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Submission + - Haier Plans to Embed Area Wireless Chargers in Home Appliances (computerworld.com)

Submitted by Lucas123
Lucas123 writes: Haier, arguably the world's largest maker of home appliances, has signed a development agreement with Energous, a maker of the WattUp wireless charging router. Haier plans incorporate the technology in appliances allowing enabled mobile devices and wearables to take a charge at up 15 feet away. The white goods maker is expected to come out with the enabled appliances in the next 14 months or so. The WattUp router uses radio frequency (RF) transmissions to send up to 4 watts of power in a 15-ft. radius. Within 5 feet of a WattUp wireless router, a mobile device can be charged at the same rate as if it were plugged into a wall socket, but as the distance increase the charging capability dissipates. For example, aa a range of 5-to-10 feet, charging capability drops to 2 watts per device and at 10-to-15 feet, the router puts out 1 watt per device (4 watts total). Pleasanton, Calif.-based Energous raised nearly $25 million when it went public earlier this year. Its chief marketing officer said the company has joint development agreements in the works with battery makers, smartphone sleeve and wearable device manufacturers. Haier hasn't disclosed what products it plans to enable with wireless charging.

Comment So much for a free market (Score 5, Informative) 256

by Lucas123 (#48208845) Attached to: Michigan Latest State To Ban Direct Tesla Sales

These outdated statues were originally designed to protect little dealerships from the threat of big auto opening their own dealerships if one of their indirect dealers refused to carry their lemons. So dealers under pressure from Detroit were forced to sell the crappy next to the good cars.

Today, prohibiting direct sales protects only the dealerships and harms the consumer. There’s no reason to prohibit a consumer from buying directly from the manufacturer.

Submission + - U.K. Supermarkets Beta Test Full-Body 3D Scanners for Selfie Figurines (computerworld.com)

Submitted by Lucas123
Lucas123 writes: Walmart-owned ASDA supermarkets in the UK. are beta testing 3D full-body scanning booths that allow patrons to buy 6-in to 9-in high "selfie" figurines. Artec Group, a maker of 3D scanners and software, said its Shapify Booth, which can scan your entire body in 12 seconds and use the resulting file to create a full-color 3D printed model, is making its U.S. debut this week. The 3D Shapify booths are equipped with four wide view, high-resolution scanners, which rotate around the person to scan every angle. Artec claims the high-powered scan and precision printing is able to capture even the smallest details, down to the wrinkles on clothes. The scanning process generates 700 captured surfaces, which are automatically stitched together to produce an electronic file ready for 3D printing. Artec offers to print the figurines for booth operators (retailers) for $50 for a 6-in model, $70 for a 7.5-in model, and $100 for a 9-in figurine.

Submission + - Samsung admits to software bug on 840 EVO SSDs (computerworld.com)

Submitted by Lucas123
Lucas123 writes: Samsung has issued a firmware fix for a bug on its popular 840 EVO triple-level cell SSD. The bug apparently slows read performance tremendously for any data more than a month old that has not been moved around on the NAND. The 840 EVO is one of the companies most affordable SSDs, as it retails for under 50 cents a gig. Samsung said in a statement that the read problems occurred on its 2.5-in 840 EVO SSDs and 840 EVO mSATA drives because of an error in the flash management software algorithm. Some users on technical blog sites, such as Overclock.net, say the problem extends beyond the EVO line. They also questioned whether the firmware upgrade was a true fix or just covers up the bug by simply moving data around the SSD.

Submission + - Ethernet is coming to cars (computerworld.com) 3

Submitted by Lucas123
Lucas123 writes: Automobile industry support for Ethernet as an interconnect specification for all electronics in the car and for the car to connect to the Internet outside the car is growing quickly. Additionally, one of the largest suppliers of silicon to the industry — Freescale — today announced its first automotive-grade Ethernet modules. The 100Mbps modules will offer up to four separate video ports and can connect together instrument clusters, infotainment systems and telematics all on the same ring topology. Driving Ethernet adoption in vehicles are trends such as such as federally mandated backup cameras, lane-departure warning systems, traffic light recognition and collision avoidance sensors, and in-vehicle WiFi as well as streaming video on embedded displays. While Freescale's not the first to offer an automotive-grade Ethernet chipset, it is the largest supplier to date. By 2020, many cars will have 50 to 60 Ethernet ports and even entry-level vehicles will have 10, according to a study by research firm Frost & Sullivan. (Premium vehicles will likely have more than 100 Ethernet nodes by then.)

Submission + - Researchers Scrambling to Build Ebola-Fighting Robots (computerworld.com)

Submitted by Lucas123
Lucas123 writes: U.S. robotics researchers from around the country are collaborating on a project to build autonomous vehicles that could deliver food and medicine, and telepresence robots that could safely decontaminate equipment and help bury the victims of Ebola. Organizers of Safety Robotics for Ebola Workers are planning a workshop on Nov. 7. that will be co-hosted by the White House Office of Science and Technology Policy, Texas A&M, Worcester Polytechnic Institute and the University of California, Berkeley. "We are trying to identify the technologies that can help human workers minimize their contact with Ebola. Whatever technology we deploy, there will be a human in the loop. We are not trying to replace human caregivers. We are trying to minimize contact," said Taskin Padir, an assistant professor of robotics engineering at Worcester Polytechnic Institute.

Submission + - Tesla teardown reveals driver-facing electronics built by iPhone 6 suppliers (computerworld.com)

Submitted by Lucas123
Lucas123 writes: There's a lot to like about the Tesla Model S. It's an EV that can go from from 0 to 60 mph (96 km/h) in 4.2 seconds and can travel 265 miles on a single charge. But, a tear down of the vehicle by IHS Technology has also revealed that Elon Musk avoided third-party design and build routes used traditionally by auto makers and spared no expense on the instrument cluster and infotainment (head unit) system, which is powered by two 3, 1.4Ghz, quad-core NVIDIA Tegra processors. IHS called the Tesla's head unit the most sophisticated it's ever seen, with 1,000 more components than any it has previously analyzed. A bill of materials (BOM) for the virtual instrument cluster and the premium media control unit is also roughly twice the cost of the highest-end infotainment unit examined by IHS. Andrew Rassweiler, senior director for materials and cost benchmarking at IHS, said the use of large displays in the cabin, the touch-screen-based controls, and the mobile microchips make "the Tesla experience more like a media tablet or high-end smartphone than a traditional automobile."

Submission + - Tiny Wireless Device Offers Tor Anonymity (computerworld.com)

Submitted by Lucas123
Lucas123 writes: The Anonabox router project, currently being funded through a Kickstarter campaign, has surpassed its original $7,000 crowdfunding goal by more than 10 times in just one day. The open source router device connects via Wi-Fi or an Ethernet cable making it harder for your IP address to be seen. While there have been other Tor-enabled routers in the past, they aren't small enough to fit in a shirt pocket like the Anonabox and they haven't offered data encryption on top of the routing network. The device, which is being pitched as a way for consumers to securely surf the web and share content (or allow businesses to do the same), is also being directed at journalists who may want to share stories in places where they might otherwise be censored.

Submission + - Snapchat Says Users Were Victimized By Their Use of Third-Party Apps (computerworld.com)

Submitted by Lucas123
Lucas123 writes: Reports that the servers of photo messaging site Snapchat were hacked are being denied by the company, which is now is saying its users were instead victimized by their use of third-party apps to send and receive Snaps. Hackers on 4chan have said broke into the site and they're preparing to release 200,000 photos or videos in their own database that will be searchable by Snapchatter name. According to one report, the third-party Snapchat client app enabled access for years to the data that was supposed have been deleted. The hackers have said they have a 13GB photo library. For its part, Snapchat in a statement reiterated its Terms of Use Policy, that "expressly prohibits" third-party app use "because they compromise our users' security."

Submission + - Intel processors fails at math. Again.

Submitted by rastos1
rastos1 writes: In a recent blog, software developer Bruce Dawson pointed out some issues with the way the FSIN instruction is described in the “Intel® 64 and IA-32 Architectures Software Developer’s Manual.”, noting that the result of FSIN can be very inaccurate in some cases, if compared to the exact mathematical value of the sine function.

Bruce Dawson says: I was shocked when I discovered this. Both the fsin instruction and Intel’s documentation are hugely inaccurate, and the inaccurate documentation has led to poor decisions being made. ... Intel has known for years that these instructions are not as accurate as promised. They are now making updates to their documentation. Updating the instruction is not a realistic option.

Intel processors had a problem with math in past

Submission + - Are eHealth Records Responsible for Docs Missing Ebola Diagnosis? (computerworld.com) 1

Submitted by Lucas123
Lucas123 writes: Thomas Eric Duncan died this morning at Texas Health Presbyterian Hospital Dallas. Duncan had first visited Presbyterian's ER on Sept. 23 with fever, headache and stomach pain, and even though he told a nurse he'd just returned from Liberia, he was sent home. Five days later, Duncan returned via ambulance. Initially, the hospital reported that a flaw in its eHealth records system was responsible for physicians misdiagnosing Duncan. A day later, it retracted that statement. Experts, however, say instead of improving work flow, electronic health records (EHRs) often eat healthcare worker time and distract physicians from patients, creating cognitive dissonance that leads to mistakes. Errors in patient care due to EHRs are "incredibly common," according to a report released last year by the American College of Physicians. Hospitals that are under EHR vendor contracts, however, can prevent physicians from speaking publicly about those problems by using gag clauses. Dr. Randall Case, an emergency room physician and data infomatics expert who has worked for EHR makers such as Cerner and Siemens, said the problem with EHRs is multifaceted. The systems are "thrust" on physicians and nurses, who sometimes receive minimal training and then must adapt their workflows around them. While workflows, user interfaces and the learnability of their systems have improved, the improvements have been marginal, he said.

Submission + - Solar Could Lead In Power Production By 2050 (computerworld.com)

Submitted by Lucas123
Lucas123 writes: Solar power could be the leading source of electricity compared with other renewables and conventional sources of power, such as oil and coal, according to a pair of reports from International Energy Agency. PV panels could produce 16% of the world's electricity, while solar thermal electricity (STE) is on track to produce 11%. At the end of 2013, there had been 137GW of solar capacity deployed around the world. Each day, an additional 100MW of power is deployed. One reason solar is so promising are plummeting prices for photovoltaic cells and new technologies that promise greater solar panel efficiency. For example, MIT just published a report on a new a material that could be ideal for converting solar energy into heat by tuning the material's spectrum of absorption. Ohio State University just announced what it's referring to as the world's first solar battery, which integrates PV with storage at a microsopic level. "We've integrated both functions into one device. Any time you can do that, you reduce cost," said iying Wu, a professor of chemistry and biochemistry at Ohio State.

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