Someday soon, you might be able to figure out where you are in the world by staring.
Researchers from South Korea's Yonsei University will present a paper at the International Solid State Circuits Conference next week on a system that spits out two-dimensional coordinates for the object or place that a person is focusing on. The same group has worked on several eye interfaces in the past, mostly for people with disabilities. By integrating eye interfaces with GPS information, users can apparently get geographic information. The group presents its paper on Monday, February 3.
ISSCC is one of the premier events in the chip design world. Every year, large companies and universities gather to show off products or concepts that will come to the market in the next few months or years. ISSCC firsts include the first papers on Cell processors (2005); digital signal processors or DSPs (Bell Labs, 1980); RISC chips (UC Berkeley, Stanford, 1984); 100MHz processors (Intel, 1991); and 1GHz processors (Digital; Intel, 2000).
Although sponsored by the University of Pennsylvania, the conference takes place in San Francisco. (The computer business was centered in Philadelphia when ISSCC got started.) Other conference highlights for next week include:
IBM will discuss a version of the Cell processor made on the 45-nanometer process that consumes 40 percent less power and 36 percent less space than current versions. IBM, along with Toshiba and Sony, is trying to percolate the Cell into the market. Right now, the vast majority of Cell chips are used in the PlayStation 3.
Jeff Hawkins, of Palm fame, will show up Monday morning to talk about Hierarchical Temporal Memory, or storing memories in computers the way brains do. His start-up, Numenta, focuses on this.
Intel will describe a low-power chip that uses an in-order execution pipeline, a design concept that Intel hasn't used in its mainstream chips for years. It will also show off an Itanium with 2 billion--count 'em, 2 billion--transistors.
NTT, the Japanese telecom giant, will show off a fingerprint reader that can differentiate between a real and a fake finger.
Future Waves from the U.K. will describe a wireless body network for monitoring vital signs. It's a disposable system for the last meter problem in body sensor networks, the company says. Right afterward, Massachusetts General Hospital will describe a portable MRI machine. (Other health sessions include updates on brain implant research from Brown University and an artificial pancreas from Medtronic.)
Infineon has a paper titled "UMB Fast Hopping Frequency Generation Based on Sub Harmonic Injection Locking" that will come out during the "UWB Potpourri" session on Monday, while the University of Freiberg will present a paper on "A Continuous Time Hexagonal Field Programmable Analog Array."
Just in case you were wondering.
This case has CSI written all over it.
Earlier this week the TelecomsKorea News Service and other news agencies reported that a man in South Korea (known as Seo) was presumably killed in a mobile phone explosion while working in a quarry. Then authorities said his injuries were too severe to have been caused by an exploding handset battery, though it was reportedly on fire in the victim's shirt pocket.
Now police say they suspect that the co-worker who first reported the incident (known as Kwon) was actually the one behind the victim's death, according to Digital Chosunilbo and the Sydney Morning Herald.
Kwon had apparently run over Seo accidentally while backing up a hydraulic drill rig, police say, but then told authorities that the phone battery had exploded and killed his co-worker. At that time, a preliminary examination found major injuries to Seo's heart, lungs, ribs, and spine. It is now not known how the phone caught fire.
Meanwhile, LG has issued a press statement saying that the lithium-polymer battery used in most mobile phones has been tested as safe for consumer use. A representative also added that lithium-polymer batteries, unlike lithium-ion batteries, cannot suddenly explode.
While research scientists are still grappling with the possibility of harmful effects from cellular handset use on the human body, a fatal accident involving a mobile phone occurred recently in South Korea. The TelecomsKorea News Service reported that a 33-year-old man was found dead, presumably killed by an explosion of a mobile phone battery identified to be from LG, though no specific model was cited.
It was reported that the man was found lying beside an electronic shovel at a quarry where he worked. A co-worker described him as bleeding from the nose and having a phone with a melted battery in his left shirt pocket. A professor from the Chungbuk National University examined the body and speculated that a phone battery explosion, which punctured his heart and lungs, was the main cause of death. He added that the victim's ribs and spine were broken.
This is the first time a cell phone battery explosion is believed to have taken a life in South Korea. Earlier this year, a man in China was reportedly killed by a mobile phone explosion.
(Source: Crave Asia)
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