Solar Shirt for Your Charging Needs....!!!

Almost a year ago Pauline van Dongen and Holst Centre launched their Solar Shirt at South by Southwest. Since then, a menswear version of the design has been created.

The garment contains a output cable in its pocket, which allows the wearer to charge devices on the go. The Solar Shirt generates sustainable energy from 120 thin-film solar cells. In bright sunlight, it produces around 1 to 1.5 W of electricity—enough to charge a typical cellphone in a few hours. While indoors, the shirt generates enough power to keep a battery charged, so your phone or other devices are ever-ready when you need them. The shirt can charge any USB-compatible portable devices. And, if all your devices are charged, the energy can be stored in the shirt’s battery for later use.

The technology in the shirt is lightweight, which makes the design comfortable to wear and reduces the amount of friction that normally happens between bulky, rigid electronics and the soft, draped character of textiles. With a seamless integration of technology and fashion. The shirt’s solar cells are combined into modules that are designed as a zany graphic pattern, allowing the technology to become a distinct feature of the design. The shirt looks and feels like any other T-shirt because it’s made with ultra thin, stretchable electronics and flexible solar cells.

“It’s not some far fetched future scenario we are talking about, it’s actually becoming reality. It’s integrating in our actual daily lives,” says Pauline van Dongen.

The video promoting the new shirt portrays a vision of wearable technology as something that will become normal to people and will offer us new experiences.

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Source: PSFK

Taking On China’s Air Pollution Catastrophe with Bottled Air

The company that seemingly appeared out of thin air is now selling it, and while the notion seems preposterous to say the least, the cause is anything but. Citing China’s severe air pollution, Vitality Air points to a quite serious issue among the nation’s cities: 80 percent of Chinese citizens currently live in conditions which astronomically exceed the US Environmental Protection Agency’s standard for tolerable air pollution levels.


Moreover, a whopping 17 percent of overall deaths in the country occur as a result—that’s an estimated 4,000 residents in any given day.


Looking to curb these horrid statistics, Vitality Air has launched a successful campaign (4,000 units are on their way, 1,000 of which have already been pre-sold) to market its product to China, using a ‘clean compression system’ to gather large batches of fresh air from Banff National Park and Lake Louise, the company then transfers the air to their headquarters where they can it in aluminum bottles complete with spray caps or built-in masks to ensure it doesn’t escape. A certificate of authenticity guarantees that each sip you take is native to a pristine Canadian mountainside and is therefore as pure as it gets.


The website advertises the bottled air as the perfect supplement for athletic performance, yoga, cramming for exams, marathon video gaming, and hangover recovery.


“Air and oxygen are sometimes used interchangeably, but the two things are actually different. Oxygen is a pure element, while the air people breathe is a mixture of elements,” reads the site.


“Air, which is heavily contaminated with particles in high concentrations, can damage lung tissue. Low quality can sometimes be physically seen in the form of smog, a heavy collection of hydrocarbons in the atmosphere.”


From the scenic lakesides to your lungs, Vitality Air tests every batch it outputs and cherry-picks its distributors to ensure every can offers premium quality. Though packaging oxygen surely won’t fix China’s pollution, it can definitely help a select few extend their life by introducing a pure gulp of air or two.

Turn Your Laptop Screen as Touch Screen with Airbar

Recently at CES, Neonode showed off the AirBar, a $49 peripheral that connects to a USB port and gives any display touch capability with company planning to ship the AirBar in May 2016. If your laptop doesn't have a touchscreen, you don't need to replace your whole computer to get the functionality.

Airbar is unobtrusive and fits just under the display. It's a thin, black rectangle that rests on the bezel underneath the screen and if you have a black or gray laptop, you may not even realize that it's there. It uses invisible light to detect where your finger is on the screen and provide that feedback to the computer.

The AirBar’s a slim sensor that magnetically latches onto the bottom of your Chromebook or Windows laptop’s display and connects via USB. Once it’s hooked up, it’s plug and play, with no extra drivers needed the device casts a beam of light across your screen, and you can poke, pinch, zoom, swipe and scroll around with your hand the way you would on a touchscreen PC. 

Neonode says that the AirBar will work with laptops running Windows or Chrome OS. The AirBar will come in four sizes to support most displays: 11.6 inches, 13.3 inches, 14 inches and 15.6 inches.

The device is plug and play you just have to plug the AirBar into a USB port, align it on the screen, and you're ready to touch. Few other demonstrations were with other objects, including a paintbrush and a chopstick.

AirBar’s price is certainly right, but that’s only one part of the equation with input as visceral as touch. The device has to nail the feeling of actual touch input if it truly wants to succeed.

Unlock your car using NFC Technology...!!!

Using NFC technology, you can hack your car into a bro-mobile

If you’re getting tired of using lock and key, or even the remote, every time you open your car, this simpler than impossible hack can change the way you slip in and out of the vehicle. Using NFC technology, a simple fist bump would disable the locks on your car.

This fist bump-to-open car requires an NFC-enabled ring to work. The hack, although a touch complicated, is not impossible to do. It does seem to require a car with dashboard unlock controls. The system relays the dashboard key control to an NFC scanner which can be placed on the driver’s window.

In this particular hack, the KeyDuino pulls off the trick. The KeyDuino is a simple DIY tool that is an Arduino Leonardo board fitted with NFC right out of the box. The car concept and KeyDuino share the same inventor – Pierre Charlier, an active contributor to HackADay.io and a French student who apprentices at CITC-EuraRFID.

With an App, Replace your VOLVO Car Keys...

In an effort to make things more convenient for drivers, Volvo has introduced digital keys to replace physical ones. A phone app replaces the usual key, letting a user lock and unlock doors—and start the engine. The Bluetooth-enabled digital key can also be accessed from multiple locations.

Though they will not completely replace keys—drivers who want physical keys will still receive them—they offer car owners a key way to access their car.

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A Work Light, Nightlight, ‘Anywhere You Want’ Light

The Ellum Solar, designed in a minimalist candybar shape with slender curved corners and a prominent wood grain, is a lot of things a solar light should be. First, it’s multipurpose and can act as a nightlight or a work light. Second, it’s very easy to use. Third, it’s so beautiful it gives the home an extra edge in first impressions.

The light comes in a very handy size. Underneath the solid wood panel is a row of LED lights that beam 240 lumens of light using only 1.6W. Beside the lights is a wide array of solar panels. To charge, just place the device on a flat surface (like a table) with the solar panels up where the sun hits. An LED indicator flashes faster when more sun hits the panels. The light also has a touch dimmer for full range brightness control.

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Clap your hands once and these office chairs will park themselves

Nissan Tests Its Intelligent Parking Assist Tech at the Office

How one device is offering a chemical-free path to a happier and better you

Of course, chemicals are awesome. Caffeine, alcohol, all kinds of things are great…when they’re used exactly as they’re meant to be used. [But] if you use them long term, there’s usually a big price to pay,” says Isy Goldwasser, CEO and Founder of Thync.

Thync is a wearable device that helps you manage your energy, stress and sleep naturally. It uses neuro-signaling to activate specific nerves in your head and your brain to shift you to a state of calm or give you a boost of energy within minutes. Sure, the idea of a device that zaps your brain to change your mood may sound ludicrous, but the market has accepted its existence and use, primarily because Thync transports you to a more meditative space without needing to implement chemicals.

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Source : PSFK

‘Social Virtual Reality’ Team to Explore Virtual Reality Beyond Games - Facebook

Mark Zuckerberg reveals the growing numbers behind our VR consumption

Facebook has created a “social VR” team to explore virtual-reality technology’s potential beyond games, as it prepares for the consumer launch of its Oculus Rift VR headset.

Chief executive Mark Zuckerberg revealed the plans in a surprise appearance at Samsung’s Mobile World Congress press conference, while talking up the popularity of 360-degree videos on Facebook, and on Samsung’s Gear VR headset – which uses technology from Oculus.

“People have already watched more than a million hours of video in Gear VR,” explained a blog post from Facebook following the event. “Already, millions of people watch 360 videos on Facebook every day. More than 20,000 have been uploaded, with hundreds more added daily.”

Facebook is upping the quality of 360-degree videos on its service, while tasking its new team with developing other kinds of non-games content for VR headsets.

“This team will explore how people can connect and share using today’s VR technology, as well as long-term possibilities as VR evolves into an increasingly important computing platform,” claimed Facebook.

“They will work closely with Oculus and other teams at Facebook to build the foundation for tomorrow’s social VR experiences on all platforms.”

The company admits that its work in VR is “still early, and there are a lot of hardware and software challenges that we still need to solve”, but Zuckerberg is making the area one of Facebook’s priorities.

“What people care about is interacting with another person,” he told Wired in a profile published to coincide with the Samsung event, which included a demonstration of Oculus VR’s Toy Box application with two-player table tennis and other shared activities.

“The thing that’s really striking is that when you have another person there, the whole thing inherently becomes social,” said Zuckerberg. “It’s not a game. There’s no points. There’s no score. There’s no objective. But people find ways to interact. And they’re novel ways of interacting.”

Virtual reality is already one of the hot topics at this year’s Mobile World Congress conference. Besides Zuckerberg’s appearance, there were announcements from HTC and LG about their VR plans.

HTC has confirmed that its Vive headset will cost $799, with pre-orders opening at the end of February. Meanwhile, LG is launching its own headset, designed to work with its new G5 Android smartphone.

Sony Turns to E-Ink for Refined Control of the Home

What's a remote control without buttons? Something like this

These days we have lots of remote controls. Of those remotes how many of those buttons actually get used? Wouldn’t it be great if there were a simple device that could work with devices smoothly? And because fumbling around with remotes is already complicated enough, the design of said object should be elegant and simple to reflect the problem it intends to solve. The HUIS REMOTE CONTROLLER is a remote control from Sony, which can control smart appliances in your home. But what makes it unique isn’t its ability to communicate with various devices throughout your home, but its screen—it uses electronic paper instead of buttons.

This universal remote with a novel display allows you to choose what buttons you want to surface on the home screen. Users can toggle between screens easily and navigate the phone through gestures and swipes.

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Source: PSFK

ReFlex the world's first flexible Smartphone developed by Canadian Researchers

Scientists claim to have developed the world’s first wireless flexible smartphone that allows users to feel the buzz by bending phone apps. The team, working in the Human Media Lab at Queen's University in Kingston, Canada, have called their device the ReFlex which is seriously impressive.

The technology, which is still in the prototype stage, could one day make shattered screens and permanently bent phones a thing of the past if it hits the market. Equipped with a high-definition OLED screen, the display actually looks quite good, with sharp images and bright, vibrant colours.

The full-colour, high-resolution smartphone, named ReFlex, combines multitouch with bend input and allows users to experience physical tactile feedback when interacting with their apps through bend gestures. Other than making the phone a little more resistant to drops, the bendable body offers some interesting new methods of navigating.

Rather than swiping the screen to turn pages when reading an ebook, as they would with a regular smartphone, the user can just bend the phone and flip through as many pages as they need to, in the same way they would with a regular book. The team behind the phone believe the technology could reach consumers within a few years.

A vibrating unit embedded in the phone also provides feedback, so that users can feel the 'pages' flipping past their fingers as they move through the book. It also has applications in gaming, too like when playing Angry Birds, the vibration changes as the catapult pulls back, giving the sensation of an actual rubbing band stretching out and snapping forward.

Combined with the passive force feedback felt when bending the display, this allows for a highly realistic simulation of physical forces when interacting with virtual objects.

Flexible smartphones have been unveiled before from manufacturers like Nokia and Samsung that have made a few experimental models, but they've mostly either been wired devices or just promotional concepts. The LG G Flex bendable smartphone was actually released to the public in 2013, but it couldn't bend anywhere near as much as the ReFlex.

ReFlex is based on a high definition 720p LG Display Flexible OLED touch screen powered by an Android 4.4 KitKat board mounted to the side of the display. By making their device completely wireless, full-colour, high resolution and truly flexible, the Queen's University team might just have achieved a first in mobile technology.

It's obviously not going to be hitting the market soon, but Roel Vertegaal, head of the Human Media Lab at Queen's University in Kingston, Canada believes to see the technology reach consumers within a few years.

Video Link 

( Sources and Citation : The bendable phone that could make smashed screens a thing of the past Human Media Lab )

Brain Mapping technology can be used to read out Human Brain’s complex Architecture

A remarkable progress in recent years toward understanding the brain architecture is made by few Neuroscientists around the world. At the start of the 20th century, a German neuroanatomist named Korbinian Brodmann parceled the human cortex into nearly 50 different areas by looking at the structure and organization of sections of brain under a microscope. In coming years, Europe’s Human Brain Project will attempt to create a computational simulation of the human brain, while the U.S. BRAIN Initiative will try to create a wide-ranging picture of brain activity.
Now he and his coworkers are redoing Brodmann’s work as they map the borders between brain regions. The result may show something more like 100 to 200 distinct areas, providing scientists with a far more accurate road map for studying the brain’s different functions.

As part of the Human Brain Project, an international team of researchers led by German and Canadian scientists has produced a three-dimensional atlas of the brain that has 50 times the resolution of previous such maps. The atlas, which took a decade to complete, required slicing a brain into thousands of thin sections and digitally stitching them back together with the help of supercomputers. Able to show details as small as 20 micrometers, roughly the size of many human cells, it is a major step forward in understanding the brain’s three-dimensional anatomy.

To guide the brain’s digital reconstruction, researchers led by Katrin Amunts at the Jülich Research Centre in Germany initially used an MRI machine to image the post mortem brain of a 65-year-old woman. The brain was then cut into ultrathin slices. The scientists stained the sections and then imaged them one by one on a flatbed scanner.
Alan Evans and his coworkers at the Montreal Neurological Institute organized the 7,404 resulting images into a data set about a terabyte in size. Slicing had bent, ripped, and torn the tissue, so Evans had to correct these defects in the images. He also aligned each one to its original position in the brain. The result is mesmerizing: a brain model that you can swim through, zooming in or out to see the arrangement of cells and tissues.

An more innovative technique called Clarity, developed in the lab of Karl Deisseroth, a neuroscientist and bioengineer at Stanford University that allows scientists to directly see the structures of neurons and circuitry in an intact brain. The brain, like any other tissue, is usually opaque because the fats in its cells block light. Clarity melts the lipids away, replacing them with a gel-like substance that leaves other structures intact and visible.
Such a map of the brain might contain several petabytes of data, which computers today can’t easily navigate in real time, though it is optimistic that they will be able to in the future. Advances could come from new techniques that allow scientists to see the arrangement of cells and nerve fibers inside intact brain tissue at very high resolution.

Though Clarity can be used on a whole mouse brain, the human brain is too big to be studied fully intact with the existing version of the technology. The technique is already be used on blocks of human brain tissue thousands of times larger than a thin brain section, making 3-D reconstruction easier and less error prone. Clarity and polarized-light imaging currently give fantastic resolution to pieces of brain, in the future it is hoped that this technology can be expanded to include a whole human brain.

( Sources and Citation : Katrin Amunts, Jülich Research Centre Alan Evans, Montreal Neurological Institute Karl Deisseroth, Stanford University )

Leap Motion Improves Our Handle on Virtual Precision

It just got easier to imagine the near-future world where we’ll live, work and play. Today, Leap Motion unveiled Orion, a software and hardware combo that responds to hand motion in virtual and augmented reality, without donning clunky gloves or rigs.

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Source: http://www.psfk.com/

Convertible Activewear Can Be Worn at Work and the Gym

3D-printed clothing that can transform from the office to the weight room

Student Eric Beaudette from Cornell University has developed a concept for custom-fit activewear that would enable young male professionals to dress for their job to the gym without working up a sweat.

Recycl3-D is a range of convertible clothing fit for multiple purposes. The wearer can easily alter their clothes by adding or removing features and accessories such as collars, hoods, sleeves and pockets.

The garments would also be fully recyclable, virtually eliminating the waste usually found in the design and manufacturing process. Beaudette said:

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Source: http://www.psfk.com/