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Wireless charging - the future for electric cars

It's electric, and like all battery-operated automobiles needs regular charging. "The charging is done wirelessly, you park up, turn off the key and voila... charging starts automatically," says Anthony Thomson, CEO of HaloIPT, a UK company that has installed the technology. The process uses electromagnetic induction to transfer power from a pad built into the ground to another installed in the bottom of the car. The system could be installed in a supermarket parking place, garage floor or the ground at a special charging station. When a driver parks the vehicle, the two pads line up and with a flick of a switch, the charging starts.

Katy Perry leads MTV nominations

US pop star Katy Perry leads the way at this year's MTV Video Music Awards (VMAs) with nine nominations. The singer's nods include video of the year for Firework, best pop video and best special effects. British singer Adele and Kanye West picked up seven nominations apiece. Other multiple nominees included Lady Gaga, Beyonce, and Bruno Mars. The VMAs are scheduled to take place on 28 August in Los Angeles and will be broadcast live in the US. Perry, who married comedian Russell Brand last year, was also nominated for best female video, best collaboration, best art direction and best cinematography.

Texas executes 9/11 'revenge' killer

A man who embarked on a shooting spree in what he claimed was retaliation for 9/11 has been executed at a prison in Texas. The lone survivor of Mark Stroman's attack on convenience store workers in late 2001, Rais Bhuiyan, originally from Bangladesh, unsuccessfully sued to stop the execution, saying his religious beliefs as a Muslim required him to forgive the man. Stroman claimed the shooting spree that killed two men and injured a third targeted people from the Middle East, though all three victims were from south Asia. It was the death of 49-year-old Vasudev Patel, from India, that put Stroman on death row. Stroman's execution was the eighth this year in Texas.

Mac OS X Lion pounces

As promised, Apple let Mac OS X Lion out of its cage this morning. Version 10.7 of the operating system has more than 250 new features, Apple said, but an installation disc isn't one of them: it's available today for $29.99 as a 3.49GB download only. Apple enjoys pushing the computing industry into the future by dropping technology it deems to be from the past-for example floppy drives missing from the first iMac-and those who want a real-world copy of the OS will have to wait until Apple releases it on a USB thumb drive next month for $69. The Mac OS X download, available through the Mac App Store, dovetails with Apple's new MacBook Air and Mac Mini Lion-based computers. These new models are updated with Intel's modern Sandy Bridge processors and a high-speed Thunderbolt data transfer port-and none has a DVD drive for the next OS upgrade.

Google+ For iPhone Now The Top Free App In iTunes

Google+ for iPhone hit Apple's App Store a mere 24 hours ago but it's being downloaded like wildfire as it currently sitting atop the heap as the most popular free app available from iTunes. This is big news considering Google+ is still invitation-only and only has 18 million users so far, compared to Facebook's 750 million. That said, Google+ users can now upload contacts from Outlook and Mac address books (not Facebook, though), which may result in even bigger Google+ adoption numbers.

Steve Jobs dismisses rumors of his successor

Apple CEO and cancer survivor Steve Jobs is not keen on discussing speculation about who will replace him when the inevitable happens. This week, the Wall Street Journal reported that the company's board of directors have been discussing plans about who will take over the position that has been held by Jobs since the late 1990s, and perhaps the title that some will always bestow upon Jobs and Jobs alone, once the man is no longer able to hold the position himself. The Journal said it had credible information that the board has already been meeting with headhunters and "at least one head of a high-profile technology company."

Showing posts with label Robotic Nurs. Show all posts

Robotic Nurse Can Pick You Up

Japan's population is quickly aging--by 2015, the country will have 5.69 million people in need of nursing care. There are only so many times that a person can lift patients from a futon to a wheelchair. Currently, caretakers working in nursing facilities perform this act an average of 40 times a day. And so in true Japanese style, a group of researchers have manufactured a robot to help out.

The RIBA II (Robot for Interactive Body Assistance) is the second iteration of RIBA, a bot developed by the RIKEN research institute that can lift patients out of their wheelchairs, onto a bed, and back again. Unlike the original robot, RIBA II has joints in its base and lower back that allow it to crouch and scoop up a patient lying on a floor-level Japanese futon (this is a common sleeping style in the country). Check out a video of RIBA in action here.

Lest you be concerned that RIBA may crush one of its charges, the latest version of the bot features rubber tactile sensors that can sense a person's weight purely from touch. Still, we imagine the day will come when RIBA breaks down while cradling a patient--without a real, live caregiver in site.

RIBA isn't the first elder-care robot to come out of Japan. In the past few years, we've seen a Hybrid Assisted Limb that can boost the wearer's strength by a factor of 10, a robotic bed that turns into a wheelchair on command, and a seal-like robot that is supposed to be a pet replacement for elderly people who can no longer care for real animals. In the U.S., the PR2 bot is being primed to help the elderly perform daily tasks.

Such advanced technology doesn't come cheap. When it goes on sale in 2015, RIBA II will cost approximately $78,000.

[via FASTCompany]

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