Archive for the ‘Gadgets’ Category
Wireless Television
Your home Audio Video System is beautifully placed in the corner of the living room. Electrical wires, and also the television cable wire are nicely build in the wall. All looks good. Except what about another Audio Video System in the recreation room. Suddenly another Satellite box has to be ordered, another DVR has to be bought, another audio system has to be on the list for the next Christmas. And what about the new wiring, cables rerouted through the house. The simple desire of having a relaxed time in the recreation room, suddenly exploded in a cost and time consuming project.
The solution, an Audio Video Sender / Receiver system. This little apparatus, the Sender, is able to transmit the signal from your cable box, your television, your VCR, your DVR, your DVD player, your TiVo, your satellite TV, basically from any audio video system with an RCA output and send it out. The signal will go through doors, walls, and floors. From the basement to the kids rooms upstairs, the signal will penetrate every single room in your house for a crisp and clear Audio Video experience.
An Audio Video Receiver will be hooked up to the receiving system, the new system in the recreation room. The Receiver should be positioned within 100 feet of the Sender, to be able to pick up the signal of the Sender.
And thats it. Home Entertainment throughout the house, with no extra wiring and for just a low cost. Systems on the market at the moment range from $350 to as low as 50$.
Something to note when looking for the perfect system for your house:
Systems come with and without the possibility to transmit an Audio signal. Shop around for the best available system, suiting your needs.
The audio signal can be transmitted in Mono or Stereo. Only when you are on a low budget, the Mono Audio system would be something to consider. Otherwise, Stereo it is.
Some systems come with a remote control included in the price, and by simply pointing at the Receiver, the Audio Video System in the living room can be controlled. It is just not feasible to walk up every time to the other room to change a channel. Look for the extra components coming with the system.
Some systems can be easily expanded by adding an extra Receiver. Because why only installing a extra Audio Video System in the recreation room, while there can also be easily an other Television installed in the bedroom.
Most systems are easy plug and play installments. It will only takes 5 minutes to set up your new system. No drilling needed, no new cabling, no contractor hassle, no nothing.
ePaper
More and more you see people reading a book on their eReader. The two most popular eReaders in the USA are the Kindle, from Amazon, and the Nook, from Barnes & Noble. Of course you can read a book on an iPad or Notebook, but their displays are based on LCD technology and that is considered not very relaxing on the eyes. An eReader’s display is based on electronic paper and that has major advantages. The main player in the ePaper display business is EInk, which developed and marketed together with Philips the electrophoretic display.
ePaper, or e-ink, as it was known at the start, was developed to mimic the appearance of real paper. A major drive in the development was the ability to display an image/text without needing additional energy input, after the page was loaded.
LCD display
Although it is not obvious, LCD displays refresh (even static images) many times a second and this can become a nuisance for the observer. This also means that power is continuously needed to run the display, with low battery life as a consequence. Because of the back-light, achieving good contrast of an LCD display is a constant struggle for developers all over the world.
Electrophoretic display
The basis of an ePaper is based on a simple implementation of an electrophoretic display. This display consists out of little capsules, 10 to 100 micrometer thick and about 40 micrometer across, representing the pixels. The capsules are filled with a hydrocarbon oil, a dark coloured dye and a charging agent. Floating in the oil are tiny 1 micrometer titanium dioxide particles, which have a slightly positive charge due to the charging agent. The particles are designed to have a high refractive index and will reflect light back when exposed to sunlight. The capsules are placed between two parallel conductive plates, with the rear plate divided into pixels corresponding with the position of the capsules and the front plate being transparent.
When a voltage is applied across the plates, the titanium dioxide particles will migrate through the oil to the negative plate. When this is the viewing side of the display, the pixel appears to be white, because of the reflection of sunlight from the particles back to the viewer. When the particles are arranging themselves against the backside plate, all the light is absorbed by the coloured dye in the capsule and the pixel appears black. In this way a display is created with reflecting and absorbing regions of sunlight and with a very high contrast.
At the moment a new page is loaded, no extra energy is needed to keep the image on the display. A good feature when using ePaper as the display in an eReader.
Colour ePaper
Colour ePaper is the next step. Qualcomm with their Mirasol display based on Interferometric Modulator (IMOD) (a technology developed by Iridigm), and Samsung with their Electrowetting display (developed by Liquavista) are making it happen as we speak.
Wi-Fi G3 G4 MiFi
Most of us don’t live in Minneapolis, where the city government in cooperation with USI Wireless offers free Wi-Fi throughout the city. We are the ones that drive around, with our laptop or iPad-WiFi sitting in the passenger’s seat, looking for an unlocked Wi-Fi signal. And don’t tell me you never have an expensive coffee at the Starbucks only to use their free Wi-Fi.
A Mobile Hotspot Device is our solution. Let me explain:
Wi-Fi
In 1999 the non-profit Wi-Fi Alliance was formed to promote wireless local-area-network technology and to establish a standard for interoperability between technologies. As of today, 375 companies have joined the Alliance and are allowed to carry the Wi-Fi logo after passing the certification process.
A Wi-Fi router (sometimes written as Wireless Fidelity router, but officially Wi-Fi stands for nothing) plugged into an internet access point sends out a Wi-Fi signal (2.4 GHz radio frequency), allowing devices like personal computers, video game consoles, smartphones, or digital audio players to connect wireless to the internet. Routers have spread widely and can be found in homes, businesses, and more and more in public areas. With coverage of only 120 feet, this is still way too spotty for our “always being connected” needs.
Cellphone network
The United Nations now controls, via its agency the International Telecommunication Union, the telecommunication infrastructure and establishes worldwide standards. The current (since 2004) 3rd Generation standard for mobile telephony is called “International Mobile Telecommunications-2000”, better known simply as 3G.
Large cellphone towers transmit and receive radio waves (3G: 806-960/1710-2025/2110-2200 MHz | 4G: 2500-2690 MHz radio frequency), used by cellphones and smartphones within 2.3 miles to connect to the phone network. The coverage is almost nationwide and is still expanding every day. The difference between the public Wi-Fi coverage and the cellphone network coverage is striking. Here the maps for AT&T’s network.
Mobile Hotspot Device
With a Mobile Hotspot Device it is possible to connect any Wi-Fi device to the cellphone network. The hotspot is a tiny device which fits easily in your pocket or bag. The Mobile Hotspot Device connects local Wi-Fi devices to the cellphone network. An example of a mobile hotspot is Novatel’s MiFi – 3G.
Several cellphone providers offer the MiFi: AT&T, Sprint, Verizon Wireless, and Virgin Mobile. The MiFi is tiny, 3.50” x 2.32: x 0.35”, and just weights over 2 oz. With the push of a button the device is turned on and up to 5 Wi-Fi devices can connect to the hotspot. MiFi: my internet, my applications, my content, my way.
So for whom will this be a solution?
*The first group: everybody traveling with a laptop and who wants to connect to the 3G network.
*The second group: iPad+Wi-Fi owners who want to connect to the 3G network.
*With Sprint turning on its 4G WiMAX service in the San Francisco Bay Area, and China running 4G network trials in 6 cities (Shanghai, Hangzhou, Nanjing, Guangzhou, Shenzhen, and Xiamen) a third group of people is forming: people who want to be up to date. The Sprint’s Novatel MiFi – 3G/4G, is announced for February 2011, to provide 4G connectivity. When G5, G6 etc. are coming out, simply replace your MiFi and the latest connectivity technology for all your devices is guaranteed.
