Tag: SENSOR

During this weekend's NFL Combine, some prospects will wear an Under Armour shirt equipped with an accelerometer as well as heart and breathing monitors. According to Wired, the E39 shirt is made from the same material as Under Armour's other compression gear, and weighs less than 4.5 ounces -- even with the bright yellow puck stitched just below the chest. In addition to the accelerometer, the ...

For the first time in nearly a decade, the 911 emergency service is getting an overhaul, as the FCC looks to expand and update its crime reporting capabilities. As Wired reports, users in need of urgent assistance may soon be able to immediately contact 911 via text message or video streamed directly from their mobiles. The proposed system upgrade would be the first since 2001, when the FCC ...

Reuters Canada reports that the NFL has spoken with a German manufacturer about placing microchips inside footballs in order to prevent blown calls by officials. The tight-lipped NFL, naturally, would not confirm or deny these reports, but Cairos Technologies sales director Mario Hanus told Reuters, "Yes, we are talking. There is a demand in American Football." The demand is getting touchdown, ...

Researchers at The University of California at San Diego have developed a tiny silicon chip that can detect the presence and plot the location of dangerous chemicals in the air. Their goal is to embed the chips in cell phones, which could then "map a chemical accident as it unfolds," says Michael Sailor, a professor of chemistry and biochemistry at the university. Much like the olfactory ...

Don't look now, but soon HP could know about every move you make. According to CNN, HP will start depositing "smart dust" around the globe in the next two years. The term was coined in the 1990s by UC Berkeley researcher Kris Pister, who envisioned "smart dust" spreading rice-grain sized sensors across the Earth (think a more mobile version of Helen Hunt's tornado trackers in 'Twister'). These ...

Pitching injuries can cripple a baseball team's roster and its bank account, too. That's why three Northeastern engineering students created a compression shirt that monitors a pitcher's mechanics. When a pitcher becomes tired, his mechanics often worsen. This can lead to a tear in the ulnar collateral ligament (UCL), which -- when healthy -- prevents stress on the elbow. The students found ...

Twitter, apparently, now appeals to inanimate objects. Not letting his house miss the Web 2.0 boom, Andy Stanford-Clark, a 43-year-old computer engineer, has wired his U.K. home with sensors to tweet status updates. According to The Daily Mail, Mr. Stanford-Clark, who is a "distinguished engineer and master inventor" at IBM, was worried about the upkeep of his home in the Isle of Wright. To ...

Dr. Priya Narasimhan, a professor at Carnegie Mellon University, doesn't intend to put a single NFL referee out of work, but there's no doubt that the technology she's tinkering with could indeed have that effect. The prof and her students are developing sensor-laden footballs and gloves, both of which could eventually tell in real-time whether a ball bounced off the ground before being caught ...

Not that we haven't seen similar technology from other outfits before, but we'll take as many in-car safety advancements as we can get. It's bruited that Fujitsu is conjuring up a sophisticated sensor system that can actually detect when a driver gets drowsy or begins to sink into a deep, dark wonder-world of sleep. Put simply, the system would detect specific changes in the motorist's heart rate ...

Thanks, MIT. Why don't you just make the rest of the world feel a little more useless. Every week or so, we're forced to stare at yet another amazing invention coming from your doors; to be frank, it's just downright unfair. All childish angst aside, the latest idea to come from the institution is one that could certainly be put to good use: a self-sustaining sensor network that taps into trees ...

This won't mark the first time the US government has looked into other means for helping soldiers communicate on the battlefield, but it's one of the first instances where vocal cords aren't even necessary. The US Army has recently awarded a $4 million contract to a coalition of scientists, all of which will soon start developing a "thought helmet" to enable voiceless, secure communication between ...

Mama always said you'd regret slouching one day, and while you've still got a few decades left before ultimately determining whether the sage-like advice was right or wrong, why take chances? The iPosture does the same thing as wearable posture reminders that we've seen in the past, but this one does so in a much more discrete fashion. The diminutive nano-sensor detects when your angle deviates ...

Far from being the first LED-infused floor we've seen hipsters and hippies break dance and boogie down on (respectively), Sensacell's latest contraption still manages to stand out by bringing back memories of when mouse trails really were the coolest thing about an operating system. Flashbacks aside, the installation -- which is currently at the entrance to the Comunitat Valenciana in Spain -- ...

Apparently not everyone at General Motors is toiling away in an attempt to get the Volt ready for its 2010 debut, as another sector of the outfit's R&D division is busy creating a windshield that will, at its core, enable us to stop running stuff over. The futuristic glass would utilize lasers, sensors and cameras in order to help drivers see the road's edge better, recognize obstructions ...

We dig the idea in theory, we really do, but we can definitely see this causing more harm than good. Starting this fall, San Francisco will begin a trial involving wireless parking sensors in 6,000 of its 24,000 metered spaces, enabling antsy drivers to be alerted via street signs or cell phones when a spot becomes available. Only one problem -- give 50 anxious motorists the same message that a ...