Science info

Latest Invention: Vibration-Powered Generating Battery

Brother Industries Ltd managed to come up with a vibration-powered generating battery that can be used to charge various portable devices.

The company's latest invention can be used to replace AA and AAA batteries and power gadgets that consume around 100 mW, such as flashlight or remote control.

Technically the device represents a small generator, which was developed in a way to fit in a battery-shaped case. Besides the generator, the case also features a capacitor that has a capacitance of around 500 mF.

Brother Industries Ltd thought about creating prototypes in which both the generator and the capacitor fit in a single case, and models in which the two have their own cases, with the case of the capacitor having a greater voltage.

In order to recharge the flashlight or other portable device, the user simply needs to shake it. The Techno-Frontier 2010 exhibition, which will take place in Tokyo, is where Brother Industries' latest invention will be officially presented for the first time, reports Physorg.

At the exhibition, the company's representatives will carry out a demonstration that will include using the invention in an LED flashlight, a TV remote control, and a RC for lighting equipment.

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Robots to Be Used to Perform Surgical Operations Without Human Support

According to US researchers, in the near future robots will be able to perform surgical operations on real persons without the implication of human surgeons. One of the researches has shown that a machine is able to identify and operate on a human organ without any help from a surgeon.

In the research, a team of scientists at Duke University in North Carolina, headed by Professor Stephen Smith, used a robotic arm merged with ultrasound to perform test operations on a section of raw turkey breast.

The robotic arm made use of ultrasound to scan the tissue and find the section that had to be removed. Afterwards artificial intelligence was used to obtain real-time 3D data and give the machine certain commands to carry out. Then the robot arm used the same biopsy tool that human surgeons use to be able to get to a section of tissue and take samples.

It is worth mentioning that turkey is quite often used in medical studies due to the fact that its texture is similar to human flesh. In addition, the turkey's texture scans almost the same way during ultrasound, reports Daily Mail.

So far surgeries that involve robots are performed under strictly monitored by human surgeons who control each movement of the machine.

Today obtaining and processing information are the major issues that need to be solved. Researchers believe that the problem can be overcome with faster processors and improved algorithms.

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Latest Invention: Low-Cost Invisible Computer Mouse

A team from MIT's Media Lab needed only a few dollars to create their latest invention - an invisible computer mouse.

Researchers Pranav Mistry, Pattie Maes and Liyan Chang used an infrared laser beam and infrared tracking camera to develop a system that reads the movement of a user's hand and then translates it onto the display in form of a cursor.

It is worth mentioning that the laser beam's plane is aimed slightly above the surface of the user area and after the user's hand takes the form as if it is holding a computer mouse, the beam breaks at the points where each finger comes into contact with the surface.

Afterwards the infrared tracking camera registers the movements of the hand and interprets them accordingly. The camera can identify such actions as clicking and double-clicking.


Currently the team is working on improving the tracking and identification algorithms in their latest invention in order to obtain a large list of different commands, which could lead in the future to multi-touch gesturing.

The developers claim that their system has cost $20. Check out the video below to see how the system works.

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