"Second Skin"; New Health Tracker

Imagine sticking a patch made of flexible electronics on your skin that could read your body temperature, monitor your blood circulation, even tell you when you need to put on sunscreen — and that wouldn't leave the skin underneath it clammy the way Band-Aids do.

A team of researchers at Northwestern University in Illinois and the University of Illinois at Urbana–Champaign say they have built such a patch, and it's about the size of a bandage. It's made of plastic and thousands of tiny liquid crystals, not unlike the ones that light upcomputer and smartphone screens. It's so flexible that it molds to the body like a second skin.

The device was made to detect changes in the temperature of the skin beneath it; the liquid crystals change color in response to body heat. There are so many crystals, some 3,600 of them, that they can actually depict a heat map, or a picture of what lies below the skin. "It's like the stuff they used to have in mood rings," said John A. Rogers, a professor of materials science at the University of Illinois whose lab collaborated on the project.

This device, however, is sophisticated enough to diagnose very real problems. The device reveals the temperature of the skin beneath it with with high precision, which is important because skin temperature reflects underlying characteristics, such as blood flow, he said. And the device presents the data in a useable format. "We can get a readout using color," Rogers told Live Science.

A temperature-sensing device that could be attached to a person's skin, and that is so unobtrusive that people forget they are wearing it, would be a great help to physicians, Rogers said. 

For example, the device could reveal problems such as poor circulation in the extremities, which can be a symptom of diabetes, or an early sign of heart disease.

The device could also be used to detect some types of injuries in the skin and tissue just underneath the sensor. This is because the tissue near an injury site generally warms up, in a sign that inflammation or infection might be on the way. The sensor could also yield information such as how hydrated the skin is, the researchers said.

To test their device, the researchers attached a small antenna with the sensor, as well as a heating element. They sent a signal to the antenna to turn on the heating element, and found they could measure the distribution and diffusion of that heat through the skin and tissue.

It's possible that researchers could add other kinds of sensors to the device, too. For example, an ultraviolet light sensor combined with a sensor for moisture could alert the wearer that they are in danger of getting sunburned, for instance if the UV levels are high and the skin is becoming dry and hot.

And because the device allows air to pass through it, the skin beneath the sensor can "breathe." That means users would not get the clammy sweat that accumulates under bandages, which can cause irritation, Rogers said.

The device is so small that it doesn't need a battery. There's a wireless and flexible power system on the back, which can run on power from a remote source, said Yihui Zhang, an assistant professor of civil engineering at Northwestern and one of the leaders of the research effort. 

Rogers said the cost of the device should be relatively low, since the sensor doesn't use any exotic materials or parts. "We're talking about a few dollars," he said.

The scientists are working with a Cambridge, Massachusetts-based company called MC10 Inc. to commercialize the technology.

A paper outlining the research appeared in the Sept. 19 issue of the journal Nature Communications.

Check out the Whirly Thing!

Ryan Kunde is a winemaker whose family’s picture-perfect vineyard nestles in the Sonoma Valley north of San Francisco. But Kunde is not your average farmer. He’s also a drone operator—and he’s not alone. He’s part of the vanguard of farmers who are using what was once military aviation technology to grow better grapes using pictures from the air, part of a broader trend of using sensors and robotics to bring big data to precision agriculture.

Top: A drone from PrecisionHawk is equipped with multiple sensors to image fields.

Bottom: This image depicts vegetation in near-­infrared light to show chlorophyll levels.

What “drones” means to Kunde and the growing number of farmers like him is simply a low-cost aerial camera platform: either miniature fixed-wing airplanes or, more commonly, quadcopters and other multibladed small helicopters. These aircraft are equipped with an autopilot using GPS and a standard point-and-shoot camera controlled by the autopilot; software on the ground can stitch aerial shots into a high-­resolution mosaic map. Whereas a traditional radio-­controlled aircraft needs to be flown by a pilot on the ground, in Kunde’s drone the autopilot (made by my company, 3D Robotics) does all the flying, from auto takeoff to landing. Its software plans the flight path, aiming for maximum coverage of the vineyards, and controls the camera to optimize the images for later analysis. The advent of drones this small, cheap, and easy to use is due largely to remarkable advances in technology: tiny MEMS sensors (accelerometers, gyros, magnetometers, and often pressure sensors), small GPS modules, incredibly powerful processors, and a range of digital radios. All those components are now getting better and cheaper at an unprecedented rate, thanks to their use in smartphones and the extraordinary economies of scale of that industry. At the heart of a drone, the autopilot runs specialized software—often open-source programs created by communities such as DIY Drones, which I founded, rather than costly code from the aerospace industry.

Drones can provide farmers with three types of detailed views. First, seeing a crop from the air can reveal patterns that expose everything from irrigation problems to soil variation and even pest and fungal infestations that aren’t apparent at eye level. Second, airborne cameras can take multispectral images, capturing data from the infrared as well as the visual spectrum, which can be combined to create a view of the crop that highlights differences between healthy and distressed plants in a way that can’t be seen with the naked eye. Finally, a drone can survey a crop every week, every day, or even every hour. Combined to create a time-series animation, that imagery can show changes in the crop, revealing trouble spots or opportunities for better crop management. It’s part of a trend toward increasingly data-driven agriculture. Farms today are bursting with engineering marvels, the result of years of automation and other innovations designed to grow more food with less labor. Tractors autonomously plant seeds within a few centimeters of their target locations, and GPS-guided harvesters reap the crops with equal accuracy. Extensive wireless networks backhaul data on soil hydration and environmental factors to faraway servers for analysis. But what if we could add to these capabilities the ability to more comprehensively assess the water content of soil, become more rigorous in our ability to spot irrigation and pest problems, and get a general sense of the state of the farm, every day or even every hour? The implications cannot be stressed enough. We expect 9.6 billion people to call Earth home by 2050. All of them need to be fed. Farming is an input-­output problem. If we can reduce the inputs—water and pesticides—and maintain the same output, we will be overcoming a central challenge.

Agricultural drones are becoming a tool like any other consumer device, and we’re starting to talk about what we can do with them. Ryan Kunde wants to irrigate less, use less pesticide, and ultimately produce better wine. More and better data can reduce water use and lower the chemical load in our environment and our food. Seen this way, what started as a military technology may end up better known as a green-tech tool, and our kids will grow up used to flying robots buzzing over farms like tiny crop dusters.

Genome Editing

Until recently, Kunming, capital of China’s southwestern Yunnan province, was known mostly for its palm trees, its blue skies, its laid-back vibe, and a steady stream of foreign backpackers bound for nearby mountains and scenic gorges. But Kunming’s reputation as a provincial backwater is rapidly changing. On a plot of land on the outskirts of the city—wilderness 10 years ago, and today home to a genomic research facility—scientists have performed a provocative experiment. They have created a pair of macaque monkeys with precise genetic mutations.

Last November, the female monkey twins, Mingming and Lingling, were born here on the sprawling research campus of Kunming Biomedical International and its affiliated Yunnan Key Laboratory of Primate Biomedical Research. The macaques had been conceived via in vitro fertilization. Then scientists used a new method of DNA engineering known as CRISPR to modify the fertilized eggs by editing three different genes, and they were implanted into a surrogate macaque mother. The twins’ healthy birth marked the first time that CRISPR has been used to make targeted genetic modifications in primates—potentially heralding a new era of biomedicine in which complex diseases can be modeled and studied in monkeys.

CRISPR, which was developed by researchers at the University of California, Berkeley, Harvard, MIT, and elsewhere over the last several years, is already transforming how scientists think about genetic engineering, because it allows them to make changes to the genome precisely and relatively easily (see “Genome Surgery,” March/April). The goal of the experiment at Kunming is to confirm that the technology can create primates with multiple mutations, explains Weizhi Ji, one of the architects of the experiment.

Ji began his career at the government-affiliated Kunming Institute of Zoology in 1982, focusing on primate reproduction. China was “a very poor country” back then, he recalls. “We did not have enough funding for research. We just did very simple work, such as studying how to improve primate nutrition.” China’s science ambitions have since changed dramatically. The campus in Kunming boasts extensive housing for monkeys: 75 covered homes, sheltering more than 4,000 primates—many of them energetically swinging on hanging ladders and scampering up and down wire mesh walls. Sixty trained animal keepers in blue scrubs tend to them full time.

Titan Arm. Apply Less Power!

TITAN ARM
Surviving a stroke or debilitating injury is often the start of a very long ordeal. Physical therapy can be slow and strenuous with no guarantee of recovery. Robotic exoskeletons can sometimes provide the support a ravaged body needs to heal—and strength when it can’t—but they typically cost more than a car and must be anchored to a wall and plugged into a socket.

In late 2012, a team of mechanical engineering students at University of Pennsylvania set out to build a portable, affordable exoskeleton. Two semesters of late nights and long weekends later, Elizabeth Beattie, Nicholas McGill, Nick Parrotta, and Nikolay Vladimirov had the Titan Arm: an efficient, lightweight, and surprisingly powerful robotic limb. Its actuator, or electronic muscle, could provide resistance during therapeutic exercises and can augment strength, allowing its wearer to lift an additional 40 pounds with little effort.

To ensure a slimmer frame than other exoskeletons and make Titan Arm easier for patients to use, the team situated its actuator in a backpack instead of in the limb itself. They also milled load-bearing parts out of aluminum to limit weight and power consumption. McGill, the electronics lead, created a software-and-sensor package to track arm movements and wirelessly relay the data. This would allow a patient to use a Titan Arm at home and a therapist to remotely monitor the exercises.

Potential beneficiaries, including stroke victims and an injured snowboarder, have already reached out to the team with encouraging comments. The positive response to their $2,000 prototype has made Titan Arm’s makers eager to push their invention toward a finished product and, to that end, they are now designing a more refined version. “We’ve been looking at 3-D printing to fully customize components, like tailoring a suit,” says Parrotta. 

1) POWER:

Lithium-polymer battery packs provide a day’s worth of power.

2) MUSCLE:

An electric motor in the backpack winds steel cables to rotate pulleys and induce arm movement. Beattie (left) designed a support system to safely distribute weight across a hip belt, elbow straps, and back plate.

3) BRAINS:

Software reads the positions of magnetic sensors in the steel joints to instruct movement, which the operator controls from a handheld device.

Never Fear Blood Loss in Warzone Again!

X-Stat

When bullets or shrapnel strike a soldier, standard first aid calls for stuffing gauze as deep as five inches into a wound and applying pressure. If bleeding hasn’t stopped after three minutes, the old gauze is pulled out—and new gauze shoved in.

There’s room for improvement. Military doctors estimate that, during the most violent years of the wars in Afghanistan and Iraq, blood loss killed about 90 percent of the wounded that might have otherwise survived with better emergency care. To save more lives, a group of veterans, scientists, and engineers known as RevMedx has created a pocket-sized device called XStat:

a faster, more effective way to plug wounds. The polycarbonate syringe slides deep into a wound, such as a bullet track. When a user pushes down on the handle, it deposits dozens of pill-size sponges that expand to stem bleeding. Meanwhile, a substance in the sponges fights infection while clotting blood.

The team is currently seeking FDA approval for XStat, which would allow military medics to add it to their life-saving arsenal. But the battlefield isn’t the only

place the device could make an impact. Law enforcement, ambulances, and

other emergency responders have shown interest in carrying the device as well. And, with help from Oregon Health and Science University, RevMedx is even developing a version to stop postpartum bleeding. 

Virtual World. Sword Art Online Lovers Love This!

(This picture looks like a NerveGear.)

Virtual reality (VR), sometimes referred to as immersive multimedia, is a computer-simulated environment that can simulate physical presence in places in the real world or imagined worlds. Virtual reality can recreate sensory experiences, including virtual taste, sight, smell, sound, touch, etc.

 Most current virtual reality environments are primarily visual experiences, displayed either on a computer screen or through special stereoscopic displays, but some simulations include additional sensory information, such as sound through speakers or headphones. Some advanced, haptic systems now include tactile information, generally known as force feedback in medical, gaming and military applications. Furthermore, virtual reality covers remote communication environments which provide virtual presence of users with the concepts of telepresence and telexistence or a virtual artifact (VA) either through the use of standard input devices such as a keyboard and mouse, or through multimodal devices such as a wired glove, the Polhemus, and omnidirectional treadmills. The simulated environment can be similar to the real world in order to create a lifelike experience—for example, in simulations for pilot or combat training—or it can differ significantly from reality, such as in VR games. In practice, it is currently very difficult to create a high-fidelity virtual reality experience, because of technical limitations on processing power, image resolution, and communication bandwidth. However, the technology's proponents hope that such limitations will be overcome as processor, imaging, and data communication technologies become more powerful and cost-effective over time.

World's 1st 10TB Hard Drive?! Are they REALLY serious?!

Western Digital's HGST - formerly known as Hitachi Global Storage Technologies - has fired another salvo in its ongoing spinning-rust density war with rival Seagate, announcing the world's first 10TB 3.5" hard drive.

Based on the company's HelioSeal technology, which replaces the air inside the hard drive with helium in order to reduce friction and improve heat transfer, the new 10TB drive features Shingled Magnetic Recording (SMR) to increase areal density to never-before-seen levels. The result: a single 3.5" Ultrastar drive that can store 10TB of data, handily beating Seagate's recently-announced 8TB equivalent.

There is a catch, of course: while the 10TB drive does exist, it is being produced only in limited samples. Enterprise customers friendly with their local Western Digital rep are being pointed instead towards the company's new Ultrastar HE8 8TB model, with the 10TB version slowly heading towards the mass market. Those opting to buy the drives rather than wait for the 10TB model will, HGST has claimed, find a drive that offers 23 per cent lower power than their previous-generation equivalents.

What neither HGST nor its parent company Western Digital are sharing at present is pricing information on the new drives, but with it did make a surprising announcement at the same time as the 8TB launch: it is to abandon traditional air-filled drives altogether, moving its entire enterprise production exclusively to helium-filled HelioSeal models with a view to having produced its last non-helium enterprise drive by 2017.

Printer? Ink? Worry no more!

The New Instant Digital Camera will Allow Consumers to Print, Post and Share Photos Instantly

Las Vegas, January 6, 2014 – Polaroid today announced that an agreement has been finalized between licensee C&A Licensing, LLC and Socialmatic LLC through which the Polaroid Socialmatic instant camera will be produced and brought to market in 2014. A unique blend of the old and new schools, the Polaroid Socialmatic camera combines the nostalgic appeal of vintage Polaroid instant cameras with the modern convenience of being able to instantly connect and share via major social media networks using the camera’s built in Wi-Fi® and Android™ interface. The Polaroid Socialmatic camera will be on display in the Polaroid Booth #13613 at the 2014 International Consumer Electronics Show.

"We are very excited about the partnership with Socialmatic and the pending launch of this remarkable camera," said Scott W. Hardy, President and CEO of Polaroid. "Polaroid was the original social network: allowing people to instantly capture, print and share life’s moments in a way that had never been possible before. This relationship with Socialmatic allows Polaroid to come full circle and once again allow people to capture and share images in ways that are only possible with a Polaroid camera in their hands.”

Instant Posting

The Polaroid Socialmatic camera will change the way consumers look at digital cameras with its unique square shape and vintage design. Consumers will have the choice of using the 14 megapixel front-side camera or 2 megapixel rear-side camera to capture and immediately post images to their favorite social networking sites, via built in Wi-Fi. If Wi-Fi isn’t immediately available, the camera will easily pair with consumer’s smartphones via Bluetooth® to enable instant sharing from virtually anywhere.

Zero Ink® Digital Printing

Of course, the Polaroid Socialmatic camera will allow users to select, print and share images instantly on ZINK Paper® featuring the ink-free Zero Ink® Printing technology by ZINK Imaging. Prior to printing, images can be touched up, edited, and consumers can add clip art, icons, or text to any image prior to printing or posting. When ready, the user just presses print and the PolaroidSocialmatic camera will automatically print a 2X3 inch full-color sticker-backed ZINK photo in under a minute.

Easy to Use

The Polaroid Socialmatic camera will utilize an Android operating system, providing consumers with a familiar, easy to use interface and a broad range of creative capabilities and apps. The camera will feature a 4.5” touchscreen LCD display for easy navigation and an LED flash for great images even in low light. Consumers will be able to save their images to a Micro SD card or to the camera’s 4GB of internal storage.  

"We are proud to join forces with the iconic Polaroid brand to introduce this new generation of instant products to the market," commented Antonio DeRosa, CEO of Socialmatic™ LLC. "Combining the Polaroid heritage with our new social network technology and the ZINK Technology, we can introduce a unique and innovative camera to consumers."

C&A Licensing, an authorized Polaroid Licensee will produce and distribute the camera, which is slated to arrive in the fall of 2014. Additional specifications including pricing will be available in the coming months, and the Polaroid Socialmatic instant digital camera will be on display at the Polaroid booth #13613 at CES January 7-10 in Las Vegas. For more information, please visit www.polaroid.com/socialmatic or www.social-matic.com.

The Polaroid Brand
Polaroid is one of the most trusted, well-respected and recognizable brands with a rich 75 year history beginning with Polaroid instant film. Our range of products  include instant and digital still cameras, high-definition and mountable sports video cameras, tablets and flat-screen TVs that deliver the fun, instant gratification and value for which the brand has long stood. Today, the Polaroid Classic Border Logo rooted in our beginnings of instant photo sharing serves to designate genuine Polaroid branded products. For more information, visit http://www.Polaroid.com.

Polaroid, Polaroid & Pixel, Polaroid Color Spectrum and Polaroid Classic Border Logo are trademarks of PLR IP Holdings, LLC, used under license.

About C&A Licensing, LLC

C&A Licensing is a leading manufacturer and reseller of digital cameras, camcorders, and related accessories in the consumer electronics marketplace. Headquartered in Ridgefield Park, N.J., C&A Licensing is the Polaroid Licensee for instant digital camera, sports video camera, security camera and photo accessories. C&A recently acquired portions of Ritz Camera and Image LLC, including the company’s stores, the Ritzpix Network and the ritzcamera.com, wolfcamera.com and ritzcameraandimage.com websites. With over two decades in business, the depth and breadth of their inventory is constantly expanding as is their presence and reputation in the consumer electronic marketplace.

About Socialmatic LLC

Founded by Artem Shishakin and Antonio De Rosa, Socialmatic LLC is a company focused on creativity and innovation to bring to the market innovative products and solution for a social world. With its over 20 years of founders combined experience, Socialmatic LLC covers industrial design, social media networking and lifestyle concepts.

About ZINK Imaging

ZINK Imaging Inc., a privately held company, was founded to enable millions of customers to enjoy the magic of ZINK® Zero Ink® products. ZINK Imaging invented, manufactures, and is a supplier of the ZINK Printing Technology and the ZINK Paper®.  In addition to ZINK hAppy™ branded products, the technology is utilized by partner companies which bring ZINK-enabled products to market under their respective brands. ZINK Imaging’s headquarters and research and development labs are in Massachusetts, with a state of the art manufacturing facility in Whitsett, North Carolina. For more information, please visit www.ZINK.com.

The ZINK® Technology and ZINK® and hAppy™ trademarks are owned by ZINK Imaging, Inc.

Contact:
R&J Public Relations for Polaroid
Melissa Hoistion
908-895-0783
mhoistion@randjpr.com

Hands Off The Steering Wheels!

V2V TECHNOLOGY

Also known as the vehicle-to-vehicle technology; is the dynamic wireless exchange of data between nearby vehicles that offers the opportunity for significant safety improvements.  By exchanging anonymous, vehicle-based data regarding position, speed, and location (at a minimum), V2V communications enables a vehicle to: sense threats and hazards with a 360 degree awareness of the position of other vehicles and the threat or hazard they present; calculate risk; issue driver advisories or warnings; or take pre-emptive actions to avoid and mitigate crashes. At the heart of V2V communications is a basic application known as the Here I Am data message.  This message can be derived using non-vehicle-based technologies such as GPS to identify location and speed of a vehicle, or vehicle-based sensor data wherein the location and speed data is derived from the vehicle’s computer and is combined with other data such as latitude, longitude, or angle to produce a richer, more detailed situational awareness of the position of other vehicles.  Because the Here I Am data message can be derived from non-vehicle-based technologies that are ubiquitous within the marketplace, the ITS Program may leverage an opportunity to accelerate V2V capability and deployment in the near-term and produce safety benefits through reduced crashes sooner than through Original Equipment Manufacturer(OEM) embedded systems only.

The vision for V2V is that eventually, each vehicle on the roadway (inclusive of automobiles, trucks, buses, motor coaches, and motorcycles) will be able to communicate with other vehicles and that this rich set of data and communications will support a new generation of active safety applications and safety systems.  V2V communications will enable active safety systems that can assist drivers in preventing 76 percent of the crashes on the roadway, thereby reducing fatalities and injuries that occur each year. 

V2V Communications for Safety is a key component in the USDOT's Vehicle to Vehicle Communications program, and is complemented by research programs that support connectivity among vehicles and infrastructure (V2I) and among vehicles and consumer devices (V2D) to deliver safety and mobility benefits.