Nokia Morph Concept

http://3.gvt0.com/vi/IX-gTobCJHs/0.jpg

Morph is a concept demonstrating some of the possibilities nanotechnologies might enable in future communication devices. Morph can sense its environment, is energy harvesting and self cleaning .
Morph is a flexible two-piece device that can adapt its shape to different use modes. Nanotechnology enables to have adaptive materials yet rigid forms on demand.
It is also featured in the MoMA online exhibition “Design and the Elastic Mind”. It has been a collaboration project of Nokia Research Center and Cambridge Nanoscience Center.

Find out more:
http://www.nokia.com/A4852062

Transfer Data With The Help Of LEDs!

Light emitting diodes, simply called as LEDs, are already been used for lighting purpose to reduce power consumption. Now, scientists have put these little Lucifers to another use! Researchers fromFraunhofer Institute for Telecommunications, Heinrich Hertz Institute (HHI) in Berlin, Germanyhave finally demonstrated that the LEDs can also be used to transfer data. This technology is not your regular fiber optics in which cables are laid down to transfer data in form of light beams over a distance. The data transfer is wireless and this innovative technology is called as Visible Light Communication (VLC). What makes this technology promising is that there is no requirement to install a different setup in your homes to avail the benefits of VLC enabled data transfer. The LEDs used for lighting purpose multi task by acting as transmitters for data transfer. Scientists plan to demonstrate the transfer of video by light at the International Telecommunications Fair IFA (Internationale Funkausstellung IFA) in Berlin from September 2-7, 2011 in Hall 11.1, Booth 8.

Not just Lucifer!

The technology was developed by HHI in collaboration with the industrial giants: Siemens andFrance Telecom Orange Labs. The results of the research and development in VLC are amazing. People at HHI demonstrated actual data transfer with the help of overhead LEDs used for lighting to transfer data at a speed of  100 megabits per second (Mbit/s). The data was transfer was completed without any loss and the LEDs used for data transfer could light about 90 square feet of area. The LEDs were used as transmitters and the receiver’s maximum range is the radius that the LEDs could lighten up. As of now, scientists are working to increase the range of receivers. With these conditions, scientists were successful in transferring four videos simultaneously to four different receiving end gadgets (laptops in this case) in HD quality. Dr. Anagnostis Paraskevopoulos from the HHI expressed happiness over their current success and hopes for better refinements in various aspects of the technology such as range of the receivers, transfer rate, etc.

VLC is all about using the LEDs both for lighting and for transfer of data. In the project completed by the team at HHI, led by project manager Klaus-Dieter Langer, white light LEDs were used. The LEDS acted as the transmitter and their turning on and off was controlled with the help of a modulator. The data is transferred in the form of ones and zeroes when the LEDs turn on and off rapidly. The LEDs are modulated in such a way that their frequent and rapid operation is imperceptible to the human eye. The receiver used by the team at HHI was a simple photo diode. This diode acted as receiver for light transmitted by the LEDs. A separate electronic circuit in the laptop acted as decoder for the information relayed by the overhead LEDs. The information is decoded in the form of pulses and then the computer can receive the data successfully.

The VLC technology for video transfer developed is a small part of the OMEGA project of the EU. The project aims for setting international standards for ultra broadband home area network. Since its inception in 2008, the project has made the implementation of video transfer in home with the help of VLC a closer reality. The tuning in of LEDs with the existing Wireless Local Area Network connected via optical fibers is successfully done with the help of visible light communication. The data transfer does not need any cable and wiring. It can be achieved simply by sitting below the overhead LEDs that perform the dual function of lighting and data transfer with equal ease.

The biggest advantage of Visible Light Communication is the requirement of very less number of components to modify normal LEDs for data transfer. However, on the flip side, the data transfer needs a visual line of sight for communication between the transmitter (LED) and the receiver (photo diode). Scientists are working to remove this major drawback in otherwise superb technology. They know the limitations very well and do not intend to replace the most popular modes of data transfer such as regular WLAN, Power LAN or Universal Mobile Telecommunications System (UMTS). The VLC can be used efficiently in places where radio transmission cannot be executed. This mode of data transfer can also be used where laying of cables is undesirable or in some cases, almost impossible. The VLC can be used in a flexible one-way mode, such as optical WLAN to send data from mobile to laptop and VLC to send data from laptop to mobile.

VLC is going to find its applications in places where radio communication is not admired: Hospitals, Production facilities, High Sensitivity Communication panel rooms, Airplanes etc. Presently, increasing the data transfer speed is high on agenda for the scientists at HHI. They are on the right track and this is evident from their results with the help of red-blue-green-white light LEDs. Data transfer at speed of 800 Mbit/s was achieved in labs. Until then, keep your eyes open for the demonstration of video transfer by light at the International Telecommunications Fair in September.

Feasible Nano-generators to power future electronics through motion

A team of scientist lead by Dr. Zhong Lin Wang at the School of Materials Science and Engineering at the Georgia Institute of Technology has developed a feasible nanogenerator that could power electrical devices simply by their movement. The study was funded by a remarkable number of institutions, including the Defense Advanced Research Projects Agency, the Department of Energy, the U.S. Air Force, the National Science Foundation and the National Institutes of Health.

According to Dr. Wang, they team has progressed quite a bit from its early days, now offering power several orders of magnitude higher than before. He added: “This development represents a milestone toward producing portable electronics that can be powered by body movements without the use of batteries or electrical outlets.

If we can sustain the rate of improvement, the nanogenerator may find a broad range of other applications that require more power.”

Dr. Wang believes nanogenerator will be commercially available within three to five years. The nanogenerator, seen above, is a flexible chip made up of millions zinc oxide nanowire piezoelectric filaments, which generate electricity if stressed, squeezed or bent. The current iteration of the nanogenerator is powerful enough to drive such electronics as liquid crystal displays, light emitter and laser diodes, and sensors. According to Dr. Wang, five of these nanogenerator piled up together can generate nearly 1 microampere of current at 3 volts, roughly the same as two AA batteries.

As you can imagine, the applications are endless, especially in portable devices, from entertainment to medical. Biomechanical/electrical prostheses, machines and implantations could also be powered by such nanogenerator.

What is Thunderbolt?

Powerful technology from a powerful collaboration.

Thunderbolt began at Intel Labs with a simple concept: create an incredibly fast input/output technology that just about anything can plug into. After close technical collaboration between Intel and Apple, Thunderbolt emerged from the lab to make its appearance in the new MacBook Pro and the new iMac.

Intel co-invented USB and PCI Express, which have become widely adopted technologies for data transfer. Apple invented FireWire and was instrumental in popularizing USB. Their collective 

experience has made Thunderbolt the most powerful, most flexible I/O technology ever in a personal computer. 

One small port. One giant leap in possibilities.

Both MacBook Pro and iMac now give you access to a world of high-speed peripherals and high-resolution displays with one compact port. That’s because Thunderbolt is based on two fundamental technologies: PCI Express and DisplayPort.

PCI Express is the technology that links all the high-performance components in a Mac. And it’s built into Thunderbolt. Which means you can connect external devices like RAID arrays and video capture solutions directly to MacBook Pro or iMac — and get PCI Express performance. That’s a first for any computer. Thunderbolt also provides 10 watts of power to peripherals, so you can tackle workstation-class projects on the go with MacBook Pro or from your home office with iMac. With PCI Express technology, you can use existing USB and FireWire peripherals — even connect to Gigabit Ethernet and Fibre Channel networks — using simple adapters.

And because Thunderbolt is based on DisplayPort technology, the video standard for high-resolution displays, any Mini DisplayPort display plugs right into the Thunderbolt port. To connect a DisplayPort, DVI, HDMI, or VGA                   display, just use an existing adapter.

Performance and expansion made ultrafast and ultrasmart.

Thunderbolt I/O technology gives you two channels on the same connector with 10 Gbps of throughput in both directions. That makes Thunderbolt ultrafast and ultraflexible. You can move data to and from peripherals up to 20 times faster than with USB 2.0 and up to 12 times faster than with FireWire 800. You also have more than enough bandwidth to daisy-chain multiple high-speed devices without using a hub or switch. For example, you can connect several high-performance external disks, a video capture device, and even a Mini DisplayPort display to a single Thunderbolt chain while maintaining maximum throughput.

High-Speed I/O Performance

US

480 Mbps

FireWire
800

800 Mbps

Express
Card

2.5 Gbps

USB 3.0

5 Gbps

Thunderbolt

Ch. 110 Gbps

Ch. 210 Gbps 

No project is too massive.

Now you can create a professional video setup for your 

MacBook Pro or iMac, just as you would for your Mac Pro.

 If you’re a video editor, imagine connecting high-performance storage, 

a high-resolution display, and high-bit-rate video capture

 devices to handle all the post-production for a feature film — right

 on your MacBook Pro or iMac. Thunderbolt I/O technology allows you 

to daisy-chain up to six new peripherals — such as the Promise Pegasus RAID 

or LaCie Little Big Disk¹ — plus anApple LED Cinema Display.

And that’s just the beginning. With Thunderbolt technology, 

peripheral manufacturers finally have what they need to take

 high-performance devices from workstations and top-of-the-line

 desktops to just about any computer.

Device control through Bluetooth from Symbian OS Mobile Phones

Use your Symbian OS mobiles to control devices through Bluetooth.
The serial to Bluetooth converter is used in this project. The Microcontroller At89C2051 is used to receive the data from the mobile through bluetooth.
Before using the bluesmirf, change the baud rate to 19200, because the default baud rate is 115200.
Most of the Nokia Smart phones can be used in this project

                                 

For Symbian II edition phones Software Download

Attachment: Symbian_II_Edition.zip ( 513Kbytes )

Symbian OS II Edition Nokia Phone models:
Nokia 6600, 3230, 6260, 6620, 6670, 7610

For Symbian II FP2 edition phones Software Download

Attachment: Symbian_IIFP2_Edition.zip ( 553Kbytes )

Symbian OS II FP2 Edition Nokia Phone models:
Nokia 6630, 6680/6681

For Symbian II FP3edition phones Software Download

Attachment: Symbian_IIFP3_Edition.zip ( 554Kbytes )

Symbian OS II FP3 Edition Nokia Phone models:
Nokia N70, N72, N90

For Symbian III edition phones Software Download

Attachment: Symbian_III_Edition.zip

Symbian OS III Edition Nokia Phone models:
Nokia 3250, Nokia 5500 Sport, Nokia E50, Nokia E60, Nokia E61, Nokia E61i, Nokia E62, Nokia E65, Nokia E70, Nokia N71, Nokia N73, Nokia N75, Nokia N77, Nokia N80, Nokia N91/N91 8GB, Nokia N92, Nokia N93, Nokia N93i, Nokia 5700, Nokia 6110 Navigator, Nokia 6120, Nokia 6121, Nokia 6290, Nokia E51, Nokia E66, Nokia E71, Nokia E90, Nokia N76, Nokia N81, Nokia N81 8GB, Nokia N82, Nokia N95, Nokia N95 8GB, Nokia N82, Nokia N95, Nokia N95 8GB, Nokia N78, Nokia N96

CIRCUIT IMAGES

Download the Source code from here:
Download the PCB from here:

If you need to control devices from your PC through Bluetooth then install the attached application on your PC, and control through your USB Bluetooth dongle.

Control your home with thought alone

The latest brain-computer interfaces meet smart home technology and virtual gaming

TWO friends meet in a bar in the online environment Second Life to chat about their latest tweets and favourite TV shows. Nothing unusual in that – except that both of them have Lou Gehrig’s disease, otherwise known as amyotrophic lateral sclerosis (ALS), and it has left them so severely paralysed that they can only move their eyes.

These Second Lifers are just two of more than 50 severely disabled people who have been trying out a sophisticated new brain-computer interface (BCI). Second Life has been controlled using BCIs before, but only to a very rudimentary level. The new interface, developed by medical engineering company G.Tec of Schiedlberg, Austria, lets users freely explore Second Life’s virtual world and control their avatar within it.

It can be used to give people control over their real-world environment too: opening and closing doors, controlling the TV, lights, thermostat and intercom, answering the phone, or even publishing Twitter posts.

The system was developed as part of a pan-European project called Smart Homes for All, and is the first time the latest BCI technology has been combined with smart-home technology and online gaming. It uses electroencephalograph (EEG) caps to pick up brain signals, which it translates into commands that are relayed to controllers in the building, or to navigate and communicate within Second Life and Twitter.

In the past, one of the problems with BCIs has been their reliability, and they have tended to be limited in the number of functions that can be controlled at once, says John Gan of the BCI group at the University of Essex, UK. Like most BCI systems, G.Tec’s interface exploits an involuntary increase in a brain signal called P300 that occurs in response to an unexpected event.

To activate a command, the user focuses their attention on the corresponding icon on a screen, such as “Lights On”, while the EEG cap records their P300. The icons are flashed randomly, one at a time, and it is possible to tell which icon they are looking at by correlating a spike in the P300 with the timing of when that icon flashes, says Guenter Edlinger, G.Tec’s CEO. He will be presenting the system at the Human and Computer Interaction Internationalconference in Orlando, Florida, this month.

G.Tec’s system works better, the more functions are added. That is because when there are more icons on the screen, it comes as a bigger surprise when the target icon flashes, creating a stronger P300 response. More than 40 icons can be displayed at once and submenus make it possible to add even more options.

G.Tec’s system has been tested at the Santa Lucia Foundation Hospital in Rome, Italy. “BCIs are definitely beginning to make the transition out of the lab,” says Ricardo Chavarriaga, a BCI researcher at the Swiss Federal Institute of Technology in Lausanne.

G.Tec says it is working on adding wheelchair control as a function, to help give users more mobility. “The point is that they can start making their own decisions,” says Edlinger.