The lens harvests energy from an external source using an antenna and has an integrated circuit to store the harvested power and transfer it to a transparent sapphire chip with a single blue LED. Unfortunately, while the range of the display was about one meter in free space, that range was reduced to about two centimeters when it was placed on the eye.

Another of the challenges facing the creation of a Terminator-style eye display is that the minimum focal distance of a human eye is only a few centimeters. This means that information displayed on a contact lens would appear blurry. To address this, the researchers used thin Fresnel lenses to magnify the display.

More research is needed before we’ll be able to read text on our eyeballs though. "We need to improve the antenna design and the associated matching network and optimize the transmission frequency to achieve an overall improvement in the range of wireless transmission," said Parviz, co-author of the study. "Our next goal, however, is to incorporate some predetermined text in the contact lens."

A consumer version of a system already in use at some U.S. animal shelters, iPet Companion Home Version lets computer users remotely control dog or cat toys located in their home, watching their pets reacting to those toys’ movements in real time. For some people, it could be the biggest workplace distraction since Facebook.

The in-home iPet hardware consists of a webcam, a control box, and two mechanisms that are capable of swinging and bobbing one pet toy each (which aren’t included). Remotely accessing a password-protected online portal, users utilize onscreen controls to operate the two mechanisms, making the toys move. The live webcam feed shows them the moving toys, along with their critters’ reactions – hopefully, the animals will respond by playing with the toys, as opposed to being freaked out by two inanimate objects that appear to be moving on their own.

If users don’t want to spend too much company time goofing off with Fido or Felix, they can spread the playtime around by giving their password to family and friends. In the commercial version of iPet Companion, anyone can access the portals, with users often having to wait several minutes in an online queue before they can interact with the shelter animals.

Cheyenne Crow from Exmovere Holdings with child wearing Exmobaby pajamas

Seems not even babies are safe from the advances in wearable technology. Nowadays, unborn children can tweet or listen to music and fully-fledged infants can wear a suit that changes color when they have a fever. The latest wearable concept is the Exmobaby sleep suit – a baby garment designed to monitor a baby’s heart rate, emotional state and activity level and to wirelessly relay the information to a cell phone or PC.

The Exmobaby onesie or pajama will be made from a patented washable conductive biosensor textile that will come with a rechargeable wireless transceiver. The transceiver will snap into a pouch in the suit. Parents will be able to see icons indicating their baby’s heartbeat, emotional state and behavior on their cell phone or PC. The transceiver will use the Zigbee wireless standard which reportedly requires lower data rate, longer battery life and network security and is compatible with a wide range of USB and mini SD-slot dongle devices, such as cell phones.

The Exmobaby is being produced by Exmovere Holdings, a biomedical engineering company. A limited edition marketing campaign will begin in early 2011 when 1,000 Exmobaby pajama kits, available in blue or pink, will be released to select buyers from a waiting list. The kits will include an Exmobaby garment set, a Zigbee transceiver, PC and cell phone monitoring software and six months of online service.

For parents who need some reassurance that all’s well with their little one, the Exmobaby may one day provide a solution … but will it really be able to analyze a baby’s emotional state?

Have Japanese researchers discovered how to analyze a baby’s cry?

New parents discover quite quickly how loudly their newborn can scream when they’re not happy. But working out the cause of the problem is unfortunately pretty much a guessing game. Wouldn’t it be great if there was a device that could tell you exactly what was wrong with your baby? It might not be as preposterous as it sounds – Japanese scientists claim they have developed a statistical computer program that can analyze the differences in a baby’s cries. So, future baby monitors could be capable of alerting parents that their child is tired, hungry, needs a diaper change, or is in pain.

In the past, baby emotion analyzers such as the Why Cry Baby Analyzer have been looked at with a degree of skepticism. So what makes this emotion analyzing program any different to those in devices that are currently available? Well, instead of just using information from one source, for example – the crying pattern, the Japanese researchers used three sources of information in order to classify various infant cries – sound-pattern recognition, audio spectra and the parents’ confirmation of the baby’s emotional state.

The researchers used a sound pattern method that provided them with statistical information about the frequency of the cries and the power function of the audio spectrum. They then used the differences in the various recordings of the audio spectra and correlated them with the parents’ opinion of the baby’s state of mind.

The tests also included the recording of crying babies suffering from a painful genetic disorder. It was discovered that there was an obvious difference between pained cries and other cries. They had a 100% success rate in a test that classified the difference between pained cries and “normal” cries.

The Japanese research has recently been published in the International Journal of Biometrics. The research approach was based on kansei engineering which aims to “measure” feelings and emotions. It was invented in the 1970s by Professor Mitsuo Nagamachi, Dean of Hiroshima International University. The researchers acknowledge that the main problem with determining and classifying the emotional state of a baby is that the child can not verbalize why they are crying.

What do you think? Do you think a computer program can recognize what is wrong with your baby or will you stick to the tried and true method of elimination – if they’re not tired or hungry, it’s time to change a diaper?

The system works by taking a 3D image of people at the door via its two cameras and matching them against your stored database of images (up to 500 faces).

Deploying the same wiring protocol (Weigand) commonly used to connect a card swipe mechanism to the rest of an electronic entry system, you can monitor your staff, family members, their friends, plus unwelcome guest and family members.

Chinavasion says the wall-mounted CVJB-G107 can recognize facial distinction accurately in a fraction of a second and the added security of 3D images means that photographs of people won’t fool the system, only the real people will gain access to your premises.

The facial recognition and time attendance system isn’t a bad looking piece of equipment either, and will sit comfortably alongside most other high-tech devices in the modern home or office.

Also equipped with night vision, the unit has a 3.5-inch TFT display screen, touch keypad, USB and Ethernet port for TCP/IP connections.

Strictly business

The Hanvon CVJB-G107 comes with its management software that allows you to define work time, vacation time, overtime, etc., and gives you full data and reports by department or individual so you can see who’s late, out of the office or ducking out for one too many tea breaks.

In a nutshell, the device lets you: lock and unlock doors remotely and through face recognition technology; record employee attendance; keep track of employee times; export and import from a TXT file; download recorded data via USB or TCP/IP.

Specifications for the CVJB-G107:
• Processor: TI DSP 600MHz
• User capacity: 500 users
• Record capacity: 150,000 records
• Recognition Algorithm: Dual Sensor TM V2.0
• Sensor: specialized double sensor
• Verification speed: Less than one second
• 3.5 inch TFT color screen
• 320 x 240 Resolution Standard TCP/IP
• 12V DC, working current 500mA, power consumption: 12W when operating, less than 5W standby
• Dimensions: L:145mm x W: 200mm D:90mm