Smart device tagged posts

Prototype technology could enable smart home systems that don’t record speech. Microphones are perhaps the most common electronic sensor in the world, with an estimated 320 million listening for our commands in the world’s smart speakers. The trouble is that they’re capable of hearing everything else, too.

But now, a team of University of Michigan researchers has developed a system that can inform a smart home — or listen for the signal that would turn on a smart speaker — without eavesdropping on audible sound.

The key to the device, called PrivacyMic, is ultrasonic sound at frequencies above the range of human hearing...

Long-term data gathered from wearables can quicky indicate illness and other abnormalities in a patient’s health. Smartwatches and other wearable devices may be used to sense illness, dehydration and even changes to the red blood cell count, according to biomedical engineers and genomics researchers at Duke University and the Stanford University School of Medicine.

The researchers say that, with the help of machine learning, wearable device data on heart rate, body temperature and daily activities may be used to predict health measurements that are typically observed during a clinical blood test. The study appears in Nature Medicine on May 24, 2021.

During a doctor’s office visit, a medical worker usually m...

Device can be used to illuminate dark, underground spaces in daytime. A team of Nanyang Technological University, Singapore (NTU Singapore) researchers has designed a ‘smart’ device to harvest daylight and relay it to underground spaces, reducing the need to draw on traditional energy sources for lighting.

In Singapore, authorities are looking at the feasibility of digging deeper underground to create new space for infrastructure, storage, and utilities. Demand for round-the-clock underground lighting is therefore expected to rise in the future.

To develop a daylight harvesting device that can sustainably meet this need, the NTU team drew inspiration from the magnifying glass, which can be used to focus sunlight into one point.