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Archive for the ‘mobile phones’ category: Page 107

Nov 20, 2020

Physicists built an ‘anti-laser’ to charge your phone from across a room

Posted by in categories: mobile phones, physics

A device demonstrated in a groundbreaking new experiment acts like a laser, only backwards. And someday it might send power invisibly through the air.

Nov 19, 2020

Going beyond the anti-laser may enable long-range wireless power transfer

Posted by in categories: biotech/medical, computing, mobile phones

Ever since Nikola Tesla spewed electricity in all directions with his coil back in 1891, scientists have been thinking up ways to send electrical power through the air. The dream is to charge your phone or laptop, or maybe even a healthcare device such as a pacemaker, without the need for wires and plugs. The tricky bit is getting the electricity to find its intended target, and getting that target to absorb the electricity instead of just reflect it back into the air—all preferably without endangering anyone along the way.

These days, you can wirelessly charge a smartphone by putting it within an inch of a charging station. But usable long-range wireless power transfer, from one side of a room to another or even across a building, is still a work in progress. Most of the methods currently in development involve focusing narrow beams of energy and aiming them at their intended target. These methods have had some success, but are so far not very efficient. And having focused electromagnetic beams flying around through the air is unsettling.

Now, a team of researchers at the University of Maryland (UMD), in collaboration with a colleague at Wesleyan University in Connecticut, have developed an improved technique for wireless power transfer technology that may promise long-range power transmission without narrowly focused and directed energy beams. Their results, which widen the applicability of previous techniques, were published Nov. 17, 2020 in the journal Nature Communications.

Nov 19, 2020

A battery technology worth its salt

Posted by in categories: computing, mobile phones, sustainability, transportation, wearables

With lithium-containing batteries facing constraints on many of the metals they contain, Nina Notman looks at whether its group 1 neighbour sodium can supply the answer.

The lithium-ion battery powers much of our modern lives, a fact reflected in this year’s Nobel prize. It resides in devices ranging from very small wearable electronics, through mobile phones and laptops, to electric vehicles and ‘the world’s biggest battery’ – the huge 100MW/129MWh Tesla battery installed on an Australian wind farm in 2017.

‘Lithium-ion has a massive span of applications,’ explains Jonathan Knott, an energy storage researcher at the University of Wollongong in Australia. ‘It is being used as a hammer to crack every nut and we need to start getting a little bit more sophisticated in the use of the best tool for the job.’

Nov 17, 2020

Researchers describe a new beam scanning device utilizing ‘photonic crystals

Posted by in categories: food, mobile phones, robotics/AI

Scanning lasers—from barcode scanners at the supermarket to cameras on newer smartphones—are an indispensable part of our daily lives, relying on lasers and detectors for pinpoint precision.

Distance and using LiDAR—a portmanteau of light and radar—is becoming increasingly common: reflected beams record the surrounding environment, providing crucial data for autonomous cars, agricultural machines, and factory robots.

Current technology bounces the laser beams off of moving mirrors, a mechanical method that results in slower scanning speeds and inaccuracies, not to mention the large physical size and complexity of devices housing a laser and mirrors.

Nov 14, 2020

Was Samsung chief just caught with a stretchable smartphone prototype?

Posted by in category: mobile phones

Samsung Chairman Lee Jae-yong knows a thing or two about returning to the public eye in style. His latest comeback happened less than a full day ago, bringing some interesting news about Samsung’s long-term design strategy.

What’s even more interesting, however, is the above photograph of Lee during his Thursday tour of Samsung’s main research and development center in Seoul. As the image shows the executive holding a curious smartphone prototype unlike anything else we have seen from the tech giant to date.

Speculation about the device in question is already running rampant, and the currently most popular theory among Korean media is that we are looking at a smartphone with an expandable display.

Nov 12, 2020

Japanese Scientists Create Technology to Control Small Gundam Robots With Their Minds

Posted by in categories: mobile phones, robotics/AI

Japanese researchers have created a mind-controllable Gundam robot, turning one of the anime’s most exciting technological concepts into reality.

The model, based on the mobile suit Zaku, has been available through Bandai’s Zeonic Technics package since last year, but that version requires manual programming on a smartphone app.

Continue reading “Japanese Scientists Create Technology to Control Small Gundam Robots With Their Minds” »

Nov 11, 2020

Samsung develops a slim-panel holographic video display

Posted by in categories: information science, mathematics, mobile phones

A team of researchers at Samsung has developed a slim-panel holographic video display that allows for viewing from a variety of angles. In their paper published in the journal Nature Communications, the group describes their new display device and their plans for making it suitable for use with a smartphone.

Despite predictions in science-fiction books and movies over the past several decades, 3D holographic players are still not available to consumers. Existing players are too bulky and display video from limited viewing angles. In this new effort, the researchers at Samsung claim to have overcome these difficulties and built a demo device to prove it.

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Nov 9, 2020

Are Teleporting Qutrits the Future of Computing?

Posted by in categories: computing, mobile phones, particle physics, quantum physics

Scientists have successfully teleported a three-dimensional quantum state. The international effort between Chinese and Austrian scientists could be crucial for the future of quantum computers.

The researchers, from Austrian Academy of Sciences, the University of Vienna, and University of Science and Technology of China, were able to teleport the quantum state of one photon to another distant state. The three-dimensional transportation is a huge leap forward. Previously, only two-dimensional quantum teleportation of qubits has been possible. By entering a third dimension, the scientists were able to transport a more advanced unit of quantum information known as a “qutrit.”

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Nov 8, 2020

Older Android phones won’t support many secure websites

Posted by in categories: encryption, mobile phones

Let’s Encrypt has warned that older Android phones won’t support many secure websites after they lose key certificates by September 2021.

Nov 8, 2020

Computer Vision: A Key Concept to Solve Many Problems Related to Image Data

Posted by in categories: mobile phones, robotics/AI

This article was published as a part of the Data Science Blogathon.

Introduction

Computer Vision is evolving from the emerging stage and the result is incredibly useful in various applications. It is in our mobile phone cameras which are able to recognize faces. It is available in self-driving cars to recognize traffic signals, signs, and pedestrians. Also, it is in industrial robots to monitor problems and navigating around co-workers.