Via Phys Org

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A paper-based touch pad on an alarmed cardboard box detects the change in capacitance associated with the touch of a finger to one of its buttons.

The keypad requires the appropriate sequence of touches to disarm the system. Image credit: Mazzeo, et al.

The touch pads are made of metallized paper, which is paper coated in aluminum and transparent polymer. The paper can function as a capacitor, and a laser can be used to cut several individual capacitors in the paper, each corresponding to a key on the touch pad. When a person touches a key, the key’s capacitance is increased. Once the keys are linked to external circuitry and a power source, the system can detect when a key is touched by detecting the increased capacitance.

According to lead researcher Aaron Mazzeo of Harvard University, the next steps will be finding a power source and electronics that are cheap, flexible, and disposable.

Among the applications, inexpensive touch pads could be used for security purposes. The researchers have already developed a box with an alarm and keypad that requires a code to allow authorized access. Disposable touch pads could also be useful in sterile or contaminated medical environments.

Via Christian Babski

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Remember your first time being sick in front of a screen!

Web Wolfenstein

Via Christian Babski

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Some researchers are about to try to run facial recognition algorythm on Mona Lisa painting in order to try to know who is she... but do we really want to know?

The full article @ the online Daily Mail

Via BoingBoing

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Sourcemap shows supply-chain maps that reveal all the places in the world that feed into the common goods we consume in our lives. The service's about page implies that the supply-chain data comes from companies themselves, but there's a lot of what seem to be user-generated maps like this complex map labelled "Laptop Computer". It's a tantalizing set of maps, but I wish there was more information on the data-sources that went into each map.

On the other hand, I'm loving this reconstruction of Western Electric's 1927 telephone manufacturing supply chain by Matthew Hockenberry, who added this information: "This is a reconstruction of the supply chain for the Western Electric produced 'candlestick' style telephones of the late 1920s. Information is largely drawn from archival Western Electric/AT&T materials, as well as those of supplier companies. Some imagery is currently included for cotton and copper sources. This is a rough draft - many details are missing or incomplete."

Sourcemap: where things come from

Via Extreme Tech

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According to reports from various industry sources, the Chinese government has begun the process of picking a national computer chip instruction set architecture (ISA). This ISA would have to be used for any projects backed with government money — which, in a communist country such as China, is a fairly long list of public and private enterprises and institutions, including China Mobile, the largest wireless carrier in the world. The primary reason for this move is to lessen China’s reliance on western intellectual property.

There are at least five existing ISAs on the table for consideration — MIPS, Alpha, ARM, Power, and the homegrown UPU — but the Chinese leadership has also mooted the idea of defining an entirely new architecture. The first meeting to decide on a nationwide ISA, attended by government officials and representatives from academic groups and companies such as Huawei and ZTE, was held in March. According to MIPS vice president Robert Bismuth, a final decision will be made in “a matter of months.”

China has a long history with MIPS and Alpha. Loongson processors, which power millions of Chinese school computers, use MIPS — and the ShenWei processors (pictured right) found in China’s first homegrown supercomputer, the Sunway Bluelight MPP, are based on the Alpha ISA. MIPS Technologies (the company) hasn’t been doing very well recently, and it’s rumored that the Sunnyvale-based company could be up for sale — a purchase I’m sure the Chinese government could afford.

According to EE Times, there are some 34 ARM licensees in China, but at $5 million for a single Cortex-A9 core license, it’s unlikely that ARM will be China’s choice. The Power ISA is cheaper, but lacks the software ecosystems that ARM and MIPS enjoy. ShenWei/Alpha is also a possibility, but again it cannot compete with MIPS’ installed base.

The other option, of course, is developing a brand new ISA — a daunting task, considering you have to create an entire software (compiler, developer, apps) and hardware (CPU, chipset, motherboard) ecosystem from scratch. But, there are benefits to building your own CPU architecture. China, for example, could design an ISA (or microarchicture) with silicon-level monitoring and censorship — and, of course, a ubiquitous, always-open backdoor that can be used by Chinese intelligence agencies. The Great Firewall of China is fairly easy to circumvent — but what if China built a DNS and IP address blacklist into the hardware itself?

Taking a leaf out of South Korea’s hardcore gaming scene, what if the Chinese government decided to implement a hardware-level 10pm curfew for video games? Or some code that automatically turns negative mentions of Hu Jintao (the Chinese president) into positives, and inserts a few honorifics at the same time. Or a latent botnet of hundreds of millions of computers that can be activated upon the commencement of World War III. Or, or, or…

Via ifixit.org

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The iPad’s light, sleek, simple construction belies its complex origins. There’s a lot of stuff in the iPad: aluminum and glass, of course, but also other heavy metals and toxic chemicals. And manufacturing each 1.44-pound iPad results in over 285 times its own weight in greenhouse gas emissions. The manufacturing of and material used in the iPad are two reasons why the iPad must be made in China—and not just in the ways you’d expect.

Yes, labor is dirt cheap in China. Minimum wage was just $138/month at Hongkai Electronics in October 2010, compared to $1160/month in the US (based on a $7.25/hour federal minimum wage and a 40-hour work week).

And yes, environmental regulations in China are pretty minimal (though improving). China ranks 116th out of 132 countries on Yale’s 2012 Environmental Performance Index rankings. Even with all their illegally run coltan mines, the Democratic Republic of Congo is ranked many points higher than China.

But there’s another important reason why Apple and other manufacturers have their heels stuck in Chinese mud. iPad manufacturing, like the manufacturing of other electronics, requires a significant amount of rare earth elements, the 17 difficult-to-mine elements used in all kinds of green technology. It’s hard to say exactly what rare earths are in an iPad, since Apple is really tight-lipped about their materials—no one can even get them to confirm what manufacturer makes their impact-resistant glass, though I suspect Asahi.

Cambridge engineering professor Dr. Tim Coombs guesses that there may be lanthanum in the iPad’s lithium-ion polymer battery, as well as “a range of rare earths to produce the different colours” in the display. The magnets along the side of the iPad and in its cover (pictured above) are possibly a neodymium alloy. Electronics glass is often polished with cerium oxide. According to a Congressional Research Service report, worldwide demand for rare earths was 136,100 tons in 2010, 45-percent of which was for magnets, glass, and polishing.

All Our Rare Earths Come from a Pit Mine in China

Why is all this rare earth consumption a problem? China currently controls 95-97% of the world’s supply of rare earths and has repeatedly cut export quotas, sending already-high prices skyrocketing. Fearing dependence on China for rare earths, two companies—Molycorp in California and Lynas Corp in Australia—plan to begin mining rare earths this year. As green industry continues to grow, however, it’s unclear if current mining operations will be able to keep up with increasing demand.

Facing growing concern about the possibility of a rare earth shortage, President Obama recently lodged a complaint with the World Trade Organization against China about their rare earth policy. Some specialists think the complaint may be “too little, too late”—by the time China changes its policy, more manufacturers will have moved plants to China.

Recycling is Not a Rare Earth Solution

It might seem that the mountains of electronic waste would be a perfect source of rare earths. But recycling isn’t the answer to the rare earth shortage—at least not yet. Some Japanese recyclers are successfully recovering rare earths from compressors. But neither SIMS Recycling Solutions nor Electronics Recyclers International (ERI), the two biggest electronics recyclers in the US, are currently recovering any rare earths in their recycling process, according to SIMS president Steve Skurnac and ERI CEO John Shegerian.

For now, Skurnac says, “Rare earths come in very minute concentrations in electronic scrap,” which means that recyclers need high volume and super efficient processes to recover any reasonable amount of rare earths from electronics. The technology just isn’t there to make it economically feasible for most recyclers.

Today, an American electronics company can only be exempt from China’s rare earth export quotas by manufacturing within China. So that’s what most companies, including Apple, are doing. The only other solution is for us to stop consuming so much—an option that people rarely find appealing. Not as appealing as a retina display, at least.

Via The Verge

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Via übergizmo

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Don’t you just hate it when you often need to solve a captcha whenever you want to log in to select websites? You know, those irritating slanted and jumbled group of letters and numbers, where sometimes, you cannot even tell whether it is the letter ‘o’ or the number ’0′, or if the particular letter is in the uppercase or not. Captchas have been employed for some years already in order to verify that the person behind the computer is made out of flesh and bone, and is not an automated robot or program of any kind. Detroit-based tech company Are You A Human (interesting name) has come up with a different way of verifying the authenticity of a user – not through captchas, but rather, the idea of a simple game known as PlayThru.

PlayThru claims to prevent bots from spamming sites, as the game can only be completed by an actual human being. Definitely sounds far more fun in theory to “solve”, and if your less than informed boss walks by your desk to see you play the latest game, just tell him or her that you are solving a captcha replacement before you are able to start work.

To get a better idea on how PlayThru works, here is an example of just one of the games. You will be presented with your fair share of items, including a shoe, a football jersey, an olive and a piece of bacon, where all of them will float right beside a pizza. Should you drag the right ingredients over the pizza, then you would have “won”, and so far, I do not think that anyone would like a topping of shoes on their pizza.

Via Flexibility Envelope

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Mobot by Barobo.com

Soon you can get your hands on the Mobot modular robot for a very reasonable $270 a module (pre-orders available now). A number of connection plates and attachments will also be available, and I guess you can 3D print your own stuff.

Mobot by Barobo.com

I like the gripper that is powered and controlled by the rotating faceplate. I am sure the same concept can be used to 3D print some cool things in the future. A connector would be an awesome thing and definitely worth a price of some sort.

In general, it seems to be a very competent modular robotics system. It uses a snap together connector, making it simple and fast to use, but maybe not as strong as a system that screws together.

There is a Graphical User Interface RobotController, and you can program it with the C/C++ interpreter Ch so everyone from beginner to hard core hacker should be able to do some really cool stuff.

More info on Barobo.com

Via Christian Babski

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Here(@American Scientist) is an interesting and rather complete article on programming language [evolution,war] with some infographics on programming history and methods. It is not that technical, making the reading accessible to any one.