MIT THAW: Direct interaction between Smartphones, screens and electronic devices

MIT researchers with the Tangible Media Group and the Fluid Interface Group have come up with a smartphone system called THAW that allows a smartphone user to seamlessly interact with other computer devices via their screen.

The system is meant to bridge the gap that exists between user devices, transferring files between phones and a desktop computer for example (by placing the phone on the larger screen and dragging icons to the phone) or continuing to play a video game started on a console on a mobile device.

The same system allows for using a smartphone as a peripheral device, moving files on a computer screen for example, or manipulating images.

It's all a demonstration of a larger effort to integrate all the various devices that people are using, team members told the media recently.

Letting users transfer songs, videos or other files without menus or Bluetooth devices, or allowing for uninterrupted activities.

Imagine watching the news on your television in the morning, pressing your phone against the screen, then walking out the door as the news program continues in your hand, that's true integration.

It introduces a new concept level, whereby devices become aware of not just what is being shown on a display device, but what is happening underneath to deliver that imagery.

THAW works by projecting a grid onto an underlying video screen, and then using it to orient itself.

Imagery is brought into the smartphone via its camera, where software takes over, recognizing what is happening and then launching a companion application or software meant to manipulate objects on the underlying device.

Frozen Android phones give up data secrets

Freezing an Android phone can help reveal its confidential contents, German security researchers have found.

The team froze phones for an hour as a way to get around the encryption system that protects the data on a phone by scrambling it.

Google introduced the data scrambling system with the version of Android known as Ice Cream Sandwich.

The attack allowed the researchers to get at contact lists, browsing histories and photos.

Cold start 
Android's data scrambling system was good for end users but a "nightmare" for law enforcement and forensics workers, the team at Erlangen's Friedrich-Alexander University (FAU) wrote in a blogpost about their work.

To get around this, researchers Tilo Muller, Michael Spreitzenbarth and Felix Freiling from FAU put Android phones in a freezer for an hour until the device had cooled to below -10C.

The trio discovered that quickly connecting and disconnecting the battery of a frozen phone forced the handset into a vulnerable mode.

This loophole let them start it up with some custom-built software rather than its onboard Android operating system. The researchers dubbed their custom code Frost - Forensic Recovery of Scrambled Telephones.

The Frost software helped them copy data on a phone that could then be analysed on a separate computer.

A chilled phone also helped their hacking project. Data fades from memory much more slowly when chips are cold which allowed them to grab the encryption keys and speed up unscrambling the contents of a phone.

PhD student Tilo Muller told the BBC that the attack generally gave them access to data that had been put in memory as users browsed websites, sent messages or shared pictures.

The researchers tested their attack against a Samsung Galaxy Nexus handset as it was one of the first to use Android's disk encryption system. However, they said, other phones were just as likely to be vulnerable to the attack. The team are planning further tests on other Android handsets.

While the "cold boot" attack had been tried on desktop PCs and laptops, Mr Muller said the trio were the first to try it on phones.

"We thought it would work because smartphones are really small PCs," he said. "but we were quite excited that the trick with the freezer worked so well."

The German research group is now working on defences against the attack that ensures encryption keys are never put in vulnerable memory chips. Instead they are only used in the memory directly attached to a phone's processor.

NASA’s ‘Smart SPHERES’ to Aid in the Development of Robots

NASA's ongoing "Smart SPHERES" experiment has demonstrated how a smartphone controller can serve as remotely operated assistant after it successfully transmitted motion data gathered by a free-flying robot on the International Space Station to its astronaut handler.

NASA's Human Exploration Telerobotics project, has equipped the compact, free-flying satellites known as Synchronized Position Hold, Engage, Reorient Experimental Satellites, or SPHERES with a Samsung Nexus S handset that features Google's open-source Android platform.

According to NASA, these compact assistants will conduct interior station surveys and inspections, capturing mobile camera images and video in the coming months. NASA also plans to simulate external free-flight excursions and in time will test whether the robots can handle other, more challenging tasks.

"The tests that we are conducting with Smart SPHERES will help NASA make better use of robots as assistants to and versatile support for human explorers -- in Earth orbit or on long missions to other worlds and new destinations," said Terry Fong, project manager of the Human Exploration Telerobotics project and Director of the Intelligent Robotics Group at NASA's Ames Research Center in Moffett Field, Calif.

The volleyball-sized SPHERES each has its own onboard power, propulsion, computing and navigational software. With the addition of the smartphone, the satellite is transformed into a free-flying robot, or "Smart SPHERES," complete with a compact, low-power, low-cost embedded computer and built-in cameras and sensors to enhance and expand robotic operations.

The smartphone is almost identical to the off-the-shelf consumer device except for some minor modifications, including removing the GSM cellular communications chip to avoid interference with station electronics, and replacing the standard lithium-ion battery with AA alkaline batteries.

The Nexus S phone is the first commercial smartphone certified by NASA for use on the space station although NASA anticipates using other types of smartphones on the station in the future. It is connected to a SPHERES free-flyer via a cable. A wireless network connection (Wi-Fi) to the space station's computers provides the data path to the ground.

Malaria: Cell Phone Cameras Capture Microscopic Images

Smart phone apps can help you check your vision, keep tabs on your blood-glucose levels and track your blood pressure. Earlier this year the U.S. Food and Drug Administration even approved an app that allows doctors to view scans on an iPhone or iPad to help them make diagnoses on the go.

But fancy apps aside, the cameras on these devices and others can help health care workers in remote or understaffed areas submit photos of complicated conditions to doctors who can verify or make a diagnosis.

One question that quickly surfaces is whether cell phone cameras are good enough to transmit microscopic information to experts.

A new study found that many simple bar phones with cameras could snap a good enough picture through a standard microscope to allow a remote assessment of a sample. The results were published online Wednesday in PLoS ONE.

“Poor and vulnerable populations are most affected by weak laboratory services because they carry the largest burden of ill health,” noted the researchers behind the study, which was led by Coosje Tuijn, of the Royal Tropical Institute of Biomedical Research in Amsterdam.

And although microscopy is often pivotal in diagnosing common diseases, such as malaria, tuberculosis and other bacterial or parasitic diseases, in poor areas, “microscopy services are often suboptimal,” the researchers noted.

And “as a result, many common diseases are misdiagnosed and improperly treated, ” which can affect patients—and cost the health system time and money.

In Uganda, where there are only eight physicians for every 100,000 people, getting a definitive diagnosis can be difficult. The research team enlisted local health workers to try using their own (or borrowed) cell phones to capture photos and videos of microscopic images to send off for remote diagnosis.

The best images were obtained with cameras that were two megapixels or higher, which are common in smart phones and are in some slimmer Nokia, Samsung and Sony bar phones.

And some of the most successful diagnoses were those of samples that contained malaria parasites, which “were often so clear that specific stages of the malaria parasite could be identified”—thus improving targeted treatment.

TB was a little more challenging (owing to the small size of its bacteria) and required a fluorescent microscopy and a five-megapixel camera.

But phones with video could also grab clips that revealed some other microbes as they moved around, helping to improve the remote diagnosis.

Once the pictures were snapped, health workers could send them directly to a website that could make them accessible to experts for diagnosis and/or students for training.

Direct feedback, via phone call or text, could then be sent to the user’s phone.

GPS with Android and WiFi on its way

The world's first handheld GPS to use the Android mobile operating system is here.

The All Sports GPS from Holux is also the first handheld unit with WiFi capability.

The idea is to fuse smartphone capability into a handheld GPS, allowing users to download GPS apps directly without having to hookup to a computer.
 
The All Sports GPS is a cooperative effort between Taiwan's Holux, which manufactures GPS products, and Satski, a Canadian company best known for its winter sports apps.

So, it's not surprising that the GPS will come pre-loaded with the SatSki app and a companion suite that includes other sports apps for golf, biking, running and geo-caching, among other activities.

The apps provide all sorts of speed, distance, real-time location and navigation information. For winter sports fans, the Satski app uses resort trail maps.

There's also Facebook and Twitter integration and on online community at luvthesnow.com to share and boast about your greatest runs.

Another app included in the package is All Sports Maps, which allows users to download live maps, including Google, Nokia OVI, Open Street and Open Cycle, for later offline use, all for free.

Similar apps in the Android Market can run you as much as ten US dollars for something well-suited to backcountry use, out of the range of a data connection.

SatSki promises that the All Sports GPS will be a "rugged, highly sensitive IPX 6-rated unit" that also supports Bluetooth health monitor accessories. No word on an exact release date or pricing for the device, but the company promises it is "coming soon."

‪Paper computer shows flexible future for smartphones and tablets‬‏ - YouTube

"This computer looks, feels and operates like a small sheet of interactive paper," declared creator Roel Vertegaal, director of the lab. "You interact with it by bending it into a cellphone, flipping the corner to turn pages or writing on it with a pen."

SSTL have developed 'STRaND-1, a Smartphone Satellite

Space researchers at the University of Surrey and Surrey Satellite Technology Limited (SSTL) have developed 'STRaND-1', a satellite containing a smartphone payload that will be launched into orbit around the Earth later this year.

SSTL is a privately owned company. The University of Surrey owns 1% of the shares EADS Astrium NV owns 99% of the shares. .
STRaND-1 (Surrey Training, Research and Nanosatellite Demonstrator) is being developed by the Surrey team to demonstrate the advanced capabilities of a satellite built quickly using advanced commercial off-the-shelf components.

STRaND-1's lead researcher Dr Chris Bridges explained why a smartphone made an ideal satellite payload "Smartphones pack lots of components - such as sensors, video cameras, GPS systems and Wi-Fi radios - that are technologically advanced but a fraction of the size, weight and cost of components used in existing satellite systems.

Also, because many smartphones also run on free operating systems that lend themselves to online software developers, the creators of applications ('apps') for smartphones could feasibly develop apps for satellites," he said.

Smartphones aren't designed to go into space, so in addition to extensive ground testing prior to launch there will be an in-orbit test campaign to put the phone through its paces. A powerful computer built at the SSC will test the vital statistics of the phone once in space.

The computer will check which components of the phone are operating normally and when components malfunction in orbit for recovery. Images and messages from the phone will be sent back to Earth via a radio system.

Once all the tests are complete, the micro computer will be switched off and the smartphone will be used to operate parts of the satellite.

Cost of Ownership of Smartphone: Not that much more

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