CES 2015: Toyota Opens Patents on Hydrogen Fuel Cell Technology

In a strong hope of a developed future of Hydrogen fuel cell technology being an alternative fuel source, the Japanese car maker Toyota has promised to offer around six thousand patents (related to the technology), which is owned by them, as royalty-free. Last Tuesday, the Japanese car maker Toyota made the much awaited announcement at the Consumer Electronics Show (CES) 2015, which was held in Las Vegas.

Summary 

The pledge made by Toyota includes 5,680 Hydrogen fuel cell related patents, including the technologies that have been used in developing the company’s latest innovation Toyota Mirai. Approximately, 1,970 patents are related to fuel cell stacks, 290 patents are related to high-pressure hydrogen tanks, 3,350 patents are associated with the software used to control fuel cell system and rest of the 70 patents are related to hydrogen production.

Plan

The infrastructure required to support the electric cars has started to rise across many countries, even though the re-fuelling stations for hydrogen fuel cell powered cars are hard to find. Therefore the step taken by the Japanese car maker makes it all the more significant, by opening their patents for other companies to own and in the process boost up the places that the hydrogen fuel cell cars are starting to fill.

The announcement made by the company reflects their positive approach in supporting the development of infrastructure of the Hydrogen powered society.

Previously on many occasions, the Japanese Automaker has tried their hand with this initiative of developing hydrogen powered society. One such example is the developmental set up in California. Toyota made huge investments in improving the facilities of Hydrogen fuel cell technology in California and in the North Eastern states of America. Last year, the company extended their support towards First Element Fuels with a loan grant of $7.3 million covering around 19 different hydrogen fuelling stations of California.

The Japanese car making company welcomes the interested companies over negotiable individual contracts for the usage of related patents. However it must be notified that the pledge made by the company on Tuesday covers only the patents related to the fuel cell vehicles which will remain available until 2020 ends, whereas the patents that are related to the production of hydrogen and its supply are kept open over indefinite period of time.

There is a small catch in this pledge although, which is that the Japanese car making company expects the interested companies to share similar technology related information and make their patents related to fuel cell as open. But make no mistake thinking it to be a pre-requisite condition to be filled before approaching for patent negotiations.

Future of this technology: 

The company strongly believes that the first generation of Hydrogen powered vehicles, that are going to get unveiled in coming few years, requires good amount of collaboration between automakers/ car makers, state authorities, power generating firms and the family of researchers. The Consumer Electronics Show 2015 was probably the best platform to be had for such an effort to get initiated and for a whistle to be blown for the start of its on-field implementation.

Wireless Smart Bulbs Could Scare Away Burglars

Light bulbs developed with the Wi-fi technology are becoming popular in the market now. It is effective in reducing the electricity bill as well as in scaring away the burglars. These smart bulbs can change its lightning according to its adaptability to appearance, mood and location. A study led by Qualcomm has reported that these smart bulbs are built in such a way that they will be able to talk to cars and other electronic appliances, could easily turn on and off automatically and change into different shades of colours.

The technology with innovative design

Qualcomm has developed this smart bulb on the basis of a reference design called LIFX. This reference design can glow into 16different million colours. These smart bulbs have the ability to connect with the mobile devices and appliances. This helps the bulbs to lighten in situations or events like gaming, security, healthcare and other applications.

AllSeen Alliance, a group of IoT technology originated by Qualcomm group has developed this base technology of these smart bulbs. These bulbs are helping the world in building up of smart and home automation. It has become very popular in the market and some of the vendors have already booked for this product. The famous security company ADT have already planned to link these smart bulbs with the security systems. When the alarm goes off then the bulb will flash red and blue lights which will alert the people of the house and will scare away the burglars. This could be highly useful in the security system of a house.

Benefits which could be enhance more

The lightning technology of these bulbs could be enhanced more with the machine technology as it will be highly efficient to use at home. The president of Qualcomm, Derek Aberle during a press conference at International CES in Las Vegas said that the technology of these bulbs can also be helpful to cut off the electricity bills as well.

This technology will also help in identifying automatically those bulbs which need replacing. These systems are developed with such technology that will have a smart hub which will show which bulb is not working and need a replacement and will notify it to the right person. This could be very helpful especially in the data centres and in large offices.

Added advantage and the key roles

These bulbs are rising in the market with the certification of “Designed for AllSeen”. These lights have been designed to communicate with the AllSeen certified TVs, washing machines and other appliances which are already popular in the market. An All-Joyn compatible smart car could easily instruct the smart bulb to turn on or off as the car approaches the driveway.

These bulbs come with the Qualcomm Wi-fi chips. Qualcomm has always been famous for its Snapdragon chips which are been inserted into a mobile device. The Iot technology on which this bulb is designed can communicate with appliances, smart bulbs, wearables and mobile devices.

Microsoft Released Its Diversity Numbers, So How Does It Compare?

In the past few years a host of tech companies had their diversity numbers in their work force. But most of the big names of the Silicon Valley had just kept it themselves which includes Amazon, IBM and Orcale. Though there is no obligation on the companies under the Civil Rights Act of 1964 wherein every company is required to file an EEO-1 form and listing all the employment data by race/ethnicity, gender and job category. The government is prohibited from making this data public but companies reveal it in order to boost its reputation and gain favour from the masses. Microsoft has just released its federally mandated diversity data in the public forum.

How Does Microsoft Fares Compared To Other Tech Companies? 

Microsoft has distinct diversity present right at the top order with an African-American board chairman, a female CFO and an Indian CEO. The overall statistics shows the same trend as of any other tech company with 60.6% white employed and 71% of workforce is composed of men.

Male Dominated WorkForce

Microsoft is ahead of Google, Twitter and Apple in terms of having higher number of male workers at a whopping 71%. However Intel is the most male-dominated tech firm in U.S with around 77% male domination and just 23% of females. Microsoft stats clearly state that the female staffs are quite marginalized in on the world’s biggest tech firm at just 29%. However Microsoft has a considerably small workforce at just 128,000 employees worldwide.

Fewer Women Finds Themselves Handling Tough Jobs

The tech companies have shown a trend that even having too many women in the workforce doesn’t guarantee an uplift advance to the higher positions of managers. These are namely a few women in leadership roles in companies like Google, Facebook and Microsoft. Microsoft has created various initiatives and programs to hire more women.

Microsoft diversity stats also show a pronounced gender imbalance in its technical ranks. There are surprisingly only 17% women in the role of programmers, coders and other engineering type roles. Microsoft female tech headcount is better than the Twitter’s which just have 10% female in tech jobs.

A Huge Racial And Diversity Gap 

Microsoft has 61% white, 29% Asian, 5% Hispanic/Latino and just 3% black in its vast workforce. Comparatively Yahoo shows a 50% white headcount and Apple has a greater percentage of minority workers with Hispanic at 11% and black at 7%. Diversity stats has shown that 72.2% of all leadership positions are held by whites in Microsoft while Yahoo has 78% whereas Facebook just has 74%.

Steps and Programs Are Undertaken to Improve the Diversity

Comparing the Microsoft’s diversity stats from last the new report has shown that Microsoft is actively working towards closing the diversity gaps. Though it is been at a snail’s paper as it registered 1% percent fewer white employees from last year. Hispanics saw an increase of 0.5% while blacks and Asian rose by 0.3 % and 0.2 % respectively.

Beamforming

Beamforming – Signal Processing Technique

Beamformingor spatial filtering is one of those concepts, a kind of signal processing technique which is used in sensor arrays for directional signal transmission or reception which is achieved on combining elements in a phased array. It is done in a way that signals at certain angles experience constructive interference while others experience destructive interferences. Beamforming could also be used at transmitting as well as receiving ends to achieve spatial selectivity.

It could also be used for sound waves or radio and has various application in wireless communication, radar, sonar, seismology, radio astronomy, acoustic and bio medicine.To identify and estimate the signal of interest at the output of a sensor array, adaptive beamforming is used by means of optimal spatial filtering and interference rejection. The most effective form of beamforming is dynamic digital beamforming which uses an advanced on-chip digital signal processing – DSP algorithm, in order to gain total control on Wi-Fi signals. Performance has improved on creating several independent signal paths to optimum focus radio energy to and from client devices on a per packet basis. For a two stream configuration, there is a possibility to steer the energy of the antenna array in the independent spatial direction which are associated on both data streams and at the same time avoids interference.

Improves Wireless Bandwidth Usage

Beamforming could also help in improving wireless bandwidth usage and can also increase wireless network’s range which in turn could improve voice streaming, video streaming together with several other bandwidth and latency sensitive transmissions. It is made possible by receivers and transmitters using MIMO – multiple-input, multiple-output, technology wherein the data is sent as well as received with the use of multiple antennas in order to increase throughput and range.

The MIMO technology was introduced first with the 802.11n standard and continues to be an important feature of the 802.11ac standard. Devices which support beamforming, aim their signals on each client, focusing on the data transmission in order that more data could reach the targeted device instead of radiating out in the atmosphere. Beamforming technique can be divided into two sections namely conventional or fixed/switched beam, beamformers and adaptive beamformers or phased array – desired signal maximization mode/interference signal minimization or cancellation mode.

Conventional/Adaptive Beamforming Techniques

Fixed set of weightings and time delays or phasing are used for conventional beamformers for the purpose of combining the signals from the sensors in the array, using only the information with regards to the location of the sensors in space as well as the wave directions. In the case of adaptive beamforming techniques, the information is combined with properties of the signals received by the array to improve rejection of unwanted signals from other directions, the process of which could be carried out in time or frequency domain. Beamforming being computationally intensive, Sonar phased array has a low data rate which can be processed in real time in software which is flexible to transmit and or to receive in various directions at the same time.

 Radar phased array on the other hand has a high data rate which usually needs dedicated hardware processing which is hard-wired to transmit and or to receive in one direction only at a time, though new field programmable gate arrays are quick to handle radar data in real time and could also be quick in reprogramming, like software, blurring the hardware/software distinction.

10 Ways Technology Changed Lives

We all know the use and important of WhatsApp, it has been around, but in India the sale and use of Smartphones have changed the lives in 2014, as the prices of technology is crashing and market is witnessing the crowd of cheap Smartphones and other electronic gadgets. If we leave some controversies such as; troubles app-based controversy of Uber, so there is no doubt that apps have given us unprecedented control while driving. In present, Smartphone has become one of the best tool to live comfort life no matter you are thinking about shopping, food order, locating the spa or beauty salon, booking movie tickets, clearing the electric bills and other things. There is some predictions, how technology will evolve us  in 2015.

1.Fitness Trackers: 

In present, we all are fitness conscious because of tight professional life. Now it’s not enough to go to park for gentle walk, unless you check your fitness data such as; heart rate, calories burned and more. In 2014, we have seen a lot of wearable devices, which are able to monitor all activity including your sleep patterns and the basic feature is that it can paired with your Smartphone or you can share your fitness data socially.

2.Dating Apps

Few years before in our country there was no concept of dating, but after the era of Orkut and Facebook it improves. In 2014 dating apps have changed the concept of dating and as well as romance. If you are alone and want to hang-out with partner, so all you need to have dating app in your Smartphone. In market a lot of matchmaking apps are running, so that you can find the suitable partner according to location, education, professional, region and more.

3.Online Shopping: 

We all are busy in our professional as well as personal life, but shopping is the essential part of our lives especially if you are women. In present the situation between e-commerce companies are not less than any war, they are offering new schemes, deals and discounts to grab the attention of customers. People are doing a lot of online shopping because it offers best price, much number of options and on the same time it also save the price less time.

4.Front-Facing Cameras: 

If you will analyze the “Top trends of 2014”, then you will get to know that the trend of selfie was the hottest trend in 2014. Front-facing cameras help you to put the phone at arm's length for better shots, and without front-facing cameras it was so difficult to capture the clear shot.

5.Streaming Videos: 

Due to heavy competition the prices of internet has decreased and now 3G is in the reach of everyone. With YouTube app anytime we can watch our choice of videos anytime not matter it’s just simple movie trailer, bollywood song or full length move.

6.Power Banks: 

Our lives are running on Smartphones and electronic gadgets, but what if your power gets over. Use power banks to continue with your mobile activity because with power banks you can charge your Smartphones, mp3 players and more anytime anyplace. Power banks are life-altering and helping you to get the freedom from use of USB. In present, power banks have become the mainstream purchases.