Will drones become the furniture of tomorrow?

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L’evolved is a project that turns everyday objects into “flying smart agents.”

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If it’s up to two researchers from MIT Media Lab’s Fluid Interfaces Group, the furniture of tomorrow will fly, react and respond to your everyday needs. In their latest project, Harshit Agrawal and Sang-Won Leigh are exploring how to transform once ordinary objects into “flying smart agents.”

For starters, L’evolved features a drone that acts as a floating desk capable of switching positions, changing heights and flying along as you move. It will even auto-eject if you try to use the wrong pen while completing an assignment or filling out paperwork, and leaves when you’re all done (or in need of a break after working too hard).

The MIT duo has also developed a smart lamp drone that hovers above you to let you read in the dark. By tracking and following its user, the gadget can impressively adapt to different places and postures. What’s more, it can help remotely locate a misplaced book with only a press of a button.

“We’re exploring a future where objects become more humanized, rather than becoming dumber or a dehumanized element of our existence. We want to see more of this inter-relational reaction between humans and objects so that they’re not just being subordinated by our orders,” Leigh recently told Motherboard. “If you think about it it’s really magical, it’s like the world that you imagine in the Harry Potter novels, where everything can fly and come to you.”

L’evolved consists of two parts: a ground control tower for tracking and fixing the drone’s position and an IR motion capture system. A camera helps keep tabs on everything in the room, including the user and the drone, which receives commands from the computer via Wi-Fi. PID control enables the flying agent to move towards a goal position and provides additional stability. Meanwhile, power is fed through a wall socket, though admittedly this is one aspect of the project that the Makers are looking to improve.

Agrawal reveals to Motherboard that in the future, the team hopes to optimize steadiness by replacing a hovering desk with one that parks in front of users whenever it’s needed and then clears itself off when the user has finished the task at hand.

“On the technological side, we hear a lot about dystopian future — drones always monitoring you and taking away people’s jobs. But, in an equally possible future, we seek a more desirable synergy between man and machine,” the Makers conclude. “L’evolved objects don’t entirely change the way we go about daily tasks: desks are still desks, lamps are still lamps. They don’t substitue or subordinate human activities.”

Intrigued? Head over to the L’evolved’s official page to learn more, and see it in action below!

This AVR powered device makes growing veggies at home easier

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Meet HUI! — the virtual garden assistant that’ll help your garden thrive with real-time environment condition updates and care instructions.

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In the movement towards a more green and sustainable future, urban farming has become a growing trend in cities. However, these environments differ greatly from that of farm land tended by skilled farmers, and not everyone has the green thumb when it comes to gardening and plant care. The team at Grow&Help sought to solve this problem by creating a smart device that would alleviate the headache of maintaining healthy plants.

GROW & HELP — a company that aims to promote urban farming and sustainable agriculture projects — acknowledged the difficult task of growing plants, and created a technology to inform people on what soil and temperature, and the amount of sunshine and water that certain plants need to thrive. With HUI!, short for Intelligent Urban Garden or “Huerto Urbano Inteligente,” urban farmers can skip the grocery store and grow their own produce for a price as low as $50.

HUI! is a weatherproof, intelligent device, with a minimalist design, that’s simply placed into the soil. Its accompanying mobile app will indicate which plant(s) you are growing, and will send you daily updates and best practices for care, (maximum/minimum temperatures, daylight hours, water, etc.) and alerts if the plant needs attention. As mentioned before, urban environments differ greatly, so HUI! can also identify what plants and vegetables thrive best in your area at different seasons of the year. Ideally, the gadget would be installed in the place where you want to grow (garden, planter box, or pot), and after 24 hours, it will precisely measure the environmental parameters and inform you in real-time.

At the heart of the unit lies an ATmega328 along with a series of light, temperature and soil moisture sensors. With its Wi-Fi integration and the app’s artificial intelligence techniques, HUI! utilizes the knowledge of farmers and other users’ input, and pulls from a database of information to better serve your urban garden. The device has been developed with Natural Language Processing algorithms to be a voice-controlled assistant that answers specific questions about growing vegetables. For example, you can ask HUI! how to cultivate vegetables ideal for your environmental conditions, or for it to show you vegetables to fit your preferred dietary needs. If you start to see discoloration in your plant’s leaves, HUI! can even diagnose the problem and present solutions.

Are you ready to take on urban gardening on your balcony, terrace or even inside your home? Head over to HUI!’s Kickstarter page, where the GROW & HELP team is currently seeking $3,134. Preorders will be delivered as soon as December 2015. Single units are available, as well as bundles if you want to plant vegetables at your restaurant, office or greenhouse.

Secured SAMA5D4 for industrial, fitness or IoT display

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To target applications like home automation, surveillance camera, control panels for security, or industrial and residential gateways, high DMIPS computing is not enough.

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The new SAMA5D4 expands the Atmel | SMART Cortex-A5-based family, adding a 720p resolution hardware video decoder to target Human Machine Interface (HMI), control panel and IoT applications when high performance display capability is required. Cortex-A5 offers raw performance of 945 DMIPS (@ 600 MHz) completed by ARM NEON 128-bit SIMD (single instruction, multiple data) DSP architecture extension. To target applications like home automation, surveillance camera, control panels for security, or industrial and residential gateways, high DMIPS computing is not enough. In order to really make a difference, on top of the hardware’s dedicated video decoder (H264, VP8, MPEG4), you need the most complete set of security features.

Whether for home automation purpose or industrial HMI, you want your system to be safeguarded from hackers, and protect your investment against counterfeiting. You have the option to select 16-b DDR2 interface, or 32-b if you need better performance, but security is no longer just an option. Designing with Atmel | SMART SAMA5D4 will guarantee secure boot, including ARM Trust Zone, encrypted DDR bus, tamper detection pins and secure data storage. This MPU also integrates hardware encryption engines supporting AES (Advanced Encryption Standard)/3DES (Triple Data Encryption Standard), RSA (Rivest-Shamir-Adleman), ECC (Elliptic Curves Cryptography), as well as SHA (Secure Hash Algorithm) and TRNG (True Random Number Generator).

If you design fitness equipment, such as treadmills and exercise machines, you may be more sensitive to connectivity and user interface functions than to security elements — even if it’s important to feel safe in respect with counterfeiting. Connectivity includes gigabit and 10/100 Ethernet and up to two High-Speed USB ports (configurable as two hosts or one host and one device port) and one High Speed Inter-Chip Interface (HSIC) port, several SDIO/SD/MMC, dual CAN, etc. Because the SAMA5D4 is intended to support industrial, consumer or IoT applications requiring efficient display capabilities, it integrates LCD controllers with a graphics accelerator, resistive touchscreen controller, camera interface and the aforementioned 720p 30fps video decoder.

The MCU market is highly competitive, especially when you consider that most of the products are developed around the same ARM-based family of cores (from the Cortex-M to Cortex-A5 series). Performance is an important differentiation factor, and the SAMA5D4 is the highest performing MPUs in the Atmel ARM Cortex-A5 based MPU family, offering up to 945 DMIPS (@ 600 MHz) completed by DSP extension ARM NEON 128-bit SIMD (single instruction, multiple data). Using safety and security on top of performance to augment differentiation is certainly an efficient architecture choice. As you can see in the block diagram below, the part features the ARM TrustZone system-wide approach to security, completed by advanced security features to protect the application software from counterfeiting, like encrypted DDR bus, tamper detection pins and secure data storage. But that’s not enough. Fortunately, this microprocessor integrates hardware encryption engines supporting AES/3DES, RSA, ECC, as well as SHA and TRNG.

The SAMA5 series targets industrial or fitness applications where safety is a key differentiating factor. If security helps protecting the software asset and makes the system robust against hacking, safety directly protects the user. The user can be the woman on the treadmill, or the various machines connected to the display that SAMA5 MCU pilots. This series is equipped with functions that ease the implementation of safety standards like IEC61508, including a main crystal oscillator clock with failure detector, POR (power-on reset), independent watchdog timers, write protection register, etc.

The SAMA5D4 is a medium-heavier processor and well suited for IoT, control panels, HMI, and the like, differentiating from other Atmel MCUs by the means of performance and security (not to mention, safety). The ARM Cortex-A5 based device delivers up to 945 DMIPS when running at 600 MHz, completed by DSP architecture extension ARM NEON 128-bit SIMD. The most important factor that sets the SAMA5D4 apart from the rest is probably its implemented security capabilities. These will protect OEM software investments from counterfeiting, user privacy against hacking, and its safety features make the SAMA5D4 ideal for industrial, fitness or IoT applications.

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This post has been republished with permission from SemiWiki.com, where Eric Esteve is a principle blogger as well as one of the four founding members of the site. This blog first appeared on SemiWiki on October 6, 2015.

Koto smart sensors for a healthier home

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Koto smart sensors allow you to monitor your indoor environment right from your phone, computer and tablet.

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Sleep accounts for about a third of an average human’s entire lifespan, so we all deserve a good night’s sleep every time. While a better mattress is the first step to this, the room environment such as the temperature and the air we breathe can be a factor, too. Sleeping shouldn’t be this hard or expensive, but for some, it can be. Thankfully, a team of engineers and designers have created a simple and affordable solution.

From the makers of CubeSensors, Koto smart sensors are small unobtrusive sensor-laden devices that are deployed around your home or office where they measure things like noise, temperature, light and humidity, monitor your indoor environment and let you know when you can make minor improvements that’ll keep both your abode and family healthy. By doing something as effortless as turning on the light and dialing up the A/C, an accompanying app will then advise you on how to make those rooms more conducive to working, resting and remaining in good shape.

How it works is pretty straightforward. To begin, you simply place the Koto smart sensors in your desired locations and then check its companion app, following the advice it dishes out. Each of the sensors sync data directly with your smartphone via Bluetooth if you’re nearby or transmit the information over to your laptop if behind the computer. The app lets you know exactly what you need to change for each room in real-time, so you can sleep better, stay healthy, save money and energy, and be more productive, among many other benefits.

The smart sensors will be available in three different versions: Blink, Air and Storm. The Koto Blink is the entry-level device and is able to measure temperature, humidity, light and noise. The Koto Air, which is said to be the best option for bedrooms and nurseries as it adds monitoring of dust and air pollution levels, enabling it to give you advice on keeping healthier. Finally, the Koto Storm includes a minimalistic LED matrix display for showing environmental readings, instant alerts and notifications, along with being able to be used as a clock.

And that’s not all, the Koto Storm ensures that you’re always just a glance away from home by connecting to your Wi-Fi network. This particular unit is also packed with indoor sensors and can even detect approaching storms, so you can plan your outdoor activities better and safeguard your home during hurricane or blizzard season.

What’s nice is that Koto sensors have their own IFTTT channel, which allows them to send instructions to your smart thermostat, lights and other intelligent appliances around your connected home. Now, your house can finally act on real-time data based on measurements from the parts of your home that you use the most.

Furthermore, the crew has developed an API that lets developers easily integrate their sensors with their own apps or automation systems.

Interested? Head over to Koto’s Indiegogo campaign, where the team is currently seeking $50,000. Delivery is slated for March 2016.

These goggles will keep open water swimmers on course

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Point. Click. Swim. 

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Swimming from one end of a pool to the other in a straight line is fairly easy. Doing the same in an open body of water or lake, not so much. With the absence of lanes, swimmers and triathletes tend to find themselves zig-zagging through the water, wasting precious energy and ultimately diminishing their performance. Cognizant of this, one Atlanta-based startup has developed a pair of intelligent navigation goggles that enable a wearer to stay on course without deviating from its linear path.

Embedded with a high-precision compass, an accelerometer, an array of LEDs and an MCU, the OnCourse Goggles work by establishing a virtual swimming lane for its user. Simply look at a far-off target like abuoy to set your destination, lock it in by hitting the button along its side, and you’re ready to get going. From there, the goggles will provide real-time feedback during your swim through a small LED array in each eyepiece.

When you’re swimming in the proper direction, both lights will remain green. However, if you happen to veer too far, the LED will illuminate above your right or left eye. The lights will turn yellow and then to red, indicating that you need to get back on track. Upon reaching your desired checkpoint, you can set another target and proceed accordingly.

In terms of power, the goggles are equipped with a LiPo battery that can be recharged via USB either through your computer, an iPhone wall unit or its supplied automotive adapter. The OnCourse team just completed a successful Kickstarter campaign, which garnered over $62,000. Want a pair of your own? Race over to its page here.

Napz is a biohacking device that lets you control your dreams

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This wearable mask wants to make lucid dreams accessible to everyone. 

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For many of us, getting a full night’s of shut-eye is quite the challenge. Between stress, late nights at the office, the kids or simply finding yourself unable to doze off makes getting the desired six to eight hours of sleep nearly impossible. But what if there was a wearable device that could help you get the most of out your limited time catching z’s?

That’s the idea behind Napz — an electronic, biohacking sleep mask designed to not only help you hit the hay but to induce a state of lucid dreams as well. This is the state where sleepers are aware that they are, in fact, dreaming and can control many elements of what happens during their nocturnal experience.

Developed by COCOLAB robotic engineer Octavio Martinez García, the prototype is meant to measure REM using LED lights that shine through the eyelids to stimulate you and bring you to the brink of consciousness where you can actually become mindful of the actions in your sleep. The wearable itself is comprised of infrared sensors, Adafruit NePixels and an Arduino Lilypad (ATmega328) for its brain.

“Napz is a wearable device intended to schedule lucid dreams and thus produce actual rest and better patterns of REM sleep. Its interface allows the programming, design, and analysis of dreams. As everybody is different the device needs to be calibrated to each individual,” Garcia explains.

Dream manipulation is a method commonly used to assist those who suffer insomnia, severe nightmares, PTSD and other sleep disorders. The idea is that, with Napz, users will be able to access controlled dreams much quicker and without the many hours of training typically required.

Napz was recently showcased at V&A’s Digital Design Weekend.

[Images: British Council Creative Economy]

Arduino-powered nail art is now a thing

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These embedded nail extensions can help someone with behavior modification and programmed reminders.

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“Getting your nails done” once was a ritual that determined a person’s social status, which through the years has evolved into a form of expression and aesthetic enhancement. Today, a vast majority of women go to the salon every few weeks or so to change their nail design. And that’s not all that has changed, the options available have grown quite extensively, not just in terms of colors but materials as well. But it looks like acrylics and gel overlays are so 2014.

That’s because Jenny Rodenhouse and Kristina Ortega have discovered that these temporary extensions make for an interesting canvas to tinker with tiny electronics. Combining the context of salon culture with the popularity of nail art, the Maker duo designed a set of touch augmentation nail extensions and a next-generational sensor parlor to go along with it.

The aptly named Sensor Salon is a project that proposes a new service model for the making and customizing of wearable devices. Inspired by the nail culture, manicure process and DIY lab business models, both Rodenhouse and Ortega imagine a physical sensor shop that allows patrons to explore new services that support the growing population of body-adorned technology. People will be given the ability to personalize and modify their wearables as they please, from how it behaves to how it appears, with the help of trained technicians. Ideally, this hypothetical pop-up shop would feature a manicurist, a designer and a development team to handle the coding of the sensors.

Customized interactions and personalized behaviors embedded onto the nail can take on complex roles depending on the needs of the user and the expertise of the salon’s staff. Not to mention, 10 different fingers means 10 different possibilities!

These sensor-laden attachments will be capable of providing biofeedback, monitoring health and fitness, assisting with behavior modification and performing programmed reminders, among various other use cases. For example, these add-ons can buzz the fingertip of a smoker trying to kick the habit each time they reach for a cigarette. This would be achieved using two XBee modules — one placed on the pack of cigarettes, another attached to the user. If the two microcontrollers come within a predefined distance of each other, the wearer would then receive instant vibration feedback to their nailbed.

Throughout the process, the creators experimented with various forms and sensors using an Arduino Uno (ATmega328). Based on their prototypes, Rodenhouse and Ortega finally arrived at five different extensions capable of augmenting a person’s touch and behavior. These included the combinations of an LED and piezo buzzer, a flex sensor and vibration motor, an Xbee/distance sensor and vibration motor, an Xbee/distance sensor and audio module, as well as video and audio modules.

As you would expect, the pair has already received some unique requests. So far, they have incorporated flex sensors and 3D-printed breadboards shaped like cats with LEDs and a nano pixel embedded into the designs. The idea for the project was originally conceived out of an Art Center’s Media Design Practices course called Wearable Ecologies, which examined the possibilities and challenges of wearables.

Interested? Head over to the Sensor Salon’s official page to learn more, or just watch the video below!

IoT, digital mesh and smart machines among Gartner’s top tech trends

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A look at the 10 technology trends that Gartner believes will be strategic for organizations in 2016.

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During its annual Symposium/ITxpo, Gartner reveals the top 10 technology trends that will be strategic for organizations to implement in the coming months. This year, you’ll once again notice some rather familiar names on the recently-revealed list, along with a few newcomers that are expected to have an impact on the enterprise in 2016. According to the research firm, these notable trends include the Internet of Things (of course!), the Information of Everything, 3D printing and digital mesh.

Let’s take a closer look…

The Device Mesh

The device mesh refers to an expanding set of endpoints people use to access applications and information or interact with people, social communities, governments and businesses. Think of it as the glue between the countless mobile, wearable, consumer, home, automotive and environmental devices that make up the IoT.

Ambient User Experience

The device mesh creates the foundation for a new continuous and ambient user experience. Immersive environments delivering augmented and virtual reality hold significant potential but are only one aspect of this experience, which seamlessly flows across a shifting set of devices and interaction channels blending physical, virtual and electronic environment as the user moves from one place to another.

3D Printing Materials

Advances in the next-gen technology have already paved the way for 3D printers to spit out a range of materials, including everything from carbon fiber and glass to conductive ink and electronics. These innovations are driving user demand, as the practical applications for such equipment begins to expand into more sectors. According to Gartner, the extensive lineup of 3D-printable materials will drive a CAGR of 64.1% for enterprise 3D printer shipments through 2019.

Information of Everything

More devices, more information. Everything in the digital mesh produces, uses and transmits information. And this goes well beyond just textual, audio and video, but encompasses sensory and contextual as well. The so-called “Information of Everything” will address this influx with strategies and technologies that link data from all these different sources. As the research firm puts it, information has always existed everywhere but has often been isolated, incomplete, unavailable or unintelligible; now, the advent of semantic tools and other emerging techniques will finally give proper meaning to it all.

Advanced Machine Learning

In advanced machine learning, deep neural nets (DNNs) move beyond classic computing and information management to create systems that can autonomously learn to perceive the world — all on their own. The explosion of data sources and complexity of information makes manual classification and analysis infeasible and uneconomic. DNNs automate these tasks and make it possible to address key challenges related to the information of everything trend. This area is rapidly evolving, and organizations must assess how they can apply these technologies to gain the competitive edge.

Autonomous Agents and Things

Machine learning gives rise to a spectrum of smart machine implementations, which includes robots, autonomous vehicles and virtual personal assistants, that act in an autonomous (or at least semi-autonomous) manner. While advances in physical smart machines such as robots receive some mainstream attention, the software-based smart machines have a more near-term and broader impact. In fact, VPAs like Google Now, Microsoft’s Cortana and Apple’s Siri are becoming smarter and are precursors to autonomous agents. The emerging notion of assistance feeds into the ambient user experience in which an autonomous agent becomes the main user interface. Instead of interacting with menus, forms and buttons on a smartphone, the user speaks to an app, which is really an intelligent agent.

Adaptive Security Architecture

The complexities of digital business and the algorithmic economy combined with an emerging “hacker industry” significantly increase the threat surface for an organization. Relying on perimeter defense and rule-based security is inadequate, especially as organizations exploit more cloud-based services and open APIs for customers and partners to integrate with their systems. Gartner points out that IT leaders must focus on detecting and responding to threats, along with more traditional blocking and other measures to prevent attacks. Application self-protection, as well as user and entity behavior analytics, will help fulfill the adaptive security architecture.

Advanced System Architecture

The digital mesh and smart machines require intense computing architecture demands to make them viable for organizations. Providing this required boost are high-powered and ultraefficient neuromorphic architectures. Fueled by field-programmable gate arrays (FPGAs) as an underlining technology for neuromorphic architectures, there are significant gains to this architecture, such as being able to run at speeds of greater than a teraflop with high-energy efficiency.

Mesh App and Service Architecture

Monolithic, linear application designs are giving way to a more loosely coupled integrative approach: the apps and services architecture. Bringing mobile and IoT elements into the app and service architecture creates a comprehensive model to address back-end cloud scalability and front-end device mesh experiences. Looking ahead, application teams must devise new modern architectures to deliver agile and flexible cloud-based applications with dynamic user experiences that span the digital mesh.

IoT Platforms

The Internet of Things will play an integral role in the digital mesh and ambient user experience, and the emerging and dynamic world of  IoT platforms is what makes them possible.

You can check out each of Gartner’s 10 predictions in-depth here.

This smart fridge will make sure you don’t run out of Bud Light

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Bud-E is a smart beer fridge provides real-time updates to ensure you never run out of Bud Light on game day.

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Want a surefire way to never be asked to host another Monday Night Football party? Run out of beer. Luckily, it looks like the Internet of Things has come to the rescue, preventing such situations from ever arising. That’s because Bud Light has tapped into the IoT by creating a Wi-Fi-connected fridge, which provides real-time updates on the status of your supply right on your smartphone.

The aptly named Bud-E Fridge is a first-of-its-kind smart home appliance, ideal for every man cave, that enables you to easily keep tabs on the number of Bud Light cans and bottles inside, when they are cold enough to drink, and where you can find nearby stores to replenish the stock should it run low, all from its accompanying mobile app. Even better, those living in cities like San Francisco, Los Angeles and San Diego can even order more brew with the press of a button and have it delivered to their doorstep — without ever having to leave the sofa.

Developed in collaboration with Buzz Connect and Linq IQ, the Bud-E Fridge and its app allows fans to program their favorite teams so that the Bud-E Fridge can keep them in the know for upcoming games. When an event is approaching, the intelligent device will immediately send an alert if your game day supply of Bud Light is in need of replenishment.

As aforementioned, the Bud-E Fridge offers an accurate count of your fridge — which holds up to 78 cans or 60 12-ounce bottles and 18 cans — along with a timer indicating when your Bud Light is expected to reach optimal serving temperature. The must-have appliance will also notify you if you’re running low via your phone, regardless of whether an upcoming game is about to take place.

Meanwhile, the outside of the Bud-E Fridge is equipped with a dashboard that can be set to either show the amount of beer remaining or the temperature inside. Plus, the unit boasts a fuel gauge-like display that reveals how empty/full the fridge is at any given time.

Intrigued? Check out its official page here, or watch the fridge’s teaser below!

TailTalk is the world’s first dog emotion sensor

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TailTalk is a smart device that helps you understand your dog’s complex tail language.

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Dogs, by nature, are very expressive animals. Like humans, they communicate when they’re feeling happy, sad, nervous, angry, and of course, hungry. Instead of spoken words, our beloved four-legged friends use their tails to convey much of this information — a nonverbal language that can be quite complex and difficult to recognize for most pet owners. But what if there was a smart wearable that could collate this information and translate it in such a way that makes it much easier to understand? In comes TailTalk. 

The brainchild of Yannis Tsampalis and Mike Karp, TailTalk is a tiny, sensor-laden device that comfortably goes around your pup’s tail to capture movement with its embedded accelerometer and gyroscope, and then employs a proprietary algorithm to convert the wagging into the emotion that he or she is expressing.

The lightweight, unobtrusive gadget connects to its accompanying DogStar app over Bluetooth, providing you with a simple, user-friendly dashboard that lets you into the mind of good ol’ Fido even when you’re not around. This consists of your dog’s profile, along with their happiness score, upcoming events and favorite canine pals.

Using the app, you can log and graph their activity, manage their schedules, set reminders for yourself, and even add notes related to a particular event. More importantly, the “emotion sensor” will notify an owner’s smartphone when the dog’s tail moves right, which means they’re happy or energetic, or left, denoting anxious or aggressive feelings. TailTalk boasts a six-month battery life and has been designed to withstand the wear and tear (and chewing) that’s expected with everyday use.

Throughout their journey from the MakerSpace to MarketPlace, the DogStar Life crew has developed their prototype using the highly popular Arduino platform and has already been the recipient of some pawesome awards. Looking ahead, the New York-based startup is hoping to storm past its $100,000 pledge goal on Indiegogo.

Ready for a next-gen, Look Who’s Talking Now-like device that’s take the guesswork out of your daily interaction with Rover? Head over to TailTalk’s crowdfunding page. Delivery is slated for May 2016.