Input Device Phree Tracks Notes, Sketching On Any Surface

Tel Aviv, Isreal based OTM Technologies company revealed a prototype smartpen called "Phree" which is a high resolution input device allows users write down notes, sketch or anything on any surface and see the sketch or notes appear on your device screen.

Phree connects to a various devices such as smartphone, tablet and computers.It is also capable to work with TV and laptops via Bluetooth connection.The phree is designed to work with several apps such as Office, EverNote, OneNote, Google Handwriting Keyboard and Acrobat.It supports many operating system like iOS, Linux, Windows, OSX and Android.

Chief engineer Opher Kinrot and Uri Kinrot has developed a patented technology known as Optical Translates Measurement (OTM) which can track hand movements through 3D laser interferometer sensor that detect relative motion of any surface.They also fit optical sensor at the tip of the pen that is able to capture handwriting patterns.

Elisha Tal is the cheif designer of Phree.It has a screen which allows users to read messages as well as receive calls and give respond via pen.It is available in different colours that are black, silver, graphite and gold."An open API allows developers to make use of the screen for specific interaction with their applications. The API provides access to additional sensor information such as vertical (Z) motion data, as well as access to the accelerometer," they said.

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The $9 CHIP Computer Runs Linux, Crushing Kickstarter

The Next Thing Co. a Oakland, California based company lunched a CHIP which is a microcomputer, on Kickstarter.It is a tiny computer that can support a full version of Linux.CHIP is smaller than a credit card which costs about $9.It allows user to check your email over wifi, surf the Web and play games with a Bluethooth option.

It comes with a 1 GHz processor, 512MB RAM and 4 GB storage capacity.It has a WiFi and Bluetooth 4.0 connectivity.The presenter said, "the camera shifts to a mannequin's pocket.This is PocketCHIP. It makes CHIP portable. Take CHIP, put it into PocketCHIP and you can use CHIP anywhere."PocketCHIP has 4.3'' touchscreen, five hour battery and QWERTY keyboard.It also has LibreOffice that allows users save the documents to onboard storage.It comes with many preinstalled tools and applications.

A mouse or keyboard can be connected with CHIP wirelessly.CHIP ables to work with any VGA and HDMI monitors via built in composite output and add an adapter for monitor screen.CHIP has included many pre-installed apps such as scratch which is a language teaching programming that teaches basics of programming by games, stories and animations.

CHIP shipment will take place in May 2016.

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Fixstars Announced World's First 6-Terabyte SSD

Japanese software company Fixstars has introduced the world's first 6TD 2.5 inch SATA Solid State Drive.The Fixstars drive is known as SSD-6000M that has a 6TD of storage capacity and uses 15nm flash memory.It supports SATA 6Gbps, offers read speeds up to 540 MB/s and write speeds of 520 MB/s which is higher speed 6Gbps of serial vise access.Fixstars is taking orders; sending will take place in the end of July.

Fixstars's SSD-1000M and 3000M will utilize 19nm flash memory and offer 1TB and 3TB of storage capacity.With the Fixstars SSD-3000M, the owner of SSD controller ables a stable, high I/O performance for sequential access throughout the lifetime of the drive.This factor has shown to be very effective in various field of life such as medical imaging, network infrastructure, video recording, industrial applications and big data analysis.

Satoshi Miki, the CEO of Fixstars Corporation said that the unparalleled performance of our previous model's (The SSD-3000M) sequential I/O helped propel our SSDs and garner lots of attention.Since many of our customers desire even greater capacity, I am excited to offer a new solution and grow the product line with the inclusion of the larger SSD-6000M." He continues, "Since our SSD's capacity is now able to compete with high-end hard drives, we feel our product can draw the attention of data centers as well."

The Fixstars does not announce the price of 6TD SSD.A senior editor for Greek.com, Matthew Humphries said, "SSDs still carry a much higher price than hard drives, "but the benefits in terms of speed and power use are clear, and in a lot of cases worth the added cost."

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iPhone Case Downloads Power From Air To Extend Mobile's Battery Life

Nikola Labs has developed an iPhone case which has potential to download power from air.A company has presented their product at a TechCrunch event, an iPhone case which can convert radio frequencies into electricity that can be utilized to recharge the battery of a mobile devices.It is a case that is designed for iPhone 6.

The iPhone case can convert 90 percent of the energy wasted by the mobile phone to gain a signal and put it back into the smartphone, therefore the bettery life of phones extend up to 30%.

The company wrote on its web page, "Nikola Technology efficiently converts RF signals like Wi-Fi, Bluetooth, and LTE into DC power using its proprietary energy harvesting circuit. The result is usable energy that can provide power to mobile devices wirelessly."

Co-founder at Nikola Labs Will Zell said, "we allow you to download power from the air.We are using 19th-century technology to power 21st-century mobile devices."The latest technology that converts radio frequency energy carried by phones into surplus bettery power for that device.Will Zell explained that the case that we developed is available with a planted antenna that captures the wasted energy and convert it into electricity and then dumps it back into the phone.

The company will launch their iPhone case on Kickstarter in a month.The case will be available for pre-order via Kickstarter for $99.

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Researchers Invent A Camera That Powers Itself

At Columbia a researcher Shree K. Nayar and T.C. Chang, Professor of Computer Science with his team has introduced a video camera that powers itself.In the prototype video camera reseacher designed a pixel that is able to measure incident light and convert incident light into electric power.

The camera is expected to make its way to wearable devices, sensor networks, smartphones and the internet of things.In the camera, the major component is the photodiode which produces an electric current when exposed to light.They utilized image sensor, a chip that houses the pixels of millions.They used photoconductive mode to measure the intensity of light falling on a pixel.

Nayar and his team utilized off-the-shelf components to fabricate a 30x40 pixels image sensor.It has two transistors.The camera first record and read the image and then to collect light to charge the sensor's power supply.When the camera is not in use, it can be utilized to produce power for other devices like a watch or a smartphone.Nayar said, the image sensor ables to use a rechargeable battery and charge it through harvesting capability.They used capacitor to store power energy.

Nayar explained, "even though we've used off-the-shelf components to demonstrate our design, our sensor architecture easily lends itself to a compact solid-state imaging chip. We believe our results are a significant step forward in developing an entirely new generation of cameras that can function for a very long duration—ideally, forever—without being externally powered."

The group of researcher is going to display its prototype self-powered camera at the the International Conference on Computational Photography at Rice University in Houston.

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LG Launched 5.5 Inch QHD LCD Display For Phones

A Korian based company LG has revealed that it is going to lunch a 5.5-inch QHD (Quad High Definition) LCD display that will feature in its coming flagship phone to be announced on 28 April.The QHD represents a quantum jump in color gamut, thinness, brightness, touch function and power consumption.

The company used high color gamut technology by joining a blue LED chip with green and red phosphors which provide more accurate colors in red and green instead of combining the blue LED chip with a yellow phosphor.This 5.5 inch LCD display has a resolution of 1,440 x 2,560 and density of pixels per inch is 538 PPI.It also features a 120 percent color gamut, 50 percent increase in contrast and 30 percent in brightness.

Touch sensitivity is another feature LG introduced for smartphones.This is a technology called Advanced In Cell Touch technology (AIT) improves the touch functions.According to LG's team the touch sensor is embedded within the LCD, which leads to slimmer design and greater touch sensivity." One of the significant changes is that it enables one to touch the screen even with gloves on, said Chief Research Engineer Hong-Chul Kim in that report.

LG did not mention the name of its upcoming flagship smartphone to be launch on April 28.

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0.5 mm Thick Battery Could Be Utilized In Electronic Applications

A team of researcher from KAIST in South Korea, is developing a flexible battery that is thinner than a credit card and which could be used in various electronic applications such as watch straps, smart cards and wrinkle smoothing patches.The new battery is 0.5 mm thick and the electrodes are laid side by side on the same plane.The battery exposes a 7.4 voltage that is maintained over 5,000 bending cycles.

The researcher Jang Wook Choi said, "The greatest significance of this work is reducing the thickness of the battery while demonstrating robust bendability and cell performance."Its performance could be increased by closely putting the 2 mm electrodes, approx 400 µm aside from each other.In the battery electrodes are very close which raise the chance of short circuit.The researchers solved this problem by interelectrode barriers with curvy electrode structure and interelectrode barriers have direct link between adjacent electrodes.In bending, adjacent electrodes ends stay away from each other due to the curvy electrode structure.

The researchers said that the battery timing can be increased by decreasing the distance of interelectrodes.They are thinking that printing technique has potential to produce more detail patterns at high speeds and more precise."Future plans include developing a process for scalable production, such as printing techniques," Choi said.

The battery could be recharged without any wire and by an integrated solar cell.For wireless charging connect the battery to a coil that receives electromagnet power from a transmitting coil that is 1 cm away.For solar charging connect the battery to a solar cell.

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Finger Ring Reads Books Aloud (Video)

The FingerReader developed by the Fluid Interfaces Group at the MIT Media Lab.The FingerReader is a Braille scanners for the visually impaired people.It is a finger-mounted computer to help visually impaired people that reads text aloud, in other words it scans printed text and reads it aloud.

It works basically as a fingertip moves along lines, a camera in the ring records and analyzes the words, and are then said in a robotic voice.The FingerReader uses other tech like vibrations are given to the user when reader nears the end of a line and to note where a new line begins and also able to translates other languages.

Reachers Said, "the FingerReader is a wearable device that assists in reading printed text. It is a tool both for visually impaired people that require help with accessing printed text, as well as an aid for language translation. Wearers scan a text line with their finger and receive an audio feedback of the words and a haptic feedback of the layout: start and end of line, new line, and other cues. The FingerReader algorithm knows to detect and give feedback when the user veers away from the baseline of the text, and helps them maintain a straight scanning motion within the line."

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