Sony’s Experimental E-paper SmartWatch

Rumours have been circulating regarding Sony working on an experimental Smartwatch which uses e-paper as display and e-paper is the same technology used on e-reader screens. Sony has developed this new entry as part of an initiative to experiment with the use of the material for fashion products.

According to Wall Street Journal, the FES Watch, an e-paper watch which appeared online somewhere in September is an offshoot of the Playstation maker and it is said that Sony has kept its involvement a secret to gauge public view instead has used the name Fashion Entertainments to move the product ahead. However, the video is in Japanese but the style of the FES watch is not deniable. The prominent feature of the watch beside the use of e-paper is that of the animation which is not just limited to the screen but the whole strap can be customised.

The tech in the watch is minimal with no real features to talk about rather than telling the time resulting in a battery life which could last up to two months on a single charge. Gadget expert, Stuart Miles from Pocket lint has described the latest device as `retro and cool’. He states that `one of his predictions for the next year is that fashion is going to play a huge part in shaping the tech industry and having a phone which is big and square is one thing but if it is actually worn, it needs to look good’.

Watch Face and Straps - E-paper Display

Compared to the technology used in e-book readers like the amazon’s Kindle, the watch face as well as the straps has an e-paper display which means that the watch can change between various different styles of watch face and strap design. Sony has kept the development of the watch very low and has opted in using a spin-off division known as Fashion Entertainment to work on the device.

According to Wall Street Journal it was reported that to fund the watch’s creation, Fashion Entertainment organised a crowd funding campaign and raised around 3.5 million yen. An anonymous reported informed the newspaper that `they had hidden Sony’s name since they wanted to test the real value of the product and whether there would be demand for the concept’, while a spokeswomen for Sony also confirmed to BBC that Fashion Entertainment is a division of the company’s New Business Creation department and are striving to work on various e-paper prototypes.

Release of FES Watch yet to be Provided 

Other projects which Fashion Entertainments have worked on e-paper include bow-ties, shoes and glass though the only drawback of using e-paper instead of, for instance liquid crystal displays – LCD which is a limitation on possible features due to the limitations of what e-paper could display.

However Mr. Miles states that he did not envision it being so significant a drawback for e-paper technology wearable. He further adds that on looking at traditional watches presently, they only tell the time and the people are happy with it, bringing about awareness that one of the popular smartwatches available in the market, like the Pebble, uses e-paper. The release of the FES Watch has not been provided by Sony yet.

Scientists Predict Green Energy Revolution after Incredible New Graphene Discovery

Graphene – Positively Charged Hydrogen Atoms/Protons

It has been discovered by researchers that graphene enables positively charged hydrogen atoms or proton to pass through it inspite of being completely impermeable to other gases inclusive of hydrogen. Recently discovered is a type of carbon graphite, the material in a pencil lead, having unexpected properties that could create a revolution in the development of green energy and electric cars.

According to scientist, the implications are immense since it could increase the efficiency of the fuel cells generating electricity directly from hydrogen. This breakthrough has brought about an expectation on the prospect of extracting hydrogen fuel from air and burns it as a carbon free source of energy in fuel cell in order to produce electricity as well as water without any damaging waste products.

There is some amount of hydrogen in the atmosphere which ends up on the other side in a reservoir and this hydrogen collected in the reservoir can be used to burn it in the same fuel cell in making electricity according to Professor Sir Andrei Geim of Manchester University. Since the discovery, ten years ago, graphene has amazed the scientisit which is the thinnest known material, million times thinner than human hairbut more than 200 times stronger than steel as well as the best conductor of electricity in the world.

Permeable to Protons

Till date, being permeable to protons was not taken into consideration as a practical possibility but Sir Andre’s international team of scientists who shares the 2010 Nobel Prize for his work on graphene has shown that the one atom thick crystal acts as a chemical filter which enables the free passage of protons but forms an impenetrable barrier to other atoms and molecules.

Sir Andre states that `there have been three or four scientific papers before about the theoretical predictions on how easy or how hard it would be for a proton to go through graphene and these calculations give numbers that take billions and billions of years for a proton to go through this same membrane. It is just so dense an electronic field it just doesn’t let anything through. But it is a question of numbers, no more than that and this makes a difference between billions of years and a reasonable time for permeation. There is no magic’.

Graphene Tough and Light 

Graphene being tough and stronger than steel is incredibly light and is considered the first two dimensional material since it forms sheets of crystal which are one atom thick. Besides it is also a good conductor of electricity and is useful for anything related to electronics, like bendable mobile phones, camera and wearable electrical devices attached to clothing.

Moreover, Graphene is also being utilised as a new material for membrane connected in separating liquids and could be used in purifying water in the developing world or also to create efficient desalination plants. Scientists are of the opinion that graphene’s high strength together with the low weight could be harnessed for new composite material and polymers for the transport industry making travel much safer and fuel efficient and it seems that graphene could also be used to generate upgraded type of generating clean electricity with the use of hydrogen fuel cells as well as technology in harvesting hydrogen fuel from air.

Now Get The Latest Tech News Through Your Facebook Application

FB Techwire, is the latest page launched by the company completely dedicated for highlighting all the tech news and that too in your timeline. The latest page is an expansion of the FB Newswire. This page will certainly be an advantage for the reporters and journalists who are looking forwards to exposing the biggest tech news possible from around the world.

What is Techwire all about? 

According to the company, just like Newswire, even Techwire, will be carrying out verification and aggregation of the best of the contents available around the world in a manner, which will allow the common people to understand the concept and conversation pertaining to the news.

In this way, we can clearly see that it is very much similar to the other page, but the difference comes in terms of the focus area. Earlier this year, Facebook's director of news and global media partnerships, Andy Mitchell, stated that they are thinking about an official website (Facebook) as a main source of news and associated contents. The content has been made journalist friendly, which will enable them to scan and extract the relevant data they are looking for. They are hoping that their new page Techwire will also be accepted in the same manner ad given the same importance.

What is the challenge? 

The main challenge that will be faced by the company will be to persuade the tech journalists to use their page for posting the latest news instead of using Twitter as the main platform. Facebook is known to be the largest drivers of the traffic among all the social media platforms. They know that technology draws a lot of the audience and Facebook is looking forwards to using this opportunity.

The Company’s aim is to offer more than just posting your pictures and sharing your friend’s status. The Techwire page is dedicated towards highlighting all the incidents in the technology sector. The page is powered by Storyful which is known for checking the accuracy and authenticity of the posts. Facebook has been working on grabbing every opportunity possible, starting with the introduction of Hashtags as well as trending topics. Facebook has more users than Twitter, so the company does have the capability to disseminate more news than Twitter.

With the launch of Techwire, the company can extend their media coverage as well. Newswire has already reached the peak and already been picked up by The New York times, BBC, The Washington and other publications. Facebook has opened up a new tool for the benefit of the journalist, who can do their job on a much bigger platform.

They want to beat every other site and become the most go to site for the latest tech news. The company is always towards starting their own authentic content and started a tech-news feed. Facebook has become one of the most important platforms for journalists and publishers. The Facebook user’s will have to subscribe to this page to get alerts of the latest tech news.

Facebook Launches New Groups App For iOS And Android

Facebook is one app, which can be found on every Smartphone. On 18 November, Facebook announced the launch of groups for iOS and Android. This group with have functionality very similar to that of the app due to all being connected to the same social media platform. Users will be able to download Android app directly from Google play store, whereas iPhone users get this app from the Apple’s App Store.

What is the group all about? 

Compared to the regular Facebook website accessible on the PC and on the Facebook mobile app, the group app will have lot in stored for the users, which extends more than basic functions like chatting, discussion, collaboration, and planning. Groups for iOS and Android the users to choose between different groups, they will be able to join new groups, manage their notifications, and learn about additional features and contents.

According to Facebook, the main idea for building this new app came from the people who are interact more in their groups. The whole objective is to give people an app, which will provide them an easier and faster mean of interacting in their chosen groups. However, people need to remember that, Facebook is in no mood to remove the group feature out of their main app as they did with the messenger application.

The advantage of this app is that, if you already have Facebook main app and messenger app on your phone, then when you trying to login to Group app, you will get a notification asking if you would like to login as the same person. The account holder of the Facebook will not have to login separately in all these apps of Facebook. In the Facebook group app, the users will get their groups aligned according to their preference and usage. This will allow them to move easily between each of these groups. Since all these apps use the same icon (Facebook), notification are received in the same form. However, the user’s can change this in their settings option.

According to the recent performance report, the company claimed that as of Q3, 2014, they noticed 700 million people using the groups every month. The Company is not considering this app has any experimental launch but considering it part of their main operation on the line of messenger app.

However, as this app has been developed by the same company, which produced many experimental apps, suggesting that Facebook is still not very confident about this new app. The company is releasing the app on iOS and Android platform all around the world, but they do not intend to get windows anytime soon. Although the company has not made any upgrades in the Group feature but it is still a very popular feature of the main app. For a long time people expected upgrades to come out and the rumor mills indicated the time for September.

For PC users, they should soon be expecting notification about groups that you can join.

3D LED Printer Makes a Contact Lens Display Possible

3D Printed Contact Lenses 

According to researchers, 3D printed contact lenses can now be used like Google Glass or head up display showing the wearers’ data as well as monitor their health. 3D printer build up metallic or polymer material to form objects when instructed by computer code that conveys to the machine the desired dimension together with the appearance of the product, though this machine is more complex.

Researchers have started constructing prototypes for contact lens displays, and their biggest impediment was parts of fabrication which on a theoretical level is not difficult to build display in a contact lens but building and placing the tiny interrelated parts on a tiny polymer disk is a difficult task.

The 3D LED printer is a 3D quantum dot LED printer which on breaking the concept of an LED to its most basic form, researchers envisaged that they need not think of LEDs like small plastic light bulbs but stacks of interacting substance.

The printer on its part could lay down an LED with a sandwich type of a structure which is not unlike a single pixel in a display of OLED and get emissive layer which is nanoparticles of cadmium selenide that is referred to as quantum dots.

Active Approach

The quantum dots or nano sized crystals of certain substance exhibit unique or particular useful electronic properties. These are sandwiched between one layer which can donate electrons and one layer that accepts them and the entire process can be fused to a surface due to the bottom adhesive layer that is activated with the help of UV light.

Moreover, the printed LEDs are ultra-thin, almost transparent as well as flexible. The transfer of electrons through quantum dot layer causes the dots to produce photons of light and the main advantage of it is that they can be made to emit light at very specific wavelength or colours.

It means that the quantum dot screens can display more recreations of colour accurately but it would not be the first priority for contact lens display which will get static, sensible image in the user’s eye.The pixel on the other hand in a contact lens display could take one of two forms and the active approach uses individual pixel as a light source and emits photons in the eye, creating an image directly.

Passive Approach 

The passive approach on the other hand uses less power though it would be more difficult using individual pixel to bend the incoming light from the environment to portray a new picture on the retina. The issue with active approach is that it needs a good amount of power to go on and wireless power collection relies partially on physical size of the collecting antenna.

When the antenna must be physically fitted in a contact lens, it creates a hard upper limit on power supply. It is unlikely to start printing smartphone screens pixel by pixel since manufacturing in bulk would be quicker and cheaper and while doing so, things like putting LEDs in circular area of contact lens less than 2 mm, it could be helpful. The cost of the prototype print cost about $20,000 to create though there is a possibility in reduction of cost in the near future.