Top TechTop Tech #5: 3D camera, Haptics, HIV scanner, alarming thermometer
Highlighting interesting or important innovations with long-term promise.
Todays headlines:
Intel cam senses 3D
HIV scanner
Touchable gadgets
Alarming thermometer
Smartphone scans for HIV
A new smartphone accessory detects HIV with a finger prick, Wired reports. It costs $34 to make, delivers results in 15 minutes, and according to researchers at Columbia University, is on par with the most accurate HIV tests.
Early detection can reduce the risk of transmitting the virus to their offspring to less than 1 percent.
The dongle plugs into an iPhones or Android phones through the audio jack, which it uses to draw power and transfer data.
“A wide range of startups and researchers are building portable devices that can screen for particular diseases,” Wired adds, “and in many cases, can screen for multiple diseases simultaneously.” (This particular device can also identify syphilis.) “…Researchers realized they could significantly reduce the cost by piggy-backing on smartphones. If they handled power and data collection on the phone, they could whittle their device down to the basic equipment needed to perform the blood tests.”
Gadgets will touch you
Today your tablet might buzz a bit under your fingers, but upcoming haptic feedback methods might better fool your sense of touch.
Technology Review reports on the work of Immersion in San Jose, California — which “may be the touchy-feeliest place I’ve ever been.”
The tech could be “crucial to new gadgets such as virtual reality headsets and smart watches.”
Immersion currently offers software that “can wring more nuanced sensation from the buzzers in existing devices… to let you feel things like explosions or the whirring of helicopter blades when you hold a smartphone.”
Immersion can now also “fool fingers sliding over a touch screen into feeling textures that aren’t really there … I felt the roughness of gravel, the nubbiness of carpet, and the bumpiness of a metal grating.”
The full story is here, and also looks at Tactical Haptics in Palo Alto.
3D-printed wearable temperature sensor
Overheating? An armband’s thermal sensor sounds an alarm in case of high body temperature.
University of Tokyo researchers say the device will continuously monitor vital signs including temperature and heart rate for applications in healthcare settings, Kurzweil AI reports.
The self-powered wearable device is made of flexible organic components that can be printed by an inkjet printer on a polymer film.
Intel cam senses 3D
Intel says its RealSense is “the world’s first and smallest integrated 3D camera” that delivers real-time depth sensing.
The RealSense module weighs 8 grams and is less than 4mm thick. Intel says it “senses the surrounding world to scan, interact, play games, augment reality, and enhance photo and real-time video in three dimensions.”
With RealSense, Intel’s Snapshot system “takes photography to another dimension with multi-camera, depth-enabled tablets” the company says. “Capturing a high-definition depth map optimized for photography along with your full-resolution image, you can change focus and take measurements with a touch of a finger, add dynamic effects and motion, and discover things in your photos you never thought were there.”
In January, a remote copter Intel showcased had six RealSense cameras on board with which it navigated around obstacles autonomously.
And Intel demonstrated a research project for vision-impaired people, with wearable RealSense cameras that “sense the vicinity and trigger vibrations as a feedback mechanism, helping people to navigate their environment,” the company says.
