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Archive for the ‘mobile phones’ category: Page 185

May 11, 2017

Abbott Releases First Insertable Cardiac Monitor That Works with Your Smartphone

Posted by in categories: biotech/medical, mobile phones

Abbott received the European CE Mark and is introducing its Confirm Rx Insertable Cardiac Monitor (ICM). Still sporting St. Jude Medical’s logo, now part of Abbott, the Confirm Rx features wireless Bluetooth connectivity to a paired app on the patient’s smartphone. This allows for transmission of cardiac event data to the patient’s cardiologist from just about anywhere there is cellular connectivity.

Unlike other similar devices, you don’t need a separate transmitter, like the Merlin system that has typically been employed, taking up space near the bed. And you can freely travel without having to bring another dedicated device.

Cardiac monitors such as these are used to detect heart arrhythmias in order to help identify their causes and triggers. Patients have them implanted under the skin in a procedure that takes only a few minutes, and then go about their usual days while being continuously monitored, with data uploading to a central hub on a regular basis.

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May 10, 2017

Analysis predicts extremely disruptive, total transition to EV / autonomous vehicles in 13 years

Posted by in categories: economics, finance, internet, mobile phones, robotics/AI

Yes, this works with the financial profile of “middle class” American families.


(Tech Xplore)—RethinkX, an independent think tank that analyzes and forecasts disruptive technologies, has released an astonishing report predicting a far more rapid transition to EV/autonomous vehicles than experts are currently predicting. The report is based on an analysis of the so-called technology-adoption S-curve that describes the rapid uptake of truly disruptive technologies like smartphones and the internet. Additionally, the report addresses in detail the massive economic implications of this prediction across various sectors, including energy, transportation and manufacturing.

Rethinking Transportation 2020–2030 suggests that within 10 years of regulatory approval, by 2030, 95 percent of U.S. passenger miles traveled will be served by on-demand autonomous electric vehicles (AEVs). The primary driver of this unfathomably huge change in American life is economics: The cost savings of using transport-as-a-service (TaaS) providers will be so great that consumers will abandon individually owned vehicles. The report predicts that the cost of TaaS will save the average family $5600 annually, the equivalent of a 10 percent raise in salary. This, the report suggests, will lead to the biggest increase in consumer spending in history.

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May 10, 2017

Precision typing on a smartwatch with finger gestures

Posted by in categories: augmented reality, media & arts, mobile phones, virtual reality, wearables

The “Watchsense” prototype uses a small depth camera attached to the arm, mimicking a depth camera on a smartwatch. It could make it easy to type, or in a music program, volume could be increased by simply raising a finger. (credit: Srinath Sridhar et al.)

If you wear a smartwatch, you know how limiting it is to type it on or otherwise operate it. Now European researchers have developed an input method that uses a depth camera (similar to the Kinect game controller) to track fingertip touch and location on the back of the hand or in mid-air, allowing for precision control.

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Apr 29, 2017

Investors backed an AI startup that puts a doctor on your smartphone with $60 million

Posted by in categories: biotech/medical, mobile phones, robotics/AI

UK artificial intelligence (AI) startup Babylon has raised $60 million (£47 million) for its smartphone app which aims to put a doctor in your pocket.

The latest funding round, which comes just over a year after the startup’s last fundraise, means that the three-year-old London startup now has a valuation in excess of $200 million (£156 million), according to The Financial Times.

Babylon’s app has been downloaded over a million times and it allows people in UK, Ireland, and Rwanda to ask a chatbot a series of questions about their condition without having to visit a GP.

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Apr 29, 2017

Google Maps can now tell you where you parked your car

Posted by in categories: mobile phones, transportation

A new Google Maps feature to find your parked car just went live on Android and iOS.

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Apr 18, 2017

Neural networks explained

Posted by in categories: mathematics, mobile phones, neuroscience, robotics/AI

In the past 10 years, the best-performing artificial-intelligence systems—such as the speech recognizers on smartphones or Google’s latest automatic translator—have resulted from a technique called “deep learning.”

Deep learning is in fact a new name for an approach to artificial intelligence called neural networks, which have been going in and out of fashion for more than 70 years. Neural networks were first proposed in 1944 by Warren McCullough and Walter Pitts, two University of Chicago researchers who moved to MIT in 1952 as founding members of what’s sometimes called the first cognitive science department.

Neural nets were a major area of research in both neuroscience and computer science until 1969, when, according to computer science lore, they were killed off by the MIT mathematicians Marvin Minsky and Seymour Papert, who a year later would become co-directors of the new MIT Artificial Intelligence Laboratory.

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Apr 17, 2017

Learn a language while you wait for WiFi

Posted by in categories: internet, mobile phones, robotics/AI

Hyper-connectivity has changed the way we communicate, wait, and productively use our time. Even in a world of 5G wireless and “instant” messaging, there are countless moments throughout the day when we’re waiting for messages, texts, and Snapchats to refresh. But our frustrations with waiting a few extra seconds for our emails to push through doesn’t mean we have to simply stand by.

To help us make the most of these “micro-moments,” researchers from MIT’s Computer Science and Artificial Intelligence Laboratory (CSAIL) have developed a series of apps called “WaitSuite” that test you on vocabulary words during idle moments, like when you’re waiting for an instant message or for your phone to connect to WiFi.

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Apr 17, 2017

This New Graphene-Based Electrode Could Boost Solar Storage

Posted by in categories: computing, mobile phones, solar power, sustainability

Drawing inspiration from the plant world, researchers have invented a new electrode that could boost our current solar energy storage by an astonishing 3,000 percent.

The technology is flexible and can be attached directly to solar cells — which means we could finally be one step closer to smartphones and laptops that draw their power from the Sun, and never run out.

A major problem with reliably using solar energy as a power source is finding an efficient way to store it for later use without leakage over time.

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Apr 13, 2017

The endgame for cameras is having no camera at all

Posted by in categories: computing, internet, mobile phones

I’ve been reading about Gcam, the Google X project that was first sparked by the need for a tiny camera to fit inside Google Glass, before evolving to power the world-beating camera of the Google Pixel. Gcam embodies an atypical approach to photography in seeking to find software solutions for what have traditionally been hardware problems. Well, others have tried, but those have always seemed like inchoate gimmicks, so I guess the unprecedented thing about Gcam is that it actually works. But the most exciting thing is what it portends.

I think we’ll one day be able to capture images without any photographic equipment at all.

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Apr 12, 2017

Silver Circuits On Foil Allow Curved Touchscreens

Posted by in categories: mobile phones, nanotechnology

Microscopically fine conductor paths are required on the surfaces of smartphone touchscreens. At the edges of the appliances, these microscopic circuit paths come together to form larger connective pads. Until now, these different conductive paths had to be manufactured in several steps in time-consuming processes. With photochemical metallization, this is now possible in one single step on flexible substrates. The process has several benefits: It is fast, flexible, variable in size, inexpensive and environmentally friendly. Additional process steps for post-treatment are not necessary.

For the new process, the foils are coated with a photoactive layer of . “After that, we apply a colorless, UV-stable silver compound,” Peter William de Oliveira, head of optical materials, explains. By irradiation of this sequence of layers, the silver compound disintegrates on the photoactive layer and the silver ions are reduced to form metallic, electrically conductive silver. In this way, paths of varying sizes down to the smallest size of a thousandth of a millimeter can be achieved.

This basic principle allows conductive paths to be created individually. “There are different possibilities we can use depending on the requirements: Writing conductive paths using UV lasers is particularly suitable for the initial customized prototype manufacture and testing a new design of the conductive path. However, for mass production, this method is too time-consuming,” de Oliveira explains.

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