Amazing battery less device

Your phone battery is dyeing and you want to text urgently. Sending texts after a phone’s battery dies sounds impossible, right? Soon it might not, thanks to a new technology that not only uses TV and Wi-Fi signals for device communication, it taps those signals as a power source. No batteries required.

Developed by researchers from the University of Washington, the technology is known as “ambient backscatter” and could potentially create networks of devices and sensors that can transmit information by reflecting existing signals to exchange information, without the need for internal batteries.

“We can repurpose wireless signals that are already around us into both a source of power and a communication medium,” lead researcher Shyam Gollakota, a UW assistant professor of computer science and engineering, said in a press release. “It’s hopefully going to have applications in a number of areas including wearable computing, smart homes and self-sustaining sensor networks.”

Researchers built small, credit card-sized devices equipped with antennas that detect, harness and reflect those signals to similar devices. The team tested the prototypes in various locations around the Seattle area, including a street corner, inside an apartment building and on top of a parking garage. Locations ranged from less than a half a mile away from a TV tower to about 6.5. miles away.

The receiving devices picked up a signal at a rate of 1 kilobit per second when 2.5 feet away from their outdoor counterparts and 1.5 feet apart when inside. That’s enough to transmit a text message, sensor reading and contact information.

Researchers envision the technology being used in sensors that monitor bridges for hairline cracks. Potentially, the tech could be built in to cell phones to provide emergency power when the battery has died. While the applications are endless, researchers want to advance the capacity and range of the devices.

“Ambient Backscatter” sounds like a fantastic name for an electroclash band, so while you round up your synth-playing posse, check out this video of your band’s namesake device.


Discovery news

Amazing green mask

One person’s head-mounted torture device may be another person’s idea of food. Case in point: the Algaculture Symbiosis Suit.

No, the above photo is not a movie still from the next installment of the “Saw” franchise. It’s a symbiosis suit, designed by artists Michael Burton and Michiko Nitta (known as Burton Nitta), that grows food while wearers go about their daily business. A series of tubes, placed in front of the mouth, capture carbon dioxide and feed it to a constantly-growing population of suit-embedded algae. But algae needs sunlight to grow, right? Easy, the wearer just needs to sit by a window or go outside.

The suit debuted last year outside the Victoria and Albert Museum. There, an opera singer wore the algaculture symbiosis suit, sang to the crowd and generated enough new algae populations during her performance that audience members were treated to a post-show snack.

Sounds crazy, right? No ones wants to eat an entire diet of algae. But hold up. You probably consume more algae than you think. That sushi you had last night and the ice cream you had for dessert, even the mayonnaise you spread on your lunchtime turkey sandwich — all have derivatives of algae.

“Algaculture designs a new symbiotic relationship between humans and algae. It proposes a future where humans will be enhanced with algae living inside new bodily organs, allowing us to be semi-photosynthetic,” Burton Nitta wrote on their website.

“As such, we will be symbionts (meaning that both entities entirely depend on each other for survival), entering into a mutually beneficial relationship with the algae.”

So, does the Algaculture Symbiosis Suit whet your appetite or make you wrinkle your brow? While you’re weighing your decision, check out video of the suit’s operatic debut.

Source

Discovery News