Cover Story
watt light bulb. This inspired her to think of how she could
convert body heat directly into electricity to power a flashlight.
Her idea was to design her flashlight so that when it was gripped
in your hand, your palm would come in contact with the topside
of the tiles and start heating them. But although the tiles
generated the necessary wattage (5.7 milliwatts), she added a
transformer to boost the voltage to 5V, which was more than
enough to make her flashlight work.
Smartbox Technology
The smartbox, similar to a black box for airplanes, records details
about how your car is driven, which can result in cheap car
insurance for responsible drivers.
The device is connected to the electronics in your car and collects
a wide criteria of information such as time, speed, braking,
cornering, acceleration and location.
The smartbox data is wireless transferred in real time to the
insurance company and provides a profile of when, where and
how you drive. This profile is then used to compare insurance
rates and to reward low-risk driving behavior with cheap
insurance rates.
Electronic Pills - Collecting Data Inside The Body
These pills contain sensors or tiny cameras that collect
information as they travel through the gastrointestinal tract
before being excreted from the body a day or two later.
These new electronic inventions transmit information such as
acidity, pressure and temperature levels or images of the
esophagus and intestine to your doctor's computer for analysis.
One of the main challenges is determining just what is happening
in the stomach and intestines.
Digital Pen
Despite the digital age, we still use pens. But it would be great to
have our handwritten notes and drawings digitally recorded
without having to use a scanner. The Zpen from Dane-Elec is a
wireless pen that uses a clip-on receiver to digitally record what
you write. It uploads the information to your computer where it
can be viewed, edited and filed as a word processing document.
The digital pen utilizes character recognition software and works
by recording movement.
Instant Prints
Creating instant prints from a digital camera is one of the new
electronic inventions in printing. The Polaroid PoGo is a small
portable printer that weighs only a few ounces.
The printer produces full color 2" x 3" prints using an "inkless"
technology. The images are created from heat activated crystals in
the photo paper. The photos are water proof, tear proof and
smear proof.
Position Sensors
Sensors are devices which are able to detect changes in the
characteristics of its environment and proportionally convert
them into measurable response. These components are used to
respond or function as per the variations in the surroundings.
Diverse instrument types are available for various physical
conditions. Plant automation and process industries are the major
industries driving the demand for position sensors. The demand is
expected to witness a lucrative growth mainly on account of
expanding consumer electronic goods application. Position
Sensors Market applications in automotive and mobile phone
manufacturing are the major contributors which are expected to
propel the market demand.
Intelligent technologies for transport
Connected vehicles filled with communication technologies offer
an unprecedented opportunity to achieve the European Union’s
dream of an integrated multi-modal transport system. The
roadmap contained 40 initiatives for the next decade that are
expected to dramatically reduce Europe’s dependence on
imported oil and cut carbon emissions in transport by 60% by
2050. The objective for the next decade is to create a genuine
single European transport area , easing the process of integration
and the emergence of multinational and multimodal operators.
Smallest. Transistor. Ever.
Engineers have been eyeing the finish line in the race to shrink
the size of components in integrated circuits. Now, a team of
researchers has succeeded in creating a transistor with a working
1-nanometer gate.
The key was to use carbon nanotubes and molybdenum disulfide
(MoS2), an engine lubricant commonly sold in auto parts shops.
MoS2 is part of a family of materials with immense potential for
applications in LEDs, lasers, nanoscale transistors, solar cells, and
more.
Atomic sandwiches' could make computers 100X greener
Researchers have engineered a material that could lead to a new
generation of computing devices, packing in more computing
power while consuming a fraction of the energy that today's
electronics require.
Known as a magnetoelectric multiferroic material, it combines
electrical and magnetic properties at room temperature and
relies on a phenomenon called planar rumpling. The new material
sandwiches together individual layers of atoms, producing a thin
film with magnetic polarity that can be flipped from positive to
negative or vice versa with small pulses of electricity. In the
future, device-makers could use this property to store digital 0's
and 1's, the binary backbone that underpins computing devices.
New devices emulate human biological synapses
A new type of nano-device for computer microprocessors is being
developed that can mimic the functioning of a biological synapse
ELE Times | 40 | November, 2016