Google’s Senior Vice President of Devices & Services, Rick Osterloh, broke the news on the official Google blog, saying:
Over the years, Google has made progress with partners in this space with Wear OS and Google Fit, but we see an opportunity to invest even more in Wear OS as well as introduce Made by Google wearable devices into the market. Fitbit has been a true pioneer in the industry and has created engaging products, experiences and a vibrant community of users. By working closely with Fitbit’s team of experts, and bringing together the best AI, software and hardware, we can help spur innovation in wearables and build products to benefit even more people around the world.
Earlier this week, on October 28, a report from Reuters surfaced to indicate that Google was in a bid to purchase Fitbit. It’s a big move, but it’s also one that makes good sense.
Google’s Wear OS wearable platform has been in something of a rut for the last few years. The company introduced the Android Wear to Wear OS rebrand in 2018 to revitalize its branding/image, but the hardware offerings have still been pretty ho-hum. Third-party watches like the Fossil Gen 5 have proven to be quite good, but without a proper “Made by Google” smartwatch and other major players, such as Samsung, ignoring the platform, it’s been left to just sort of exist.
In 1999, at the peak of Hydrogen fuel cell company start ups in California he left BAe to start his own fuel cell company. “My old boss at Rolls Royce pointed out that the Hydrogen needed to come from somewhere. So I looked at other technologies and found metal-air,”he says.
Technically described as “(Al)/air” batteries, these are the — almost — untold story from the battery world. For starters, an aluminum-air battery system can generate enough energy and power for driving ranges and acceleration similar to gasoline-powered cars.
Sometimes known as “Metal-Air” batteries, these have been successfully used in “off-grid” applications for many years, just as batteries powering army radios. The most attractive metal in this type of battery is aluminum because it is the most common metal on Earth and has one of the highest energy densities.
Think of an air-breathing battery which uses aluminum as a “fuel.” That means it can provide vehicle power with energy originating from clean sources (hydro, geothermal, nuclear etc.). These are the power sources for most aluminum smelters all over the world. The only waste product is aluminum hydroxide and this can be returned to the smelter as the feedstock for — guess what? — making more aluminum! This cycle is therefore highly sustainable and separate from the oil industry. You could even recycle aluminum cans and use them to make batteries.
Imagine that — a power source separate from the highly polluting oil industry.
“I rented a lab, read everything on it and then turned back into a Development Engineer, which means: thinking, making, testing and tweaking until you find answers. One or two bolts from the blue and I saw a massive difference on one test,” says Jackson.
But hardly anyone was using them in mainstream applications. Why?
Aluminum-air batteries had been around for a while. But the problem with a battery which generated electricity by “eating” aluminum was that it was simply not efficient. The electrolyte used just didn’t work well.
This was important. An electrolyte is a chemical medium inside a battery that allows the flow of electrical charge between the cathode and anode. When a device is connected to a battery — a light bulb or an electric circuit — chemical reactions occur on the electrodes that create a flow of electrical energy to the device.
When an aluminum-air battery starts to run, a chemical reaction produces a “gel” by-product which can gradually block the airways into the cell. It seemed like an intractable problem for researchers to deal with.
But after a lot of experimentation, in 2001, Jackson developed what he believed to be a revolutionary kind of electrolyte for aluminum-air batteries which had the potential to remove the barriers to commercialization.
“Everything was steady, the hydrogen and gel were almost gone but the power was a lot better.”
His specially developed electrolyte did not produce the hated gel that would destroy the efficiency of an aluminum-air battery. For Jackson, it seemed like a game-changer: “All I needed to do was to tell the government. ‘Simple’, I thought.”
The breakthrough — if proven — had huge potential. The energy density of his battery was about eight times that of a lithium-ion battery. He was incredibly excited. Then he tried to tell politicians…
Despite a detailed demonstration of a working battery to Lord “Jim” Knight in 2001, followed by email correspondence and a promise to “pass it onto Tony (Blair),” there was no interest from the U.K. government.
And Jackson faced bureaucratic hurdles. The U.K. government’s official innovation body, Innovate UK, emphasized lithium battery technology, not aluminum-air batteries.
He was struggling to convince public and private investors to back him, such was the hold the “lithium battery lobby” had over the sector.
This emphasis on lithium batteries over anything else meant U.K. the government was effectively leaving on the table a technology which could revolutionize electrical storage and mobility and even contribute to the fight against carbon emission and move the U.K. toward its pollution-reduction goals.
Disappointed in the U.K., Jackson upped sticks and found better backing in France, where he moved his R&D in 2005.
Finally, in 2007, the potential of Jackson’s invention was confirmed independently in France at the Polytech Nantes institution. Its advantages over Lithium Ion batteries were (and still are) increased cell voltage. They used ordinary aluminum, would create very little pollution and had a steady, long-duration power output.
As a result, in 2007 the French Government formally endorsed the technology as “strategic and in the national interest of France.”
At this point, the U.K.’s Foreign Office suddenly woke up and took notice.
It promised Jackson that the UKTI would deliver “300%” effort in launching the technology in the U.K. if it was “repatriated” back to the U.K.
However, in 2009, the U.K.’s Technology Strategy Board refused to back the technology, citing that the Automotive Council Technology Road Map “excluded this type of battery.” Even though the Carbon Trust agreed that it did indeed constitute a “credible CO2-reduction technology,” it refused to assist Jackson further.
Meanwhile, other governments were more enthusiastic about exploring metal-air batteries.
[…]
Jackson tried to tell the U.K. government they were making a mistake. Appearing before the Parliamentary Select Committee for business-energy and industrial strategy, he described how the U.K. had created a bias toward lithium-ion technology which had led to a battery-tech ecosystem which was funding lithium-ion research to the tune of billions of pounds. In 2017, Prime Minister Theresa May further backed the lithium-ion industry.
Jackson (pictured below) refused to take no for an answer.
He applied to U.K.’s Defence Science and Technology Laboratory. But in 2017 they replied with a “no-fund” decision which dismissed the technology, even though DSTL had an actual programme of its own on aluminum-air technology, dedicated to finding a better electrolyte, at Southampton University.
Jackson turned to the auto industry instead. He formed his company MAL (branded as “Metalectrique“) in 2013 and used seed funding to successfully test a long-range design of power pack in its laboratory facilities in Tavistock, U.K.
Here he is on a regional BBC channel explaining the battery:
He worked closely with Lotus Engineering to design and develop long-range replacement power packs for the Nissan Leaf and the Mahindra Reva “G-Wiz’ electric cars. At the time, Nissan expressed a strong interest in this “Beyond Lithium Technology” (their words) but they were already committed to fitting LiON batteries to the Leaf. Undeterred, Jackson concentrated on the G-Wiz and went on to produce full-size battery cells for testing and showed that aluminum-air technology was superior to any other existing technology.
In tests, Jackson’s Aluminium-Air power technology could create a 1,500 mile range battery with a 90 second swap system. The benefits are obvious: Cost effective for the driver; safe & CO2 free; recyclable and reusable; and with an £0.08 / mile cost to driver. The batteryis also low cost: just £60/kWh (Battery Price to OEM).
[…]
The advantages of aluminum-air technology are numerous. Without having to charge the battery, a car could simply swap out the battery in seconds, completely removing “charge time.” Most current charging points are rated at 50 kW which is roughly one-hundredth of that required to charge a lithium battery in five minutes. Meanwhile, hydrogen fuel cells would require a huge and expensive hydrogen distribution infrastructure and a new hydrogen generation system.
But Jackson has kept on pushing, convinced his technology can address both the power needs of the future, and the climate crisis.
Last May, he started getting much-needed recognition.
The U.K.’s Advanced Propulsion Centre included the Metalectrique battery as part of its grant investment into 15 U.K. startups to take their technology to the next level as part of its Technology Developer Accelerator Programme (TDAP). The TDAP is part of a 10-year program to make U.K. a world-leader in low-carbon propulsion technology.
The catch? These 15 companies have to share a paltry £1.1 million in funding.
And as for Jackson? He’s still raising money for Metalectrique and spreading the word about the potential for aluminum-air batteries to save the planet.
What happens when it runs out of juice? You replace it with a new one while the old one gets recycled. At the beginning of the electric car era when charging infrastructure was nonexistent, the idea of swapping spent batteries for fully charged new ones was considered feasible. Jackson says such a thing could be the future, with his batteries/fuel cells sold at grocery stores and retail outlets. He says the process of disconnecting the old one and connecting the new one will take about 90 seconds.
But is it tin foil hat time? Is this story just another example of some crackpot inventing some radical new product that defies conventional physics, like cold fusion? Lots of people think so, and in fact Jackson says powerful forces have attempted to prevent his idea from reaching a larger audience. But an independent evaluation by the UK Trade and Investment agency in 2017 said Jackson’s invention was a “very attractive battery” based on “well established’” technology, and that it produced much more energy per kilogram than standard electric vehicle types, according to a report in theDaily Mail.
Some comparisons are in order. A Tesla Model S can drive up to 370 miles on a single charge. Jackson says if you drove the same car with an aluminum-air cell that weighed the same as the Tesla’s lithium-ion battery, it would have a range of 2,700 miles. Aluminum-air cells also take up less space. If that same Tesla were fitted with an aluminum-air fuel cell the same size as its current battery, it could run non-stop for 1,500 miles.
[…]
Jackson has also secured a £108,000 grant for further research from the Advanced Propulsion Center, a partner of the Department for Business, Innovation and Skills. His technology has been validated by two French universities. He says: “It has been a tough battle but I’m finally making progress. From every logical standpoint, this is the way to go.”
Austin Electric has three targets for the new batteries — the three-wheeled tuk-tuks used for transportation in many countries such as Pakistan, electric bicycles with far more range than current models, and a program that will convert front wheel drive cars with internal combustion engines into hybrids by fitting aluminum-air batteries and motors to drive the rear wheels.
Jackson expects the conversion operation to start next year. He says the cost of each conversion will be £3,500 or about $4,000. He thinks this will be a proof of concept “stepping-stone” phase in the transition to aluminum-air batteries for all vehicles. “We are in discussions with two aircraft manufacturers. It’s not going to be suitable for jets. But it would work in propeller planes, and be suitable for short-haul passenger and cargo flights.”
It’s ridiculous that this invention is only now going into small scale production and only gets 108k for development. Considering this is relevant and the technology is really viable, this should be on the top of the agenda. What happens to li-ion batteries is melt and destroy the environment.
Earlier in October, Hyperstealth filed a patent for the material, which doesn’t require a power source and is both paper-thin and inexpensive — all traits that could make it appealing for use on the battlefield.
According to a press release, it works by bending the light around a target to make it seemingly disappear. This light can be in the visible spectrum, or it can be ultraviolet, infrared, or shortwave infrared light, making the material what Hyperstealth calls a “broadband invisibility cloak.”
Ready for Battle
Alongside the news of the patent application, Hyperstealth released more than 100-minutes worth of footage describing and demonstrating the material — and if the press release doesn’t make it clear that the military is the company’s target customer, the video footage sure does.
In one segment, Hyperstealth shows how it can hide a scaled-down version of a tank by placing a sheet of the material above it. In another, it renders a small jet invisible by placing it behind the “Quantum Stealth” material.
As for the phone’s more traditional specs, there’s a Qualcomm Snapdragon 855+ processor, 5G connectivity, 12GB of RAM, 512GB of storage, 40W wired fast-charging, and a 4,050mAh battery. That last spec would perhaps suggest that Xiaomi doesn’t imagine you having the whole screen turned on all the time.
Xiaomi describes the Mix Alpha as a “concept smartphone” and isn’t going to be mass-producing it any time soon. The phone will go into small-scale production this year and go on sale in December for 19,999 yuan, or about $2,800. The original Mi Mix was also given the “concept” label and released in small quantities, with the Mi Mix 2 following a year later as a more mainstream device.
On one hand, this design poses obvious issues with cost, durability, battery life, accidental touch recognition, privacy, and so on. On the other, well, just look at it:
team from MIT’s Computer Science and Artificial Intelligence Laboratory (CSAIL) has brought us closer to this chameleon reality, by way of a new system that uses reprogrammable ink to let objects change colors when exposed to ultraviolet (UV) and visible light sources.
Dubbed “PhotoChromeleon,” the system uses a mix of photochromic dyes that can be sprayed or painted onto the surface of any object to change its color—a fully reversible process that can be repeated infinitely.
PhotoChromeleon can be used to customize anything from a phone case to a car, or shoes that need an update. The color remains, even when used in natural environments.
“This special type of dye could enable a whole myriad of customization options that could improve manufacturing efficiency and reduce overall waste,” says CSAIL postdoc Yuhua Jin, the lead author on a new paper about the project. “Users could personalize their belongings and appearance on a daily basis, without the need to buy the same object multiple times in different colors and styles.”
Credit: Massachusetts Institute of Technology
PhotoChromeleon builds off of the team’s previous system, “ColorMod,” which uses a 3-D printer to fabricate items that can change their color. Frustrated by some of the limitations of this project, such as small color scheme and low-resolution results, the team decided to investigate potential updates.
With ColorMod, each pixel on an object needed to be printed, so the resolution of each tiny little square was somewhat grainy. As far as colors, each pixel of the object could only have two states: transparent and its own color. So, a blue dye could only go from blue to transparent when activated, and a yellow dye could only show yellow.
But with PhotoChromeleon’s ink, you can create anything from a zebra pattern to a sweeping landscape to multicolored fire flames, with a larger host of colors.
The team created the ink by mixing cyan, magenta, and yellow (CMY) photochromic dyes into a single sprayable solution, eliminating the need to painstakingly 3-D print individual pixels. By understanding how each dye interacts with different wavelengths, the team was able to control each color channel through activating and deactivating with the corresponding light sources.
Specifically, they used three different lights with different wavelengths to eliminate each primary color separately. For example, if you use a blue light, it would mostly be absorbed by the yellow dye and be deactivated, and magenta and cyan would remain, resulting in blue. If you use a green light, magenta would mostly absorb it and be deactivated, and then both yellow and cyan would remain, resulting in green.
“By giving users the autonomy to individualize their items, countless resources could be preserved, and the opportunities to creatively change your favorite possessions are boundless,” says MIT Professor Stefanie Mueller. Credit: Massachusetts Institute of Technology
After coating an object using the solution, the user simply places the object inside a box with a projector and UV light. The UV light saturates the colors from transparent to full saturation, and the projector desaturates the colors as needed. Once the light has activated the colors, the new pattern appears. But if you aren’t satisfied with the design, all you have to do is use the UV light to erase it, and you can start over.
They also developed a user interface to automatically process designs and patterns that go onto desired items. The user can load up their blueprint, and the program generates the mapping onto the object before the light works its magic.
The team tested the system on a car model, a phone case, a shoe, and a little (toy) chameleon. Depending on the shape and orientation of the object, the process took anywhere from 15 to 40 minutes, and the patterns all had high resolutions and could be successfully erased when desired.
How is this possible? In the simplest of terms, the scientists measured the electrooculographic signals generated when eyes make specific movements (up, down, left, right, blink, double blink) and created a soft biomimetic lens that responds directly to those electric impulses. The lens created was able to change its focal length depending on the signals generated.
Therefore the lens could literally zoom in the blink of an eye.
Incredibly, the lens works regardless of whether the user can see or not. It’s not about the sight, it’s about the electricity produced by specific movements.
Canon’s G7 X line has long been a favorite of photographers who wanted a travel-friendly camera that could still capture high-quality images. But with the rise of smartphones and the decline of point-and-shoots, Canon began pushing its compact cameras towards vloggers, who I’ve seen use cameras like the G7 X and Sony’s RX100 line as a backup or more portable alternative to a big mirrorless or DSLR cam. After all, when you’re attaching a camera to a gimbal or the end of a GorillaPod, every extra bit of lightness make a camera easier to handle.
So for the new G7 X III, it seems the influencers have influenced Canon because one of the camera’s new standout features is the ability to record vertical videos without rotating the footage in post natively. Using a new built-in gyro, the G7 X III can determine the camera’s orientation and then embed that info into a clip’s metadata, which means filming vertical videos for your Instagram stories on the G7 X III is as simple as turning the camera sideways.
And if that’s enough not to excite attendees of VidCon 2019—the vlogger convention where the $750 G7 X is making its official debut—Canon also gave the camera the ability to livestream video directly to YouTube over wifi via the company’s Image Gateway software. The G7 X III also comes with a built-in microphone jack for vloggers who aren’t satisfied with the camera’s on-board audio, and a 3-inch touchscreen that can flip up 180-degree so that vloggers can check their composition while they’re filming themselves.
The tech world is probably sitting on the edge of a charger revolution, and most of us just haven’t realized it yet. No, I’m not talking about USB-C (sadly); I’m talking about GaN (gallium nitride) chargers, a material that’s started to replace silicon in chargers. I’ve had the chance to try out two of the first GaN chargers — RavPower’s 45W slimline design model and Anker’s PowerPort Atom PD 1 — and it’s not just marketing hype: the new chargers really do make a huge leap forward for shrinking down power bricks in a way that’s really exciting to see.
In both cases, simply holding the charger in your hand is enough to make you skeptical. The 30W Anker just flat out seems too small to drive anything bigger than a phone, and the 45W RavPower option, while a bit larger, also pales in comparison to a similarly specced silicon-based charger.
From left to right: Apple’s 5W iPhone charger (for scale), Anker’s 30W PowerPort Atom PD 1, and RavPower’s 45W GaN charger
But both work as promised, outputting the charge they say on their respective labels without getting unnecessarily hot or exploding, which is basically all you can really ask of a charger. It’s not magic: as my colleague Angela Chen explains, GaN is much more efficient, meaning that chargers that use it can be much smaller and waste less energy than ones based on silicon. The biggest obstacle is simply that companies are used to working with silicon, whereas GaN is relatively new; in an ideal world, we’ll probably start to see more products taking advantage of the tech in the near future.
It’s not perfect yet: Anker’s 30W Atom PD 1 struggles to power something as large as a 13-inch MacBook Pro — you can charge it while the computer is sleeping, but while actively running, it’ll still struggle to really keep pace with the power drain (although it’ll work in a pinch). And for anything smaller, like a phone, iPad, Nintendo Switch, headphones, or anything else with USB-C, it’s practically a no-brainer for the $29.99 price.
RavPower’s 45W plug is even more impressive — it can actually drive basically any USB-C device, barring the most power-hungry laptops (like Apple’s 15-inch MacBook Pro). And while I’d wish for that kind of wattage in something a little smaller, we’re still in the extremely early days for GaN chargers, and odds are that we’ll start to see more varied designs soon.
In order to create what it calls “the world’s lightest gaming mouse,” the engineers at peripheral maker Glorious PC Gaming Race took a mouse and put holes all in it. The result is the Model O, a very good gaming mouse that weighs only 67 grams and may trigger trypophobia.
“You’ll barely feel the holes,” reads the copy on the Model O’s product page, answering the question I imagine most people have when looking at the honeycombed plastic shell. I’ve used the ultra-light accessory for a couple weeks now, and the product page is correct. It feels slightly bumpy under the palm.
Only when I look directly at the Model O do I feel mildly disturbed by the pattern of holes covering the top and its underside. The effect is less jarring when the RGB lighting is cycling. While I’m actively using the mouse, my giant hands cover it completely. Glorious PC Gaming Race says the holes allow for better airflow, keeping hands cool, but my massive paws negate that benefit. I worry about dirt getting in the holes, but that’s nothing I can’t avoid by not being a total slob. Perhaps it’s time.
The Model O slides over my mouse pad effortlessly thanks to its ridiculously low weight and the rounded plastic feet, which Glorious PC Gaming Race calls “G-Skates.” I particularly enjoy the mouse’s cable, a proprietary braided affair that feels like a normal thin wire wrapped in a shoelace. It doesn’t tangle, which is an issue with many mice and one of the main reasons I prefer a stationary trackball.
Beneath the unique design and proprietary bits, the Model O is a very nice six-button gaming mouse. It’s got a Pixart sensor that can be adjusted as sensitive as 12,000 DPI (dots per inch), with more sensible presets of 400, 800, 1,600, and 3,200 cyclable via a button on the bottom of the unit (software is required to go higher). It’s fast and responsive.
Glorious PC Gaming Race Model O Specs
Sensor: Pixart PMW-3360 Sensor
Switch Type (Main): Omron Mechanical Rated For 20 Million Clicks
Number of Buttons: 6
Max Tracking Speed: 250+ IPS
Weight: 67grams (Matte) and 68 grams (Glossy)
Acceleration: 50G
Max DPI: 12,000
Polling Rate: 1000hz (1ms)
Lift off Distance: ~0.7mm
Price: $50 Matte, $60 Glossy.
Note that the Model O comes in four styles: black or white matte finish and black or white glossy. The glossy versions cost $10 more than the $50 matte versions and weigh 68 grams instead of 67. In other words, the glossy versions are not the “world’s lightest gaming mouse” and should be exiled.
The Glorious PC Gaming Race Model O is the lightest gaming mouse I’ve used. I’m not sure I’m the type of hardcore mouse user that would benefit from the reduced weight. In fact, many of the gaming mice I’ve evaluated over the past several years have come packaged with weights to make them heavier. If you prefer a more lightweight pointing device and don’t mind all the holes, the Model O could be for you. And if not, you can probably fill it with clay or something to weigh it down.
Apple’s Memoji may have become the more popular 3D avatar feature for smartphones, but Xiaomi wants people to know that its similarly named version — Mimoji — came first, despite increasingly confusing overlap between the apps’ names and features. Moreover, it’s apparently threatening legal action against writers who call it a copycat without providing proof.
In September 2017, Apple introduced Animoji as an iPhone X-exclusive component of Messages, enabling the high-end smartphone’s users to see their facial expressions rendered in augmented reality as one of 12 animated emoji glyphs, including pig, fox, rabbit, panda, and poop icons. On June 4, 2018, it added user-customizable Memoji faces to Animoji — notably without changing the Messages component’s name — which hit all iPhone X, XR, and XS models with a final public release in September 2018.
By contrast, Xiaomi notes that its own feature was originally called “Mi Meng” when it hit China in late May 2018, but had the English name Mimoji, as evidenced by the package name of its Android application. While the company’s Mimoji generally looked like second-rate Animoji — including a pig, fox, panda, and rabbit-ish mascot — there weren’t any human figures. Until now.
Above: Xiaomi’s initial Mimoji.
The new version of Mimoji is arriving with Xiaomi’s CC9 phones, adding user-customizable human faces complete with the same basic facial, hair, and clothing elements, albeit rendered with various small changes. Writers in China found the similarities similar enough to call Xiaomi’s version a clone, but after a day of “internal self-examination,” the company challenged that on the Weibo social network. As Gizmochina notes, PR head Xu Jieyun posted the app’s naming timeline, and said that the “functional logic difference between the two products is huge.” It also promised “the next phase of action” against people who said it was copying Apple’s Memoji without proof.
Neither Apple nor Xiaomi can reasonably claim to be first with either the 3D animal or 3D human avatar concept; the ideas have been found in third-party apps for years, and Samsung’s AR Emoji beat both companies to market with OS-integrated human avatars in February 2018. Even the Memoji name dates back to at least early 2017, and not from Apple.
But there’s no question that Apple’s specific implementation of Memoji, complete with TrueDepth face tracking, was something special, and now Mimoji offers something similar. Apple has already announced a host of new customizations for Memoji in iOS 13, and each company will likely iterate on its system — under whatever name — for years to come.
I had no idea that quick charging mouse mats were a thing, but it seems like a great idea. Considering QI has won the wireless charging race, I have selected a few which have LED colours, because I love them. Note, if you buy on Amazon US you often get cheaper prices for the hardware than elsewhere for some reason.
ASUS ROG Balteus Vertical Gaming Mouse Pad with Hard Micro-Textured Gaming Surface, USB Pass-Through, Aura Sync RGB Lighting and Non-Slip Base (12.6” X 14.6”)
12.6” x 14.6” vertical gaming mousepad
Hard micro-textured, low-friction gaming surface for smooth gliding and precise control
Usb 2.0 pass-through for connecting gaming mice or headsets
Lighting mode button can adjust brightness or effects on the fly
ASUS Aura Sync RGB lighting features a nearly endless spectrum of colors with the ability to synchronize effects across an ever-expanding ecosystem of AURA Sync enabled products
CORSAIR MM1000 Qi Wireless Charging Mouse Pad – Adapters Included for Most Smartphones Including iPhone and Android (CH-9440022-NA)
Qi wireless charging allows you to effortlessly charge any QI Certified Device
Included USB Micro-B, Type-C and Lightning QI charging adapters enable you to charge almost any other wireless/mobile Device Performance micro-textured Hard surface tuned for Optical or laser mouse precision
Convenient USB 3.0 pass-through port for maximum Device compatibility
Built-in LED indicator displays charging status at a glance
Qi Wireless Fast Charging Mouse Pad Mat for iPhone X iPhone 8 Galaxy S8 S9 Plus Samsung Note 8 9
Input: 9V/1.6A; 5V/2A Output: 10W (Max).
Material: Non skid soft lining base protects desktop and keeps the pad in place. Copper Coil:Built-in circuit protection keeps you and your device safe.
Gaming Mouse Pad RGB Oversized Glowing LED Extended Illuminated Keyboard Thicken Colorful
1、Colorful RGB lights, 9 colors, 10 modes available: red, green, blue, purple, cyan, yellow, white, color, breathing lights. 2、About 4mm/0.16in ultra-thick fine textured fabric with precise positioning and low resistance. 3、Separable USB cable for easy use, convenient storage/portability, foldable. 4、PU non-slip rubber bottom surface, not easy to move. 5、Large size, large mouse activity space, enhance the gaming experience. Product parameters:
Product Description: Turn on the key to control lighting mode, the default is red light, each press to switch to the next lighting mode:
1.Red 2.Green 3.Blue 4.Purple 5.Cyan 6.Yellow 7.White 8.Automatically switch according to the above color order 9.Fantasy slow flashing 10. Symphony slow flashing 11. Turn off the backlight
Product size: about small 30*25*0.4 cm/11.81*9.84*0.16in large 78*30*0.4 cm/30.71*11.81*0.16in
Product interface: USB
Product wire: 1.2 m/47.24in black braided data cable
University of Maryland researchers have created a fabric that can automatically regulate the amount of heat that passes through it. When conditions are warm and moist, such as those near a sweating body, the fabric allows infrared radiation (heat) to pass through. When conditions become cooler and drier, the fabric reduces the heat that escapes. The development was reported in the February 8, 2019 issue of the journal Science.
The researchers created the fabric from specially engineered yarn coated with a conductive metal. Under hot, humid conditions, the strands of yarn compact and activate the coating, which changes the way the fabric interacts with infrared radiation. They refer to the action as “gating” of infrared radiation, which acts as a tunable blind to transmit or block heat.
“This is the first technology that allows us to dynamically gate infrared radiation,” said YuHuang Wang, a professor of chemistry and biochemistry at UMD and one of the paper’s corresponding authors who directed the studies.
The base yarn for this new textile is created with fibers made of two different synthetic materials—one absorbs water and the other repels it. The strands are coated with carbon nanotubes, a special class of lightweight, carbon-based, conductive metal. Because materials in the fibers both resist and absorb water, the fibers warp when exposed to humidity such as that surrounding a sweating body. That distortion brings the strands of yarn closer together, which does two things. First, it opens the pores in the fabric. This has a small cooling effect because it allows heat to escape. Second, and most importantly, it modifies the electromagnetic coupling between the carbon nanotubes in the coating.
University of Maryland Chemistry and Biochemistry Professor YuHuang Wang (left) and Physics Professor Min Ouyang hold a swatch of their new fabric that can automatically adjust its insulating properties to warm or cool a human body. Credit: Faye Levine, University of Maryland
“You can think of this coupling effect like the bending of a radio antenna to change the wavelength or frequency it resonates with,” Wang said. “It’s a very simplified way to think of it, but imagine bringing two antennae close together to regulate the kind of electromagnetic wave they pick up. When the fibers are brought closer together, the radiation they interact with changes. In clothing, that means the fabric interacts with the heat radiating from the human body.”
Depending on the tuning, the fabric either blocks infrared radiation or allows it to pass through. The reaction is almost instant, so before people realize they’re getting hot, the garment could already be cooling them down. On the flip side, as a body cools down, the dynamic gating mechanism works in reverse to trap in heat.
“The human body is a perfect radiator. It gives off heat quickly,” said Min Ouyang, a professor of physics at UMD and the paper’s other corresponding author. “For all of history, the only way to regulate the radiator has been to take clothes off or put clothes on. But this fabric is a true bidirectional regulator.”
According to the Science paper, this is first textile shown to be able to regulate heat exchange with the environment.
In a demonstration of “computational periscopy” a US team at Boston University showed they could see details of objects hidden from view by analysing shadows they cast on a nearby wall.
Vivek Goyal, an electrical engineer at the university, said that while the work had clear implications for surveillance he hoped it would lead to robots that could navigate better and boost the safety of driverless cars.
He said: “I’m not especially excited by surveillance, I don’t want to be doing creepy things, but being able to see that there’s a child on the other side of a parked car, or see a little bit around the corner of an intersection could have a significant impact on safety.”
The problem of how to see round corners has occupied modern researchers for at least a decade. And while scientists have made good progress in the field, the equipment used so far has been highly specialised and expensive.
In the latest feat, Goyal and his team used a standard digital camera and a mid-range laptop. “We didn’t use any sophisticated hardware. This is just an ordinary camera and we are all carrying these around in our pockets,” he said.
The researchers, writing in the journal Nature, describe how they pieced together hidden scenes by pointing the digital camera at the vague shadows they cast on a nearby wall. If the wall had been a mirror the task would have been easy, but a matt wall scatters light in all directions, so the reflected image is nothing but a blur. Goyal said: “In essence, computation can turn a matt wall into a mirror.”
They found that when an object blocked part of the hidden scene, their algorithms could use the combination of light and shade at different points on the wall to reconstruct what lay round the corner. In tests, the program pieced together hidden images of video game characters – including details such as their eyes and mouths – along with coloured strips and the letters “BU”.
Given the relative simplicity of the program and equipment, Goyal believes it could be possible for humans to learn the same trick. In a draft blog written for Nature, he said: “It is even conceivable for humans to be able to learn to see around corners with their own eyes; it does not require anything superhuman.”
Why replace your things just because they’re not state-of-the-art? Smartians are cloud-connected motors that breathe new life into the things around you.
One of the successful projects will see albatrosses and petrels benefit from further research using ‘bird-borne’ radar devices. Developed by scientists at the British Antarctic Survey (BAS), the attached radars will measure how often tracked wandering albatrosses interact with legal and illegal fishing vessels in the south Atlantic to map the areas and times when birds of different age and sex are most susceptible to bycatch – becoming caught up in fishing nets.
The project’s results will be shared with stakeholders to better target bycatch observer programmes, monitor compliance with bycatch mitigation and highlight the impact of bycatch on seabirds.
The UK is a signatory to the Agreement on the Conservation of Albatrosses and Petrels (ACAP), part of the Convention on Migratory Species of Wild Animals (CMS). This agreement has been extremely successful in substantially reducing levels of seabird bycatch in a number of important fisheries where rates have been reduced to virtually zero from levels that were historically concerning.
Professor Richard Phillips, leader of the Higher Predators and Conservation group at the British Antarctic Survey (BAS) said:
The British Antarctic Survey is delighted to be awarded this funding from Darwin Plus, which is for a collaboration between BAS and BirdLife International. The project will use a range of technologies – GPS, loggers that record 3-D acceleration and novel radar-detecting tags – to quantify interactions of tracked wandering albatrosses with legal and illegal fishing vessels. The technology will provide much-needed information on the areas and periods of highest bycatch.
Which means, unlike Alexa or Google Home, your voice data doesn’t get listened to by the cloud, doesn’t get saved by strangers targetting advertising at you and works when the Cloud ™ goes down.
If you don’t want to put together all the bits and bobs (Raspberry Pi, mic, speaker, etc) you can get the Seeed Voice Interaction Development Kit for $115 and satellites (which relay commands to your base kit) for $85,-
One user played Beethoven’s “Ode to Joy” on an Android tablet piano app and later bought some groceries online. Another sent a few texts and then checked the weather forecast. A third browsed through some videos before firing up Stevie Nicks on Pandora.
They didn’t use their fingers to type commands or their voices to navigate the the interface.
They used their noggins, specifically the motor cortex region of their brains where a baby aspirin-size chip had been implanted as part of a new study
[…]
Each participant was asked to try out seven common apps on the tablet: email, chat, web browser, video sharing, music streaming, a weather program and a news aggregator. The researchers also asked the users if they wanted any additional apps, and subsequently added the keyboard app, grocery shopping on Amazon, and a calculator.
Photo: BrainGate CollaborationA BrainGate trial participant who is a musician played a snippet of ‘Ode to Joy’ on a digital piano interface.
The participants made up to 22 point-and-click selections per minute and typed up to 30 characters per minute in email and text programs. What’s more, all three participants really enjoyed using the tablet, says Hochberg.
Out of thousands of smartphone vendors, TCL’s BlackBerry Mobile unit represents one of a tiny handful targeting enterprise users. But its two QWERTY models to date have been priced at a premium, north of £500. Unveiled at IFA this week, budget model the KEY2 LE cuts costs in a bid to attract the corporate bulk buyers.
The formula is straightforward. Take a midrange processor for endurance then beef this up with a hefty battery. While the KEY2 had a generous 6GB of RAM, the LE has a perfectly adequate 4GB. Savings have also been made by using a polycarbonate frame, a non-touch physical keyboard, a slower Snapdragon 636 (rather than 660) processor, and slightly cheaper camera sensors (13MP+5MP main).
The dimpled, grippy rubber-like material on the back feels fine, just not as plush as the KEY2. And somewhat disappointingly the power pack has been downgraded to 3,000mAh. That promises better-than-average endurance, into a second day for most, but not the extraordinary durability of the KEY2’s 3,500mAh, which makes it a must for long days of travel or shows like IFA.
To the naked eye it’s the same, very sharp 4.5-inch display. Oldies will find using a larger-than-default font is a must. I had a little go on the “Atomic”, red-tinted LE, which is clearly trying to strive after the shock and awe of the red and white BlackBerry Passport as one of the most striking phones ever made. I’m not sure it altogether works, as the rear material has a blueish tint.
Clearly TCL isn’t competing on specs. A full-touch device similarly kitted out would be around, or even under, £200 in 2018. The LE starts at £379 for the 4GB/32GB version. But you’re really buying it for the convenience keys and thoughtful suite of office tools and utilities. I can think of nothing as convenient as the “Productivity Bar” for checking incoming messages and appointments. And the paranoid will welcome a locked area for photos, files, apps and documents.
While the tech specs of the speakers haven’t been released yet, we know how they’ll connect to and work with Roku TVs. The speaker set pairs wirelessly with Roku TVs via Roku Connect, and, thanks to built-in software that works with Roku OS, the speakers will sync up with whatever you’re watching on the smart TV. Roku told Ars in a briefing that the speakers will play optimized audio from anything connected to the paired Roku TV, including cable boxes, antennas, and even Bluetooth devices like your smartphone.
“Optimized” in this sense refers to the software-improved audio quality: automatic volume leveling will boost lower audio in quiet scenes and lower audio in loud scenes (and in booming commercials), and dialogue enhancement will improve speech intelligibility.
Google’s entire Home infrastructure has suffered a serious outage, with millions of customers on Wednesday morning complaining that their smart devices have stopped working.
At the time of writing, the cloud-connected gadgets are still hosed, the service is still down, and the system appears to have been knackered for at least the past 10 hours. The clobbbered gizmos can’t respond to voice commands, can’t control other stuff in your home, and so on.
Chromecasts can’t stream video, and Home speakers respond to commands with: “Sorry, something went wrong. Try again in a few seconds.”
Users in Google’s home state of California started complaining that their Google Home, Mini, and Chromecast devices were not working properly around midnight Pacific Time on Tuesday, and the issue cropped up in every country in which the Google Home devices are sold.
But it was only when the United States started waking up on Wednesday morning – the US has the vast majority of Google Home devices – that the reports started flooding in, pointing to an outage of the entire system.
Google has confirmed the devices are knackered, but has so far provided no other information, saying only that it is investigating the issue.
[…]
Updated to add
Google has issued the following statement:
We’re aware of an issue affecting some Google Home and Chromecast users. Some users are back online and we are working on a broader fix for all affected users. We will continue to keep our customers updated.
The web giant then followed up with more details – try rebooting to pick up a software fix, or wait up to six hours to get the update:
We’ve identified a fix for the issue impacting Google Home and Chromecast users and it will be automatically rolled out over the next 6 hours. If you would like an immediate fix please follow the directions to reboot your device. If you’re still experiencing an issue after rebooting, contact us at Google Home Support. We are really sorry for the inconvenience and are taking steps to prevent this issue from happening in the future.
No holograms, no 3D, no AR, no bullshit. Square Off is a chess board where the pieces move themselves, and you can play online or against AI.
Square Off is really something special. There’s no avoiding a smile the first time you see a knight slide out from the back row without banging into any pawns along the way, and there’s a certain smug satisfaction from the AI as it slowly slides your pieces off the board after capturing them.
GIF: Square Off
The board houses a 2200 mAh battery that’s rated to around 50 games, rechargeable via AC adapter. There are two versions of Square Off, the standard $329 “Kingdom” set and the $399 “Grand Kingdom” set. The latter, which I’m playing with as I write this, has:
Additional capture space where the opponent’s captured pieces are placed automatically at their designated position
Auto Rest of board after current game is over.
Comes with Special Edition Premium Rosewood chess set
Board size is bigger due to additional capture space but play area is same as Kingdom Set
The Square Off app, which has to remain connected to the board throughout play, is very bare bones at this point, and we’ll update accordingly as upcoming features roll out, including:
Chess.com integration
Game analyzer
Training mode
Pro game live “streaming” and match recording
Chat
While the whole package feels very premium and well-made, at these price points, it’s a bit crazy that there’s no included permanent storage case for the pieces.
Square Off is planning to start taking orders after April 15, once their crowdfunded preorders have all been delivered. Ultimately they also plan to make the board modular for the playing of other games by switching out the surface.
Building on the technology that debuted with Kinect and became a core part of HoloLens, Project Kinect for Azure combines Microsoft’s next-generation depth camera with the power of Azure services to enable new scenarios for developers working with ambient intelligence. This technology will transform AI on the edge with spatial, human, and object understanding, increasing efficiency and unlocking new possibilities.
everage capabilities like spatial mapping, segmentation, and human and object recognition to enable:
Some smartwatches come with powerful processors, lots of storage, and robust software, but have limited capabilities compared to smartphones thanks to their tiny touchscreens. Researchers at Carnegie Mellon University, however, have now created a smartwatch prototype with a built-in projector that turns the wearer’s arm into a smartphone-sized touchscreen.
Despite what you may have seen on crowdfunding sites, the LumiWatch is the first smartwatch to integrate a fully-functional laser projector and sensor array, allowing a screen projected on a user’s skin to be poked, tapped, and swiped just like a traditional touchscreen. It seems like a gadget straight out of science fiction, but don’t reach for your credit card just yet, because it’s going to be a very long time before the technology created for this research project ends up in a consumer-ready device.
The second generation of a deciwatt gravity-powered lamp designed by the British industrial designers behind the Psion computer keyboard was launched today.
Few innovations we cover can claim to save lives, but this just might be one of them. The $5 Gravity Light, designed by London’s Therefore Inc, offers the world’s poorest a clean alternative to burning kerosene or biomass for lighting or radios.
The clever bit is a winch that unwinds incredibly slowly, but steadily enough to provide a low but usable voltage. The lamp was first featured here in 2012.
The second generation adds solar power and a rechargeable battery. The latter may be surprising – co-designer Jim Reeves said short-lived and costly rechargeable batteries were far from ideal. But things change, and the ability to store the energy is useful.
:format(webp):no_upscale()/cdn.vox-cdn.com/uploads/chorus_asset/file/13712359/akrales_190123_3182_0075.jpg)
