| Micro Fuel Cell
Researchers from the University of California at Los Angeles and Pennsylvania
State University have made a methane fuel cell small enough for use in portable
electronic devices. It runs on high-concentration methanol (which produces the
hydrogen fuel) and not only works at a safe 60 degrees Celsius but also operates
longer than other small fuel cells. It could be on the market in two to five
years.
Reference: Unknown (2004). “Micro Fuel
Cell Runs Cool.” Technology Research News, January 7.
E-pen and E-paper Rolled Into One
Dutch electronics giant Philips is preparing to mass-produce in 2005 a thin
plastic display panel, about the size of a book, that rolls into a pen-sized
tube for portability. Connected to a cell phone, it can download and display (in
monochrome, not yet in color) newspaper, magazine, and other web pages, e-books,
and of course email.
Reference: Unknown (2004). “Philips
Creates Foldable Screens for E-Newspapers.” Reuters, January 26.
Miniature Ultrasound
A Stanford University scientist has spent a decade, with support from the US
National Institutes of Health, US Office of Naval Research, and General
Electric, developing a prototype miniature ultrasound device to be used inside
the body to produce 3-D close-up images of arterial plaque. “Capacitive
micromachined ultrasonic transducers,” as the underlying technology is known,
replace the piezoceramic materials of existing ultrasound scanners with silicon,
which is much more amenable to micromachining. General Electric’s own research
arm has also received US military grants to develop both medical and non-medical
ultrasound applications, including the nondestructive evaluation of materials,
pipelines, and nuclear power plants.
The new devices are already being developed for use in portable prenatal
screeners and hand-held scanners. GE foresees hand-held triage scanners to
detect internal bleeding and transmit the results wirelessly to a remote
radiologist for interpretation.
“The whole field is so new,” writes Anne Eisenberg of the New York
Times, “that it is only now, as the technology starts to mature, that
engineers are responding, adapting micromachined transducer arrays for different
needs.” One need expressed by doctors, and being worked on, is to “put pressure
sensors on [ultrasound] arrays so that blood pressure can be measured exactly
where imaging of blood vessels occurs.”
Reference: Eisenberg, Anne (2004). “An
Ultrasound That Navigates Every Nook and Cranny.” New York Times, January
15.
How-Are-You-Feeling Machine
Built from commercial face-recognition software and off-the-shelf sensors,
Mentor/PAL is a personal computer-based system designed for the US
military by Sandia National Laboratories to continuously assess individuals’
emotions and abilities — and to detect when they are lying or withholding
information. It does so using wireless sensors that monitor perspiration,
heartbeat, blood oxygen, breathing depth and rapidity, facial expressions, head
motions, and voice tones. It then shares its assessment not only with the
individual but also with others in his or her group, so everyone knows how
everyone else is feeling and whether or not a given individual is emotionally up
to or on top of a given task. In tests, which Michelle Delio describes in
Wired, the system “improved teamwork and resulted in a calmer,
less-stressed workplace since everyone had insight into how their team members
were feeling.”
Privacy watchdogs are aghast, and Sandia appears to agree that allowing the
individual to control the information about him- or herself would be “paramount”
to protecting privacy when Mentor/PAL goes commercial, as is apparently planned.
However, it seems logical to us that any such control would defeat the entire
purpose of the system.
Mentor/PAL has obvious application across the board of human
interactions, civil as well as military. It might be very useful for monitoring
all the individuals in a surgical team performing a complex procedure, for
example; or why not the entire staff of a hospital? It would also be very useful
during a patient visit to the doctor’s office, providing a much more reliable
answer to the question “How are you feeling?”
Advanced and far-fetched as Mentor/PAL may sound, it is worth noting
that most of the system is built from off-the-shelf components, therefore is not
technology only the Pentagon can afford; and the success of the preliminary
tests described by Delio suggest that unlike many of the advances we cover in
HFD, this is not a technology requiring years of further research and
development, although the Sandia researchers say they intend to further develop
Mentor/PAL in joint projects with the University of New Mexico and
Caltech, before releasing a commercial version.
Reference: Delio, Michelle (2004). “Mood Ring
Measured in Megahertz.” Wired News, January 29.
Wearable Recharger
A field jacket introduced at the Consumer Electronics Show in Las Vegas in
January has numerous pockets to hold the modern geek’s arsenal of cell phones,
PDAs, iPODs, digital cameras, and other portable gadgets. What makes it
different from the average anorak is that it also has photovoltaic solar panel
shoulder pads that charge the gadgets’ batteries while they are in their
networked pockets.
The solar panels are made of state-of-the-art copper indium gallium
diselenide (CIGS) technology, and are claimed to charge “as fast as your AC
(wall outlet) charges.” The jacket is to go on sale this Spring for about $300.
Such clothing is not necessarily faddish. It would have obvious benefits in
situations where device failure through lack of power is dangerous, such as a
lost or injured backpacker’s cell phone or GPS locator — or perhaps a patient
with an implanted or wearable medical device that relies on batteries.
Reference: Dean, Kari L.(2004). “Gadget Jacket
Charged by the Sun.” Wired News, January 13.
Gray Goo Syndrome
The new world champion microscope clearly reveals atoms and has already
produced pictures of metal particles in a diseased liver. SuperSTEM, as
it is called, sees down to one angstrom — one-tenth of a nanometer — and has
been described as “as an electron microscope with spectacles.” It is being used
to study the “wet/dry interface” where nanoparticles meet biological tissue. The
smaller a particle, the more chemically reactive — and therefore potentially
toxic — it becomes.
Studies, says Wired‘s Daith� � hAnluain, suggest that 3-5 percent of
deaths result from nanoparticles produced by fire, automobiles, and even
toasters, and the fear is that the production of artificial nanoparticles in
laboratories — not to mention nanomaterial mass-production factories, which we
have reported on before — will raise the level of deaths not only because they
are becoming more distributed but also because they may have unforeseen
properties and therefore introduce unforeseen effects. The foundation for such
fears was recently reinforced by a research finding that carbon nanotubes “can
be more toxic than quartz.” Another danger is that even a harmless nanoparticle
could carry harmful materials on its surface. The new microscope will allow
scientists to see directly whether such instances occur.
Reference: � hAnluain, Daith� (2004). “Keen Eye for the
Nano Guys.” Wired News, January 13. |
