Check out the movie (Dutch spoken)

Another interesting question is “How do these systems communicate?” If you know something about wireless networks, you get problems when you create a large network using limited resources. This is the idea behind using smart dust. I just learned about gossip. Maybe you know about it. It’s just like real-life gossip. I hear or see something and I pass it on. After a while my message will get to a gateway where it will communicate with a computer interface. The nodes remember a set of messages, otherwise you would overflow the network with the same messages.

I was still thinking that message’s could get lost, but today a Dr. at the University of Amsterdam draw some statistics and that convinced me. It’s all about big numbers and your message will stay (somewhere) in the network.

A new of network thinking, more info, if you have a nice movie about gossip protocols, please post.

PS: next workshop I’ll bring some wireless sensor networks to show you guys around.

“A property developer in Taiwan announced last week that residents of an apartment complex in Taipei County will be the first in the world to open their doors using a mobile phone. This is made possible using near field communication, by placing their phones in front of a sensor, opening their door. Each apartment is sold with 2 phones. Family members without a device can still open the door with using a finger-print recognition interface unit.”

What’s odd about this story is that you get a phone with the apartment. I understand the need for security(hence them giving you a “special phone”, i just wander which other services your new phone/key will run concurrently? Will you be able to voice with them?, Will you be signed up with a carrier? Of course, you already have a phone. Now you need to remember to take your door key..whoops…i mean extra phone too. I would suggest ditching the extra handset and using your finger-activated door key instead. It’s far faster than searching for your phone in a bag or taking it out of your pocket. This seems to be a very strange use-case for some wireless technology. What do Taiwanese know that we don’t or is this just plain crack-smoking design?

Taipei Times article

The picture seems to only be showing a demonstration of the technology rather than a real door, unless you are a mouse, or a bag of chips.

[Update - i found the original post, which explains more about the expected use of the mobile, it can be used for local services: parking, travel, building announcements. Apparently the property developer was involved in constructing Bill Gates mansion over in Seattle]

“Look out for BugLabs, a stealthy startup with an audacious aim: to do for consumer electronics what open source, “web 2.0″, XML, APIs and the rest did for the web. In essence, a sudden outpouring of innovation once everyone has the tools to create; I guess you could call it open source gadgets. From the site:

Bug Labs is developing BUG, an open, modular, consumer electronics web services + hardware platform. Designed for the general audience, not just the technically inclined, BUG is intended to bring to the world of hardware gadgets what the Internet, open source, XML and web services have brought to the world of software and media.

BugLabs is backed by New York-based Union Square Ventures, which funded del.icio.us, Feedburner, Tacoda and recently Twitter.

It’ll combine software and hardware, although exact details on the device they’re building aren’t available – Dave Winer spoke to the CEO and gives some thoughts. Hardware plays always seem riskier due to the real-world costs involved, but with new devices like the iPhone being more closed and proprietary than ever, its a movement that could gain steam, whether or not this product does.”

via Mashable

This is rather an extreme miniaturization. Bear in mind that the readers are still way expensive and in most cases operate only when the RFID chip is help right up against the RFID reader. Still its a pretty amazing materials science achievement. Well done Hitachi!

Today Hitachi announced a new “powder” type RFID chip measuring 0.05 x 0.05 mm, which they may begin marketing within 2 to 3 years.

By relying on semiconductor miniaturization technology and using electron beams to write data on the chip substrates, Hitachi was able to create RFID chips 64 times smaller than their currently available 0.4 x 0.4 mm mu-chips. Mu-chips have been used as an anti-counterfeit measure in admission tickets, and the new chips have a 128-bit ROM for storing a unique 38-digit ID number.

These new chips are also 9 times smaller than prototype chips Hitachi unveiled last year measuring 0.15 x 0.15 mm.

At 5 microns thick, the RFID powder can be embedded in paper, like paper currency, gift certificates and identification cards. But since existing tags are already small enough to embed in paper, it leads one to wonder what new applications the developers have in mind.

Via Ministry of Tech who found out about it via Pink Tentacle
Technorati Tags: RFIDRFID

“CTO Tero Ojanperä gave a refreshing closing keynote at Nokia World. He has a fun presentation style and there were lots of concrete examples. Here are my notes.

The Nokia World conference day in 2010 according to Tero:
- Wake up to your favorite MP3
- Check your favorite feeds
- Navigate to the conference
- Capture HDTV video on your phone
- Device finds your nearest coffee machine, order it using your phone

The key trends:
- Converged devices go mainstream
- Wireless broadband becomes universal
- Innovation proliferates
- Mobility transforms the internet
- Context is king

“Converged devices with open OS” will outsell laptops in 2007. They’ll replace the whole installed base of the PC market in 5 years. This will be a big change in how you access the internet.

* Media: Indexed, follows user. 100+hrs of music, 3D cinema surround
* Camera: mainstream products have 5MP, lead products 10MP & HDTV
* Display: mainstream products QVGA, DVD-quality video mainstream. Lead products: VGA, 3D console graphics, projection(!)
Storage: mainstream products: 8GB, leading products: 50-100 GB

Network:
2006 GSM/WCGM capacity doubles, 2007 I-HSPA: cost vanishes, flat architecture, halverd network CAPEX
2008 HSUPA.
…

Innovations in the pipeline:
- Graphical notebook allows people who can’t read to use the phone
- Flashlight
- Speaking clock
- Location and context based services and content
- Mobile / Internet TV, podcasting
- NFC ticketing, payments & service discovery
- Wibree connects low-power devices

Mobility transforms the Internet
- 1st wave was about eliminating the middlemen
- 2nd wave was about communities and user-generated content. This is Web 2.0
- 3rd wave will take the Internet from the PC scale, which is in the millions, to mobile scale, which is in the billions. Mobility will fundamentally change the Internet. It’ll be a completely new experience. It’s happening today as we speak. If you’re skeptical, consider some examples:
* we’ve turned the mobile phone into an Internet server (open source)
* the mobile browser is turning into a developer platform. This will allow Web services, mash-ups, widgets
* Integrated mobile UI

Smart technologies adapt to me and my context
- Smart spaces: Web of things, wireless mash-ups, digital me in a virtual home/office
- Smart senses: Motion sensors, haptics, multi-sensory telepresence, context automatics, invisible computing
- Smart sharing: Blogs & buddies, metadata, content search / match, memory /language/story prosthesis

Sensors: “We call it the 6th sense. It’s going to happen in the next 3 years”
Storage: The device is going to act as your memory prosthesis. It’ll remember all the things you did: things you saw, calls you made, who you met. Easy search & retrieval will be key.”

via Jyri Zengstrom