Want Your Notifications At Your Fingertips?

Now after a whole range of smartphones and smart watches, we arrive to a whole new range of smart rings. No you must be wondering what that actually is. Well its work is not something grossly different to the phones and watches but then, it a lot more comfortable and catchy at the same time.

Now you can get hold of vibrating smart rings that can bring about the notifications right at your fingertips. It is basically very helpful in many fields. For example, if you have left your phone somewhere else then also you can get hold of your notifications and depending on the priority of them, you can do the required action. Not everybody can afford to have a smart watch, or carry them around with every outfit. But with a smart ring, no matter wherever you are, you can always have your notifications incoming and when they arrive, you will feel a vibration in your finger. This sound less technology will help you to receive updates and notifications even if you are in a meeting.

Where can this be mostly used? 

If you are wondering about the usage of this gadget then it is to be clarified that it is perfectly user friendly. All you have to do is to receive the messages and then click on it to have the details of these. Then go back to your smartphone and have those issues taken care of. This ring can be used in case where you want to leave your phone behind and go somewhere.

This gadget should really be used by the individuals who are engrossed in the corporate houses as because they have to take care of a lot of issues at a go. Not only that, it also acts a reminder of all the prior appointments if you have them registered in it.

It can act as a great reminder: 

By this you can have the privilege of having your work done in the time that is scheduled. This is because, once you have the time and date along with the required event given in it prior to the actual date, then you get alarms in both written and voice form within regular intervals of time. This means that there is no chance by which you can have your work done within the given time.

Read messages clearly

Do not at all be fooled by its size. This is because it not only shows the notifications, but it can open the messages clearly and therefore you will be able to read them and attend to them right away so that even if you do not have your phone you can always attend to those messages of more importance.

You can have the alarm in just the way you want to. This makes the work even easier as because, when you are inside a meeting then you can have the alarm turned to silent to avoid disturbance of any manner.

Researcher Successfully Created the World's Thinnest Transistor

                                           Credit: AlexanderA1US

Most of the high-tech electronic devices depend upon a tiny, hard silicon chips for their functionality. It has been imagined that in coming days our technology would be so advanced that the walls, windows and clothes would act as a computing device. In order to achieve that reality, the hardware components would have to be soft and flexible. One research group has already taken a step toward that flexible future through combining a conductor and an insulator in the thinnest sheet ever possible, which is just one atom thick.

What Does This Mean

In simple words, this work shows that it is now possible to bring together the conductor and insulator in any space, which is even just an atom thick. It is expected to open doors to the ability of creating atomically thin electronics or even creating more complicated stack electronics. This is a remarkable achievement in the field of nanotechnology. However, it is in early phase but it does seem to be a crucial step in the right direction toward miniaturizing electronic gadgets.

The Importance of this Research

Transistors are the building blocks of all the modern digital computer. A transistor is composed of a conductor, an insulator and a semiconductor. This research has successfully brought these two out three components together into the universe’s thinnest sheet which a notable feat in itself. Furthermore no one else has ever succeeded in patching together two different materials with vastly different electronic properties in the same two-dimensional sheet.

Making of World’s Thinnest Transistor

Researchers has used a new material known as graphene which is one-atom thick sheet of carbon with the ability to take electrons faster than any other chemical at room temperature.

Advantages of Using Graphene

1. Flexible

2. Transparent

3. Faster than Silicon

Researchers also states that since the graphene is flexible and works much faster than the traditional silicon, it might be utilized as a key supplement for silicon in future. As it is transparent, it can also be used into touch screens. Research Labs are taking active interest in studying graphene and finding ways of introducing it into electronic devices.

Researchers have developed a technique to control exactly where they lay down the graphene and insulator, boron nitride. With their specially patterned graphened and borone nitride, they created a one centimetre to inch long pieces of materials through which they were able to successfully run currents. They had built their sheet through a technique, which is generally used in advanced industry, and it also gave them the power to control the currents in their desired way.

The Future Prospects

Researchers have estimated that it would take a decade or longer before graphene would eventually be used in laptops and other electronic gadgets. The major problem associated with graphene based-computers is that it is impossible to stop the flow of current through graphene. Which means researchers could not create transistors, which have the option for turning off and on, without this it is not possible to supplement the silicon-based devices. It is a formidable challenge and researchers are actively taking steps in overcoming it. In near future we might have super high tech electronic devices running on high performing graphene.

First Graphene-Based Flexible Display

Another breakthrough for the flexible electronic research have been reported, when the Cambridge Graphene Centre and Plastic Logic successfully demonstrated how Graphene or Graphene-like material can be used to produce flexible electronics such as a display, having Graphene in its pixels with a transistor.

This project was sponsored both by internal and external funding bodies, which were engineering and Physical Sciences Research Council (EPSRC) and the EU’s Graphene Flagship.Technology has been advanced to such an extent that today people wear the devices which automates the daily life or helps in every work. Fully wearable and flexible device can bring a new horizon to the tech market. In this context, Graphene research is very significant as according to earlier reports, Graphene can be successfully introduced to produce flexible displays.

It is reported that Plastic Logic has already developed flexible devices, but the incorporation of Cambridge Graphene Centre offered this collaboration something very essential, the expertise on Graphene research. This initiative is a pathfinder for the institutions to understand how academic and industrial collaborative research can bring the science from the laboratory to the factory level.

What is Graphene?

Graphene is a two-planer material made up of carbon atom sheets. Graphene is known to be most lightweight, strongest and flexible material so far. Earlier studies have shown that Graphene can change the paradigm of industries ranging from healthcare to electronics. Some major advantages of this material are-

• It is more flexible than ceramic alternatives, such as indium-tin oxide(ITO),
• It is more transparent than majorly all metal films. 

These properties can enable researchers to go for formulating flexible display engaging graphene.

Detailed report of this research:

Unlike of conventional display sets, this prototype consists of solution processed graphene electrodes in its backplane or pixel electronics. It is basically an active matrix electrophoretic display made up of flexible plastic instead of glass. In this prototype they have replaced the former popped electrode layer within Plastic Logic’s conventional device with graphene based electrode.

This flexible display featured 150 pixels per inch and was made at low temperatures (less than 100 degree Celsius) using Plastic Logic’s infamous Organic Thin Film Transistor technology. The graphene electrode was fitted from the solution directly and continuously mottled to have micron-scale features in order to complete the backplane. To demonstrate the possibility of ultra-low power durable display, an electrophoretic imaging film wan added with the backplane. According to the scientists engaged in this collaboration, future research may engage the advancements in LCD and OLED technology to achieve full colour and video functionality. How healthcare and electronic industry is engaging Graphene to their products can be understood by already developed materials like advanced digital medical imaging and gesture recognitions devices. Next generations sensor can also engage lightweight flexible active matrix backplane to enhance its functionality.

Success story:

This academic-industrial collaboration between Plastic Logic and Cambridge Graphene Centre have been shown to be successful and it earned a recent grant from the UK technology strategy board to realise the possibility of engaging graphene to build flexible electronic imaging devices.

Twitter Starts Testing the “Buy” Button for Purchases

Apart from being the real time emporium for photos, news, videos and 140-character snippet for thought, Twitter, the real time social network, is now moving towards becoming a virtual shopping mall for products.

Twitter at the start of the September did announce that they are planning to work on testing a “buy” button, which only can be embedded within a post, but also will allows user to purchase products with just few clicks.

Currently the site relies virtually on advertising for their income, but with this new feature Twitter can generate a new stream for revenue. Currently this feature is expected to be limited to the mobile version of Twitter and it is aiming at selling out only time sensitive or limited editions items like T-shirts and movie tickets.

Currently the e-commerce based on mobiles is highly competitive and the test is coming at a highly intensified state of the e-commerce world. Apple on the other hand also is expected to unveil their new iPhone which has phone-based payment feature (NFC). Twitter’s arch rival, Facebook, already started working on the buy button concept in their service in July.

Social network which includes Pinterest (visual book) consider e-commerce as a potential moneymaker. Even though none of these companies have been able to successfully introduce any new purchasing technology on wider scale; each of these companies has been working on making purchase an easier option from their respective sites. With many of the company’s marketing their products on Twitter and Facebook through messages, the online sales revenue is expected to be in billions of dollars. These companies not only promote their products but also provide user and external link to visit the respective site to make purchase.

Now these companies have taken shopping a step ahead and trying to offer the customers option wherein they can purchase product by clicking on the advertisement instantly. This will not only allow these sites to charge the user a transaction fee but also ensure that the user stays on their website.
In contrary to the previous attempts made by Twitter with e-commerce companies like Amazon, the users don’t need to send any public message with hash tag to buy anything, instead they can just click on the “buy” button to proceed with the transaction. Once the user clicks on the buy button, the service will prompt them to enter the delivery address and payment detail and ask them to confirm the transaction.

According to Nathan, who leads Twitter’s commerce efforts, they have given a website which help one to connect with the things that you adore. To make is more additive, add the transaction experience for the user. The testing of the buy button is expected to be restricted to small user group in America and will feature only 19 entities including musician etc. Even though the idea of certain types of products for sale was unclear, but they knew that anything that has a sense of urgency will be an attraction. It’s about offering user unique products.

Google Conducting Meetings on Privacy Rights across Europe

Search Engine Google has appointed a panel who are going to host a first of a kind of series of meeting to debate on creating balance between information free flow and privacy. These meetings are being conducted post the May court ruling in which Europeans' "right to be forgotten" was reinforced.

Internet search giant has been struggling with the increasing number of requests every month. These requests include removal of any data pertaining to serious criminal offence, to any embarrassing photos, negative press releases and online harassment situations. The first event is being held in Madrid which is the first from the seven meeting that will be held in various European capitals.

According to Google, which hold more than 90% of the search market in Europe, have been able to remove more than half of the 90000 request that they have received till mid-July pertaining to the court ruling which instructed them to remove all the results from the engine, which are no longer valid, insufficient, irrelevant or are no longer relevant for anyone.

In the meantime, the data protection regulators belonging to the European countries are working on setting rules and regulations and guidelines for various search engines. These engines also include Yahoo search and Microsoft Corp. These guidelines are being set to ensure that request received by these search engines are handled properly. This meet is expected to happen on 15th September.

PR War on a serious issue or just another Business strategy: 

According to the head of France’s privacy watchdog and WP29 group of European national data protection authorities, Isabelle Falque-Pierrotin, they were very doubtful about this initiative of Google, as they were considering this part of PR war, which is an important part of the business strategy of the company.

As per Isabelle, Google is putting efforts towards setting up their own terms. Google is trying to be open about the issue and be virtuous, but on the other hand they have handpicked the members of the meeting and also ensured that they know about everyone who is expected to be part of this meeting. Google basically is controlling everything from start till the results that is expected out from these meeting.

If Google declines are request, then that part person can approach the national data protection regulator and appeal against it. There are a lot of cases already registered with the agency. Wikipedia has been able to start a web page which aims at updating every link removal request that is received. This is a form of protest shown by the company to emphasis on the information people are trying to remove. According to regulators these notices are against the ruling of the court.

Strategy of Google: 

According to Kauffman, Google has asked for their input and in formulating ideas. They have also asked French regulator Isabelle to take part in their meeting as well. But this has been declined as a regulator can’t be part of such meetings but they can send their staff to observe the meetings.

Spanish regulators are in no mood to attend this meeting. Eight representatives are part of the advisory council which includes former German justice minister, Google’s general counsel, chairman, two academics. Some other member is the Wikipedia founder and United Nations human rights official

Meeting Schedule: 

After the Madrid meeting, the councils will meet in Rome on 9th Sep, then Paris on 25th, Warsaw on 30th, Berlin on 14th Oct and 16th Oct in London. Last meet will be held in Brussels on 4th November.