Top TechTop Tech #57: Robot Swarms, Iris scans, Seeing-eye vacuum
Important innovations in science and technology, every day
By Paul Worthington
Today’s Top Tech:
• Control robot swarms
• Smartphone scans your iris
• Seeing-eye vacuum
Smartphone scans your iris
In Japan, smartphone users can unlock their device by looking at it — and make a mobile payment as well.
The latest phone from Fujitsu scans irises via an infrared camera and infrared LED. It’s the first (shipping) phone to implement eye-based biometrics.
Everyone’s iris has a unique pattern, and reading the iris is reportedly more secure than the fingerprint scans used, for example, in the latest iPhones.
The phone also has a 20-megapixel camera and a 5-inch display.
There’s a fun story-telling video demo here.
Samsung seeing-eye vacuum
Samsung is one of the leading image sensor manufacturers — and now it’s added imaging to a common household device: the vacuum cleaner.
Of course, this one’s a robot.
The Powerbot has an onboard camera with a fisheye lens, and ten individual “smart sensors,” the company says, “that help it determine the optimal cleaning path by creating a complete map of your home, including walls, furniture and stairways. So you don’t need to worry about furniture or objects on the floor. Simply turn it on, and let it do the vacuuming for you.”
Samsung claims it offers “60 times more suction than previous models” thanks to its cyclonic vacuum that “generates strong centrifugal forces.”
It’s $999.
Here’s
more information.
Gizmodo
has a review here.
Control robot swarms
Uh-oh — Didn’t these guys see Age of Ultron?
Swarms of robots — that’s right, swarms — can be controlled “with the swipe of a finger,” reports the Georgia Institute of Technology.
“A person taps the tablet to control where the beam of light appears on a floor. The swarm robots then roll toward the illumination, constantly communicating with each other and deciding how to evenly cover the lit area. When the person swipes the tablet to drag the light across the floor, the robots follow. If the operator puts two fingers in different locations on the tablet, the machines will split into teams and repeat the process.”
Why are they doing this? Georgia Tech says its new algorithm “demonstrates the potential of easily controlling large teams of robots, which is relevant in manufacturing, agriculture and disaster areas. It’s not possible for a person to control a thousand or a million robots by individually programming each one where to go.”
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