Researchers develop method to wirelessly charge several cellphones simultaneously

By IANS /  18 Feb 2017 , 12:47

If you thought wireless charging in smartphones was a new thing, you are mistaken as researchers have found a new method to power devices without connecting them to cords.

The new method developed by Disney Research, published in the journal PLOS ONE, for wirelessly transmitting power throughout a room enables users to charge electronic devices as seamlessly as they now connect to WiFi hotspots.

The researchers demonstrated their method, called quasistatic cavity resonance (QSCR), inside a specially built 16-by-16-foot room at their lab.

They safely generated near-field standing magnetic waves that filled the interior of the room, making it possible to power several cellphones, fans and lights simultaneously.

“This new innovative method will make it possible for electrical power to become as ubiquitous as WiFi,” said Alanson Sample, associate lab director and principal research scientist at Disney Research.

“This in turn could enable new applications for robots and other small mobile devices by eliminating the need to replace batteries and wires for charging,” added Sample.

According to Sample, wireless power transmission is a long-standing technological dream.

“In this work, we’ve demonstrated room-scale wireless power, but there’s no reason we couldn’t scale this down to the size of a toy chest or up to the size of a warehouse,” Sample noted.

The QSCR method involves inducing electrical currents in the metalised walls, floor and ceiling of a room, which in turn generate uniform magnetic fields that permeate the room’s interior.

This enables power to be transmitted efficiently to receiving coils that operate at the same resonant frequency as the magnetic fields.

The induced currents in the structure are channelled through discrete capacitors, which isolate potentially harmful electrical fields.

“Our simulations show we can transmit 1.9 kilowatts of power while meeting federal safety guidelines,” Chabalko said, adding that this was equivalent to simultaneously charging 320 smartphones.

Study says that online gaming is not as addictive as gambling in real life

Image: Abhilash Pavuluri

  04 Nov 2016 , 17:32

You can successfully quit out of your favourite online game with much ease as playing internet games has been found not as addictive as gambling, new research has suggested. The study is the first to measure the scale of gaming addiction in the general population using symptoms of ‘internet gaming disorder’, which included preoccupation with internet gaming, anxiety and other withdrawal symptoms (if the game was taken away), increasing amounts of time spent gaming, loss of control, reduced interests, social withdrawal, and losing opportunities as a result of gaming.

The findings showed that while many gamers may feel preoccupied and distracted from other responsibilities in a way akin to a sports fan whose team has reached the finals, they are not likely to have a pathological condition unless there are feelings of significant distress. “Internet games are currently one of the most popular leisure activities but we can’t leap to conclusions and assume that if 160 million people play them, one million of them might be addicted,” said lead author Andrew Przybylski, from the University of Oxford.

“Contrary to what was predicted, the study did not find a clear link between potential addiction and negative effects on health,” Przybylski added. For the study, researchers from the University of Oxford surveyed 19,000 men and women from the UK, the US, Canada and Germany. Over half of the sample said they had played internet games recently. Of these, between 2 per cent and 3 per cent reported they had experienced five or more of the symptoms on the list, with between 1 per cent and 0.5 per cent saying they also had feelings of ‘significant distress’ in being unable to curb their play.

Specific indicators like increasing playtime to increase excitement were reported three times more frequently than other indicators, such as risking social relationships, the researchers observed. However, the great majority of gamers — nearly three in four — reported no symptoms at all that we would link with addictive gaming behaviour, Przybylski said.

These rates are less than half those reported recently for gambling by the British Gambling Prevalence Survey, the researchers noted in the paper published in the American Journal of Psychiatry.

IANS

Researchers develop optical sensor to test vitamin B12 deficiency

Image: 3D Print

  18 Oct 2016 , 14:29

Researchers from University of Adelaide have developed a world’s first optical sensor that can detect vitamin B12 in diluted human blood – a novel step towards developing a low-cost and portable deficiency test. Vitamin B12 deficiency is associated with an increased risk of dementia and Alzheimer’s disease. Such a device would enable the tracking of vitamin B12 levels in high-risk patients and early intervention can help overcome the limitations of current testing methods which are time-consuming and costly.

“Vitamin B12 deficiency has been shown to be a potential modifiable risk factor for dementia and Alzheimer’s disease and is associated with cognitive decline,” said Dr Georgios Tsiminis, Research Fellow at University of Adelaide. Older adults are particularly at risk of B12 deficiency due to age-related reduction in absorbing vitamin B12 received through their diet. “Our sensor is an early step towards a point-of-care solution for

Researchers develop joystick style interface for smartwatch

  16 Oct 2016 , 12:18

A team of researchers has developed a smartwatch prototype that uses the wrist wearing the watch as an always-available joystick to perform touchscreen gestures with one-handed continuous input. Checking email, tracking fitness and listening to music, are just a few things that a smartwatch can do but what if your hands aren’t free? WristWhirl is the answer.

While other studies have explored the use of one-handed continuous gestures using smartwatches, WristWhirl is the first to explore gestural input. “This shows what smartwatches may be able to do in the future, by allowing users to interact with the device using one hand (the one that the watch is worn on) while freeing up the other hand for other tasks,” said Xing-Dong Yang, assistant professor of computer science at Dartmouth College.

To develop the WristWhirl prototype, researchers investigated the biomechanical ability of the wrist by tasking a small group of participants to conduct eight joystick-like gestures while standing and walking. Participants wore the watch on their left wrist and were asked to use their wrist to make four directional marks similar to flicking a touch screen, and four free-form shapes, such as a triangle.

They were asked to make these gestures with their hand-up in front of their body during which they could see the gesture being drawn on the watch’s screen, and with their hand-down alongside their body. They were able to make directional marks at an average rate of half a second and free-form shapes at an average rate of approximately 1.5 seconds. WristWhirl was built from a 2-inch TFT display and a plastic watch strap augmented with 12 infrared proximity sensors and a Piezo vibration sensor placed inside the wrist strap.

The project will be presented at the ACM Symposium on User Interface Software and Technology in Tokyo on October 19.

IANS

IT Budget Research: Where CXOs are placing their bets for 2017

Originally Published:

 

Sep 2016

For the calendar and fiscal year 2017, it looks like the majority of IT budgets are larger than last year. In an online survey conducted by Tech Pro Research in July, 61% of respondents said their company’s budget will increase. Most in that category said the increase would be small, between 1-10%, but that’s growth nonetheless.

Another important takeaway from this research is that, when creating their budget, companies are prioritizing the same issues as last year. Respondents said their top priorities are still improving efficiency and businesses processes, achieving network security, and increasing productivity through technology. Consequently, the top initiatives planned for the upcoming year are improving security, improving applications to better fit business processes, and improving the availability and performance of network infrastructure.

Other findings from this survey include the amount of tech spending that doesn’t come out of IT budgets, major IT challenges for the upcoming year, and how vendors can help companies with the budgetary process. To learn more, download the full report.