NEWS IN BRIEF
Daily Digest 29 June
29-06-2009
by Emmet Ryan
Japan creates mind-control wheelchair | Phone charger harmonisation by 2010
Smart meters, for measuring energy consumption, will grow in use at a compound rate of 16.2 percent annually up to 2014, according to analyst firm Berg Insight. The strong uptake of the meters, which provide consumers with detailed information about how they use energy, is within the EU's target of having the meters in 80 percent of households by 2020. The EU hopes the meters will give consumers incentives to make energy savings.
IT managed services firm Typetec has appointed Pearse Tolan as its new operations director. Tolan will be responsible for the development and delivery of Typetec's managed service offerings to the graphic arts, education and SME sectors.
Tom Moore has been elected as chairperson of the it@cork board. Moore is director of InfraSee, an IT service management company. Moore has been on the steering committee of it@cork, which is a networking organisation for IT professionals in the Cork region, for the last four years.
The Centre for Telecommunications Value-chain Research has entered into a new research partnership with NEC Communication Systems. The partnership will look at ways to commercialise applications in cognitive radio, a rapidly emerging area in wireless communications, as well as other new technologies. Cognitive radio is a form of wireless communication in which devices detect which communication channels are in use, and instantly move into vacant channels while avoiding occupied ones. This minimises interference for other telecoms users and enhances the capacity of telecoms networks.
Researchers in Japan have developed a brain-machine interface (BMI) system that allows for control of a wheelchair using thought. The system was developed by scientists at the BSI-Toyota Collaboration Centre. The BMI processes brain thought patterns and can turn them into left, right and forward movements of the wheelchair with a delay as short as one-thousandth of a second. This represents a vast improvement over existing systems that take several seconds to analyse and react to the user's thoughts.
Sony is reportedly considering developing a hybrid device that would act as both a mobile phone and a mobile gaming device. The product would be directly targeted at Apple's iPhone and iPod devices which brought about the end of Sony's portable music player dominance, which the Japanese firm enjoyed for nearly three decades with its Walkman products.
Staying with mobile phones, and major handset makers have agreed to harmonise chargers in the EU. In a memorandum of understanding, which was submitted to the European Commission on Monday, the industry committed to provide charger compatibility on the basis of the Micro-USB connector, a connector that is already common for several brands. In addition, new EU standards to ensure continued safe charger use will be developed to facilitate the implementation of the deal. The first generation of these new inter-chargeable mobile phones should reach the EU market by next year.
Caped Koala Studios has built a virtual world for kids, combining education and social networking 