CSIRO researchers have developed miniature sensors that track lab equipment, coffee mugs and staplers in the office.
Called Fleck Nano, the sensors build on CSIRO’s existing Fleck technology that is being commercially produced for monitoring cows on farms.
Fleck sensors collect data like location and temperature. They form an ad-hoc mesh network, and communicate with static nodes and each other via radio waves.
Since the a battery attachment would significantly affect the size of the device, the researchers are currently looking into reducing the Fleck Nano’s energy demands and ways to harvest energy from the environment. The prototype cost $50 to manufacture. Valencia said a mass-produced device is likely to cost “orders of magnitude” less.
In future, Valencia said the technology could be integrated with machine learning algorithms that will allow for applications like kettles that automatically boil water as a coffee mug is carried to the kitchen.
“I think the future will be filled with that kind of stuff; we’re just working towards getting there,” he told iTnews.
At TEDIndia, Pranav Mistry demos several tools that help the physical world interact with the world of data — including a deep look at his SixthSense device and a new, paradigm-shifting paper “laptop.” In an onstage Q&A, Mistry says he’ll open-source the software behind SixthSense, to open its possibilities to all.
Pretty neat demos.
Mike Treder at IEET writes a little about a new device from a UK company that is essentially a camera worn around the neck, photographing every significant moment of our lives.
Worn on a cord around the neck, the camera takes pictures automatically as often as once every 30 seconds. It also uses an accelerometer and light sensors to snap an image when a person enters a new environment, and an infrared sensor to take one when it detects the body heat of a person in front of the wearer. It can fit 30,000 images onto its 1-gigabyte memory.The ViconRevue was originally developed as the SenseCam by Microsoft Research Cambridge, UK, for researchers studying Alzheimer’s and other dementias. Studies showed that reviewing the events of the day using SenseCam photos could help some people improve long-term recall.
Mike predicts that we might have devices like this that take video as well, and not on light- or location-triggers, but all the time. This would be useful, he says, for re-living past experiences (and for “gathering data to be used in re-creating a personality embedded in silicon”, whatever that means).
In a similar vein, Wired has a review of the Fitbit Fitness and Sleep Tracker, a beefed-up pedometer with a triaxial accelerometer and a computer docking station. The Fitbit clips to your clothes and tracks how far and how fast you move, how you sleep, and the accompanying web interface lets you input calories consumed to complement calories expended. Interestingly, the Fitbit has a focus on data, metrics and trends for everything it tracks.
This is an interesting trend that I think will become more and more prevalent. Combine these devices, or allow them to gather data in a standardized way, and you can get a pretty accurate picture of of someone’s doings. Combine with a GPS receiver, a heartrate monitor, perhaps a light-level sensor, etc and that’s a whole lot of data that could be mined for interesting patterns.
[Miami Herald: Oh baby, it’s a long life]:Today’s babies will be tomorrow’s centenarians. A new report says that reaching the age of 100 may become ordinary for most American babies born since 2000. How will living for a century affect our kids? And what quality of life awaits those who live this long?
An interesting article with some facts about the growing number of centenarians in Japan, the US, and other first-world countries.
Japan’s quickly-growing older population has already begun changing the how it’s society views them. There are an increasing number lifestyle products to make the lives of the extremely elderly easier.
But, what will happen when old people are more healthy, still self-sufficient, presumably still employed, and otherwise active? Will their longer experience and accumulated wealth become an insurmountable obstacle for newer generations?
Fashions in ideologies also tend to shift when the older generations die - will our politics become stagnant with the over-repeated ideas of the older giants who refuse to die or retire? Will the younger voice be drowned out and ignored?
