An Accelerometer 1,000x More Sensitive Than the iPhone's [Sensor]

HP has developed an inertial accelerometer that's so sensitive, it can detect a change in the position of its center chip of less than one-billionth the width of a human hair.

The sensor is part of HP's unfortunately named CeNSE (Central Nervous System for the Earth) program, whose aim is to build a 'planetwide network' of tiny sensors to measure anything and everything about the environment. It's the first prototype in the CeNSE project, and it's safe to say they're starting off on the right foot:

Hartwell's device is sensitive enough to 'feel' a heartbeat. The source of that sensitivity is a 5mm-square, three-layer silicon chip. A portion of the center wafer is suspended between the two outer wafers by flexible silicon beams. When the chip moves, the suspended center lags behind due to its inertia. A measurement of that relative motion is used to calculate the speed, direction and distance the chip has moved.

While the larger CeNSE project may have environmentalist overtones, the first practical application is going to be from oil behemoth Shell. They'd like to use the sensors to detect pockets of oil, allowing them to drill more efficiently. Eventually, HP hopes to move to "city-level" projects that digitally capture what the five senses do—and in some cases, what they can't. And when they finally stuff that sucker in a Wiimote, Super Smash Bros. will never be the same.
[Gizmodo via HP via Fast Company]

OmniVision's 5-Megapixel Sensor Shoots RAW on Cellphones [Sensors]

This is OmniVision's newest 1/4-inch, 5 megapixel RAW sensor. It's tiny, has low light sensitivity, captures 720p video at 60 fps or 1080p at 30 fps, and shoots in RAW. The best part? It could be in cellphones soon.

Now if only phones had lenses which would truly take advantage of sensors like this.

[Gizmod via PR Newswire via Engadget]

Next-Gen Accelerometers Will Have Temperature Sensor Amongst Other Cool Functions [Accelerometers]

In an ongoing quest to bring you news about the guts of your next gadgets, here's some riveting stuff about accelerometers. Remember when they first burst onto the scene? How much fun we had tilting out phones? Yeah, that.
Anyway, STMicroelectronics is one of the big suppliers, and has just shed some details on a new three-axis digital accelerometer which is not only the smallest, but uses way less power than before. That could mean we see more accelerometers in cheaper phones, slimmer phones and with the enhanced functionality—namely double click-recognition, and the ability to wake up the phone when motion is detected—we should be seeing even better apps harnessing the new technology. In addition to those new features, the ST sensors can also sense temperature changes.
The new ST sensors are 2 x 2mm, and the energy consumption is under 10 microamperes at a 100Hz rate. Expect to see more news about these babies once they pop up in some devices, and hopefully some better motion-based apps than the spirit level one.
[Gizmodo via ST]

Ricoh GXR, Smallest Camera With Interchangable Lenses and Sensors, Coming In December [Cameras]

Seems that the previously rumored Ricoh GXR will be coming in December. It'll be smaller than even the slimmest micro four thirds out now and feature a system that'll make it the first to allow both interchangeable lenses and sensors.
The GXR body will go for about $700, the macro lens and sensor for about $1,000, and the zoom lens and sensor for about $500. If the system works as well as the video implies, we might have some rather fantastic cameras ahead of us.
[Gizmodo]

Electronic Contact Lenses Promise Future of Advanced Augmented Vision

Babak A. Parviz, an associate professor at the University of Washington whose research was seen on our pages before, wrote an article for IEEE Spectrum discussing the work of his team to develop electronic contact lenses to provide continuous monitoring of glucose, augmented vision, and potential other implications of the technology. Parviz also gives a rundown of the challenges involved in creating functional in-lens displays that users can focus on at such a short distance.

From the article:

The glucose detectors we’re evaluating now are a mere glimmer of what will be possible in the next 5 to 10 years. Contact lenses are worn daily by more than a hundred million people, and they are one of the only disposable, mass-market products that remain in contact, through fluids, with the interior of the body for an extended period of time. When you get a blood test, your doctor is probably measuring many of the same biomarkers that are found in the live cells on the surface of your eye—and in concentrations that correlate closely with the levels in your bloodstream. An appropriately configured contact lens could monitor cholesterol, sodium, and potassium levels, to name a few potential targets. Coupled with a wireless data transmitter, the lens could relay information to medics or nurses instantly, without needles or laboratory chemistry, and with a much lower chance of mix-ups.
Three fundamental challenges stand in the way of building a multipurpose contact lens. First, the processes for making many of the lens’s parts and subsystems are incompatible with one another and with the fragile polymer of the lens. To get around this problem, my colleagues and I make all our devices from scratch. To fabricate the components for silicon circuits and LEDs, we use high temperatures and corrosive chemicals, which means we can’t manufacture them directly onto a lens. That leads to the second challenge, which is that all the key components of the lens need to be miniaturized and integrated onto about 1.5 square centimeters of a flexible, transparent polymer. We haven’t fully solved that problem yet, but we have so far developed our own specialized assembly process, which enables us to integrate several different kinds of components onto a lens. Last but not least, the whole contraption needs to be completely safe for the eye. Take an LED, for example. Most red LEDs are made of aluminum gallium arsenide, which is toxic. So before an LED can go into the eye, it must be enveloped in a biocompatible substance.

Link @ IEEE Spectrum: Augmented Reality in a Contact Lens...