Nokia N9 begins shipping with Meego OS

After being announced back in June this year, The Nokia N9 has finally made to stores across the world. This phone from Nokia seems be a really good smartphone from Nokia after a long time. The main reason that makes a smartphone a worth appreciating  is the design and the OS that runs on it. Nokia has finally took a big step in the smartphone market by supporting the Meego OS. The N9 runs on MeeGo OS, v1.2 Harmattan.

MIT's Energy Harvester Makes Electricity from Vibrations

The world is going the silicon way, with the increasing use of wireless equipment for remote sensing and data collection equipment in various industries; the problem that arises is the replacement of the batteries in the equipment, especially when the site is in remote and inaccessible locations like Oil pipelines, industrial machinery and bridges. 

The best solution to the problem is to harness the energy around the equipment itself;  like ambient light, electromagnetic radio-waves which are almost everywhere these days and mechanical vibrations. Mechanical vibration energy is pretty significant in industrial machinery, pipelines and bridges.

Harnessing the vibration energy could make replacing batteries redundant.

Android in Space: Nexus S on Space Shuttle Atlantis

The Android OS has brought about a big revolution as to how Smart-phones are used. With the kind of  hardware modern smart-phones come with, they can do a lot more then just being a camera, media player and a phone, they can be used as brains for little robots.

Google first sent Google Nexus S at the edge of the atmosphere back in December 2010 via weather balloons. This past week Google posted a video showcasing how the Nexus S is being used by NASA to power its SPHERE satellites (Synchronized Position Hold, Engage, Reorient, Experimental Satellites).  These Sphere Satellites are free floating devices that NASA says were actually inspired by the 'Light Saber' droid from the popular Star Wars series and were developed by MIT. SPHERE Satellite is a self contained system with power, propulsion, computing and navigation equipment.

APEN: A pen that digitalizes your writing.

Recording anything in a digital format is always the best way, not only to preserve data but also to make it portable. Ever wondered if you could save hand written notes or hand written notes on your digital photos straight to your mobile phone or your computer in real time? An Israeli company, Pegasus Technologies Ltd has made it possible by what is called APEN.

APEN is basically a standard shaped digital pen ­that also writes on paper and comes with a transmitter and easy to use software for PC, Mac and popular smartphone devices.

LG announces LSM-100: World's First Scanner Mouse

The recent trend in newer computer peripheral and other devices is that, devices are getting more and more multi-functional. Back at CES 2011 LG electronics unveiled to the world its first prototype of the LSM-100 scanner mouse. LG is now all set to open a new era for scanners at this year’s IFA 2011 with the LSM-100, the mouse with a built-in scanner.

The problem with conventional scanners is that they take up a lot of space on the desk and can only scan papers of a limited sizes. Using the LSM-100 is far more convenient, all the person has to do to take a scan is to hold the scan button placed at the left side of the mouse and move it in a regular pattern from  top to bottom. The scanned image can then be saved in a wide range of formats i.e. PNG, JPEG, TIFF, BMP, PDF, XLS and DOC or it can be simply dragged and dropped into the desired application.

MABEL: The fastest two-legged robot (Biped)

Its always a dream for humanoid robot builders to replicate human running style. Although legged running robots have been built in the past, most of them don't have knees. The one's with knees can't run very fast; A good example is the Honda Asimo which has knees but it can only walk steadily and run upto 6 Km/hr, although I would like to say its one of the best humanoids ever built.

A robot developed at the University of Michigan lab can run like a human with features that represents the height, agility and efficiency of humans for a two-legged machine. With a peak pace of 6.8 miles per hour or 10.94Km/hr, MABEL is believed to be the world's fastest bipedal robot with knees. 

Mabel was a project that was built back in 2008 with collaborating members which include Jonathan Hurst, a doctoral student at the Robotics Institute at Carnegie Mellon University,  Jessy Grizzle a professor at U-Mich. Doctoral students, Koushil Sreenath who is in the U-M Department of Electrical Engineering and Computer Science. Hae-Won Park is in the U-M Department of Mechanical Engineering the later have contributed to developing the Algorithm and model for the robot. Since then the team has been progressively improving the feedback algorithms that enables the robot to keep its balance while reacting to its environment in real time.