Calcium carbonate is the main ingredient of chalk, which is very brittle and breaks easily when force is applied. But shells are strong and resistant to fracturing, and this is because the calcium carbonate is combined with proteins which bind the crystals together, like bricks in a wall, to make the material stronger and sometimes tougher. They have developed an effective method of combining calcite crystals with polystyrene particles which makes the material more ductile compared to its original brittle form.

Dr Stephen Eichhorn from The School of Materials at The University of Manchester, conducted the experiments in collaboration with Professor Fiona Meldrum in the School of Chemistry at the University of Leeds, where they observed that when the reinforced material cracked, the polymer lengthened within the cracks thus acting as a well-known mechanism for absorbing energy and enhancing toughness. Researchers say their method allows the properties of the new material to be tweaked by selecting particles of different shapes, sizes and composition.

“The mechanical properties of shells can rival those of man-made ceramics, which are engineered at high temperatures and pressures. Their construction helps to distribute stress over the structure and control the spread of cracks”, Eichhorn said. “Further research and testing is still needed but our research potentially offers a straightforward method of engineering new and tough chalk-based composite materials with a wide range of useful applications.”

Their technique could be used to make ceramics with high resistance to cracking thus ensuring its usage in crack-resistant building materials and bone replacements.

The USB-powered Multi-Touch G3 touchscreen interface comes in sizes ranging from 32” right up to 65”. For the iTable, Silicon Valley’s PQ Labs installed a 42 version of the technology into a coffee table structure and connected it to an undisclosed computer system running the company’s PQ Window software, which is compatible with both Windows and Mac OS X.

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Sensors around the edge of the screen in the iTable can register up to 32 simultaneous touch points on the 3mm tempered glass surface allowing for pinch and zoom photo viewing, offering a whole new multi-touch gaming experience, bringing presentations to life or getting 3D modelers up close and personal with designs.

The Multi-Touch G3 system is claimed to have unlimited touch durability and PQLabs’ LED Cell Imaging technology has a tracking accuracy of 1.5mm and a touch response time of between 7 and 12ms. The electronics and scratch-resistant glass surface are held in place by a strong, light aluminum frame and offered in customized versions up to 200 inches, geared towards interactive presentation walls or broadcast situations.

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Sharing content from a mobile device is as simple as placing an iPhone, Windows Mobile or Android phone on the table and it instantly synchronizes with the iTable. The technology can register shapes (such as a closed fist or open palm) and it’s not just hands and fingers that are recognized by the interface, objects placed on the iTable at CeBIT also registered.

Two of the most notable features of the Surface are its multitouch capabilities and the availability of a development SDK, both of which PQ Labs has matched (or, in the case of the SDK, plan to match soon). The number of fingers detected by the multitouch sensor is limited only by the individual software designer’s desire – the hardware itself supports as many simultaneous prods as you can throw at it.

iTable is initially being made available to corporate clients only and it’s not likely to be within the price range of the ordinary consumer’s budget. However, PQ Labs has stated that a cheaper consumer version is being developed for the near future. That is if they survive the potential patent and trademark lawsuits from Microsoft and Apple.

There have been many suggestions on how to solve this problem as using augmented reality projected onto our glasses or retina, small projectors which can turn the tables and walls into our interactive surface or a combination of a projector and a camera into one of our favorites – SixthSense. However, the researchers Chris Harrison from Carnegie Mellon University, Desney Tan and Dan Morris from Microsoft research, claim there is one surface that has been previous overlooked as an input canvas – our skin.

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Appropriating the human body as an input device is appealing not only because we have roughly two square meters of external surface area, but also because much of it is easily accessible by our hands (e.g., arms, upper legs, torso). Furthermore, proprioception (our sense of how our body is configured in three-dimensional space) allows us to accurately interact with our bodies in an eyes-free manner. Few external input devices can claim this accurate, eyes-free input characteristic and provide such a large interaction area.

The user needs to wear an armband, which contains a very small projector that projects a menu or keypad onto a person’s hand or forearm. The armband also contains an acoustic sensor. The acoustic sensor is used because when you tap different parts of your body, it makes unique sounds based on the area’s bone density, soft tissue, joints and other factors.

The software in Skinput is able to analyze the sound frequencies picked up by the acoustic sensor and then determine which button the user has just tapped. Wireless Bluetooth technology then transmits the information to the device. So if you tapped out a phone number, the wireless technology would send that data to your phone to make the call. Harrison claims they have achieved accuracies ranging from 81.5 to 96.8 percent and enough buttons to control many devices.

We think it’s not a question wheatear to use Skinput or SixthSense, because both technologies should be incorporated along with some feature from their competition in order to make a practical interface. While SixthSense could perform better in loud environments and offers more features, the Skinput doesn’t require any markers to be worn and it is more suitable for persons with sight impairments, since it is much easier to operate it even with your eyes closed.

The key to the sensing technology is Peratech’s patented ‘QTC’ materials. QTC’s, or Quantum Tunnelling Composites, are a new material type which provides a measured response to force made by touch by changing its electrical resistance. This enables a simple electronic circuit within the robot to determine touch. Being easily formed into unique shapes – including being covered over an object, QTC’s mimic how human skin works to detect touch.

QTC’s are electro-active polymeric materials made from metallic or non-metallic filler particles combined in an elastomeric binder. These enable the action of ‘touch’ to be translated into an electrical reaction, enabling a vast array of devices to incorporate very thin and highly robust ’sensing’ of touch and pressure. QTC’s unique properties enable it to be made into force sensitive switches of any shape or size. QTC switches and switch matrices can be screen printed allowing for development and integration of switches that are as thin as 75 microns.

QTC consumes small amounts of power because the interfaces can be designed with no start resistance. So if there is no pressure, the switch draws no power and passes no current. Importantly, when pressure is applied, the resistance drops in proportion to the amount of pressure which allows sophisticated human machine interface designs to react to the variations in pressure. Further, by applying the Peratech’s patented xy scanning technology, the robot equipped with such a matrix of sensors could be able to detect where it was touched.

Peratech’s QTC technology has an established track record for use in robotics, having previously been adopted by NASA for their Robonaut device and by Shadow Robot in the UK, producers of what is widely regarded as the World’s most advanced robotic hand, which have utilized QTC to sense ‘touch’. This research project is hoped to produce results which could soon be applied to a range of robotics projects that MIT works upon.

Masayuki Inaba, a professor at Tokyo University, and Yuto Nakanishi, a researcher and one of Kojiro’s main developers, showed me their latest trick: using a PS2 controller to make Kojiro move. In particular, they wanted to demo the robot’s spine motion. Unlike most of the other humanoid robots, Kojiro features a flexible spine, one of its main innovations. Like the human spine, Kojiro’s can bend in different directions to let the robot arch and twist its torso.

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Nakanishi explained that most humanoid robots have articulated limbs and torsos powered by DC motors at the joints. Although these robots have a good range of motion, they’re typically hard and heavy, making collisions with humans and objects a big problem.

Kojiro does use DC motors, but the motors pull cables attached to specific locations on the body, simulating how our muscles and tendons contract and relax. The Kojiro has about 100 of tendon-muscle structures which work together in order to give the robot 60 degrees of freedom (much more than could be achieved with motorized rotary joints). And instead of big, bulky DC motors, Kojiro uses lightweight, high-performance ones. Its brushless motors are quite small and measure 16 millimeters (0.6 inches) in diameter and 66.4 mm (2.5 inches) in length. However, they can deliver a substantial 40 watts of output power.

Each motor unit has a rotary encoder, tension sensor, and current and temperature sensing circuit. A driver circuit board automatically adjusts the current fed to the motors based on temperature measurements. The results are transmitted to a computer and displayed on a control screen developed by Takanishi.

To make the robot safer, the researchers built its body using mostly light and flexible materials. To keep track of its posture and limb positions, they embedded joint angle sensors on spherical joints and six-axis force sensors on the ankles. For balance, the robot uses three gyros and a three-axis accelerometer on its head.

The main drawback of using a musculoskeletal system is that controlling the robot’s body is difficult. This kind of system has lots of nonlinearities and is hard to model precisely. To develop control algorithms for Kojiro, the JSK team is using an iterative learning process. They first attempt small moves and little by little tweak the control parameters until the robot can handle more complex movements.

The individual byssal threads that compose the byssus are stiff, but stretchy and are fashioned by the mussel in a process resembling injection molding. Byssal threads are depended upon for dissipating the energy of crashing waves and also for resisting abrasive damage from water-borne debris. To this end, threads are sheathed with a thin and knobby outer cuticle; a biological polymer, which exhibits epoxy-like hardness, while straining up to 100% without cracking.

When viewed under a scanning electron microscope, the byssal cuticles have a knobby appearance. This is because they contain numerous submicron-sized granular inclusions, which are distributed in a continuous matrix. It is believed that when the cuticle is stretched, submicron-sized tears occur in this matrix, hindering the formation of larger cracks.

Central to understanding the peculiar mechanical behaviour of the cuticle are the high concentration of iron ions in the cuticle and the presence of an uncommon modification of the amino acid tyrosine known commonly as dopa. Dopa is found at high concentrations in the main cuticle component, mussel foot protein-1 (mfp-1). Dopa is distinguished from typical amino acids due to its impressive affinity for complexing with transition metal ions, particularly iron. As Admir Masic, a scientist at the Max Planck Institute for Colloids and Interfaces who worked on the project, explains, “when 2-3 dopa residues complex with a single iron ion, they create an incredibly stable complex that can be utilized to cross-link structural proteins.” These metal-protein complexes have a high breaking force (nearly half that of covalent bonds), but unlike covalent bonds they are reversibly breakable, making them ideal for creating sacrificial cross-links.

Using a technique known as in situ Raman spectroscopy to probe the chemical composition of the cuticle, the researchers provided the first direct evidence that the cuticle is a protein-based polymeric scaffold stabilized by dopa-iron complexes. Moreover, it was discovered that the distribution of dopa-iron complexes is clustered, with areas of high density coinciding with the granular inclusions and low density with the inter-granular matrix. These observations, coupled with previous mechanical observations suggest that the densely cross-linked granules function as hard inclusions and the less cross-linked matrix functions in a sacrificial manner, allowing bonds to break prior to catastrophic failure.

“Nature has evolved an elegant solution to a problem that engineers are still struggling with; namely, how to combine the properties of abrasion resistance and high extensibility in the same material”, says Peter Fratzl, director of the biomaterials department at the Max Planck Institute for Colloids and Interfaces. Apparently, the cuticle achieves this through a careful tailoring of protein-metal chemistry and the submicron organization of cross-link density. “Conceivably, this same strategy could be applied in engineered polymers and composites.”

Flyfire uses a large number of remotely controlled, self-organizing “micro helicopters”. Each helicopter contains small LEDs and acts as a smart pixel. Through digitally controlled movements, the helicopters perform elaborate and synchronized choreographies, in order to form an elastic display surface in three-dimensional space.

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“It’s like when Winnie the Pooh hits a beehive: a swarm of bees comes out and chases him while changing its configuration to resemble a beast”, said E Roon Kang, a research fellow at the SENSEable City Lab who is leading the project. “In Flyfire, each bee is essentially a pixel that emits colored light and reconfigures itself into different forms.”

With the self-stabilizing and precise controlling technology from the ARES Lab, the motion of the pixels is adaptable in real time. The Flyfire canvas can transform itself from one shape to another or morph a two-dimensional photographic image into an articulated shape. The pixels are physically engaged in transitioning images from one state to another, which allows the Flyfire canvas to demonstrate a spatially animated viewing experience.

“Today we are able to simultaneously control a handful of micro helicopters, but with Flyfire we are aiming to scale up and reach very large numbers,” said Emilio Frazzoli, head of the ARES Lab.

The whole project is made possible by recent advances in battery technology and wireless control. It aims to be a step towards ’smart dust’ – the idea that computing is becoming increasingly smaller, addressable, pervasive – and persuasive.

Flyfire is conceived as a public space installation, in which the pixels recharge every few minutes and then perform in space. “In general, there are two ways to increase the resolution of a display,” said Carlo Ratti, director of the SENSEable City Lab. “One is to use smaller pixels. The other one is to look at it from farther away. Flyfire adopts the second approach to create a unique visual experience in large public spaces.”

“Flyfire opens up exciting possibilities: as on a conventional screen, pixels can change color, but now they can also move, creating a transient trace of light in three-dimensional space,” said team member Carnaven Chiu. “Unlike traditional displays that can only be seen from the front, Flyfire becomes a three dimensional immersive display that can be experienced from all directions.”

The CyberPad A4 is compatible with any type of paper including regular letter size and A4. Its dimensions are 32.5cm x 25cm x 1.25cm (13” x 9.9” x 0.5”) and it weighs just 0.7kg (1.5 pounds). You can place any ordinary paper or notepad on the digital pad and write on it with the digital inking pen, and the digital pad records everything you write. The LCD screen shown on the pad’s left indicates which page and folder you’re writing in.

The Adesso CyberPad digitally stores exact reproductions of notes or graphics in real time. Handwriting can be converted and stored using the CyberPad’s onboard 32MB of memory which can be divided into 26 directories (A-Z) with up to 99 pages available in each. The built-in memory holds approximately 150 digital sheets. For more demanding people, the memory is further expandable with the integrated SD slot which can also act as an SD card reader. It then connects to a PC via USB to transfer and manage notes and images.

Beside the Adobe’s Photoshop, CyberPad’s bundle software features riteMail! software which can be used to view, edit and organize handwritten digital pages in Windows. Digital pages can be saved as image file and shared between your devices, even PDAs, while the MyScript software converts notes in a text editor.

Once it is connected to a PC the CyberPad also converts into a fully-functioning PC tablet, making it a great solution for graphic artists, photo editors and CAD/CAM operators. Adesso says other emerging applications for the CyberPad include Internet whiteboard graphics, signature verification for e-commerce as well as handwriting/text conversion.

Too bad they haven’t incorporated a display in order to skip the paper usage altogether. However, all the software and the integrated memory make this gadget stand out in the crowd of tablets and writing pads.

As part of the project, which began in 2008, students at Missouri S&T have built a remote-controlled robot that is equipped with an infrared camera and LIDAR (light detection and ranging) technology. Like radar, LIDAR sends out signals, in this case millions of laser points, to bounce off objects and provide feedback. The LIDAR-equipped robot then wirelessly relays detailed images to a laptop computer.

“We can get a 3-D map of rooms by sending the robot inside or having it look through a window”, says Dr. Norbert Maerz, associate professor of geological engineering at Missouri S&T. “Even when you can’t see through windows, you can still scan through them with LIDAR. Using this information, soldiers or first responders could evaluate safety issues and determine strategies.”

Maerz and his students have used their prototype to map the inside of houses, businesses, Missouri S&T buildings, chambers in S&T’s Experimental Mine and cave passages in the Mark Twain National Forest.

“In theory, you could deploy this technology inside caves where terrorists might be hiding”, Maerz says.

Maerz sends sample images to Dr. Ye Duan in Columbia for advanced data analysis and 3-D reconstruction. The technology is capable of revealing detailed information regarding floorplans, for instance, but it can also “see” people and objects inside a space.

“Once you have the images, you can zoom in on objects and look at things from different angles”, said Maerz . “You can make precise measurements of any object and assess dimensions.”

The technology is further capable of detecting structural damage like cracks in beams, which would allow engineers to make safety recommendations following natural disasters.

“This could definitely be used in disaster relief situations,” Maerz says. “The main idea is to assess safety in dangerous areas.”

The student-built robot at S&T resembles the rovers NASA has sent to Mars. But the S&T prototype, which weighs approximately 200 pounds, cost only about $25,000 to assemble. Maerz envisions commercial models being smaller, lighter and more flexible.

Wolfgang Sigmund, a professor of materials science and engineering at the University of Florida (UF), began working on the project about five years ago after picking up on the work of a colleague. He was experimenting with microscopic fibers when he turned to spiders, noted by biologists for at least a century for their water-repelling hairs. Spiders use these hairs to stay dry or avoid drowning, with water spiders capturing air bubbles and toting them underwater to breathe.

Sigmund says initially he made all his fibers the same size and distance apart. But he learned that spider hairs are both long and short and variously curved and straight, forming a surface that is anything but uniform. He decided to try to mimic this random, chaotic surface using plastic hairs varying in size but averaging about 600 microns, or millionths of a meter. The result was the ultra-water repellent surface.

“Most people that publish in this field always go for these perfect structures, and we are the first to show that the bad ones are the better ones,” Sigmund said. “Of course this is a finding in a lab. This is not something you expect from theory.”

Close-up photographs of water droplets on dime-sized plastic squares show that the droplets maintain their spherical shape, whether standing still or moving. Droplets bulge down on most other surfaces, dragging a kind of tail as they move. Sigmund said his surface is the first to shuttle droplets with no tail.

The surface works equally well with hot or cold water and Sigmund says a variation of the surface also repels oil, a first for the industry. Making the water or oil-repelling surfaces involves applying a hole-filled membrane to a polymer, heating the two, and then peeling off the membrane. Made gooey by the heat, the polymer comes out of the holes in the desired thin, randomly sized fibers.

While inexpensive, it is hard to produce successful surfaces with great reliability, and different techniques need to be developed to make the surfaces in commercially available quantities and size, Sigmund said. Also, he said, more research is needed to make the surfaces hardy and resistant to damage.

The potential applications for the ultra-water-repellent surface are food packaging, or windows, or solar cells that must stay clean to gather sunlight. It would also be possible for boat designers to coat hulls with it for faster, more efficient boats.