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Category: electronics – Page 95

It’s not always talked about in polite company, but your body produces a lot of gases scientists know little about.

A new smart pill, designed at Melbourne’s RMIT University, could help us learn more and may eventually assist in customising what we eat to suit our bodies.

Researchers from the Centre for Advanced Electronics and Sensors have developed the pill, which can measure intestinal gases, and they have now undertaken the first animal tests using the technology to examine the impact of fibre on the gut.

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ProfusaLast week at CES, South San Francisco based Profusa showed off an upcoming injectable sensor that can be used to continuously monitor oxygen levels in tissue. Measuring only five millimeters long and a tiny 250 microns in diameter, the biosensor can be injected into tissue with just a hypodermic needle. It consists of a soft hydrogel scaffold that allows it to be biologically compatible with the surrounding tissue without any foreign body response. The sensor also contains a special chemical marker that changes fluorescence depending on the amount of oxygen that reacts with it. An optical reader placed on the skin measures the fluorescence and relays the data to a smartphone. The biosensor can last as long as two years (at which point the chemical marker begins to lose its potency), and because it contains no electronics and is completely biocompatible there’s no need to remove it.

On stage at the CES Digital Health Summit, Profusa CEO Dr. Ben Hwang gave a live demonstration of how the sensor works in action. As two of his colleagues with the sensors implanted and using a blood pressure cuffs performed stretches to simulate changes in blood flow, a graph displayed the live view of the changing tissue oxygen levels at the site of the sensors.

We had the opportunity to talk to Dr. Hwang after his talk, and he shared that the first application of the sensor is the Lumee Oxygen Sensing System, which is designed to monitor oxygen levels during the wound healing process. Sufficient oxygen flow through a wound is vital to the healing process, and Lumee can detect low oxygen levels early in the healing process and even before treatment or surgery begins.

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Loving the progress around Quantum.

Today, a group of scientists — John A. Rogers, Eric Seabron, Scott MacLaren and Xu Xie from the University of Illinois at Urbana-Champaign; Slava V. Rotkin from Lehigh University; and, William L. Wilson from Harvard University — are reporting on the discovery of an important method for measuring the properties of nanotube materials using a microwave probe. Their findings have been published in ACS Nano in an article called: “Scanning Probe Microwave Reflectivity of Aligned Single-Walled Carbon Nanotubes: Imaging of Electronic Structure and Quantum Behavior at the Nanoscale.”

The researchers studied single-walled carbon nanotubes. These are 1-dimensional, wire-like nanomaterials that have electronic properties that make them excellent candidates for next generation electronics technologies. In fact, the first prototype of a nanotube computer has already been built by researchers at Stanford University. The IBM T.J. Watson Research Center is currently developing nanotube transistors for commercial use.

For this study, scientists grew a series of parallel nanotube lines, similar to the way nanotubes will be used in computer chips. Each nanotube was about 1 nanometer wide — ten times smaller than expected for use in the next generation of electronics. To explore the material’s properties, they then used microwave impedance microscopy (MIM) to image individual nanotubes.

Continue reading “Researchers gauge quantum properties of nanotubes, essential for next-gen electronics” | >

An Aging Suit: This Exoskeleton lets you know what it feels like to get older.

Interesting use of the latest tech being shown at the largest consumer electronics show in the world CES 2016.

Iyaz Akhtar donned a 40-pound suit complete with a helmet to find out what it’s like to live with the physical pain that comes with ageing.

Continue reading “This exoskeleton lets you know what it is to age” | >

Intel’s collaboration with eyewear maker Luxottica will launch its first product later this year, with the release of special smart glasses designed for athletes.

Intel showed off the technology, which it called Radar Pace, on stage at the Consumer Electronics Show in Las Vegas on Tuesday night. The wearable tech will apparently be available in sunglasses made by the Luxottica-owned Oakley brand.

During a video and on-stage demo, Intel showed how the Oakley glasses, equipped with special earpieces on either side, allowed an athlete to quickly track workout information like the speed and distance travelled while running. The tech is entirely voice-activated. Unlike Google Glass, which requires that users swipe the side of the headset to do certain things, the Radar Pace technology lets the wearer do everything just by talking.

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LG Display has a prototype 18-inch screen it’s showing off at the Consumer Electronics Show this week that rolls up like a piece of paper. The technology builds on LG’s forward-looking OLED work focusing on bendable, rollable, and curving displays. The company showed similar technology last year as a proof of concept, but kept images behind closed doors. Now LG looks ready to show the world.

We’ve seen this type of concept display from the likes of Sony, Samsung, Sharp, and others in the past. However, it does indicate that LG sees these types of futuristic displays as differentiation points for smartphones, tablets, and TVs. LG envisions these types of screens rolling up into our pockets or being made to wrap around interior spaces, and the company will show off a 25-inch curved screen installed on the inside of a car at its Auto Zone section on the show floor.

We’ll get a closer look at the newspaper-like screen in a couple of days, as well as a new 55-inch “paper thin” TV that has all its electronics installed independently, according to LG. So check back in with The Verge for LG coverage and everything else CES-related throughout the week.

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