Craig Criddle, a professor of civil and environmental engineering and senior fellow at the Woods Institute for the Environment at Stanford, has joined forces with Brian Cantwell, a professor of aeronautics and astronautics, who has spent the last five years designing rocket thrusters that run on nitrous oxide.

Conventional treatment plants pump air into wastewater sludge in a process called aeration. The idea is to convert nitrogen waste into harmless nitrogen gas by promoting oxygen-loving bacteria that thrive on sugars and other organic matter in the sludge. But aeration is a costly and energy-intensive process. As an alternative, the Stanford team wants to create a low-oxygen environment in the treatment plant, where nitrous oxide-producing bacteria are favored while aerobic species die off.

These nitrous oxide producers consume relatively small amounts of organic matter. That’s good news for other anaerobic microbes that produce methane gas by feasting on organic compounds. “When bacteria make nitrous oxide, less organic matter is oxidized, so more can be converted into methane – potentially two or three times more than is possible in a typical treatment plant,” Criddle said. “That extra methane can be used as fuel to run the plant independent of outside power sources.”

In recent experiments, the researchers demonstrated that under laboratory conditions nitrous oxide gas could be produced from wastewater using a low-oxygen technique. But there’s a downside to the process. Nitrous oxide is a significant greenhouse gas that’s more than 300 times more potent than carbon dioxide. That’s where Cantwell’s rocket thruster comes in. Designed for use in spacecraft, the thruster runs on nitrous oxide – a surprisingly clean-burning propellant.

“When it decomposes, nitrous oxide breaks down into pure nitrogen and oxygen gas,” Cantwell explained. “At the same time, it releases enough energy to heat an engine to almost 3,000 degrees Fahrenheit, making it red hot, and it shoots out of the engine at almost 5,000 feet per second, producing enough thrust to propel a rocket.”

Cantwell envisions a new generation of plants that are energy self-sufficient. “You even have the prospect of installing a wastewater facility where there is no energy source,” he said. “This could be especially important in the Third World, where millions of people live with contaminated water.”

Both researchers say that the technology could have other applications beyond wastewater treatment. For example, they also want to explore ways to recover energy from nitrate-contaminated groundwater beneath fertilized agricultural fields.

The patented electronic lenses from PixelOptics provide dynamic and intelligent optics by using a combination of chemistry, electricity, and components that detect if the glasses are tilted in order to correct visual problems such as presbyopia, or loss of near focus which is common in people over 40 years old.

The lens has a section with an electro-active liquid crystal layer within it, and the index of refraction of this layer can be changed by a small electrical current passing through it, with the focal length varying with the current applied. The rechargeable battery is recharged over two to three hours in a charging cradle. The battery can hold its charge for up to 3 or 5 days, although the folks from PixelOptics recommend recharging every night.

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The only visible difference is a small button on the side, which is used to select one of three operating modes. In automatic mode the electro-active layer is turned on and the focus changes automatically and almost instantly as the wearer tilts his or her head (to read a book or newspaper for example) and looks through the transparent electronic layer. In manual on mode the lenses behave like normal progressive lenses with the electronic layer frozen in the on position for close distances with the eyes looking down, but objects straight ahead in the distance can still be seen clearly. In manual off mode there is no current in the electronic layer, and so the lenses act like a low power progressive lens, which has little distortion and is good for everyday activities such as playing sports, walking, and so on.

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Unlike bifocal glasses, the electronic glasses offer uninterrupted vision, just like progressive lenses but with wider distance vision, wider intermediate vision, wider reading vision and half of the peripheral “swim” that most people experience while wearing a progressive lens. They also give optimal vision for far and near distances, and in between.

CEO of PixelOptics, Ronald Blum said the emPower! will be market tested in the last quarter of this year in Washington DC, Virginia and North Carolina and will be released for general sale in the US later in 2010. It will reach European markets in the beginning of 2011. Although it is not a huge breakthrough regarding the technology, it could be helpful until some advanced ocular technology emerges.

India released its pint-sized computer five years after scientist at the Massachusetts Institute of Technology announced their $100 laptop for children in developing countries. The government spends just about 3 percent of annual budget on education. The literacy rate has shown steady improvement over the past few years to reach over 65 percent of India’s 1.2-billion population (pretty low, compared to China with 94 percent).

“India had developed another low-cost computing device last year but it cost about 65 dollars. This is a different model … it looks like an Apple iPad,” said Mamta Verma, a ministry spokeswoman.

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The laptop has all the basic features, including seven- and nine-inch (18- and 23-centimeter) Linux-based touch screen, 2 GB of RAM memory, Wi-fi connectivity, USB ports and is powered by a 2-watt system for use in power-deficit areas. It weighs 1.5 kg (3.3 pounds), and it has ability to run on battery or solar power.

Regarding the media it supports, it has an Internet browser, a media player, a reader for PDF files and has video conferencing abilities. One drawback to the computer is that it doesn’t have a hard disk, instead, it has a memory card like a cellphone to store files.

H.P. Khincha, a professor at the Indian Institute of Science in Bangalore, said the new low-cost computer would be beneficial as schools move to add lectures and study materials online. Already, nearly 500 web- and video-based courses have been uploaded on YouTube. However, there are some studies that claim such gadgets are detrimental in learning processes since they offer games and idling in other entertainment available on the Internet.

There is also the problem of the actual manufacturing at that price, since the developers hope someone will make an offer to make this tablet-looking gadget at such a low price. Only time will tell will this project fail completely, succeed or end like the project from MIT where actual price was two times higher than predicted.

The developer of FIT prototype claims it provides the next generation of gesture-based interaction that is more advanced than the system seen in the sci-fi movie named Minority Report. The FIT prototype tracks the user’s hand in front of a 3-D camera. The 3-D camera uses the time of flight principle, in this approach each pixel is tracked and the length of time it takes light to be filmed traveling to and from the tracked object is determined. This allows for the calculation of the distance between the camera and the tracked object.

“A special image analysis algorithm was developed which filters out the positions of the hands and fingers. This is achieved in real-time through the use of intelligent filtering of the incoming data. The raw data can be viewed as a kind of 3-D mountain landscape, with the peak regions representing the hands or fingers.” said Georg Hackenberg, who developed the system as part of his Master’s thesis. In addition plausibility criteria are used, these are based around: the size of a hand, finger length and the potential coordinates.

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A user study was conducted and found that the system both easy to use and fun. However, work remains to be done on removing elements which confuses the system, for example reflections caused by wristwatches and palms which are positioned orthogonal to the camera.

“With Microsoft announcing Project Natal, it is likely that similar techniques will very soon become standard across the gaming industry. This technology also opens up the potential for new solutions in the range of other application domains, such as the exploration of complex simulation data and for new forms of learning,” predicts Prof. Dr. Wolfgang Broll of the Fraunhofer Institute for Applied Information Technology FIT.

The current system not only places a time burden on the individual being tested and the administrator, it generally requires travel as there are only a few test sites around the USA. The new virtual reality simulator will assess test-takers objectively against board-certified standards and criteria, possibly over the Internet. The new system is also expected to be more cost effective, with a lower price point that should lead to a wider availability across the USA.

Rensselaer’s Professor Suvranu De, Harvard Medical School Professor Daniel B. Jones and human factors engineering expert Caroline G. L. Cao, associate professor of mechanical engineering at Tufts University, are developing new hardware and software that effectively trains surgeons to perform the laparoscopic surgery fundamental tasks, as well as objectively assesses the performance of physicians who are seeking to become certified in laparoscopic surgery. This new testing and training system will employ haptic technology (touch feedback) which realistically replicates the sensation a surgeon would feel in his or her hands during an actual procedure.

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“We want to give surgeons the best tools possible, so they can better hone their skills and successfully treat their patients,” said project leader De, associate professor in the Department of Mechanical, Aerospace, and Nuclear Engineering at Rensselaer. “Just as training on virtual reality simulators has shown to be highly effective for jet pilots, we know that physicians show increased success in surgery the more times they perform it. We’re creating new tools that make it easier than ever for them to practice. These same tools will also be used in certification tests to make sure surgeons have all the required skills mastered before they start operating on patients.”

The new system features real laparoscopic tools, which are connected to equipment nearly identical to that used in actual surgical situations. Realistic computer-generated models of the simulation scene are displayed on a monitor, and the users interact with simulation both visually and using their sense of touch. The haptics technology ensures that a physician cutting or stitching tissue with the simulator will feel with their hands the lifelike toughness, sponginess, and resistance of virtual tissue. By pairing haptics with automation, the simulator will also be able to literally guide the hands of trainees, so they can see and feel the correct movements as they learn specific surgical tasks. The research team plans to make these simulations available over the Internet.

After developing the new system, the research team will work to test and validate the effectiveness and usefulness of the system as a testing and training tool at the Carl J. Shapiro Simulation and Skills Center at Beth Israel Deaconess Medical Center in Boston.

“The telescope implant represents a new category of treatment for this severely visually impaired population,” said Allen W. Hill, CEO of VisionCare. “This approval is the culmination of years of scientific and clinical development. We are excited to now provide this new technology and related CentraSight treatment program to the ophthalmic community to help their patients with this devastating disease gain improved vision and quality of life. This day would not be possible without the steadfast commitment of our clinical investigators, employees, and venture capital investors.”

The Implantable Miniature Telescope, work of Dr. Isaac Lipshitz, is indicated for monocular implantation to improve vision in patients greater than or equal to 75 years of age with stable severe to profound vision impairment (best-corrected distance visual acuity 20/160 to 20/800) caused by bilateral central scotomas (blind areas) associated with end-stage AMD. This level of visual impairment constitutes statutory (legal) blindness.

“This is truly a breakthrough technology for AMD patients as their treatment options have been limited until now,” said Kathryn A. Colby, M.D., Ph.D., ophthalmic surgeon at Massachusetts Eye and Ear Infirmary in Boston and an Assistant Professor of Ophthalmology at Harvard Medical School. “The clinical results from the pivotal FDA trial have proven we can place this tiny telescope prosthesis inside the eye to help patients see better and, for some, even to levels at which they can recognize people and facial expressions that they could not before.”

The magnification provided by the implant reduces the impact of the blind spot caused by end-stage AMD. Endstage AMD causes severe to profound central vision loss in both eyes due to either wet AMD that has progressed to scarring of the macula despite drug treatments, or dry AMD that has progressed to geographic atrophy, the most advanced form of dry AMD.

Smaller than a pea (3.6 mm diameter; 4.4 mm length), the telescope is implanted in one eye in a surgical procedure. In the implanted eye, the device renders enlarged central vision images over a wide area of the retina to improve central vision, while the non-operated eye provides peripheral vision for mobility and orientation.

Results from the two U.S. clinical trials, conducted at 28 leading ophthalmic centers, showed that patients achieved clinically meaningful gains in visual acuity and quality of life with the telescope implant.

“The published outcomes from these rigorous trials attest to the robust and sustained benefits we were able to attain with the telescope implant for this underserved population,” remarked Stephen S. Lane, M.D., Adjunct Professor of Ophthalmology, University of Minnesota, in private practice at Associated Eye Care, Stillwater, MN, and the Medical Monitor for the telescope implant clinical trials.

VisionCare will conduct a post-approval study to monitor patient outcomes under commercial conditions and a second smaller study will follow clinical trial patients for an additional two years. The risks and benefits associated with the telescope implant are discussed in the Patient Information Booklet available at CentraSight webpage.

Since the computer mouse didn’t suffer any extreme changes over the last couple of decades, and there are various multitouch and gestural interaction technologies available today, it is expected that new information interaction technologies will emerge in near future. The folks from Fluid Interfaces Group were thinking of an easy way for transition where users wouldn’t have to be trained to use the new information interaction technology and came up with Mouseless.

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The Mouseless invention removes the requirement of having a physical mouse altogether but still provides the intuitive interaction of a physical mouse that most of us are familiar with. Mouseless consists of an Infrared (IR) laser beam (with line cap) and an Infrared camera. Both IR laser and IR camera are embedded in the computer. The laser beam module is modified with a line cap and placed in a way so it creates a plane of IR laser just above the surface the computer sits on. The user cups their hand, as if a physical mouse was present underneath, and the laser beam lights up the hand which is in contact with the surface. The IR camera detects those bright IR blobs by using computer vision.

The change in the position and arrangements of these blobs are interpreted as mouse cursor movement and mouse clicks. As the user moves their hand the cursor on screen moves accordingly. When the user taps their index finger, the size of the blob changes and the camera recognizes the intended mouse click.

As they improve their computer vision algorithms, an extensive library of gestures could be implemented in addition to mouse movement and mouse clicks. Typical multitouch gestures, such as zooming in and out, as well as novel gestures, such as balling one’s fist are all possible. The researchers claim that the use of multiple laser beams would allow the recognition of a wider range of free hand motions, enabling novel gestures that the hardware mouse cannot support.

There are no plans for commercializing the “invisible mouse” but the prototype Mouseless was built for around $20 USD. Although it is not expensive to realize, it offers advanced gestural usage, and its usage is intuitive to all who have used an ordinary computer mouse, there are still some issues that need to be solved. Aside the development of the algorithms for better gesture recognition, there is a question regarding the long-term use, as well as the fact that you would have to be fixed to the spot where the IR rig is set in order to use this technology.

“If you think about it, it is the most condensed form of energy storage outside of nuclear energy,” said Choong-Shik Yoo, a WSU chemistry professor and lead author of results published in the journal Nature Chemistry.

The researchers created the material on the Pullman campus in a diamond anvil cell, a small, two-inch by three-inch-diameter device capable of producing extremely high pressures in a small space. The cell contained xenon difluoride (XeF2), a white crystal used to etch silicon conductors, squeezed between two small diamond anvils.

At normal atmospheric pressure, the material’s molecules stay relatively far apart from each other. But as researchers increased the pressure inside the chamber, the material became a two-dimensional graphite-like semiconductor. The researchers eventually increased the pressure to more than a million atmospheres, comparable to what would be found halfway to the center of the earth. All this “squeezing”, as Yoo calls it, forced the molecules to make tightly bound three-dimensional metallic “network structures”. In the process, the huge amount of mechanical energy of compression was stored as chemical energy in the molecules’ bonds.

The research has shown the feasibility to store mechanical energy into the chemical energy of a material with such strong chemical bonds. Possible future applications include creating a new class of energetic materials or fuels, an energy storage device, super-oxidizing materials for destroying chemical and biological agents, and high-temperature superconductors.

“We’re really excited about the possibility this new technology holds for Unilever. It offers a revolutionary new way for consumers to buy ice cream and, simultaneously, a revolutionary brand experience,” said Ian Maskell, Global Brand Development Director for Wall’s at Unilever.

An entertaining screen playfully immerses a passerby into the world of augmented reality, Wall’s style. Once drawn closer to the machine, the person is prompted for a big smile and the ‘smile-o-meter’ measures his or her grin. A photo is then taken and, in case the passerby agrees, it can be uploaded onto Facebook. The consumer can pick out his or her free ice cream by using the touch-screen interface on the vending machine.

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SapientNitro also developed the graphic language, interface design and the unique animation style for the vending machine. Samsung was the screen provider and Sanden Vendo supplied the vending machine. The technologists at SapientNitro used facial recognition technology to track if a person is smiling. 3G technology is used to enable uploading and sharing of smiles via social media.

The smile-activated ice cream vending machine made its first public appearance in May 2010 at the Rock in Rio festival in Lisbon, Portugal. Since it will roll out into high-traffic consumer locations like shopping malls across the globe over the next 18 months, now is the time to practice your smile.

The first generation of the LPD (also called the TD1) consists of a rectangular glass screen 63 centimeters in the diagonal (25 inches). Tiny patterns of phosphors are layered on the inside surface of the glass (or polymer), and these emit red, green or blue light when excited by a soft UV laser, to produce brilliant, high quality images. Since the phosphors are extremely close to the surface no image filtering is needed. The display can also be modified to suit specific viewing needs by using special coatings or substrates.

The solid-state laser are mounted behind the screen and point up at bank of minute, rapidly moving mirrors. The mirrors reflect the laser light across the screen to produce the necessary number of image lines and create the picture. The resultant images have no motion blur or flicker. The processor managing the laser varies the light intensity and turns the laser on and off, which means that when the display is dark the lasers are turned off to further reduce power consumption and increase the lifespan of the display.

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The described mechanism unfortunately influenced the design, making the display that is currently 36 centimeters thick. However, according to its inventors, it has a greatly reduced power consumption – a quarter that of LCDs and only one tenth of plasma televisions. The sets can be built with existing technology and there is no requirement for clean rooms in the manufacture of the screens, which considerably cuts the expense.

The TD1 does not suffer the problem of low brightness, which is suffered by rear projection sets. It also has the advantage that the displays are highly configurable and can be stacked seamlessly to create large high-resolution video walls of almost any size or shape. The display has a brightness of 800nits, an optical seam of .25mm, and the viewing angle is almost 180˚. The fast response time of 240 Hz and the 1.6 mm dot pitch also both exceed competing technologies such as LED.

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Powered by LPD’s solid-state components, the display solution offers an internal health monitor and auto-calibration system for 24/7 continuous operation and stable performance over the life of the application. However, it’s a question will the whole mechanism withstand the test of time and long-term usage.

Folks from Prysm stated they are dedicated to what they call “ecovative” technology – technology that is eco-friendly throughout its manufacture. Aside its greatly reduced power consumption, the TD1 does not contain toxic components, has no consumables, and generates little heat. They also claim their HDTV television will be competitive with LCD and plasma televisions within three to five years.