligent objects in the streets, but we’ll wear clothes made of nano-engineered smart fabrics or we’ll carry implants. Pearson thinks that we’ll use wearable technology that runs on body heat such as intelligent electronic contact lenses functioning as TV screens when we are in the subway for instance. Of course, this raises interesting questions about our privacy. Pearson adds that security should be integrated into the design of these future devices. He’s obviously right, but as usually, making money will always have a higher priority than protecting privacy. Read more…

Here are the opening paragraphs of the BBC News Online article.

In 2020, whipping out your mobile phone to make a call will be quaintly passé. By then phones will be printed directly on to wrists, or other parts of the body, says Ian Pearson, BT’s resident futurologist. It’s all part of what’s known as a “pervasive ambient world”, where “chips are everywhere”

Inanimate objects will start to interact with us: we will be surrounded — on streets, in homes, in appliances, on our bodies and possibly in our heads — by things that “think”. Forget local area networks - these will be body area networks.

I’ve already covered MP3 jackets here, but there’s more to expect from “smart fabrics.”

These “smart fabrics” have come about through advances in nano- and micro-engineering — the ability to manipulate and exploit materials at micro or molecular scale.

At the nanoscale, materials can be “tuned” to display unusual properties that can be exploited to build faster, lighter, stronger and more efficient devices and systems.

The textile and clothing industry has been one of the first to exploit nanotechnology in quite straightforward ways. Many developments are appearing in real products in the fields of medicine, defence, healthcare, sports, and communications.

Of course, wearable technology raises important questions regarding our privacy.

If our clothing, skin, and “personal body networks” do the talking and the monitoring, everywhere we go, we have to think about what that means for our concept of privacy. Mr Pearson picks up the theme, pointing out there are a lot of issues humans have to iron out before we become “cyborgian”. His main concern is “privacy”.

“We are looking at electronics which are really in deep contact with your body and a lot of that information you really don’t want every passer-by to know. “So we have to make sure we build security in this. If you are wearing smart make-up, where electronics are controlling the appearance, you don’t want people hacking in and writing messages on your forehead.”

Will he be heard? Time will tell.

Finally, for more information about Pearson’s thoughts, you can read all the articles he published on this British Telecom web site, “Views of the future.” My only regret is that these articles are not dated — at least explicitly.

Sources: Jo Twist, BBC News Online, December 6, 2004; and British Telecom ‘Views of the future’ web site

Related stories can be found in the following categories.

• Future
  


• Nanotechnology
  


• Pervasive Computing
  


• Privacy
  


• Wearable
  

In a brief story named “Anywhere Interface,” Technology Review writes that a small French company, Sensitive Object, has found a way to turn any rigid surface into an interface for all kinds of electronic devices. The technology involves only very cheap sensors and a process named “time reversal acoustics.” When you tap on a surface equipped with the technology, you can use up to 544 ‘virtual’ keys to start your heating system, type your e-mails or stop the DVD player. In retail stores, you could ‘click’ on a mannequin to find the price of the clothes. The Register (”Keyboards are old — tap tables to send email“) and the New York Times (”Knock 3 Times on the Ceiling (to Turn on the DVD Player)“) also published stories about this interesting technology. Read more…

Let’s start with Technology Review (it’s so short that I reproduce it in its entirety).

French physicists Ros Kiri Ing and Mathias Fink have figured out how to turn any rigid surface into an interface for electronic systems. The technology — which the pair hope to commercialize via their Paris-based startup, Sensitive Object — uses one or two inexpensive accelerometers to detect finger taps on, say, a storefront display window or a keyboard drawn on a blackboard.

A computer chip calculates the precise origin of each tap and translates that information into mouse clicks and keystrokes. Users might use the technology, for example, to ‘click’ on a storefront mannequin’s hat to learn its price. Ing says the technique has advantages over other user interfaces under development because it can work with a surface as large as four square meters, and the number of ‘keys’ can reach 544.

As it is often the case, The Register used a somewhat irreverent tone. Here are the two opening paragraphs.

A startup whose technology will allow you to turn virtually anything into an input device, so for example you could use a table to change channel or pick up the phone, or control your computer by banging your head on the wall, has received €2 million in financing from European VC outfit Sofinnova. French company Sensitive Object’s Reversys uses cheap sensors and a process it calls “time reversal acoustics” so that you can make the objects around you can come alive simply by tapping them.

Maybe we exaggerated when we said “virtually anything”, because as far as we can gather the object has to be sufficiently rigid for a tap in a specific area to have a specific effect. So hamburgers, soft fruit, most items of apparel probably won’t work. But still… According to Sensitive Object, low cost sensors can be fitted to rigid surfaces, and send input to the audio input of a computer. Time reversal acoustics analyses the sound and figures out where on the object they came from, so you could be turning a table or a window into a touchpad. Or a keyboard. Or something.

In its story, which apparently doesn’t need registration, the New York Times offered many more details.

The technology uses small inexpensive sensors attached to the table or window to pick up the vibrations, which are sent to the audio input of the computer for analysis to reveal the exact location of each tap.

“It’s like touching an A.T.M. screen,” said Alexander Sutin, a scientist at Stevens Institute of Technology in Hoboken, N.J., who does research in acoustics. “But it can be done at an ordinary desk or window.”

And here is how the system works and why it’s inexpensive.

The new system requires only one or two sensors, devices called accelerometers that detect the vibrations. The accelerometers cost bout $2 or $3 each, Dr. Ing said.

The technology takes advantage of the precision with which sound waves can be distinguished by computer software. “When you generate a sound from one location, the sound is unique,” Dr. Ing said. “If you generate another sound at another location, you can distinguish the two sounds.”

The New York Times also gives more details about the time-reversal acoustics process.

The system is based on a process known as time-reversal acoustics, in which computer programs use the information stored within sound waves to calculate their source.

In time-reversal acoustics, once sound waves are analyzed and their source determined, other sound waves can be generated to converge on the source. That’s one way kidney stones are treated: an ultrasound beam that scatters from a kidney stone is recorded, analyzed and time-reversed, and then more ultrasound waves are emitted to destroy the stone.

In Dr. Ing’s application, though, no new wave is physically generated. Instead the computer does all of the work, calculating the reverse path of the sound wave to reveal its place of origin.

“This is a very clever application of time-reversal acoustics,” said William Kuperman, a professor at the University of California at San Diego and president of the Acoustical Society of America.

I don’t know if this technology has a bright future, but it looks better than having a bunch of remote control boxes.

And imagine typing your e-mails on an area of four square meters: this would mean lots of exercise…

Sources: Prototype, Technology Review, December 2004; John Lettice, The Register, September 7, 2004; Anne Eisenberg, New York Times, July 1, 2004; Sensitive Object website

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• Human Computer Interface
  


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Flexible displays based on various forms of organic LEDs (or OLEDs) will allow us to carry roll-up TVs one day. But there are still significant hurdles, according to Electronics Weekly in “Organic LEDs are on the way.” One major obstacle is the life expectancy for such screens, still far below from the 10,000 hours limit considered to be the basis for a commercial distribution. But there is a bigger issue. On OLEDs displays, the different colors vanish at different rates. So you’ll lose blue three times before red or green. Another very long and well-documented article on displays from Military & Aerospace Electronics, “Display technology leaps to the next generation,” adds that there is still a massive $1 billion per year poured in OLED research, and that 14-inch OLED displays are already working in labs. Read more…

Before looking at these articles, here is something you might one day roll out from your pocket or your purse.

Here is how starts the Electronics Weekly article.

Imagine a TV that is not just thin like a plasma screen, but thin like a birthday card. That lives in a narrow box near the ceiling and has a string you pull to unroll it.

Something from the future?

Not in the labs, but yes for your living room. There are still some significant hurdles to overcome.

The first is display lifetime. OLED materials from all manufacturers have a life which is dependent on both how hard the display is driven, and what environment the material is operating in. A life of 10,000 hours for a display is considered commercially viable.

This may not seem much - under two years continuous use - but comparing it to the 250,000 mile life expectancy of a quality car (8,300 hours at 30mph), puts this into perspective.

But as I wrote above, there is a bigger issue.

Absolute life expectance is not actually the biggest issue with OLED as, unlike LCDs which use colour filters over identical pixels, OLEDs are vulnerable to differential aging.

“The big problem for colour is red, green and blue emitters degrade at different rates,” says Cobb. “Two years ago, one firm was getting through four displays a day on their stand at a show.” They had to swap displays as colour-shift was obvious within hours of switch-on even though the life of its weakest OLED material was rated at 2,000 hours, explains Martin Cobb of Trident Displays.

Here is another example of this differential aging problem.

Cambridge-based display technology firm CDT is developing polymer-based OLEDs which it calls PLEDs. Blue PLEDs have the shortest life on the CDT pallet.

“Blue life has increased eight or ten fold in the last 18 months,” CDT marketing manager Terry Nicklin tells Electronics Weekly. “At the May SID conference this year we showed 35,000 hours lifetime [from 100cd/m² to half brightness for blue, last month we demonstrated 70,000 hours for blue.”

These figures compare with 210,000 hours for red and 200,000 for green, he says.

The Military & Aerospace Electronics article tells us another story — but of course, military have deeper pockets than you and me.

Commercial companies are already pouring $1 billion per year into OLED research, though not necessarily for flexible displays. Companies such as Pioneer, Samsung, Philips, and Dupont are producing glass OLED displays for cell phones, says John Thomas, manager for display technology development at the General Dynamics Canada Vetronics Systems group. But those applications are just an inch or two across.

“There are 14-inch OLED displays out there, and a 12-inch from Sony, but they are just laboratory curiosities,” says Thomas. “Their problems include finite lifetime and differential degradation of materials. It’s not there yet; it’s a new technology and is immature, but it is the one to watch.”

The bottom line is the dominant position of LCDs in all display applications. CRTs are still there but shrinking fast, while OLEDs will dominate research and development for the middle future, he says.

The Army and the Navy don’t think they’ll see OLED applications before at least 2006.

For more information, please check the two articles linked above. They’re both long, but worth reading.

Sources: Steve Bush, Electronics Weekly, November 11, 2004; Ben Ames, Military & Aerospace Electronics, October, 2004

Related stories can be found in the following categories.

• Displays
  


• Future
  


• Military Applications
  


• Pervasive Computing