Getting a blow to the head can sometimes be dangerous for athletes. Because it is often difficult to find whether an injury has happened or not, Reebok and flexible electronics developer MC10 have introduced the CheckLight skull cap which will analyse whether a blow to its wearer’s head is potentially brain-damaging or not.

The system has a tri-axial accelerometer and a gyroscope, for assessing linear and rotational acceleration, respectively. And there is a microprocessor to analyze the output of an impact.

The cap will fit on the head easily and players can wear a sports helmet on top. As you can see above, there will be lights at its bottom which will be in plain sight. If an impact to a player’s head meets or exceeds certain limits, coaches and other players will be able to see blinking yellow or red lights (depending on the severity of the blow). Based on the lights, the individual can be sidelined for testing (maybe by using the Harvard tablet app) or taken to the hospital.

There are other systems available at the moment, but all of those are reportedly using sensors mounted on the helmet. That approach may not give an accurate reading about whether or not something has happened to an athlete’s head. Furthermore, if an athlete is using the same cap all the time, he can check cumulative impacts since the microprocessor logs the number of impacts.

The cap is expected to be available from Reebok later this month for an unannounced price. You can sign up here for notifications about the product’s launch.

[Source]

The post Reebok’s CheckLight Skull Cap appeared first on Mobile Magazine.

You could say that the name “Project Loon” is a play on the word “balloon” and perhaps something to do with being a little crazy, but the idea here is that they launch these massive balloons about 12.4 miles above the Earth’s surface. At this altitude, they can avoid most adverse weather or airplane traffic. The balloons, which measure 49 x 39 feet when inflated, can withstand abuse for over 100 days before they need to be recovered. Each balloon can cover an area on the ground of about 25 miles in diameter, providing it with speeds “comparable to 3G.”

The initial test has them in New Zealand where they launched the first Project Loon Internet-providing balloon on June 14 and they plan on launching a total of 30 more in the next few days. The balloon itself contains a myriad of electronics — radio antennas, GPS, flight sensors, weather monitoring instruments, etc. — and there’s an array of solar panels for 100 watts of power. By using the wind for travel, the balloons are pretty green.

The Internet signal isn’t sent back via Wi-Fi. Instead, the balloons connect to the ground and then the service is broadcast via a radio frequency over ISM bands. Homes in the area then need to install special antenna to nab the signal and decrypt the data.

This may seem wacky, but it could prove to be a fascinating solution for areas where conventional broadband just isn’t feasible or cost-effective. They also say it’s a good way to get connected following a natural disaster.

[Source]

The post Video: Google Project Loon Balloons Connect Remote Areas to the Web appeared first on Mobile Magazine.

The week is ending, Friday has arrived! For those that regularly stay tuned to my Friday “Best Apps of the Week” feature – I’m doing things a bit different this week.

I’ve had a few comments and suggestions in the past asking me to include other platforms besides Android and iOS. Unfortunately gathering details for 5 apps for each platform would make this piece much longer (and harder to navigate) than we’d like.

So I’m switching things up at least for this week, and introducing the “Mobile Mag App ShowCase”. The idea here is much the same as the “Best Apps” format, the biggest difference is that we instead focus on just two of the “best rated/most highly anticipated” apps for the week and extend to covering Android, iOS, Blackberry 10 and Windows Phone 8.

Typically that will mean 1 game, 1 productivity/entertainment app.

So without further ado, let’s get started:

App ShowCase – Android

App ShowCase – iOS

App ShowCase – Windows Phone 8

App ShowCase – Blackberry 10

Summing it all up….

So that’s it, our first “Mobile Mag App ShowCase”. What did you think? Did I cover good enough apps, or was there something that you felt was more deserving for the list? Also – since this was more of an experiment than anything, what did you think?

Do you like the idea of showcasing the two BEST apps of the week for each of the primary four mobile platforms, or do you feel the model of 5 iOS and 5 Android apps is better approach? Let us know what you think, your comments could affect whether or not MM App ShowCase replaces the older “Best Apps of the Week” format!

The post MM App ShowCase (6/14): A look at Android, iOS, BB10 and Windows Phone Apps! appeared first on Mobile Magazine.

Games might become frighteningly real sometime in the future. But it seems that sports games have already become more realistic and fun. Electronic Arts showed off the future of sports games inside Ignite Lab, where fans got their first look at FIFA 14, Madden NFL 25, NBA Live 14, and UFC 14.

The games, which will be coming to the Microsoft Xbox One and Sony PlayStation 4, are said to be as real as how gamers have wanted sports games to be, all thanks to the capabilities of the newly unveiled consoles. They are talking about more than 1,000 animations for a player’s movements in the basketball court with balls that finally move in the right way, tackles that feel very real, more impressive and immersive crowds, stunning graphics, and players capable of making decisions and reacting as human beings would do.

According to FIFA executive producer David Rutter, “What we’re now doing is looking into the future. What makes a human move is anticipation. So now, if I run toward you, you’re going to know I’m coming. You can anticipate that, and you can react. Players in our game now have the horsepower to do this. When we started to introduce runtime [on the PS2], you ended up with these very believable outcomes, but while the collision would look beautiful, the behavior was dumb, because they’re not actually thinking about how to do that. Now, what we can do is actually have them not falling. So you’ll see lots of skips, lots of nuance in their behavior that for a human, is what you learned growing up, but we never had that before in our game“.

NBA Live Creative Director Gary Patterson says, “The ball was hard-coded into the dribbling animation, so when the animation changes, the ball does funny things. It goes around the floor, or you get a double-bounce, or it gets stuck to their hand for an inordinate amount of time. Now, we’ve released the ball to physics… it works the same way dribbling works in real life“.

Are you excited about these sports games that are arriving on the new consoles?

[Source]

The post Xbox One And PS4 Sports Games (Video) appeared first on Mobile Magazine.

If a patient’s body is rejecting a transplanted organ, doctors could stop the process through medication. But the important thing is early detection. Implanted electronic sensors could be the best available solution at the moment.

Of course silicon semiconductors in most electronic devices function differently when inside the human body. The silicon absorbs electrolytes such as sodium and potassium. So the readings coming from these sensors may not be accurate. We can use other semiconductor materials, but most of those are difficult to work with when compared to silicon, and are more expensive as well.

A new research done by Prof. Paul Berger of Ohio State University has revealed that coating the silicon semiconductors with aluminum oxide stops them from having contact with electrolytes. He coated a silicon circuit with the material and immersed it in a solution which replicated human body chemistry. The sensors were found to be intact and fully functional even after 24 hours of submersion.

In the future, these sensors could be inserted into a patient’s body near a transplanted organ. From there, the sensors could detect early signs of organ rejection. Berger says that electrolyte-proof electronics could even be used as replacement for damaged nerves.

What are your thoughts on these sensors that could help early detection of organ rejection? They could be very useful when using bio printed organs as well.

[Source]

The post Electronic Implants With Special Coating to Detect Organ Rejection appeared first on Mobile Magazine.

What do you do when you have a cash cow? You milk it, my friends! That’s exactly what Rovio has been doing with the Angry Birds series for a while now, not that we’re complaining.

We’ve seen countless reiterations of the Angry Birds mechanics, including Angry Birds Star Wars. We have even seen the franchise take a whole new approach with Bad Piggies. What’s next? Angry Birds Go.

Today Rovio began teasing the latest title, telling us:

“Those birds and piggies are getting ready for their most thrilling and action-packed game yet.” “All your favorite characters are returning for a brand new title that will bring you closer to Piggy Island than ever before. It’s Angry Birds, but not as you know it!”

So what is this game? Based on the teaser information (and the GO in the title), this is looking to be some kind of racing title. What we don’t know is whether or not this is a true kart-style racing game (think Mario Kart) or simply a Temple Run-like endless runner that is somehow themed around racing. We are hoping for the former, not the later.

We have no clue when Angry Birds Go is coming, other than its due for release sometime this year. We also aren’t certain what platforms this is for. While mobile makes sense, it’s not impossible to think that Rovio could consider a console game.

Are you ready for yet another Angry Birds game, or are you burnt out by the franchise already?

[ source ]

The post Rovio Teases “Angry Birds Go”, Promises To Be Something New appeared first on Mobile Magazine.

It’s Friday, Friday gotta get do… sorry, I really am. No more Rebecca Black references, I promise.

If you are a regular here at MM, you already know what time it is! It’s Friday, I’m hopped up on coffee, and it’s time for another “Best Apps of the Week!” As in usual fashion, we take a look at 5 Android and 5 iOS apps that are considered some of the most interesting apps that were released during that week.

So without further ado, let’s get started:

Best Apps of the Week – Android

Best Apps of the Week – iPhone & iPad

Summing it all up….

Nothing more to see here! Did you agree with our picks, or did we live out a vital new app that you feel should have made the cut? Let us and other readers know about them through the comments below.

The post Best Apps of the Week (6/7): A Look at New Apps for iOS and Android appeared first on Mobile Magazine.

Many of today’s smartphones are coming with high end specs including fast processors. But a CPU of course can’t be too fast because of heating issues, unless there is a better cooling system available. DARPA’s micro vacuum pumps could eventually be the answer.

Via DARPA’s Chip-Scale Vacuum Micro Pumps (CSVMP) program, researchers from the University of Michigan, MIT, and Honeywell International have developed microscale vacuum pumps, intended for use in highly sensitive gas analyzers that detect biological and chemical attacks, and microscopic atomic clocks.

The pump that you see above is from the University of Michigan. It has an array of tiny hexagonal compartments to which smaller channels are connected for high suction.

Seen above is the two-stage pump that has been developed at the Massachusetts Institute of Technology (MIT). The pump has curved surfaces which allow large volumes of gas to be displaced.

The pump from Honeywell International is similar in design to a turbine, but in reverse. Those blades that you see above, each of which is apparently half the size of a dot at the end of this sentence, push gas outward to create a vacuum in the center.

Andrei Shkel, DARPA program manager, says, “There have never been ionic or mechanical gas pumps at the microscale before. The CSVMP program has demonstrated both and more. The smallest commercially available pumps are the size of a deck of cards, which dwarf the vacuum electronics and sensors we want to attach our pumps to. These pumps are not only 300 times smaller than off-the-shelf pumps and 20 times smaller than custom-built pumps, but they also consume approximately 10 times less power to evacuate from atmospheric pressure to milliTorr pressures”.

In the not too distant future we might see mobile phones and other electronic devices arriving with high-performance processors which could be cooled by microscopic scale vacuums.

[Source]

The post Future Smartphones Could Eventually Use Micro Vacuum Technology appeared first on Mobile Magazine.

Nokia’s 41-megapixel 808 certainly turned a lot of heads, especially those of all the shutterbugs out there. But only if it came with Windows Phone, right? Well, Nokia is said to be having plans to introduce a WP device (“EOS”) with the same camera sensor as the 808 and with their famous PureView technology, and that device could be the one seen above.

As you can see, the device has a pretty giant bulge on its back. Of course those who like to click a lot of pictures with their phone wherever they go won’t be bothered about that hump as long as the photos are amazing, and from the looks of things it should have awesome cam capabilities. Carrying it around surely won’t need as much effort as walking with a big DSLR.

It also seems to a have a big flash. And we have a doubt whether that “XX” is suggesting that it’s a 20MP camera.

Whether it’s the EOS Windows Phone or not we are expecting the device to be official sometime soon. In the meantime, we are digging in for more info. So stay tuned for updates.

Would you mind such a bulge on your phone if it can take great pictures?

[Source]

The post Nokia 20 Megapixel PureView Windows Phone Coming Soon? appeared first on Mobile Magazine.

At present, millions of dollars are earned by armed groups in eastern Congo by selling conflict minerals. They use this money for buying more weapons, which are used for brutal violence to continue controlling the mines. The minerals that they trade end up in electronics such as mobile phones and laptops. Dutch firm FairPhone intends to change this situation with their new smartphone made with conflict-free tin and tantalum.

They have met their goal of 5,000 pre-orders for the device which will start to ship within Europe this October. The handset, with dual-SIM support for GSM networks, features a 4.3-inch screen, a quad core CPU, an 8 MP cam, 16GB of internal storage, and an almost stock Jelly Bean, though you can go for any other OS.

Those specs are certainly not the best out there, but their intention is to spread the message for more ethically made electronics. The handset is repairable and they have used materials from artisanal mines in the Democratic Republic of Congo, which are not run by armed groups. Though the device is not 100% conflict-free, due to the complexities of supply chains, this is surely a good start. They might even be able to launch the device with a case made of recycled plastic.

And the company also cares for those who make the device. They have promised a “living wage” and improved overall working conditions for factory workers who assemble the phone.

If interested, you can pre-order the device here. It costs €350 (about $458). For each phone sold, €3 will go to Closing The Loop, a UK-based foundation which aims to maximize electronics recycling.

[Source]

The post FairPhone Android Smartphone Made Of Conflict-Free Materials appeared first on Mobile Magazine.