NEWS : TECH (NFPC)

Sensor Powered by Rap Music, Yo

Implantable medical devices are usually powered with batteries. But now there’s one powered by rap music.

The device is a small pressure sensor. The power comes from a tiny cantilever, made of a ceramic material that it generates current when it is compressed. The material, known as piezoelectric material, is pretty common. They already exist in push-start gas grills or in some models of electric-acoustic guitars. The sensor is outlined in a paper by doctoral student Albert Kim and two research scientists, Teimour Maleki and Babak Ziaie, at Purdue University.

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When vibrations between 200 and 500 hertz hit the cantilever, it sends current to the sensor. The charge is stored in a tiny capacitor. Once the vibrations fall outside of that range, the capacitor discharges and the sensor sends a radio signal with the pressure data. The frequencies also happen to be in the same range as a lot of rap music -- largely the driving bass rhythm. That bass sound can penetrate human body tissue more easily (think of the thumping feeling in your chest when that guy with the massive sound system drives by).

Ziaie said in a statement that rap seemed to be the best because it uses a lot of bass rhythm, but other genres would do it -- thumping dance club music, for instance. But why design a sensor this way? Ziaie noted that a simple tone would also do the job, but that would be annoying to listen to for more than a minute or so.

The pressure sensor was tested on a water-filled balloon, but it could be used for conditions such as treating incontinence or aneurisms. In the former, one needs to check bladder pressure and then stimulate the nerves that close the sphincter muscles, and this kind of device could do that. In the latter, knowing the pressure on blood vessels is key to making sure further damage doesn’t occur.

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A big advantage to powering any medical device this way is that it can be deeper inside the body. Many medical devices are powered via induction with a battery outside the body. But the device then has to be pretty close to the surface, usually no more than a centimeter or so. That limits the options for placing it. The sound-powered sensor doesn’t have that problem.

The team will be presenting their findings during an IEEE conference this week in Paris.

Image: Terrence Jennings/Retna Ltd./Corbis

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Wireless Solar Keyboard Available for Mac

Logitech Wireless Solar Keyboard K750 for Mac: $59.99

The Logitech Wireless Solar Keyboard K750 was released for PC users last year and had Mac users everywhere crying, "Foul!" Now it's available for all. The keyboard is powered by both indoor and outdoor light and can be used in total darkness, after a full charge, for three months. An app has been created by the company to keep track of the battery power on the keyboard as well as how much charge you're getting from your source. The K750 is not only environmentally friendly because of its solar charging, it’s also PVC-free and fully recyclable. 

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The keyboard comes in five colors and is lightweight and portable, measuring just 1/3-inch thick with built-in 2.4 GHz wireless. No software is needed for installation, just plug in the tiny unifying USB wireless receiver and type away.

Credit: Logitech

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Put on Your Walking Shoes, Power a Phone

In the film The Matrix, a world-spanning machine civilization uses humans as batteries to power itself. The machines might have done better to allow people to walk around, as that would be a far better way to generate energy for electronics.

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The idea was hatched by Tom Krupenkin and J. Ashley Taylor at the University of Wisconsin-Madison. Krupenkin, a professor of mechanical engineering, describes in a recent Nature Communications paper an energy-harvesting technology known as "reverse electrowetting," a phenomenon discovered by the two researchers. The mechanical energy is converted to electrical energy by using a micro-fluidic device consisting of thousands of liquid micro-droplets interacting with a nano-structured substrate.

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Basically, it means you could put a layer in the sole of a shoe -- similar to the liquid-filled layers in some higher-end sneakers -- and convert the mechanical energy of walking to electricity, and then transmit that to a device such as a phone. It wouldn't replace batteries, but it would extend their lives by quite a bit. While solar power is an option for some electronics, sometimes there isn't any sunlight, and the wattage that a small solar panel can generate is ususally enough for something like a calculator, but not a smart phone.

Krupenkin says the amount of energy humans can generate this way is quite large. A sprinter puts out nearly a kilowatt, and even walking along someone could generate about 20 watts -- plenty to top up the average cell phone battery. The power could be transmitted wirelessly.

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There are a lot of places where this kind of power would be useful. The military could put it in boots and cut way back on the number of batteries a typical soldier has to carry. Right now they have to walk around with up to 20 pounds worth to power various electronic devices such as night vision goggles, laptops and GPS units.

If nothing else, this method of pwering phones might end up encouraging more people to exercise. And think of the possibilities if you run marathons.

Credit: Tom Krupenkin, J. Ashley Taylor/University of Wisconsin-Madison

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Texting From Beyond The Grave

Generally a headstone conveys two very basic facts about the person interred below it: their name plus the two most important dates of their life. Thanks to some new technology, headstones can now provide much more that: a photo and note written by the deceased, delivered right to your phone.

The product is called RosettaStone and comes from a company called Objecs. If you were to purchase a RosettaStone, you'd receive what looks like a granite iPod with a few symbols visible on the outside and a microchip embedded on the inside. That device is then secured into your headstone so those symbols can be seen by visitors (each symbol represents an area of your life you want to share info on).

When your great-great-great granddaughter stops by sometime in the next century and wants to know who you were, she'll touch her NFC-RFID enabled cellphone (or whatever device we're using by then) to one of those symbols on the granite iPod-looking device on your headstone and she'll get your note.

NFC stands for "near-field communication" which is a subset of RFID - "radio frequency identification." You're probably using this technology already. RFID is what allows you to pay a toll while driving 30 mph by way of the little box stuck to your rearview mirror. NFC works in a similar way but only in extremely close proximities -- within just centimeters in this case.

By touching the RossettaStone symbols with her phone, your great-great-great granddaughter will activate the microchip via her phone's magnetic field. That small bit of power is enough for the microchip to connect the phone to a URL containing the note you typed up waaaaay back in the 2010s.

NFC technology probably isn't in your cellphone - yet. But it's likely coming soon since it would also allow you to pay for goods using a tap of the phone.

Photo: Objecs LLC

Power Mat to Cords: This is It!

Check out my cord chaos (photo). It's not the worst confusion of power cords that you've ever seen, I'm sure. But it doesn't take much -- a laptop, speakers, phone charger, lamp -- to create an unappetizing spaghetti dinner  next to my desk.

But soon, I hope, will come the day when cords of any type go the way of the manual dial on the television set. (My dad used to make me change the channel when I was the kid. I was the remote control!) A new device called a Power Mat requires no cords. (Duracell also has one called My Grid) You just place your iPhone, BlackBerry, MP3 player, cell phone, headset, hand held electronic games, digital camera or GPS unit on the mat and sit back to a donut or something.