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Panasonic Unveils Bone-Conduction TV Headphones

Instead of using your ears, the headphones work like hearing aids by transmitting sound waves through your skull… continue

A prototype of the transcutaneous energy transfer device created by Rice University students is meant to charge a battery under the skin that powers a tiny ventricular assist pump used by heart patients awaiting a transplant.

A team of Rice University students has developed a transcutaneous energy-transfer (TET) unit to power a minimally invasive ventricular assist device (VAD) being created by a Houston compay. The VAD is a tiny pump inserted into the aorta via a catheter that helps increase blood flow and heal patients with heart failure. The Rice-designed complementary device sits a centimeter under the skin and feeds power to the VAD. The portal through the skin to a power supply can normally become infected, but this device avoids the problem by sending power to the VAD without wires.

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The Economic Benefits Of New Spectrum For Wireless Broadband, February 2012

"The surge in wireless data traffic has caused a “spectrum crunch.” With the proliferation of smartphones, tablets, and other mobile devices with internet access, wireless data traffic has grown tremendously, increasing by more than 100% between 2009 and 2010. Industry forecasters expect that a rapid pace of growth in data traffic will continue for at least the next few years. For example, one industry forecaster projects that mobile data traffic will increase by a factor of 20 between 2010 and 2015. It is unlikely that wireless carriers will be able to accommodate this surging demand without additional spectrum. Other approaches to expanding the capacity of wireless networks, including improvements in spectral efficiency, increases in network density through cell site construction, and offloading traffic to wireline networks via Wi-Fi or other antenna systems, will likely be insufficient to allow capacity to keep up with demand. In short, the projected growth in data traffic can be achieved only by making more spectrum available for wireless use. In response to this “spectrum crunch,” the Obama Administration has proposed making an additional 500 MHz of spectrum available for wireless broadband."

A surveillance company in Cincinnati found the most practical way to test their new tagging technology — they embedded tiny silicon chips into two of their workers. The two workers at CityWatcher volunteered to test the RFID chips, along with the company CEO.

The chips are the size of a grain of rice and were embedded by a doctor in the forearm just under the surface of the skin. The chips work as access cards. There is a reader outside the door, and when the worker approaches the reader and puts his arm under it, the door senses the information in the chip and opens the door.

The company states that the implants cannot track employees’ movements, as they emit no signal. The chips would be used to identify workers with access to vaults and other secure areas.

Visit http://link.abpi.net/l.php?20060313A8 for more information.

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http://www.electronicproducts.com/whatsinside/viewteardown.asp?filename=Xbox%5F360%5Fweb%2Ehtml

“The cereal aisle at your local supermarket may soon resemble the Las Vegas strip. Electronics maker Siemens is readying a paper-thin electronic-display technology so cheap it could replace conventional labels on disposable packaging, from milk cartons to boxes of Cheerios.

In less than two years, Siemens says, the technology could transform consumer-goods packaging from the fixed, ink-printed images of today to a digital medium of flashing graphics and text that displays prices, special offers or alluring photos, all blinking on miniature flat screens.

‘When kids see flashing pictures on cereal boxes we don’t expect them to just ask for the product, but to say, “I want it,”‘ said Axel Gerlt, an engineer at Siemens tasked with helping packaging companies implement the technology.”

Learn more in Wired News.

http://www.wired.com/news/technology/0,1282,69839,00.html

From: Future Brief