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Rune Labs, a precision neurology company, has announced its StrivePD software ecosystem for Parkinson’s disease has been granted 510(k) clearance by the US Food and Drug Administration (FDA) to collect patient symptom data through measurements made by Apple Watch.

By combining powerful wearable technology and self-reported symptom information with brain imaging, electrophysiology, genetic and other clinical data, StrivePD enables a data-driven approach to care management and clinical trial design for Parkinson’s.

Longevity. Technology: With this clearance, the Rune Labs’ StrivePD app enables precision clinical care and trial participation for tens of thousands of Parkinson’s patients who already use these devices in their daily lives.

Researchers in Sweden report that they are closing in on a way to replace batteries for wearables and low-power applications in the internet of things (IoT). The answer lies in an ink coating that enables low-grade heat, which is generated by devices, to be converted to electrical power.

Publishing in Applied Materials & Interfaces (“Thermoelectric Inks and Power Factor Tunability in Hybrid Films through All Solution Process”), the researchers from KTH Royal Institute of Technology in Stockholm report that they have developed a promising blend of thermoelectric coating for devices that generate heat amounting to less than 100 °C.

A piece of film is coated in thermoelectric ink. (Image: KTH The Royal Institute of Technology)

Imagine a more sustainable future, where cellphones, smartwatches, and other wearable devices don’t have to be shelved or discarded for a newer model. Instead, they could be upgraded with the latest sensors and processors that would snap onto a device’s internal chip—like LEGO bricks incorporated into an existing build. Such reconfigurable chipware could keep devices up to date while reducing our electronic waste.

Now MIT engineers have taken a step toward that modular vision with a LEGO-like design for a stackable, reconfigurable artificial intelligence chip.

The design comprises alternating layers of sensing and processing elements, along with light-emitting diodes (LED) that allow for the chip’s layers to communicate optically. Other modular chip designs employ conventional wiring to relay signals between layers. Such intricate connections are difficult if not impossible to sever and rewire, making such stackable designs not reconfigurable.

What if we could look into the future to see how every aspect of our daily lives – from raising pets and house plants to what we eat and how we date – will be impacted by technology? We can, and should, expect more from the future than the dystopia promised in current science fiction. The Future Of… will reveal surprising and personal predictions about the rest of our lives — and the lives of generations to come.

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Wearable sensors—an important tool for health monitoring and for training artificial intelligence—can be waterproof or can measure more than one stimuli, but combining these factors while maintaining a high level of precision in the measurements is difficult. Researchers co-led by Huanyu “Larry” Cheng, assistant professor of engineering science and mechanics at Penn State, have created sensors that are waterproof, an important trait for exercise monitoring and for withstanding perspiration and all weather conditions; can measure temperature and motion on both small and large scales; and can be attached to distal arteries such as those located beneath the eyebrow or in a toe.

The results are available now online in the Chemical Engineering Journal ahead of publication in the journal’s September print edition.

“There are three aspects of this that are novel in combination: the underwater application, the ability to detect ultra-small vibrations and subtle motions and temperature changes, and the multiple options for sensor location, such as the eyebrow or toe,” Cheng said.

An Apple Watch owner has created a complication and watchOS app that works with a glucose monitor, so they can keep track of their blood glucose level from their wrist.

Numerous rumors have claimed Apple is actively working on some form of glucose monitoring sensor for the Apple Watch, but has so far yet to add it to the wearable device. In the case of one Apple Watch owner, they managed to hack together their own solution.

The project, outlined by Harley Turan, effectively takes the data from a continuous glucose monitoring system and imports and interprets it in a way that it can be viewed on an Apple Watch. In doing so, the project creates a reasonably low-cost solution for the problem.

It provides an extension of the physical identity to relive themselves as what they want in their dreams with luxurious brands.

Wearable NFTs can provide endless creativity, gender inclusivity, accessibility, and availability for new business models.

Thus, wearable NFTs is known as an eco-friendly alternative to wastage of dress materials and pollution from factories.

On account of the improvement the Internet of things (IoTs) and smart devices, our lives have been noticeably facilitated in the past few years. Machines and devices are becoming more ingenious with the help of artificial intelligence and various sensors^1,2. So, integrated circuits are necessary to provide convenient and effectual communication³ Since the first report on TENG by Wang’s group in 2012⁴, triboelectric systems have been recognized as a proper choice to harvest and convert the energy from the environment^5,6. Photodetectors, as one of the most significant types of sensors that can precisely convert incident light into electrical signals have attracted increasing attention in recent years. Various applications including photo-sensors, spectral analysis^7,8, environment monitoring⁹, communication devices¹⁰, imaging¹¹, take advantage of narrow band or broad band photodetectors from ultraviolet to terahertz wavelenght. Literature reviews show that the heterojunction/heterostructure based on 2D/3D materials have been widely used in PD applications. In fact, to attain high performance of PDs based heterojunction, the built-in electrical field is needed to suppress the photogenerated recombination and stimulating collection¹². Although, Si based PDs offer reliably high performance results, their complexity and expensive manufacturing process have limited their expansion and adoptability for industrial purposes^13,14,15. Hence, most available PDs are designed based on external power supplies such as electrochemical batteries for signal production and processing, their design not only increases the sensor’s dimension and weight, but also creates limitations for sensor maintenances¹⁶ which is not proper in the IoTs. In 2014, ZH Lin et al. and Zheng et al. represented an investigation on the self-powered PD based on TENG system^3,17, and since then, self-driven PDs have been extensively investigated^{2,5,9,18,19,20}. These devices can find potential applications in health monitoring systems such as heart checking²¹ and health protection from some detrimental radiation such as high levels of UV radiance²².

But in the other hand, even though TENGs could be promise for using in wearable electronics, they still inevitably have limitations in power generation, sensing range, sensitivity, and also the sensing domain for the intrinsic limitations of electrification^23,24,25. Moreover, due to high voltage, low current, and alternating current output of the TENGs, they cannot be used in order to supply power to electronic devices effectively without using power management circuits (PMCs) based on the LC modules. There are several reports that describe the importance of the impedance matching of the TENG and PMC units for better energy storage efficiency of the pulsed-TENG^26,27. Without using the PMC unit, there are some challenges as a result of synching the TENG, as the power supply, and the consumption element such as the PD device. These challenges include the process of matching the resistance of the device and the impedance of the TENG to achieve effective performance of the self-powered system^6,28.

In this study an efficient battery-free photodetector based on bulk heterojunction SnS₂ nanosheets and perovskite materials has been designed and powered employing three different TENGs (GO paper/ Kapton, FTO/Kapton and hand/ FTO). In the first step for circuit designing to have better performance of the photodetector in coupling with TENG, the effect load resistance amount in the circuit on the impedance matching the TENG and the inner resistance of the photodetector, has been investigated through output current amplitude. The investigation, shows that to achieve the high amount of the photocurrent, the load resistance should be positioned in both critical zone of the out-put voltage of the TENG and the resistance range of high power density production of the TENG. In the second step, for investigation the effect of the dark resistance of the photodetector on out-put current of the self-powered photodetector, a device with very lower initial resistance (All-oxide Cu₂O/ZnO photodetector) has been used with and without different load resistance in the circuit; in this regard, it is concluding that the initial resistance is too important to have proper design impedance matching circuit.

Recent technological advances have enabled the creation of increasingly sophisticated sensors that can track movements and changes in real-world environments with remarkable levels of precision. Many engineers are now working to make these sensors thinner so that they can be embedded in a variety of devices, including robotic limbs and wearable devices.

Researchers at Hong Kong University of Science and Technology have recently developed a thin sensor for computer vision applications, which is based on a micro lens array (MLA). MLAs are 1D or 2D arrays comprising several small lenses, which are generally arranged in either squared or hexagonal patterns.

“In this study, we combined an old technology, a micro lens array, with vision-based tactile sensors,” Xia Chen, one of the researchers who carried out the study, told TechXplore. “This work builds on the work using the pinhole arrays to capture the image. We wanted to achieve a thin-format vision-based tactile sensor, as few studies so far focused on changing the imaging system of vison-based tactile sensor.”