At Google’s I/O developers conference last week, its Advanced Technology and Projects (ATAP) Group announced that it was working on several exciting projects and one of them was Project Jacquard. Project Jacquard is all about weaving digital technology into the fabric that goes into your clothes.
Project Jacquard is named after a 19th century loom which revolutionized the textile manufacturing process by using digital punchcards for programming complex patterns. Google’s Project Jacquard has developed conductive yarn that is strong enough to be woven into fabrics for making clothing and upholstery. The conductive yarn is attached via connectors to tiny circuits that are embedded in the garment and give it a sensitivity to touch and gestures, measure body temperature, heart rate and much more. The data captured through the fabric is transmitted wirelessly to smartphones or other devices.
The conductive yarn could be made into any color and can be easily woven into fabric in standard industrial looms. The Jacquard yarn makes the surface of the fabric interactive. It is made with a combination of thin metal alloys and polyester, cotton or silk yarns and looks like any other normal yarn used to make fabrics.
“Jacquard is a blank canvas for the fashion industry,” says Google on its Project Jacquard website. “Designers can use it as they would any fabric, adding new layers of functionality to their designs, without having to learn about electronics.”
Google has partnered with Levi Strauss creator of Levi jeans for creation of the conductive yarn. As the website says, “Project Jacquard will allow designers and developers to build connected, touch-sensitive textiles into their own products.”
You can get more idea about Project Jacquard by watching the videos below:
Since long, Android users have been craving for the facility to be able to move their apps and app data between their phone’s internal and external storage or the miroSD card. Sadly, Google didn’t seem to care much about it as after Nexus One, none of their Nexus phones and Tablets have had a microSD card slot. Now finally, Google has capitulated to popular demand and the latest Android M comes with this facility.
Google introduced Android M with several new features at its I/O conference this year and the feature of “Adoptable Storage Devices” is one of them. Actually, it is the name given by Google to removable external storage or microSD cards because they are adopted to become a part of the mobile device’s internal storage. The company did not elaborate much on this new feature at the I/O but references to this feature are found in Android M developer preview documentation. According to that, users will be able to move apps and app data to the external storage only if it is specifically allowed by the app developer in the app.
Although earlier Android versions didn’t offer this feature, certain smartphone manufacturers added this feature on their own. But now Android M will officially have the microSD card support built into it. In fact Android M will now support several features such as custom quick settings, support for fingerprint reader, themes etc. which the OEMs were providing in their products on their own.
According to the official documentation:
“With this preview, users can adopt external storage devices such as SD cards. Adopting an external storage device encrypts and formats the device to behave like internal storage. This feature allows users to move both apps and private data of those apps between storage devices.”
Here, the external device gets encrypted, so another device may not be able to read the data moved to it. Also, it is possible that the app moved to the microSD card may not work when the card is pulled out of the device.
The Adoptable Storage Devices feature of Android M will also apply to external USB sticks as this OS will have built-in USB OTG support. This feature will be useful for Android TVs and gaming consoles.
In the recent Google I/O Conference this year, Ivan Poupyrev, the Technical Program Lead for the project, demonstrated the technology which enables us to control the devices such as our smartphone or smartwatch without having to touch the hardware itself but by using your clothes or hands. This project is codenamed: Project Soli.
Project Soli uses radar to capture the movement of your hand in the air with extreme precision. The distance that it can detect can be up to less than a millimeter and can be done with the obstructions in between the hand which do the gesture and the sensor which is supposed to translate what we are trying to do with the device. For example, during the conference, Poupyrev was seen rubbing his thumb against his index finger to act as if he was adjusting the smartwatch timing but without the screen.
It seems like this project is going to be implemented to the smartwatch initially as the first board designs are circular and would fit nicely to a watch. On top of that, it is quite amazing that in just 10 months, Google able to make the radar emitter from a PC-sized into a chip which is no bigger than a dime. The developer ready test boards as well as the APIs are expected to be ready later this year with the APIs able to be fully accessible from the developer community.
As for the part whereby Google announced that it can also be done on our clothes, the company is working with Levis to make this happen. Well, we just have to wait and see don’t we?
In this year’s Google I/O Conference, it was announced that there will be a new version of Android OS which goes by the name of Android M. Now, the Android M developer preview is available to download from here.
Since it is the developer version, it is not the final product which is going to be released to the public and expect a lot of new features which is promised during the conference is not fully developed or there is a lot of bugs on it or the features are not even implemented into the OS yet. Therefore, even after all these warnings, you still want to install this version into your Android device, it is recommended that you backup your current content first before doing anything else. It is so that if some things happen and you can restore your Android device without any trouble.
There are a few differences between Android 5.0 Lollipop and Android M OS. One of the differences is that in the Lollipop OS, the notification which pops up at the top of the screen cannot be customized according to users’ preferences, but with Android M, users are able to set them on per-app basis, which of course, will make them happy. It makes me happy. There is also an additional new “Tap & Pay” screen which seems to be meant for Android Pay.
Lastly, the developer preview of Android M can be reversed back to Android Lollipop by following the instructions here.
Yesterday at Computex, smartphone and wearable manufacturer Asus unveiled its Android Wear powered ZenWatch 2. The newly launched timepiece is being offered in two different sizes. The larger model is exactly same to last year’s Zenwatch with a 41mm face and 22mm band while the smaller version measures 37mm face and 18mm band. We have got the specs for the wearable, however the pricing and availability is yet to be announced.
Both the version of the Asus ZenWatch 2 feature a OLED display topped with a 2.5D Gorilla Glass 3. Under the hood lies the powerful Qualcomm Snapdragon SoC which is likely to be the quad-core Snapdragon 400 chipset. The good thing is that this time the wearable has received higher IP67 certification making is dust and water proof. This makes the watch to stand in 3.28 feet deep water for over 30 minutes.
The Asus ZenWatch 2 comes with a magnetic charging system and also has a crown functionality and the company has made those set of functions clear. The good thing is that the company has increased the battery life with the ZenWatch 2. The ZenWatch 2 is available in different color options of rose gold, silver and gunmetal with rubber, leather or metal strips. One luxury model of the wearable with Swarovski crystals is also said to be made.
Asus has come up a big way in the smartphone industry and its Zenfone series of handsets have helped them gain even popularity and momentum in this competitive tech industry. Earlier this earlier the company announced its Asus Zenfone 2 with some very high-end specs placed beneath an affordable pricing which has always been the USP of the Asus handsets.
At the Computex event recently held in Taipei, Asus in addition to announcing its second generation Android-Wear powered ZenWatch 2 also announced the Asus Zenfone Selfie in competition to the HTC Desire EYE. The Asus Zenfone Selfie comes with a 13MP both to its front and back which comes with laser auto focus. Moreover, additional specs of the device put it to be in the upper-midrange segment with 5.5inch 1080p resolution and IPS LCD screen, a quad-core Qualcomm Snapdragon 615 chipset with 2GB of RAM memory and running the latest Android 5.0 Lollipop on-board. The front selfie camera offers 88-degree field of view while the rear camera comes with a 140 degree panorama mode.
Asus Zenfone Selfie has got an similar design to that of the Zenfone 2 and will be available in different color shades of aqua blue, white, pink, metallic black, gold, grey, black and red.
In today’s digital world where people are increasingly relying on their mobile devices, power bank has become a necessity, especially when you are on the go. You need to do a thousand things – make & take calls; send and check messages & emails; check your location/route; book a movie ticket or a restaurant; browse for something you want to buy, listen to some music or watch an interesting video. Your battery will give out along the way and in such a case, a power bank will come to your rescue.
A power bank is an external battery which you can charge up and carry around with you in your pocket, purse, briefcase or backpack and use it to charge your mobile device whenever its battery gets low. Now, there are several power packs available out there but ET-Stone is eco-friendly as it uses green energy and apart from acting as a traditional power bank, it also has other useful functionalities.
ET-Stone charges your mobile devices outdoors and also serves as an efficient a lamp and a torch. Folks at Elixir Tech who have made the device, claim it to be the “World’s smartest solar power bank” and have started a crowdfunding campaign on Indiegogo.
Check out this video that will give you an idea about the new ET-Stone Power Bank:
Now let’s see some of the highlights of ET-Stone:
Faster Solar Charging
ET-Stone comes with a high battery capacity of 3100mAh, which matches that of many high-end flagship smartphones and it also charges faster than most solar portable chargers currently available in the market. While the 2000mAh battery of such chargers takes about 4-5 days to get charged completely, the 3100mAh battery of ET-Stone gets completely charged in only 14 hours!
This has been made possible due to the super quality Solar panel used in the device which has highly efficient Sun Power Cells (2.75V/550mA). This is what makes ET-Stone much superior to other solar powered portable chargers available.
The device has a built-in Voltage Boosting Technology that helps to make optimum use of solar energy to maintain the required voltage levels for charging the solar panel even under low lighting conditions. The solar panel will effectively keep the battery levels to the maximum at all times of the day in any kind of weather. Protection circuits in the device protect it from excessive sun as well as current spikes.
Smarter Normal Charging
If by any chance solar energy is not available, the ET-Stone can also be charged directly through a plug. The input port accepts both AC and DC voltages. It can be charged directly through a plug or by connecting it to a DC source such as the USB port of a PC or laptop. The chipset in it can automatically detect the i/p current of the adapter and also sense the o/p charging current to the smartphone.
Overcharging of the battery is a major cause for reduced battery life. This can happen if it continues to be charged beyond its maximum capacity and for a longer time. To overcome this problem, the Elixir Tech team has used a sensing technology inside the device that will continuously monitor its charging level and once the maximum charging capacity limit is reached, it will automatically stop the charging process. This avoids overcharging and subsequent heating of the battery, resulting in a longer battery life.
Dual Charging
Dual charging is a unique feature of ET-Stone battery Bank. If both your smartphone as well as ET-Stone batteries are running low but you only have a single adapter or laptop/PC connection, you don’t have to choose between them. When you connect the adapter to ET-Stone and the USB cable from ET-Stone to your smartphone, the phone will charge first and after it is sufficiently charged, the charging will automatically shift to the power bank.
Lamp & Torch Features
This is another unique feature of the ET-Stone. Apart from being a conventional battery charger, it also acts as an LED lamp and a torch. The lamp consists of two powerful LEDs located at the front of the device while the torch is a single high-intensity LED located at the bottom. The use of anti-glare lenses ensures enhanced and wide-angle dispersion of light.
Another useful feature is that three intensity levels of light are available for the lamp and users can select any one option as per their needs:
1) 1st intensity gives 14 hours of light
2) 2nd intensity gives 22 hours of light and
3) 3rd intensity gives 35 hours of light
The torch provides only a single intensity light.
The ET-Stone lamp has another useful built-in feature- the SOS light. It can be activated by long-pressing the lamp button for 2 seconds and is very helpful in emergency situations. For example, if your car breaks down at night at any remote spot or when you go camping or hiking and are in need of help, you can send out an SOS signal with the lamp.
Ergonomic Design
The ET-Stone power bank has been designed after giving a lot of thought and as its name suggests, it has a combination of strength, rigidity and smoothness, which are the inherent properties of stone. A patented revolutionary kickstand is attached to its frame, which allows you to rotate the device a full 360 degrees and position it according to the sun’s angle. The kickstand also offers rigidity and added protection to the device and can also be used to hang the device.
An added advantage are its ¼” 20 UNC brass thread inserts which allow users attach it to a car mount, a tripod or a gorilla kickstand. ET-Stone can also fit snugly in your pocket and be carried about easily.
Applications
Apart from being useful in day-to-day life, the ET-Stone can also be a useful in travelling, hiking or camping in remote places or even in remote rural areas where no charging plugs or lights are available. It will also be useful during natural calamities like earthquakes or floods when there is a power problem.
What do you think of the new ET-Stone solar power bank? To know more about it, to buy one for yourself or to lend a helping hand, you can head over to Indiegogo.
